 This women's day in change makers, we bring to you two game-changing innovations by these women innovators. We as women do not spare even a slight thought on where those sanitary pads end up after we dispose them off. Well, there is one young girl named Vaishnavi Anand who has given it a thought and came up with an innovative solution for the same. Another major concern, waste management has always been a pressing issue in the country. An innovator named Hafila has addressed this issue and developed an innovation called HAC Biodigester. There has been no better time to celebrate women's power in the realm of innovation and startups. Today, women are playing a leading role in making our lives better through their innovative ideas. In today's edition of change makers, we have two women who came up with superlative ideas and went on to be the winners of national innovation contest. They are Vaishnavi Anand and Hafila Hyron. To begin with, I would like to invite Vaishnavi, an innovator who has given a serious thought to the women hygiene and came up with a solution that is also environmentally sustainable. Let's hear it from the person herself. I welcome the innovator Vaishnavi Anand for this edition. Vaishnavi, let us start by knowing all about your innovation. Hi. Thank you so much for having me here. My innovation is called Tuvachan. Tuvachan stands for it, means skin. Tuvachan is an organic sanitary mask which is low cost, 100% biodegradable and it is made with absolutely zero harmful chemicals. It is in fact highly absorbent. It can absorb nearly 40 ml of blood. How does this innovation help solve the existing problem? If I talk about the problem, the problem as such has quite a few components. The first component is, in India, nearly 48 to 52% of the menstruating women use menstrual devices, most of it being sanitary pads. Now, every day in India, 34.1 million pads are just disposed or thrown out. And mind you, this is only the 48 to 52%. So before, and with the increasing awareness, more and more women are actually using menstrual products, which is a very good thing. But before, 100% of the menstruating women start using pads or other menstrual devices, we need to find a solution to this problem. Now, why is this a problem? It is a problem because every day there are about 34 million pads and each pad takes about 1000 years to degrease. And this results in landfills. Pads come under biomedical ways. And according to the laws and regulations, biomedical ways have to be incinerated. Incineration is basically a burning process inside a closed chamber. But on incineration, that is, on burning, most of the pads, because of the numerous amount of plastics in them, release a lot of cancer-causing toxins, again polluting the air. The third component of the problem is pads. Most of the pads cause a lot of itchiness and rashes during periods. There's a common notion that I've heard through my surveys, is that itchiness and rashes is because of periods. If you have periods, you'll have itchiness. But that's actually an extremely wrong notion. It is because of the chemicals and pads that we have itchiness and rashes. To watch this happens to be a low-cost organic sanitary medicine. Organic itself means there are no chemicals in it, and it's 100% bio-behavioral. So in case, even by mistake, it ends up in one of the landfills. It's not going to be there for 1000 years. On incineration, it does not release cancer-causing toxins. We have solutions in the market which are organic pads. But organic pads are very expensive in India. To watch this, it's targeted at making it economically friendly as well, apart from being environmentally friendly. That's really interesting, Vaishnavi. As you said, 34 million sanitary pads are disposed of every day. This is a huge amount of waste. Also, women face a lot of issue when it comes to sanitary pads. So please tell us how customer-friendly these eco-friendly sanitary napkins are. So as I previously mentioned, most of the inorganic pads cause a lot of itchiness and rashes. And this is because the chemical is present. Vaishnavi does not have any sort of bleaching agents or any sort of chemical. Because of which there will be absolutely no itchiness or rashes. Moreover, any organic product has a very low shelf life. I have addressed that problem. I have addressed it in a way that I can increase the shelf life at least by a little bit. Which allows me to sell organic pads on brick and mortar. Which makes it more accessible to women who are more comfortable in going to the store and picking up their own napkins. That's great. This is how I've addressed it. Yeah, that's great. And Vaishnavi, what inspired you to come up with this innovative product idea? Actually when I was in class eight, Kiran Majumdashaa happened to come to my school. And she is an alumnus of my school. So when I read about her, I started reading about how she set up Biocon. That inspired me a lot. I didn't know what I wanted to do. But I knew for sure that I wanted to do something with entrepreneurship. I wanted to become an entrepreneur. I wanted to have my own startup. And time again that thought has always been there. So one day while I was returning back from college, my mom was telling me, sharing with me this article she read in the newspaper. Which spoke about how most of the salary pads take thousand years to degrade. And how one pad is as good as four pads, four