National Innovator Hall of Fame:
A novel award initiative by the MRIC

The National Innovator Hall of Fame has been developed to recognise and reward the contribution of local innovators in sprouting development. The importance of rewarding innovation has been recognised internationally through the inception of various innovation awards. It is widely agreed that innovation and intrinsic human motivation for creation go hand in hand.

 

Thus, the objectives of the National Innovator Hall of Fame are to:

• Recognise and reward local outstanding innovators

• Fuel innovation and creativity among the local people

• Gauge the level of innovation and creativity in Republic of Mauritius

• Catalyse the innovation culture in the younger generation

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The Innovation had to be directly related to the Republic of Mauritius.

There are five (5) categories in this competition: Corporate, SME, Individual, Public Organisation and NGO. For each category, the cash prize for the winner was MUR 50,000 and MUR 25,000 for the runner-up. A Special Innovator Prize will also be proposed for Rodrigues and Agalega.  The cash prize for the winner was MUR 30,000 and MUR 20,000 for the runner-up.

Prospective participants had been allocated 1 month for submission of their online application. After the deadline, which was the 28th of April 2023, a total of 53 valid applications were received. An administrative screening was conducted to assess completeness of applications. Candidates whose ideas satisfied the specified criteria proceeded to the Pre-selection stage. In this stage, applications having met all specified criteria were screened for their merit. A total of 34 applications were retained for the next phase of the competition, which was the Presentation and Interview Phase.  During this phase, pre-selected applicants in each category were given the opportunity to present their achievements to the jury panel. This panel was comprised of 5 innovation experts.

After this stage, jury members proceeded towards selection of winner and runner-up for each category. This was announced during an award ceremony which took place on the 3rd of June 2023 at Le Meridien Ile Maurice Hotel..

 

Photos and videos from the event can be accessed at https://www.mric.mu/national-innovator-hall-of-fame.

The prize winners are as follow: