Changemaker of the year award winner Raja Babu Ummalaneni, DG DRDO, during the Business line Changemakers awards held in Mumbai on Wednesday.
| Photo Credit: Emmanual Yogini
Education, social welfare and the empowerment of marginalised sections were the major themes recognised this year at The Hindu businessline’s Changemaker Awards and the theme of indigenous production was underlined by the Defence Research and Development Organisation’s winning of the Changemaker of the Year Award.
The ceremony for the seventh edition of the awards started on a melodious note with R. Sudhir creating magical tunes with his fluteboxing and drew to a close with chief guest Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Hardeep Singh Puri, reminiscing about his days as a diplomat.
The award for Social Transformation went to Hasina Karbhih’s Impulse NGO Network, which is engaged in anti-trafficking efforts and rehabilitating vulnerable women as well as children from rat-hole mining in Meghalaya.
The Digital Transformation Award went to Bhashini, a government project aiming for accuracy in translation of languages on its platform while harnessing artificial intelligence to deliver it. CEO Amitabh Nag said the company receives 20 million translation requests every day.
The Financial Transformation Award was received by Kalpana Kumari, managing director of Girijan Cooperative Corporation, for the success of Araku Valley coffee, a unique variant of Arabica coffee from the Eastern Ghats. She dedicated the award to the hundreds of workers of the Girijan Cooperative Corporation and the thousands of farmers involved. She said the corporation has been working to strengthen tribal communities and use AI to bring further progress for such farmers.
The Young Changemaker Award went to Kalyani Shinde, founder of Godaam Innovations. She won the honour for setting up India’s first Internet of Things-based onion storage solution device that monitors the microclimate of onion warehouses and tracks temperature, humidity and gases emitted during the early stages of spoilage.
Promoting literacy
The Chairperson’s Award went to Bengaluru-based eVidyaloka, which is bridging the education divide across the country by promoting literacy using digital classrooms and matching children’s needs with a 70,000-strong volunteer base that is spread across the world.
The Azim Premji Foundation won the Iconic Changemaker Award for its pioneering and extensive work in education and healthcare. The foundation has over 2,500 members and works with 1,320 partner organisations across India.
The DRDO won the Changemaker of the Year Award for its role during Operation Sindoor in neutralising enemy assets and securing India’s borders.
“Today our organisation works on all critical defence technologies starting from underwater, sea, land, air, space and cyber technologies. Our endeavour is to make the country self-reliant in this very critical domain of defence technologies,” said Ummalaneni Raja Babu, Distinguished Scientist and Director General – Missiles and Strategic Systems.
The presenting partner for the event was SASTRA Deemed University and the event was co-powered by the State Bank of India (SBI). The associate partners were LIC (Life Insurance Corporation of India), Bank of Baroda, the Jammu & Kashmir Bank Limited, NTPC Ltd, GAIL (India) Ltd, ICFAI Business School (IBS), Oil India Ltd and Singareni Collieries Company Limited (SCCL). The State partner was the Government of Sikkim. The luxury watch partner was Citizen, the education partner SSVM Institutions and the home appliance partner was Ultra, the kitchen appliances brand of Elgi Ultra.
Published – September 27, 2025 02:40 am IST
