L-RAMP Award of Excellence 2006
The 2nd L-RAMP Innovation Awards contest was launched on 14th June, 2006 with advertisements in major newspapers in English and Tamil. The award categories included Grassroots Innovator Award, Young Innovator Award, Woman Innovator Award, Enterprise Award, Media / Journalist Award, Investor Award and Lifetime Achievement Award. A Total of 604 applications were received. The L-RAMP team members undertook the preliminary screening of applications. The subsequent screening of applications was undertaken by the Steering Committee Members, and about 32 applicants were invited to make short presentations about their innovative ideas or enterprises before an eminent panel of judges on 23rd September, 2006. Final awardees were selected by the Jury and the award presentation ceremony was held on 27th November, 2006.

Pre-Incubation Training Programme
The first two-day “Pre Incubation Training Programme” for Innovators was organized on 28th & 29th August, 2006. The main objective of this programme was to provide valuable feedback and information from experts to the innovators who were not selected for the incubation programme but have the potential to be selected in the future. Twenty (20) innovators participated and benefited out of this training programme.

My Idea Programme
The first “My Idea Programme” was organised for the students of Coimbatore Institute of Management and Technology, Coimbatore on Sep 15th, 2006

Thematic Workshop
A one-day “Thematic Workshop on Energy Innovations” was organized for the Innovators on September 16th, 2006. Twelve (12) Innovators participated and benefited out of this thematic workshop.

L-RAMP Newsletter
The first L-RAMP Newsletter was launched on 1st March 2006.

A Business Plan Competition was conducted by L-RAMP in association with the TANSTIA-FNF (Tamil Nadu Small and Tiny Industries Association-Friedrich Neumann Foundation). Awards were given to 3 selected finalists at an Awards Ceremony held on 25th February, 2006.

Survey of Innovators
A survey probing various common characteristics of innovators was conducted by the L-RAMP team. Thirty-seven innovators, randomly selected from the Innovation Awards database, were interviewed for this study.

Innovator Familiarisation
Workshops were held at PSG-Tech, Gandhigram, and IIT-M in Dec. 2005 and Jan. 2006. Participants for these workshops were selected from the Innovator Awards database

MoUs for Innovation Incubation
The MoU for Innovation Incubation has been signed with first three innovators selected by L-RAMP Advisory Board on 31st Oct. 2005 for project funding.

MoUs with Four Nodal Institutions have been signed. These Institutions are PSG-Tech (Coimbatore), Tamil Nadu Agricultural University (Coimbatore), Gandhigram Rural Institute (Dindigul) and Vellore Institute of Technology (Vellore).