In the last two years, the trio of young innovators have won several national and international laurels but remained bereft of a noteworthy accolade from their own hometown.Winning TOI’s ‘Nagpur Heroes’ award filled this void for Pratik Malhotra, Pratik Harde and Ritu Malhotra, the co-founders of ‘Design it Ezy’ which has designed around 21 patented innovations till date.Basking in the award’s glory, the entrepreneurs now feel motivated to design futuristic yet social innovations.Excerpts from an interview...What does this award mean to you?PH: When we would be facilitated at national levels, we always had this feeling that people in our hometown don’t know much about our work. We have received around seven awards till now, but Nagpur Heroes is very close to our heart. Now, top businessmen of the region know about our innovations. It gave us the recognition we wanted here.Has this award opened ways for any new opportunities?RM: This award has set a benchmark for our company. Soon after it, Forbes magazine has awarded us under the social entrepreneurship category. Apart from this, we recently received an invitation for popular television show. Nagpur Heroes award proved to be the perfect endorsement.How will you take your innovations forward?PM: At present, we have seven showrooms across India. In the coming months, we plan to take our venture international and will be opening showrooms in Dubai, Singapore and Australia. We also plan to focus on promoting Ezyspit, which is a first-of-its-king mobile spittoon. We want to promote it at public places like railways stations, bus stops and hospitals. Even in other countries, contagious diseases like Swine Flu and TB continues to be a major health problem and thus there is a market demand for our product. Overall, we want to take our company’s turnover to Rs200 crore in the next three years.The government has been encouraging Indian youth to take up entrepreneurship? What is your message for both?PH: Today, the biggest challenge for young innovators in our country is getting patents. Firstly, it is a very time-consuming process. On top of this, the cost of getting a patent is unaffordable for a young unestablished entrepreneur. This is the main reason why despite having the best of minds, skills and a large number of youth population, India has so less number of patents compared to other countries.PM: Our message for budding entrepreneurs is that they should think differently and not try to follow anyone. What we need is originality. Also, every start-up must be very particular about having all the legal documents and necessary permits in place.

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