Ravi Shankar Prasad will top bill at ET Innovation Awards on November 6

New Delhi: Ravi Shankar Prasad, Union minister for communications, IT and law, is set to headline the second ET Innovation Awards to be held on November 6, an event that will seek to recognise the country’s top companies that have excelled in their fields.

The ET Innovation Awards have been conceived as an effort to celebrate and nurture innovation, which is essential to power the economy toward the $5-trillion mark. In the economic aftermath of the Covid-19 crisis, innovation has become even more crucial to the world’s economic recovery.

Prasad, who will deliver the keynote address at the virtual event and give away awards in the nine categories, has been at the forefront of driving innovation in the ministries under his watch. After the pandemic broke out, the ministry of electronics & IT under Prasad launched challenges to spur the tech talent at large to develop apps and video conferencing facilities, for encouraging innovation.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the Padmanabhan Bharat App Innovation Challenge in July, under which the government received more than 6,940 entries in nine categories of business, eLearning, entertainment, games, health, news, office and work from home, others and social.

Innovation has also been at the heart of the Prime Minister’s Atmanirbhar Bharat mission. In a recent address to the nation, he asked the people to help make India a global hub for artificial intelligence.

For the ET Innovation Awards, a senior team led by knowledge partner Bain & Co rigorously screened and evaluated the 1,250 nominations. Winners were selected by a high-profile jury led by former Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) vice-chairman S Ramadorai. Other jury members were Dilip Shanghvi, managing director, Sun Pharma; Pawan Goenka, managing director, Mahindra and Mahindra; Vani Kola, managing director, Kalaari Capital; Vidya Shah, chief executive, EdelGive Foundation; and Milind Atrey, professor, IIT Mumbai.

The categories for which ET Innovation Awards will be given out are: Business Model Innovation, Process Innovation, People Innovation, New Product/Service Innovation, Marketing and Brand Innovation, AI Innovation, Innovation to Drive Sustainability, Most Innovative Company and Most Innovative Startup.