Arunachalam Muruganantham (born 1962[1]) is a social entrepreneur from Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu, India. He is the inventor of a low-cost sanitary pad-making machine and is credited for innovating grassroots mechanisms for generating awareness about traditional unhygienic practices around menstruation in rural India. His mini-machines, which can manufacture sanitary pads for less than a third of the cost of commercial pads, have been installed in 23 of the 29 states of India. He is currently planning to expand the production of these machines to 106 nations.[2]
In 2014, he was included in Time magazine's list of 100 Most Influential People in the World.[3] In 2016, he was awarded the Padma Shri by the Government of India.[4]
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