Social Entrepreneurs

Recognising Social Entrepreneurship

2024

Social Entrepreneur of The Year Award – India 2024

2023

Social Entrepreneur of The Year Award – India 2023

 

2022

Social Entrepreneur of The Year Award – India 2022

Finalist - Dr Aparna Hegde, ARMMAN

ARMMAN is a non-profit organisation that leverages technology to create cost-effective, scalable, non-linear, systemic solutions with proven impact to improve maternal and child health in the first five years. ARMMAN’s programs provide pregnant women/mothers with critical preventive information to improve health seeking behaviour. It also supports health workers and systems with technology-enabled comprehensive training.

It adopts a ‘tech plus touch’ approach and leverages the health worker network of the Government and its partner NGOs along with the deep mobile penetration. It is currently implementing its ‘Kilkari’ (largest mobile-based maternal messaging program across the world) & ‘Mobile Academy’ program (largest health-worker training program globally), in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. ARMMAN has also partnered with Google AI for Social Good for predictive analytics/AI and with Turn.IO to pilot WhatsApp as a health platform to improve maternal and child health.

It has reached over 25 million women and children and 197,000 frontline health workers in 19 states of India with aims to reach 123 million women and children and 1 million health workers by 2030.
Read more...

Finalist - Seema Prem, FIA GLOBAL

FIA is an impact ‘fintech’ organisation that redefines the way financial services are distributed to low income individuals in South Asia, particularly women. FIA’s AI powered Fintech platform - FINVESTA aggregates, designs and delivers sachet financial products to rural customers through its wide network of banking agents. With its distribution expertise it makes financial services more accessible, intuitive and indispensable to the underserved communities. Started to tap the ‘un-banked’ market in India.

FIA today offers an umbrella of services at its inclusion centres which comprises of accounts, cash in/cash out, fund transfers global remittances, investment and protection products, credit and distribution of Government subsidies among others. These services are specially designed for women and women-owned businesses and other financially-excluded populations who live or work in un(der) served geographies. FIA’s local banking agents receive start-up and ongoing training and professional development services from FIA.

FIA has one of the largest rural digital banking infrastructures serving 40 million customers through 30,000 inclusion centers. It aims to provide banking services to over 100 crore people across India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Read more...

Finalist - Pranshu Singhal, KARO SAMBHAV

Karo Sambhav is a social enterprise, with an aim to make recycling a way of life for people. It covers e-waste, plastic packaging waste, battery waste and glass and continues its exploration towards less scrutinised sectors like mattresses, textiles and tyres. Karo Sambhav collaborates with leading enterprises, strategic alliances and governments on ‘Circular Economy’ and ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ (EPR) frameworks. Karo Sambhav utilises its core strengths of deep technical expertise, grassroots action, technology and systems thinking approach to create impact at scale.

A critical aspect has been the successful integration of the informal sector with the EPR programmes as collection partners. This has resulted in the growth of over 200 formal businesses and a channelisation of USD 8.2 million in collective revenue, while creating new pathways of formal job growth. Karo Sambhav has collected and enabled recycling of over 23,000 MT of e-waste and plastics waste in the past four years and has prevented 21,100 MT of CO2 emissions. It has directly engaged 3 million people in 60 cities in 29 states of India through its on-ground awareness programmes with over 3,000 schools and 500 organisations.
Read more...

Finalist - Dr. Shuchin Bajaj, UJALA CYGNUS

Ujala Cygnus Group of Hospitals was established with an aim to address the tertiary healthcare needs of the poorest of the poor individuals. It aims to provide global standards of healthcare to the masses at affordable prices. It aims to do so by bringing the revolution of super-specialty tertiary health care facilities to tier-2 & tier- 3 cities of India. In addition, it also ensures free medicines and offers discounts on pharmacy, consultancies and surgeries to the economically weaker sections of the society. Ujala Cygnus also mobilises the community on various facets of health awareness hence contributing to healthcare equity. It conducts CMEs (Continuous Medical Education) programmes (over 4000 conducted) through its expert doctors to other medical practitioners (over 50,000 reached) in the community to create sustainable healthcare solutions.

It is currently present in 14 districts and four states of India. Each day Ujala hospitals perform over 70 surgeries, provide consultation to over 650 patients and admit over 200 patients on an average. It plans to expand its presence to five new states in near future.
Read more...

2021

Social Entrepreneur of The Year Award – India 2021

Finalist - Dr Aparna Hegde, ARMMAN

ARMMAN is a non-profit organisation that leverages technology to create cost-effective, scalable, non-linear, systemic solutions with proven impact to improve maternal and child health in the first five years. ARMMAN’s programs provide pregnant women/mothers with critical preventive information to improve health seeking behaviour. It also supports health workers and systems with technology-enabled comprehensive training.

