18-year old Aquib Javeed, a class 12th student, shows the way for others to follow
Unsung Innovators: 18-year-old modifies ‘Gulkand’ to bag ‘SRISTI Samman’
Doru Shahabad: Commonsense being uncommon may be a cliché, but armed with simple common sense to dare explore extraordinary things in an extraordinary manner is what gives birth to innovations, new discoveries and inventions. This is exactly what 18-year-old Aquib Javeed, a class 12th student of Doru Shahabad did when he created a product which bagged him ‘SRISTI Samman’ – an award given by National Innovation Foundation (NIF) Ahmedabad and SRISTI to the innovators at grassroots level.
Aquib has to his credit creating a ‘Gulkand’ (a fermented mixture of rose petals and sugar syrup) of sorts which can be used as ‘Chevanprash’, as a drug, and as well as a dietary supplement. For creating this unique ‘Gulkand’, Aquib mixed some locally available herbs with rose petals, which impressed the experts at the NIF and Gujarat University so much so that he was selected for the ‘SRISTI Samman’.
This product can be used as medicine as well as hygienic diet, this is very easy to prepare and the demand for this product will be very high once it comes in the market, says Prof. A K Gupta, who holds the Kasturbhai Lalbhai Chair in Entrepreneurship at IIM Ahmedabad and is Co-ordinator, SRISTI, and Executive Vice-chair at NIF.
“That is why after testing this product we have given Aquib ‘SRISTI Samman’,” says Prof. Gupta, who feels in Kashmir there is no dearth of innovators. “But what is the need of the hour is projection and encouragement for this local stuff,” he adds.
When ‘Kashmir Images’ contacted Aquib Javeed, he said, “This is a simple innovation which fetched me ‘SRISTI Samman’ but actually I am working on some big projects – I am trying create some medicines which would cure some deadly diseases in very cheap way and without side affects.”
(Kashmir Images)