Infosys foundation awards Rs 2 crore to 8 innovators for social impact solutions

Representative image

Infosys Foundation has announced the winners of the Aarohan Social Innovation Awards 2025, recognising eight innovators developing solutions in education, healthcare, and environmental sustainability.

The fourth edition of the awards selected the winners from more than 2,000 entries and granted a total of Rs 2 crore, it said in a release.

The Foundation awarded Rs 50 lakh each to the top innovators across three categories.

The Education category was won by Bengaluru-based Rajesh A Rao, Ravindra S Rao, and Deepa L B Rajeev for their interactive learning programme, Connecting the Dots, which delivers daily live STEM and English classes along with lab kits, scholarships, and teacher training for government school students from Grades 6 to 10.

In Healthcare, New Delhi innovators Chitranjan Singh and Robin Singh were recognised for a portable AI and IoT-enabled water-quality analyser that tests 14 parameters and delivers real-time, GPS-tagged reports to help identify waterborne diseases within 30 minutes.

The Environmental Sustainability award went to Pune’s Rahul Suresh Bakare and Vinit Moreshwar Phadnis for Borecharger, a robotic artificial borewell-recharge technique capable of injecting 4 to 80 lakh litres of rainwater into borewells annually to improve irrigation, drinking water quality, and farm productivity.

Salil Parekh, Chairman of Infosys Foundation, said the awards celebrate innovations that turn challenges into opportunities and aim to inspire more changemakers working to build an equitable and resilient future.

"The Aarohan Social Innovation Awards stand as a testament to this belief, recognising individuals who transform challenges into opportunities with ingenuity, empathy, and impact," Parekh said.

Along with the main category awards, the jury also announced five Special Awards worth Rs 10 lakh each.

These included innovations such as Sukoon, a smart cooling jacket for heat-stress environments, and an integrated wildlife management platform built on a One Health framework.

Other recognised projects included Project Bindu, an initiative enabling remote work ecosystems for persons with disabilities, Cervicheck, a CDSCO-approved at-home HPV screening kit, and Hexis and Iris, an integrated learning ecosystem for visually impaired students combining a refreshable Braille display, a tactile diagram explorer, and a teacher-content platform.

Sumit Virmani, Trustee of Infosys Foundation, said the winners demonstrated how ordinary individuals can create extraordinary social impact through innovation rooted in compassion.