It adopts a ‘tech plus touch’ approach and leverages the health worker network of the Government and its partner NGOs along with the deep mobile penetration. It is currently implementing its ‘Kilkari’ (largest mobile-based maternal messaging program across the world) & ‘Mobile Academy’ program (largest health-worker training program globally), in partnership with the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Government of India. ARMMAN has also partnered with Google AI for Social Good for predictive analytics/AI and with Turn.IO to pilot WhatsApp as a health platform to improve maternal and child health.

It has reached over 25 million women and children and 197,000 frontline health workers in 19 states of India with aims to reach 123 million women and children and 1 million health workers by 2030.
Read more...

Finalist - Seema Prem, FIA GLOBAL

FIA is an impact ‘fintech’ organisation that redefines the way financial services are distributed to low income individuals in South Asia, particularly women. FIA’s AI powered Fintech platform - FINVESTA aggregates, designs and delivers sachet financial products to rural customers through its wide network of banking agents. With its distribution expertise it makes financial services more accessible, intuitive and indispensable to the underserved communities. Started to tap the ‘un-banked’ market in India.

FIA today offers an umbrella of services at its inclusion centres which comprises of accounts, cash in/cash out, fund transfers global remittances, investment and protection products, credit and distribution of Government subsidies among others. These services are specially designed for women and women-owned businesses and other financially-excluded populations who live or work in un(der) served geographies. FIA’s local banking agents receive start-up and ongoing training and professional development services from FIA.

FIA has one of the largest rural digital banking infrastructures serving 40 million customers through 30,000 inclusion centers. It aims to provide banking services to over 100 crore people across India, Nepal and Bangladesh.
Read more...

Finalist - Pranshu Singhal, KARO SAMBHAV

Karo Sambhav is a social enterprise, with an aim to make recycling a way of life for people. It covers e-waste, plastic packaging waste, battery waste and glass and continues its exploration towards less scrutinised sectors like mattresses, textiles and tyres. Karo Sambhav collaborates with leading enterprises, strategic alliances and governments on ‘Circular Economy’ and ‘Extended Producer Responsibility’ (EPR) frameworks. Karo Sambhav utilises its core strengths of deep technical expertise, grassroots action, technology and systems thinking approach to create impact at scale.

A critical aspect has been the successful integration of the informal sector with the EPR programmes as collection partners. This has resulted in the growth of over 200 formal businesses and a channelisation of USD 8.2 million in collective revenue, while creating new pathways of formal job growth. Karo Sambhav has collected and enabled recycling of over 23,000 MT of e-waste and plastics waste in the past four years and has prevented 21,100 MT of CO2 emissions. It has directly engaged 3 million people in 60 cities in 29 states of India through its on-ground awareness programmes with over 3,000 schools and 500 organisations.
Read more...

Finalist - Dr. Shuchin Bajaj, UJALA CYGNUS

Ujala Cygnus Group of Hospitals was established with an aim to address the tertiary healthcare needs of the poorest of the poor individuals. It aims to provide global standards of healthcare to the masses at affordable prices. It aims to do so by bringing the revolution of super-specialty tertiary health care facilities to tier-2 & tier- 3 cities of India. In addition, it also ensures free medicines and offers discounts on pharmacy, consultancies and surgeries to the economically weaker sections of the society. Ujala Cygnus also mobilises the community on various facets of health awareness hence contributing to healthcare equity. It conducts CMEs (Continuous Medical Education) programmes (over 4000 conducted) through its expert doctors to other medical practitioners (over 50,000 reached) in the community to create sustainable healthcare solutions.

It is currently present in 14 districts and four states of India. Each day Ujala hospitals perform over 70 surgeries, provide consultation to over 650 patients and admit over 200 patients on an average. It plans to expand its presence to five new states in near future.
Read more...

2020

Social Entrepreneur of The Year Award – India 2020

We are pleased to announce the launch of Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY)- India 2020 Award, a joint endeavor by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation.

Finalist - Sujay Santra, iKure, Kolkata

With the inspirational dream of achieving zero mortality due to lack of primary healthcare in India, iKure has been working towards bringing quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare to the doorstep of communities for over a decade. iKure delivers primary healthcare, wellness & prevention services through innovative technology, trained frontline community health workers, a network of Hub & Spoke clinics with a focus on the continuum of care across rural, semi-urban as well urban settings.

