Seven social ventures from throughout India will meet in Hyderabad April 24 and 25 to showcase their hardware innovations that could change lives for the better. From an upgrade for traditional mud stoves to a search-and-rescue drone, these startups have earned a place in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ISHOW 2025. The seven ventures will pitch their solutions and participate in a design and engineering review with ISHOW’s experts, vying for three spots in the 2025 ISHOW cohort. At stake is a shot at (USD) $30,000 in grant funding, global exposure, and expert engineering support as a venture in the ISHOW accelerator program.
For the ventures, the event begins Thursday, April 24, at T-Hub, Hyderabad, Telangana, India. The public is invited to join Friday, April 25, for a showcase of the seven innovations and an awards ceremony announcing the three ventures that will advance to the 2025 cohort. Register at https://konfhub.com/ishowindiaawards2025.
“Hard-tech innovators addressing urgent social and environmental challenges must be better equipped to overcome significant obstacles. We are dedicated to building on a decade of experience to ensure that social ventures realize their vision for a better world, for everyone,” says Iana Aranda, ASME Managing Director of Sustainability and President of Engineering for Change.
ISHOW India 2025
The seven innovations
The ISHOW India ventures’ innovations provide affordable, sustainable hardware technology solutions to agricultural, energy, healthcare, and transportation challenges. They are:
Caruna Mobility (Puducherry, India) for its “Complete Mobility Solution” – a wheelchair and vehicle swivel seat mechanism that assists with vehicle and home transfers for persons with limited mobility issues, from those with simple fractures to quadriplegic patients
DARTML (Kerala, India) for its “DARTML” morphable quadcopter – a drone with unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and unmanned ground vehicle (UGV) mobility modes, AI-powered navigation, real-time camera and radar-based person detection to enhance search and rescue applications
FastSense Innovations (Pune, Maharashtra, India) for its “Sep-Scan” tool – an AI-powered diagnostic solution designed for rapid, precise, and comprehensive early sepsis detection and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) screening, accessible even in resource-limited settings, ultimately reducing diagnostic delays, and helping to lower mortality rates, shorten hospital stays, and cut treatment costs
Kisan Rover (Jhalawar, Rajasthan, India) for its Solar-Powered Agricultural Robotic Bull – a solar-powered and electric hybrid multitasking agricultural machine that can enhance productivity, reduce costs, and improve the livelihoods of farmers with less than five acres of land
Neenva Innovations Pvt. Ltd. (Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India) for its “ViiSar” venture – assistive technology delivering STEM education for visually impaired individuals by combining tactile hardware with interactive software, enabling inclusive and accessible learning, bridging the educational gap in math and science
Newrup Tech Solutions Pvt. Ltd. (Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India) for its “Chuliv” innovation – a clean cooking solution that seamlessly upgrades conventional mud stoves into advanced cooking appliances, cutting harmful smoke emissions by up to 50%, decreasing indoor air pollution and its negative impact on the health and mortality of women and children
RE4BILLION.AI Pvt. Ltd. (Chennai, Tamil Nadu, India) for its “Smart Remote Monitoring System” – an advanced IoT-based solution designed to track solar power generation, grid consumption, and battery health in off-grid or unreliable grid locations including rural sites, micro-enterprises, schools, and health centers, delivering user alerts and insights through a web platform.
The three ventures selected at ISHOW India will join three from ISHOW Africa and three from ISHOW Americas in the coming weeks to compose the 2025 ISHOW cohort. The cohort is invited to participate in the annual ISHOW Bootcamp in the winter to receive a customized design and engineering review by experts curated to guide them as they scale to market. They will also receive design services to support their product development. They become part of the ISHOW alumni network, an international community of hardware innovators and stakeholders with exclusive access to experts and resources.
The schedule for the remaining ISHOW events in 2025:
April 24: ISHOW India at the T-Hub, Hyderabad, Telangana, India
June 10-12: ISHOW Africa (a virtual event)
May 15: ISHOW Americas application deadline
July 29-31: ISHOW Americas (a virtual event)
Telangana is especially fitting for ISHOW India. It is known as the startup state of India, says Sri Jayesh Ranjan, Special Chief Secretary of Telangana’s Department of Information Technology, Electronics & Communications, and the Department of Industries & Commerce.
“The visions of the Telangana state and the ASME ISHOW align perfectly,” Mr. Ranjan says. “The American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ mission is to advance innovation for the benefit of humanity, and the ASME ISHOW is a global accelerator of hardware-led social innovation. ISHOW supports entrepreneurs and ventures that have a positive social and environmental impact.”
ASME acknowledges its implementation partners around the globe, including The Lemelson Foundation for its continued support of the ISHOW and a multi-year strategic investment in ASME to support the hardware impact innovation system. Learn more about ISHOW’s global impact in this dynamic dashboard.
The ASME ISHOW hardware accelerator is open to individuals and organizations taking physical products to market that will have a positive social and environmental impact and that improve the quality of life around the world. ASME annually matches up to 30 carefully selected innovators/ventures with appropriate engineering experts to ensure that the proposed hardware solutions are technologically, environmentally, culturally, and financially sustainable. To date, ASME has provided support to over 250 startups from more than 35 countries to solve critical quality-of-life challenges for vulnerable populations worldwide. ISHOW alumni have developed affordable devices to address key issues related to clean combustion, crop threshing, fetal health, food waste prevention, health diagnostics, safe drinking water, and many more that advance the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
“Through the vision and creativity of these talented entrepreneurs and the guidance of expert mentors, ASME ISHOW is transforming groundbreaking ideas into market-ready products that improve lives. This program is a key component of ASME’s support for the future of energy and aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals,” Tom Costabile, ASME Executive Director and CEO, says.
ASME ISHOW judges and facilitators include experts in research, sustainability, mechanical engineering and product design, manufacturing, startup financing, supply chain, and business strategy, representing industry, nonprofit organizations, and academia. These subject matter experts provide technical and strategic guidance based on ISHOW’s five key pillars: customer/user knowledge, hardware validation, manufacturing optimization, implementation strategy, and impact. For more information, visit https://www.asmeishow.org.
Follow the journeys of ISHOW alumni including GenH, PlenOptika, Himalayan Rocket Stove, SAYeTECH and others here.
This post is adapted from a press release by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers ISHOW.
