Wise InnovationAwards
Recognising impact. Rewarding wise innovation.
The WISE Innovation Awards (WIA) recognize what wise innovation looks like when it moves beyond potential and has begun to create material impact in the real world. While the WISE Tech India Pitchathon and Series A Programme focus on discovering and building the next wave of high-potential ventures, WIA spotlights founders who demonstrate meaningful impact, and the ability to grow sustainably. It brings visibility to startups that solve real social or environmental problems through technology-enabled models that are both credible and scalable.
In practice, this means WIA looks for three things:
Purpose
The venture is driven by a meaningful social or environmental purpose and a clear ambition to solve a problem that matters.
Impact with Evidence
The venture shows demonstrable indicators of real-world change, whether through reach, inclusion, affordability, environmental performance, or other outcome measures grounded in actual use.
Scale with Discipline
The business model shows the ability to grow through revenue strength, sound unit economics, institutional partnerships, or other pathways that can carry the solution into wider adoption.
This focus on both impact and scale reflects WISE Tech's broader belief that purpose and performance are not competing goals, but can reinforce one another when built into the logic of the venture itself.
Nominations
The WISE Innovation Awards follow a rigorous, multi-stage evaluation process. Throughout the year, the WISE Tech Analyst Team undertakes extensive research to identify emerging technology ventures across India that are creating meaningful societal impact.
This research draws on startup databases, accelerator and incubator ecosystems, industry reports, founder networks, media coverage, and ecosystem referrals to build a broad pool of potential nominees.
Following an initial assessment, shortlisted ventures undergo a deeper evaluation through founder interactions and detailed venture analysis to understand the clarity of their purpose, the evidence of their impact, and the sustainability of their growth.
The highest-ranked ventures are then invited to present before an eminent multidisciplinary jury comprising leaders from academia, entrepreneurship, technology, sustainability, investment, and public policy.
Drawing on both the evaluation process and the jury presentations, the jury identifies the ventures that best exemplify the principles of wise innovation and selects the WISE Innovation Award winners.
Beyond the Award
Award-winning ventures are invited to showcase their innovations to CXOs at the Technology and Society Innovation Conference (TASIC), SPJIMR's flagship annual conference, where they engage directly with senior corporate leaders, policymakers, investors, academics, and other ecosystem stakeholders. This provides founders with a unique platform to demonstrate their solutions, build strategic relationships, and explore opportunities for partnerships, customers, and long-term collaboration.
Award-winning ventures may also be invited to engage with SPJIMR's Post Graduate Programme in Startup Management (PGPSM), creating opportunities to identify and recruit entrepreneurial talent through internships, live projects, and full-time roles.
Beyond these opportunities, award-winning ventures are regularly featured across WISE Tech Insights, founder roundtables, research initiatives, and other thought leadership platforms, extending the visibility of both their ventures and their entrepreneurial journeys.
2026 WIA Winners
Theme: Climate and environmental resilience
Winner: FluXGen
Theme: Climate and environmental resilience
Winner: Finalist and Jury’s Choice: BatX Energies
Theme: Inclusive human capital and opportunity
Winner: Languify AI
Theme: Inclusive human capital and opportunity
Winner: Finalist: Thinkerbell Labs
Theme: Health, nutrition and wellbeing
Winner: YourDOST
Theme: Health, nutrition and wellbeing
Winner: Finalist: LogyAI
2025 WIA Winners
Aditya Nayak (Pakka's Home Compostable Flexible Packaging)
Jash Shah & Vansh Sakariya (Uravu Labs' Water-from-Air Technology)
Medha Kriti Gupta & Vaibhav Raghavan (Cresa GreenTech)
Jinal Jain & Ranjan Tripathi (Alt Carbon), and Manish Banerjee & Pritish Wadhwa (SHIVAY)
A Community of Wise Innovators
Over time, WIA awardees become part of a distinguished community of founders recognised for exemplifying WISE Tech's philosophy of wise innovation.
As this community grows, it creates opportunities for continued engagement, peer learning, collaboration, and strategic relationships across the WISE Tech ecosystem.
Together, these founders help shape entrepreneurship education, inspire future innovators, and demonstrate how emerging technologies can be translated into scalable societal impact.
Ultimately, WIA celebrates ventures that demonstrate how emerging technologies can be translated into scalable, sustained, and meaningful societal impact.