plastic bags. And I measured in environmental time. So I was like, okay, let me just try doing something. Try something innovative. Try something, try to make a prototype. And then I was that night preparing my first prototype. While the motivation begun with my mom, many a time through the journey I felt like, you know, quitting. Because there were multiple things I had to juggle with. College exams, records, practicals. It was my father who every day constantly would come and ask me, what is happening with the pad session? What are you doing? How are you proceeding? Are you proceeding? In fact, I learnt a lot about finance and business problems. That's great to know the support from your family, your parents. What is the take on increasing role of a woman in the world of startup and entrepreneurship? Very frankly, I think we belong to a land where women have always been entrepreneurs. You know, women have always been a part of making a charge and profit at home and selling it. It has been making their own articles and selling tailoring, selling cow dung cakes, selling various other articles. In fact, I remember my mom telling me for a few years they have stayed in Bihar. And this is before 2001, somewhere in the 1990s, they were in Bihar. And they used to be a mela allotted only for women entrepreneurs, where women would come and they would sell products that they had made. In fact, she was also telling me there were these women who had their own gardens or their lawns and they would sell small planters, they would sell forts, they would sell plants. Women have always been a part of it. But yes, today I think the encouragement from families from the government is way more. And this encouragement really has been increasing the number of women into entrepreneurship more than ever. Great, great. So women are being empowered and they are going ahead in the entrepreneurship journey also. Vaishnani, what are the challenges that you faced during the course of your journey as an entrepreneur? I think before the journey of entrepreneurship, I started my journey as an innovator, which itself was quite a challenge. Firstly, I think this is a challenge most researchers or innovators face is lack of efficiency. I started my product, I started making my product in my kitchen. Even today I make my prototypes in my kitchen. Yeah, I just have a little more sophisticated machine right now, but it still happens in my very own house. And when I started off in the kitchen, I didn't have a lab, so we cannot procure certain chemicals that we need. I had to find homemade alternatives to each of it. But the plus point was that I could make it cost efficient because all of these other alternatives that I found were just available everywhere. So that helped me make it cost effective. So even if it was a challenge, it ended up being beneficial. And the other most important issue I had was I started off when I was in my first year of college. I hadn't even completed my first semester. So I had absolute lack of knowledge. I did not know a lot. I didn't know how to research. I didn't know how to read research papers. So it was self-taught. I learned a lot myself. I wish I had known a lot, but I'm very proud that I eventually ended up learning a lot on my own. And these are some things I would probably never forget because I learned on my own. And after that, the journey of entrepreneurship began where I had absolutely no idea about finance, marketing, business aspects, because I belong to a pure science school and I don't belong to a business family either. So that was a challenge where entrepreneurship is concerned. I didn't know what were the terms. I didn't even know the difference between revenue and profit. And the most important thing is lack of finance. But I'm very glad my parents did help me out a lot in the lack of finance. They did support me financially in making prototypes. Yeah, it's great to know your challenges. Every challenge you face, you will come up with a solution too. Vaishnaviya, you are one of the National Innovation Contest winners. How did you utilize your funds received from Ministry of Education's Innovation Cell? Were you able to raise funds from other sources too? So as I mentioned, I did have a problem with funds. So when I got the funds from MIC, I did utilize them in protesting for procuring certain raw materials, for procuring certain forms of machines which I couldn't afford. I also used it for certain travel expenses where I had to travel to attend conferences, startup conferences, or other competitions. I did use my funds in all of these places. And I was able to raise another grant. I did get another grant from the Karnataka State Financial Control Board, which was purely for research. They found my product was a solution. One of the problems that even they were working on that was land sales and waste management. So I received a grant from the Karnataka State Financial Control Board to develop my product. That's great. You will impress other innovators, other investors to get funding support also. Other than funding support, how did National Innovation Contest help you in your startup journey? So once my product was ready, I had no idea how to proceed. And that's when people told me, all you have to do is to get an investor. But being from a science background, as I said, I had no idea as to how to go talk to an investor. I didn't know how to make