From Our Special Correspondent
Daijiworld Media Network
Bengaluru, Nov 21: The Smart Bio Awards given as part of India Bio at Bengaluru Tech Summit 2020 by the Karnataka’s Department of IT, BT and S & T is an effort towards recognizing all such innovative biotechnology firms that have shown dynamic leadership, exciting technologies and stand-out contribution in their chosen fields of biotech and also organisations in the State who have made significant contribution supporting existing technologies, nurturing innovative ideas and product development.
In recent years, the application of smart technologies like AI, Block Chain, Robotics, etc. has become all pervasive and Biotechnology is no exception.
Deputy Chief Minister Dr C N Ashwatha Narayana while congratulating all the winners of today’s SmartBio Award said that he is sure that the award will inspire them set the bar high for themselves and become a global company in years to come.
The presence of world-class bioincubators and programs like Elevate Idea2Poc, Karnataka Startup Advancement Programme BIO 50 (KSAP Bio50) has supported many of these startups in their initial years by providing the much needed scientific infrastructure, seed funds and mentorship thereby increasing the number of biostartups escaping the so called “Valley of Death”.
Dr Ashwatha Narayana said that the State Government will leave no stone un-turned to make Bengaluru, Karnataka as a Global Biotech Hub.
Dr E V Ramana Reddy, Additional Chief Secretary, Department of Electronics, IT, BT and S&T joined the Deputy Chief Minister in congratulating all the winners of today’s SmartBio Award and wished them many more awards and rewards coming their way in near future.
This year Smart Bio Awards are conferred to companies and organizations in five different categories.
Start-up of the Year
Fibroheal Woundcare Pvt Ltd, a healthcare biotech start-up that has developed biomaterial based wound healing products is recognized as Start-up of the Year.
The products containing bio-active silk protein in the form of fibroin and asiaticoside heals wound faster and with reduced scar formation. It is suitable to treat all types of wounds such as clean wounds, non-infected wounds, infected wounds, difficult to heal and slow or non-healing wounds etc.
Innovator of the Year
Nibedit Dey, Founder & CEO of Ibrum Technologies is a multidisciplinary engineer and creative technologist with a background in Biomedical Engineering, Embedded System and BioDesign is awarded with Innovator of the Year.
The company is developing a novel point-of-care pneumonia screening device for primary care healthcare users to screen and refer babies with early symptoms of pneumonia in babies without adding any additional diagnostic burden to their guardians. The device aims to drastically reduce the number of deaths caused by pediatric pneumonia.
Woman Entrepreneur of the Year
Kavitha Iyer Rodrigues, Co-Founder & CEO of Zumutor Biologics Pvt Ltd is well-known in the biotech community, is recognized as Woman Entrepreneur of the Year for her entrepreneurial acumen and leadership qualities.
She is passionate about setting new global benchmarks through Zumutor Biologics Company focused on developing novel immune-oncotherapeutics leveraging on proprietary antibody engineering platform to harness the body’s immune system to generate antibodies against cancerous tumors.
Best Product against COVID-19
ShanMukha Innovations Pvt Ltd with a grand vision to bring the diagnostic lab to the samples through translation of technologies developed at the lab into products and solutions for the Indian market.
The company has developed Mobile Infection Testing and Reporting (MITR) Labs provide a unique end-to-end RT-PCR testing infrastructure.
MITR Labs provides a compact, safe, compliant and cost-effective mobile lab solution for COVID-19 and other infectious disease diagnostic tests. 100% safe fully equipped molecular diagnostic laboratories that reduce turnaround times for RT-PCR tests are the unique value offered by MITR Labs.
Best Social Enterprise/Institute
JALODBUST is working on the problems of manual scavenging and exposure of sanitation workers to disease, drudgery and social ignominy. JALODBUST™ is safe in operation and easy to handle and maintain system replacing the physical handling of fecal sludge by one-man-operated system.
JALODBUST SaniPreneur empties and transports the settled/ hardened sludge in the septic tanks and leach-pits through combined action of attrition, agitation and suction through operation of a smart control panel, display and an IoT dashboard.