3M India, has announced the winners of the seventh edition of the prestigious 3M-CII Young Innovators Challenge Awards at the 16th CII Innovation Summit 2020, in Bengaluru. The theme for this year’s challenge was appropriate “Resilience and Resurgence: Innovating for Society 5.0”. The judges accepted a variety of entries that included tech solutions for the elderly, people with disabilities, healthcare, and agriculture. The competition focused on the issues of three main aspects: Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Living, and looked for young innovators who brought forward ideas that can revolutionize the status quo for the betterment of society as a whole. The response to the competition was overwhelming, with more than 2500 entries being received from across the country.

3M is a brand defined by its innovative culture.  To encourage and spread the culture of innovation,  3M India collaborated with Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) in 2014, to create an inclusive platform for innovators from across the country.

The Challenge encourages the submission of ideas and projects, in the areas of health, education, livelihood, environment, governance, and/or inclusive development. A glowing testimony to this success is the fact that the competition has seen continued steady growth in the number of applications during its lifetime, with a massive increase from 800+ entries in 2019 to 2500+ entries in 2020. Even more encouragingly, the ‘Rural Innovations’ category has been gaining momentum and in its third year, it consisted of a significant portion of the entries.

Congratulating the winners, Ramesh Ramadurai, Managing Director, 3M India stressed about the increased importance of innovation in the current day ecosystem, and said, “In 3M, it is our understanding that innovation, must never come at the expense of inclusiveness, cost-effectiveness, and sustainability. To that end, we believe that among the best ways to create an environment to foster talent is to creatively promote STEM education and to make it more accessible. This award that we have instituted in collaboration with CII is aimed at this – to recognize and motivate young innovators across India.”