TI has won the coveted 2011 NASSCOM Innovation Award in the "Social Innovation: Market Facing" category for its partnership with India's The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) to develop a reference design for solar LED lanterns and charging stations.
TERI has been promoting the use of solar LED lanterns under its "Lighting a Billion Lives" initiative that aims to improve the lives of people living in rural villages across the globe and to help the environment.

• Over 1.6 Billion people across the world live in darkness, with approximately 25% of these living in India. The LaBL (Lighting a Billion Lives) program of TERI adopts a fee-for service model where solar charging stations are set-up in villages under the charge of rural entrepreneurs and solar lanterns are provided on rental basis to households and enterprises.
• This requires a solution (Solar Lantern and charging station) which is low cost, energy efficient, environment friendly, reliable, serviceable and scalable.
• Solar LED lantern has a big market potential even in areas with access to electricity. The solution hence needs to be architected so as to scale up to unique requirements of this market