a pitch deck or a presentation. And I was actually on a standstill for about two to three months. And then I saw the brochure of National Innovation Contest in our college WhatsApp booth. That's when I joined it. And believe it or not, if I see my first presentation that I submitted to the National Innovation Contest and the final presentation for the last round, I can see a difference of hell in heaven. There is so much of difference. After each round of evaluation, after each round of elimination, we had sessions, we had workshops, we had one-on-one mentoring sessions, wherein we were taught what to do, what is wrong in our presentation, how to improve. In fact, many of the speakers were either subject matter experts or they were startup owners and entrepreneurs themselves. They shared their journey, they shared their mistakes with us. Sharing a journey is something which is nice to hear. But only when we listen to others' mistakes, we realize that, oh, probably I'm making the same mistake. I should correct myself. And that really helped me a lot. And with each round, my presentation just started improving a little by little. And I got a direction as to how to study, where to study, what to study, what terminology I should know. These are the things that National Innovation Contest helped me with. In fact, when I met Abhishek Sir and Deepan Sir in the regional meet, I was astonished. They knew each and every product by the name, the team's name. I wouldn't be surprised if they knew our products better than us. Vaishnavi, it's good to know the support you got from the MIC team. What message or advice would you want to share with the N entrepreneurs of today? I myself am a young entrepreneur. I'm still in the journey. But one thing I've learned throughout my journey is believe in yourself. Only when you believe in yourself, you radiate a certain amount of confidence, where people start believing in you. A person who probably doesn't even know you, but you have the confidence in yourself, you believe in yourself, automatically that person starts believing in your idea, your concept. And another thing I realized is every idea is a good idea. It just needs the proper implementation. Great. So self-motivation and confident on your idea is an important thing. Vaishnavi, what are your future goals? In the current future, I first want to start off mass production because that is the most important thing for me right now. I really have plans, I really have hopes that I can fulfill the plans of having Tvachan being manufactured by women and transgenders. This is something I really want to do as my contribution to the society. And a slightly long-term goal is to make Tvachan so affordable that women in the rural area have access to an economically and environmentally friendly solution to their future. Great Vaishnavi. And I wish all the very best to achieve your goals. Vaishnavi, how has the product been received? Can you share with us any awards or recognition that you have got? Awards, I wouldn't say I have a line of awards. But firstly, one of my most prized possessions is the National Innovation Contest 2020, the award of the NIC 2020, because I have never been a topper and I've always heard this thing that, oh my God, you should study well, you should get a sentiment, not being a topper and having received a grant winning a National Innovation Contest really goes with my confidence. And in fact, last year on Women's Day, my college, NTC, they facilitated my product because it was a solution for most women and, yeah, so Women's Day 2020. Two I was felicitated. Also in the Ministry of Education Regional Meet conducted in Bangalore by Reva University, I was awarded the Innovative Startup. Apart from this, I received quite a bit of a recognition which I would say to me is a recognition wherein colleges wanted me to come and talk to their students because they thought I was a student and I could relate to their students better than them calling someone the student couldn't relate to, I don't know, but they called me and so I went to Jyoti Neva's college which happens to be a women's college to talk and share my journey. I was called for various awareness programs to talk about menstrual hygiene to talk about reproductive cycles and recently I was called by St. Charles College in Bangalore to St. Charles College to talk to their management students about my journey and how even a science student can really get into business. That is the true spirit because everyone thinks that only the technical students can do some magic in startup, it's not like that. So, you are the better example and everyone will follow you. On Women's Day 2023 also we would like to acknowledge your contribution and hail your achievement. Thank you Aishnami for being with us. Thank you very much for having me here. Our next innovator is Hafila Hayron who has worked on the pressing issue of Waste Management and has developed a one-stop solution for all the problems related to public sanitation. I would like to welcome Hafila, innovator of HAC Biodigester. Welcome Hafila, we are very keen to know about your innovation. Please enlighten us. Sure ma'am. Like before I get into my innovation, imagine if you are having a long trip with your family members or friends. Suddenly you wanted to use the restroom which is along the broadside. Do you think you or your friends can use it without any hesitation