Infosys Foundation has recognized and rewarded the winners of Aarohan Social Innovation Awards in three categories: Education, Healthcare, and Environmental Sustainability.
This year, we received 2065 entries from all 28 states of India. The winners were chosen by an esteemed jury panel that comprised of
- Abhijit Ray, Co-founder, Unitus Capital and UC Inclusive Credit
- Alina Alam, Founder, Mitti Café
- Aparna Uppaluri, Founder and Principal Advisor, Antara Advisory
- Sumit Virmani, Trustee, Infosys Foundation
- Sunil Kumar Dhareshwar, Trustee, Infosys Foundation
Award Winners 2025
Winners
Rahul Suresh Bakare and Vinit Moreshwar Phadnis
Innovation: BoreCharger
Category: Environmental Sustainability
Groundwater depletion is a problem in India that is getting worse every year due to climate change. BoreCharger is a smart rainwater harvesting (RWH) technique that recharges and revives existing low yielding or dry borewells.
This is the world’s first robotic, artificial borewell recharge technique that can inject 4 to 80 lakh liters of rainwater in existing borewells annually – ensuring farmers are less vulnerable to climate change, improving irrigation, farm production and farmer income, and enhancing drinking water duration and quantity.
Chitranjan Singh and Robin Singh
Innovation: CLUIX C012
Category: Healthcare
CLUIX C012 is a multi-parameter water quality analyzer that is easy to use, cost effective and portable.
Globally, one out of every two people are affected by unsafe drinking water. Conventional water quality testing solutions are expensive and inefficient, leaving close to 4 billion people vulnerable to the impact of poor-quality water.
CLUIX C012 is a portable, AI and IoT-enabled water quality analyzer that delivers real-time, GPS-tagged reports and tests 14 key parameters to detect potential waterborne diseases in under 30 minutes. Designed with the user in mind, it makes reliable water testing affordable, accessible and sustainable across both urban and rural communities.
Rajesh A Rao, Ravindra S Rao, and Deepa L B Rajeev
Innovation: Connecting the Dots
Category: Education
Connecting the Dots is reimagining the education of underserved students in Government Schools via high quality STEM education interventions.
Due to socio-economic and language barriers, millions of students across the country lack access to quality education and bear the brunt of the chronic shortage of skilled, motivated teachers.
Connecting the Dots is bridging that gap with an AI enabled hybrid program for learners and educators that is interactive, adaptive, experiential and engaging. By approaching the problems that affect the education landscape from both ends, Connecting the Dots is committed to improving the academic outcomes of students, and enhancing their critical thinking skills.
Jury’s Special Awards
Phalgun Mukesh Vyas
Innovation: Sukoon
Category: Healthcare
Sukoon is revolutionizing the future of wearable comfort. Occupational heat stress is a real and prevalent issue faced by workforces across a number of sectors that impacts both industrial output, and employee well-being.
Sukoon’s innovative cooling wearables like a smart jacket based on a Digital Hybrid-IDEC mechanism, cools wearers in extreme heat stress areas and optimizes productivity while ensuring their health, safety, and well-being.
Sowmya S and Pallavi Kulkarni
Innovation: Project Bindu
Category: Education
Project Bindu is empowering Persons with Disabilities to live and work with dignity. Persons with Disabilities face numerous barriers when it comes to employment, and as a result they remain trapped in a cycle of economic marginalization.
Project Bindu creates remote, tech-enabled work ecosystems for Persons with Disabilities, who in turn provide elderly care services, backend support, data handling, and coordination — enabling them to achieve economic independence and inclusion.
Neha Panchamiya and Nachiket Utpat
Innovation: Comprehensive Wildlife Management (CWM)
Category: Environmental Sustainability
CWM is a web-based platform that records and manages data across wildlife rescue, treatment, rehabilitation, and release. It integrates animal, human, and environmental health through a One Health approach, enabling governance, disease surveillance, and threat assessment. Scalable across all wildlife facilities, it promotes transparency, accountability, and data-driven decisions to strengthen India’s wildlife management and conservation capacity.
Anirban Palit, Dr. Sayantani Pramanik, and Palna Patel
Innovation: CERVICHECK
Category: Healthcare
CERVICHECK is India's first CDSCO approved at-home, self-sampling kit for HPV (Human Papillomavirus) screening. Cervical Cancer is the 2nd leading cause of cancer deaths in India with more than 80,000 women losing their lives every year to the disease despite it being curable, if detected in early stages.
In India only 1% of the population is screened due to the painful nature of the cervical examination, anxiety around follow ups and lack of access to periodic screening camps.
CERVICHECK is safe and easy to use, bringing preventive Cervical cancer screening to every woman’s doorstep, leading to timely clinical action.
Nagarajan Rajagopal, Vidhya Y, and Supriya Dey
Innovation: Hexis and Iris
Category: Education
Hexis and Iris are assistive technology products that make STEM education equitable and enjoyable for visually impaired school students. 1.1 million school-age children in India are visually impaired and 11.5% drop out before completion. One of the root causes of this is that traditional education relies heavily on printed materials - textbooks, worksheets, diagrams - all completely inaccessible to blind children.
Hexis is a refreshable braille display designed for children that makes any text content instantly available in braille while Iris is a device designed for comprehending diagrams with audio descriptions. Both devices are integrated with a teacher content cloud platform- Antara, and are transforming the way visually impaired children learn in special and inclusive schools.
Jury Videos
Abhijit Ray, Co-founder, Unitus Capital and, UC Inclusive Credit
Abhijit Ray says that the Aarohan Social Innovation Awards are a harbinger of change in the social entrepreneur ecosystem. His message to social innovators is to remember that in India every problem is large, so it is essential that they keep scale in mind and ensure a sufficient time horizon when planning their work.
Alina Alam, Founder, MITTI Café
Alina Alam shares her thoughts on why social innovation plays an irreplaceable role in society today and reveals how the stories of compassion and courage at this year’s Aarohan Awards left a mark on all the jury members. Watch the video to hear her message to social innovators on how to be resilient in their journey.
Aparna Uppaluri, Founder, and Principal Advisor, Antara Advisory
Aparna Uppaluri believes that the Aarohan Awards help shift the lens through which we look at innovation - from one that is purely technological to one that looks at how social problems can be solved. She was especially touched by the work of those innovators who connected their lived experiences with the problem they were trying to solve.
Sumit Virmani, Trustee, Infosys Foundation
Sumit Virmani speaks about how the Aarohan Awards have gone from a dream to a flagship initiative of Infosys Foundation. He notes the incredible depth of work in the entries and was particularly impressed by those tackling water conservation and women’s wellbeing. He wants social entrepreneurs to keep scale in mind so that their work can create real impact.
Sunil Dhareshwar, Trustee, Infosys Foundation
Sunil Dhareshwar is pleased to note how this year’s Aarohan Awards entries are using more technology including AI. Innovations in the field of climate change, EV batteries, and wearables have particularly caught his interest. His advice to innovators is to keep passion, purpose and societal good at the core of their innovation.
