Greetings from AssisTech Foundation (ATF)!

All great things come to an end. After few months of hustle and bustle, we finally concluded the ATF Awards 2022: India’s First Assistive Technology Awards with a grand felicitation ceremony organised at IIT Madras Research Park as a part of EMPOWER 2022 : India’s foremost Assistive Technology conference on October 14, 2022.

We were delighted to witness immense support from all associates & stakeholders. A hearty congratulations to all the winners. They are indeed moving towards revolutionizing the Assistive Technology ecosystem and making the world an inclusive place.

The award ceremony was graced by the presence of many industry leaders and academicians. We started the ceremony with the Keynote Address delivered by Mr Arun Jain (MD, Intellect Design Arena Ltd) followed by the felicitation of Emerging Startups Category Award (Sponsored by ThoughtWorks) by Prof. Ashok Jhunjhunwala (President, IIT Madras Research Park) & Ms. Rekha Murthy Ranagrajan (Director, Data Patterns).

The established startup category award winners were felicitated by Mr. Krishnamoorthy Ananthasivam (Co-Founder & Member of Board, ATF) & Prof. Sujatha Srinivasan (Head, Center for Rehabilitation Research and Device Development (R2D2), IIT Madras). Further ahead, the enablers category award winners were felicitated by Mr. Lakshmi Naryananan (Ex-vice chairman and ex-CEO, Cognizant and Former Chairman, ICT Academy) & Mr. Jawahar Bekay (Co-founder & Member of Board, ATF)

The winners of our ceremony were also congratulated by Mr. Som Mittal (Former President & Chairman, NASSCOM), Mr. Chapal Khasnabis (Head (a.i) of the Access to Assistive Technology and Medical Devices Unit, WHO), Rahul Dravid (Great Indian Cricketer & Head Coach, Indian Cricket Team) Mr Srikanth Rajan (Chairman & MD, SmartKapital) & Ms. Catherine Holloway (Academic Director, Global Disability Innovation Hub) for their continuous support to ATF and sending their warm regards and Congratulatory messages for ATF Awards 2022 winners.

The award ceremony was indeed a gala with the presence of all the great Assistive Technology Stakeholders. It was not just an occasion for felicitating the winners but also an opportunity for various stakeholders like startups, educational institutions, government organisations, NGOs etc to interact and network with each other and prospective investors and industry leaders.

After witnessing this grand celebration of the Assistive Technology ecosystem, we are certainly assured that the future of Assistive Technology is bright and positive. Our theme of the ceremony was “Everybody has an ability to change disability” : a thought that certainly reflects the power all of us hold and the responsibility all of us have to make this world an inclusive place. While all of us have to put an individual effort, these organisations who have won the ATF Awards are doing that great work at a large scale and making it possible for people with disabilities to live a life with dignity and get access to learning and livelihood opportunities.

The end is the beginning. With a successful commencement of ATF Awards 2022, we are all set to move forward and launch ATF Awards 2023 really soon. Moreover, during ATF Awards 2022, we also launched Cohort 5 of ATF Enable Acceleration Program. We encourage all the Assistive Technology based startups who are building solutions for people with disabilities to apply for it and grow together with us.