Its doorstep community health workers are equipped with point-of-care (POC) devices, which enables them to provide monitoring and diagnostic support. In the geographical areas where it operates iKure offers wide-ranging health services packages, door-to-door consultation assisted telemedicine with appropriate referral and escalation, drugs and medical supplies, pathological tests, eye & dental tests, and spreads awareness among others. Through its proprietary software, Wireless Health Incident Monitoring System (WHIMS) iKure analyses patient information for health screening, early detection, and monitoring of diseases. It brings in data science and research capabilities to analyze collected data and find the root causes of ailments and addresses them holistically through a combination of health & hygiene, water & sanitation, nutrition, etc.

With its unique combination of technology intervention, skill development, and outreach initiatives iKure has served a population of over 10.2 million people in 5,200 villages across 7 states of India. With the belief in co-creation, it has created a unique ecosystem by partnering with local NGOs for onground mobilization, device partners for the latest technology, supply chain partners for consumables, hospitals for secondary & tertiary care and research organisations for clinical & technical knowhow of various ailments.
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Finalist - Sandeep Patel, NEPRA, Ahmedabad

NEPRA endeavours to solve India’s dry waste management problem through its inclusive, transparent and tech-driven socio-business model. NEPRA’s waste managementservices spread pan-India include Environmental compliance Advisory, collection, waste processing & recycling by creating state of the art Material Recovery Facilities. NEPRA has been demolishing the challenges faced by the Indian waste management sector one by one through its simple strategy of ‘Innovate and Improvise’, NEPRA works with the motto of ‘Zero waste to landfill’.

NEPRA engages in city-level waste management services, ranging from awareness and collection of dry waste from several big & small waste generators to sorting (according to the type of waste), processing it at its mechanized Material Recovery Facilities (MRF) and finally recycling it. The waste processed into recyclable form is traded to recyclers to churn new products and non-recyclables are channeled for energy recovery. NEPRA’s model makes the informal sector workers (waste-pickers, sweepers, and other Bottom of the Economic Pyramid members) as one of its main stakeholders. It helps in organising the unorganised waste management sector and changes the way waste is collected and dumped through the use of technology like GPS, Facial Recognition making it more efficient and transparent. Through Facial recognition, NEPRA has helped create first of its kind database of the waste pickers in the cities where it operates. It has helped curb exploitation by ensuring fair and equal payment to waste pickers, who in turn are also trained and employed at NEPRA’s MRF facilities giving them economic security.

NEPRA has so far engaged with over 2000+ waste pickers. For multi-layered packaging, NERPA has it’s tie-ups with urban local bodies and upliftment of small waste management NGOs or start-ups in 18 states in India. In last one year, NEPRA has worked with 40 local Government authorities. In the last two years, NEPRA has successfully recycled 67108.93MT of dry waste.
Read more...

2019

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award - India 2019

Jubilant Bhartia Foundation of Jubilant Bhartia Group announced Shanti Raghavan & Dipesh Sutariya of EnAble India as the winner of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year India 2019.

Finalist - Gaurav Mehta, Dharma Life

A personal unfortunate experience left Gaurav in a serious state of vulnerability influencing his decision to start Dharma Life. In 2007 Gaurav was hospitalised with a severe case of liver abscess. The situation was extremely dire and after various rounds of treatment, it took him more than six months to recover completely. The experience left him with time for serious reflection and an opportunity to re-examine his life goals. He decided that if he were to fully recover, he would devote his life to making a difference around social issues.Read more...

Finalist - Mukteshwari Bosco, Healing Fields Foundation

Mukteshwari was conducting a Health Needs Assessment survey in a slum in Hyderabad to understand the health needs of poor marginalised women. When she asked the women what they did during a health emergency, they unanimously answered ‘we mortgage our productive assets’. Mukteshwari assumed the productive assets to be material things like sewing machine, embroidery frame or vegetable push-carts owned by them. To her surprise, one woman answered, “No madam, I pulled my six year old son out of school and pawned to a tea shop for a loan of Rs.6,000 to pay for my husband’s typhoid treatment”. This incident left Mukteshwari shaken and disturbed as she herself was a mother. This propelled her to start Healing Fields Foundation. It was only the beginning of a journey. Mukteshwari went on to develop an innovative micro health insurance program.Read more...

Finalist - Nand Kishore Chaudhary, Jaipur Rugs

The idea of Jaipur Rugs was born in 1978 in the small town of Churu in Rajasthan, when Nand Kishore Chaudhary borrowed Rs. 5,000 from his father to buy a bicycle and two looms. After graduating in commerce, Nand Kishore began his career in his family’s shoe shop. However, he wanted to do something on his own, something which was close to him. He knew that, high quality rug weaving was in demand that time. Nand Kishore invited nine weavers to work in his backyard to produce two traditional rugs. Soon enough, he fell in love with the weaving business and quickly learned the technical aspects of weaving and expanded his business. Nand Kishore had understood that to bring a change in the supply chain he had to strengthen the weakest link, the weaver community, which was being exploited by the contractors.Read more...

