Kolkata : Bridgestone India today announced the winners of the 2nd edition of Mobility Social Impact Awards. These awards identify, recognize and promote mobility innovations through advanced technologies and solutions in the field of social advancement. The winners took home a total price money of Rs. 30 lakhs in the three categories.
The Awards have three focus areas: Accessible, Safe and Smart mobility solutions. Innovative ideas that provide better accessibility to healthcare & nutrition, livelihoods, education and social inclusion is one area. Second is to assess safe mobility solutions that enhance safety and inclusion bridging the present gender gap, disaster mitigation and increase road safety. Thirdly, smart mobility solutions that yield positive social impact eliminating poverty, promote biodiversity conservation and development of our rural communities.
“Bridgestone aims to positively impact the way people live, move, work and play. Mobility plays a key role in a nation’s development and thereby has a significant impact on society. With these awards, we aim to recognize those who employ sustainable mobility solutions in the service of communities thereby improving the quality of life. Being a global leader in mobility solutions, we understand what it takes to create innovative solutions and simultaneously aid to the needs of diverse communities. The winners of Bridgestone Mobility social impact Awards are a testament to this and we are honoured to recognize such innovators”, said Parag Satpute, Managing Director, Bridgestone India.
Mentors Foundation, Tasgaon, Maharashtra is the winner for their “Two Wheels of Hope – Bicycle Bank project” which has been developed to solve distance and mobility challenges faced by girl students in rural areas to reach schools. Also, the project solved the problem of access of healthcare services in parallel, ASHA (Accredited Social Healthcare Activist) worker is allocated for every 1,000 families, and access to these families was only done by walking the distance. With Two Wheels of Hope, they are now able to reach out to the families well in time.
The first runner up is Nav Bharat Jagriti Kendra (NBJK), Hazaribagh, Jharkhand for their initiatives on restoring eyesight free of cost for rural underprivileged citizens with avoidable blindness, thus restoring their mobility, social life, and livelihood.
The second runner up is the Centre for Rural Development, Guwahati, Assam for their project “Rickshaw Bank” which provides a means of self-employment to rickshaw pullers by offering a “rent-to-own” financing option to purchase an innovative newly designed rickshaw “DIP-BAHAN” (originally designed by the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati) that is lighter in weight, has an improved center of gravity, contains more luggage space, and has a canopy to cover both puller and passengers.
The jury comprised Dr. Sudha Kothari, Founder & Managing Trustee, Chaitanya, Arindam Lahiri -CEO at Automotive Skills Development Council – India, Prashant Ranjan Verma General Secretary, National Association for the Blind, Dr. Lidwin Dias, Principal, College of Social Work, Nirmala Niketan, Mumbai. Bridgestone India was represented on the jury by Apurv Choubey, Chief Human Resource Officer and Rajarshi Moitra Chief Commercial Officer.
Awardees were felicitated at the event attended by Lila Poonawalla as Chief Guest and Shankar Venkateshwaran, renowned expert on ESG and Responsible Business as the keynote speaker, among other dignitaries from corporates, NGOs and Government and local administration.
Comments are closed.