especially for women and children? Absolutely not. Because the main factor which prevents us from using such toilets would be the improper waste management, poor sanitation as well as lack of electricity. So keeping all these problems in our mind has led to this innovation HAC Biodigester. Our innovation HAC Biodigester ensures proper waste management, sanitation, safety and security as well as eradicates manual scavenging. This HAC Biodigester would definitely be a revolution in the biodigester markets. So what innovation is this planning to offer safe, secure and sanitized toilets to the public toilet users? Yeah, improper drainage system and waste management have always been areas of concern in every locality and city. So how do you address and solve this problem through this HAC Biodigester? Yes ma'am. Like as I said the problems which prevents the public toilet users from using such toilets are the poor waste management, improper sanitation and lack of electricity. These factors really kindle us and most importantly the ways which are being generated from the toilets are just directed to the water bodies without any proper treatment. So when people consume that they are prone to various kinds of diseases. So this is the major issue which we thought it needs to be addressed and that's how we came up with our innovation HAC Biodigester which offers a one-stop solution to all these problems by offering a safe, secure and sanitized public toilets. Like we are using the... Actually our innovation has an integration of two technologies which is nothing but aerobic digestion and microbial fuel cells where we can treat the waste, also treatment of the waste is assured and in addition to that electricity is being generated which can be used to light up the toilets and the treated water that is the treated waste water which is being generated is disinfected. So because of this disinfection this treated water can definitely be used for the flushing purposes of the toilet. So from the waste we are generating electricity our innovation produces disinfected water which can be used to flush up the toilets and most importantly another advantage of our innovation is we are also generating compost which can be used as a fertilizer in agriculture. So these are the tri-way advantages which have been achieved through our innovation in addition to offering proper waste management. So you are solving many problems through your innovation. What inspired or motivated you to come up with this innovation Hafila? Yes ma'am actually the problem like the question which I asked you right in the beginning is what is actually the scenario which we experienced my friends me and my friends were also the members of this hack by digester company we were actually on a trip to Bangalore at night and we were asked to use the toilets which is along the roadside at that time neither of us were able to use such toilets it was like it's better to not use the toilets rather than using such public toilets so like this was a major concern and one of my friends sick also because of that so this was in our mind see how they are maintaining the public toilets like most of the toilets have in such conditions only luckily in our college they held the competition like for a sustainable development they asked us to come up with innovative ideas to offer solutions to this problem that time we thought that this is one such issue which needs to be addressed and that's how we came up with the solution initially it was just a mere idea we didn't know it would evolve this much but our major concern was to treat them and I would say that this real life experience was a source of motivation to start up this were there any challenges that you faced on the journey of yours as innovator-entrepreneur not only me those who are entering into the entrepreneurship like they won't get success as such like as I said we also came up with just a mere idea we didn't know that this would evolve that much to make people believe that this would work really took two years for us and for two years literally we faced failures complete failures not even a single success was there in our journey and the competition which was healthy in our college that was the turning point of our life where we started this innovation we presented but still we didn't win it we were all we three were all in the state of mind that we care this is the turning point of our life we are going to go in a way that we are going to win that competition that was in our mind but we had a terrible failure like there was chances that we win but we got failed we literally cried at that moment because we thought that it would be a turning point in our life but it wasn't but after that we evolved like we edited many competitions where we just go there and explain our idea but still we didn't get recognized so to change our idea into a complete innovation really took two years and I would not blame that I wasn't successful at those times because if I was successful at that competition I am sure that I wouldn't have evolved this much so those failures those failures which I saw initially which we saw actually which we saw initially like it was for two years I know like but the people surrounding us like our family our friends and our mentors college really supported us they didn't lose hope in us they thought that there was something in this innovation which needs to undergo