Marico Innovation Foundation acted upon the growing seriousness of the COVID-19 pandemic with ‘Innovate2Beat COVID’ a nationwide grand challenge to unearth innovations that can combat the short-supply of Personal Protective Gear (PPE) and Ventilators. The bottleneck jury encountered over 1500 interests from across the country during the 20 days period from 29th March to 18th April 2020. Meticulous evaluation and due diligence of entries by Advisors Praxis Global Alliance, technical scrutiny by a Technical Panel, followed by intense deliberations by a Jury Panel led to 3 innovations that emerged as frontrunners with their ingenious PPE solutions. The Foundation along with A.T.E. Chandra Foundation and Harsh Mariwala in his personal capacity have come together to offer total grants of INR 2.5 crores of which INR 1.57 crores has been offered to selected PPE solutions.

Additionally, Marico Innovation Foundation will now take on the next turn in this challenge journey by enabling the selected innovations by a deeper engagement model. Through this, they offer support and hand-on guidance to ascertain the innovation’s success as they march ahead to solve challenges thrown by the global pandemic.

The selected innovations are unique, affordable and can be rapidly manufactured and deployed; thereby easing the already strained medical infrastructure. They are:

CREA Worldwide | Grant offered INR 41,00,000
One of the few players in the market offering a

breathable yet hydrophobic PPE kit, CREA relieves COVID-warriors -- medical practitioners and frontline workers – of dehydration from commonly-used laminated PPE kits. CREA is using non-laminated fabrics which makes their coveralls more breathable; can be used up to 12 hours even in summer heat. As the country prepares to come out of lockdown, CREA also offers a suite to protect our second line of defence (dentists, general practitioners, policemen, healthcare workers, etc.) comprising face shield, parka and coverall. CREA’s DRDO-approved coveralls bring relief to COVID-doctors and frontline workers, and increase longevity, thereby reducing the massive waste generated in fighting the pandemic. Priced similar to non-breathable kits and with twice the life, CREA’s breathable PPE kits hold the potential to halve the PPE-kit expenditure incurred by hospitals per doctor per day. With the high temperatures of summer approaching, dehydration is a key concern and CREA’s kits are poised to solve this problem for a large population of our frontline COVID-warriors.

Log 9 Materials Scientific Pvt. Ltd.| Grant offered INR 76,00,000
A unique multi-focal UV disinfection chamber (called CoronaOven) that can sanitize any surface of all pathogens in only 10 minutes; thus permitting hospitals to re-use masks, gloves and other PPE. Each microwave-sized compact chamber (33-litre) can disinfect 40 masks per hour, thus holding the potential to not only largely reduce the current high pressure on PPE supply, but also massively cut down on PPE waste. In just a month since CoronaOven’s launch, Log 9 has already sold 300+ ovens, which can help users disinfect and re-use up to 30 lakh gloves every month. Apart from hospitals disinfecting PPE, general shops, households and users across the value chain of most small-sized products such as milk packets, food packets, watches, spectacles, bags, etc. can disinfect a plethora of items. The chamber is also finding innovative, customised use cases in airports to disinfect high-contact surfaces such as trolleys, escalator handles, baggage belts, etc.

Saral Design Solutions | Grant offered INR 40,00,000
Saral has promptly innovated to adapt, cost-effectively, its patented sanitary pads producing machine to manufacture higher quality 3-ply surgical masks (as opposed to commonly available 2-ply masks which do not protect against the COVID virus). Saral can manufacture at a rapid rate of 80 masks every minute, and is making these masks available to consumers at a frugal cost, such that the masses of India can afford to adequately purchase protective masks. Saral’s machine has already produced 10 lakh masks since the pandemic began. They are now looking to ramp up production through their decentralized manufacturing capabilities in 20 locations across Tier II & III cities in India. This will enable meeting local demand at a decentralised scale. With the nation about to come out of lockdown, such masks are expected to be in need en masse and Saral is poised to step up to the occasion.