Arunachalam Murugunantham
A school dropout living in poor conditions and doing meager jobs to sustain his family is today the recipient of the Padma Shri award. Pad-man, as he is popularly known as Murugunantham, was motivated to make his wife’s menstruation hygienic and thus devised a low-cost sanitary napkin machine which was a boon in disguise for rural women in India. He is a social entrepreneur, with Jayshree industries under his name, striving to make menstruation a hygienic period of every woman’s life. He doesn’t wish to commercialize his venture, instead provides machines to self-help groups run by women. Today he is a guest lecturer at various IIMs and is also a TED speaker.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arunachalam_Muruganantham