some modification in order to get the world some become a world some model like to reach to the public so they had hope in us and because of which we are here today and yeah like we had challenges and it depends on how we face it we shouldn't be broken down by it really everyone will face challenges success will not come as such so similarly we too had a struggle of two years to come to this stage it's great that in every failure you may have learned and you have upgraded your product and now you are a successful innovator is there any other similar product as it was available in the market how does it stand apart from others yes mom like yeah when we came up like when we said this the thing was everyone defended that there are products which are available satisfying this problem like electricity problem sanitation problem everything is being satisfied yes it is being satisfied but there is no such problem like no such innovation till now which can like put up all the solutions together and offer a complete whole package solution is not yet available till now like if you want was like proper sanitation in the toilets and the automatic flushing has to happen along with the disinfectant as well as generation of the electricity and the production of the compost so the three things the three major things are getting produced in one innovation so the existing innovations which are there in the market offers each one of these solutions there is no such solution which offers a complete package of everything so this is how we put up our technology to like a combination of technologies to solve all the problems with one solution like with one product so this was our it is great that one product address three different problems yes mom Hafila how did funds that you receive from MIC help in your journey did you get any other financial support actually from the funds which we received from the MIC actually we used it to develop a product initially we had a rough prototype after which receiving funds from the MIC like we developed a product which because of which we have completed 70% of the product undergoing R and D and all everything is being done and in addition to that we have filed the patent and it is in the state of we have published the patent actually we are at the final stage to get granted so only examination stage is pending for which we are developing the product right now and the third one is we have registered like we are in the process of registering our company as LNP we have finished off all the initial proceeding which has to be done for registering as LNP and in addition to that we are also at we also attended many conferences like the startup conferences which are held in different parts of the state like in Tamil Nadu and we have got insights and thereby also we have promoted our product carried out some promotional activities got some target leads for our product and yeah we have actually because using those funds we have carried out this much activities and in addition to that we have also been recognized by our state government and they have we have also received the grant from innovation voucher program and we are also a recipient of Tamil Nadu student innovators so 2020 it's good that MIC helped you from ideation to the registration of your own LLP definitely one yes yeah other than the funding support how did this national innovation contest help you in your startup journey yes mam like as I said actually our idea was just a mere idea a robust idea before coming to NIC we were only thinking about on how to develop our idea to convert into an innovation what technology we have to put into satisfy all the curve like satisfy all the needs but when there was four stages four stages in national innovation contest to cross each stage we had so much of paperworks like those paperworks constitutes 20% of your innovation and 80% of business like marketing how are you going to take your innovation to the public so right at that moment before entering to the NIC the thing which we had in our mind is only about innovation but only after entering into the NIC we thought that this much of work has to be done innovation is just 20% 80% lies in the hands of marketing no matter how well you develop your product if you lack in that marketing aspect that is where the success of an entrepreneur lies just not by building a product and you say that I am having the product you can come and get know how the strategies you are evolving to make your product to reach to the target customer is actually a big big cup of tea when you like when you consider an entrepreneurship so this I would definitely say that NIC has played a major role like give us a clear idea of how we are going to take a product to the target customers who are our target customers and how we should make the marketing how we should develop our marketing aspects everything we learn from NIC by crossing each and every stage of NIC like we develop that oh this is what we are lacking so we didn't know about this so each and every step was really we put in time to fill those papers and after filling those papers we wanted to get it done in the real life too so we have to submit the proofs to NIC also so by doing this this paper works only we got a clear idea of oh this is our innovation it will evolve into a company it will evolve into a business so thanks for announcing yeah Hafila we are very happy to know that National Innovation Contest helped you right from the ideator and you have registered the patent now you are going to register LLP from ideator to entrepreneur through NIC you have achieved it we are very happy to know about this Hafila what would you advise to the budding entrepreneurs of today I would say that never lose hope because there are stages where you will feel that everything is completely you are completely broken down everything has gone everything whatever you do is not up to what you expect there are stages where you will be completely broken down but I would say that never lose hope never lose hope never lose faith in God as well as yourself your team members you should be in a mind that you should have that positive though you are feeling low though you are feeling low you should have that instinct within yourself that there is success after every hardship after every effort there will definitely be a success and I would like to stress one fourth here maybe you will not be knowing because this is what we will say among us within our team members that success without hard work gives you glory success without hard work gives you glory success on hard work gives you stages to speak about your success stories so this is one such incident which is happening to us right now and after so much of hard work only we have got stages to speak about our innovation to speak about our journey so definitely the budding entrepreneurs too will get many stages to speak about their journey only if they have the perseverance to go into to put their efforts to have those hard work and I will definitely see perseverance perseverance is what will lead you to this success though failures comes have those perseverance that is worth my advice what are your aspirations and goals with this innovation of yours as I said before currently we have developed a 70% of our product and it has to undergo some R&D after which we will install it in our college and after this actually before itself we have communicated with our municipality and the cooperation of Pritsarapalli Tamil Nadu where they have asked us to come up with a report of people monitoring after installation of our product in our college so once it is done we will get the report of 6 months we will approach the municipality and they have really liked that idea actually so they said that once it is working properly with them 6 months those 6 months report if we submit it to them they said that they will give a particular locality in Uyghur and Pritsarapalli where there are community toilets and they have asked us to install our product in that particular locality so currently our aim is to get generated a report for the performance of our product after which we will approach the municipality to install it in community toilets and also we have got leads from by attending various conferences we have noted it down they have asked us to get ready with the product once the final validation is completed we will enter into the market it is good to know that you have already customer to validate your product and we wish you all the best you will be validating the product successfully in Kruchi and your product will spread to other cities as well Hafila how has the world around you responded to your innovation in terms of acceptance and appreciation actually the world around me was really supportive for me the world around me is my or to start with it is my family members they because they have to accept first whether this idea works or not my family members my team my family members our college and then comes the state and then comes the country so I have to satisfy all their needs first I have to satisfy the needs of my surroundings after which I can little bit explore to the wider world so initially when I came up with the idea so what they said was lot of thoughts were there because already existing what your world what is there different in it so to make people believe that our innovation took a lot of time and I would say that we have satisfied all their like all their requirements and we have satisfied all their questions they put up when we came up with the product so I would say that everyone initially they were positive criticisms like to develop the product even negative criticisms so this is what led to develop our product but now everyone are appreciating because of those criticisms only we developed our product and now the fully furnished product is receiving lots of appreciation from our state government also so they have recognized our product and they have considered us as a recipient of Tamil Nadu student innovator and I would definitely say that they are giving us so much of help and support even they visited our college recently to evaluate our product how it is working so everything they are appreciating our efforts so I would definitely say the environment and the world is so supportive and so appreciative when it comes to our innovation thank you Hafila we wish you will get the support and the acceptance in future also you will resume many more awards thank you for sharing your success stories with us thank you I hope the innovators like Vaishnavi and Hafila would continue to inspire the coming generations and motivate them to work for the betterment of society we will continue to engage with such bright minds in our subsequent editions of Changemakers till then keep watching for the space, goodbye