Finalist - Bijal Brahmbhatt, Mahila Housing SEWA Trust

Born in a Gujarati family, Bijal’s father was a professor with the Public Systems Group in the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad. He worked closely with several voluntary organisations like the SEWA, Unnati, Disha and others. As a young child, Bijal used to often accompany him to activities and initiatives of these grassroot organisations. Their home was frequented regularly with people from different communities and Bijal was exposed to social issues of marginalised communities, including muslims, dalits and adivasis as a child. Bijal got the right atmosphere and freedom in her home to cultivate ideas on justice, secularism, women empowerment among others.Read more...

Finalist - Sanjeev Kumar, The Goat Trust

Sanjeev’s father, a school teacher in a remote village in Bihar, ran a nocost hostel for poor students. Students from diverse backgrounds and their life stories deeply affected Sanjeev as a child. Incidentally, one of the students in the hostel leased goats as a livelihood. Sanjeev’s first economics of the goat business came through his experiences. Sanjeev went on to complete his Masters degree from the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI). Later as part of his work, Sanjeev initiated a group loan for poor women in Alwar, Rajasthan to pursue dairy farming. The scheme failed due to a severe drought in the area.Read more...

Finalist - Aakash Sethi, Quality Education and Skills Training Alliance(Quest Alliance)

Several life-changing experiences put together shaped Aakash’s thoughts around youth development and his mission. Growing up Aakash went through a tough schooling experience, uninterested in studies, until he was detained in ninth grade due to poor performance. Despite the option of moving to another school to a higher grade, Aakash decided to stay back in the same school in the same grade. That became his first lesson in building resilience by dealing with failure. One of his biggest influences has been while he was facilitating meaningful experiences for his peers as a youth facilitator with AIESEC (world’s largest youth organisation).Read more...

2018

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2018

The SEOY India Award 2018 winner Prema Gopalan, is revitalizing rural economies by putting women in charge.

Finalist - Smita Ram and Rama Krishna NK, Rang De

In 2004, in the village of Kidlington in England, newly married couple Ram and Smita pondered on the dissimilarities between an Indian village and a village in a developed nation. They wondered as to how much time will it take an Indian village to reach there?

Having experienced life in a developed nation and seen the insufficiency back home, they committed themselves to return to India within the next two years. They deliberated and realised that access to finance had the biggest role in lifting people out of poverty in India.
Read more...

2017

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2017

Urvashi Sahni of Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF): Social Entrepreneur of the Year India 2017 Award Winner.

Finalist - Safeena Husain, Educate Girls

As a young girl, Safeena’s father allowed her to live in an ashram (monastery) in Rishikesh, read scriptures and follow her own path. She graduated from London School of Economics and moved to the US to work in the Silicon valley. Safeena regularly volunteered with grassroot organisations and found herself strongly drawn to the social sector. She quit her job and spent 10 years working with rural and urban underserved communities in South America, Africa and Asia. When Safeena returned to India in 2004 she was profoundly aware that everything she had achieved so far, was only because of her education. With her heart in education, specially girl education, she founded Educate Girls in 2007. Another pivotal moment, which further re-established her belief about girl education was when she was setting up a clinic in Nainital, where her father had accompanied her.Read more...

Finalist - Madhu Pandit Dasa, The Akshaya Patra Foundation

Deeply moved by the sight of children fighting with stray dogs over scraps of food, Srila Prabhupada, the founder-acharya of ISKCON, asked his followers to ensure that no one within a 10-mile radius of the centre would go hungry. Srila Prabhupada’s desire for a hunger-free world served as an inspiration for Madhu Pandit Dasa and he decided to dedicate himself to the cause.Read more...

2016

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2016

Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced Neichute Doulo, Entrepreneurs Associates (EA) as the winner of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year - India 2016.

Finalist - Shanti Raghavan & Dipesh Sutariya, EnAble India

Shanti’s brother Hari was diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa, a degenerative disease that eventually led to his blindness. That time Shanti and her husband Dipesh, both trained engineers, were in the US enjoying their flourishing careers. After the unfortunate incident with Hari, they invited him to US and became deeply involved in helping him become independent and build a future for himself. As part of his rehabilitation, both Shanti and Dipesh accompanied him in activities like swimming, kayaking, snorkelling, tandem cycling etc. They also taught him computer skills that helped him win a gold medal in the MBA program of a reputed Indian institute. Read more...

Finalist - Vikas Shah, Water Health India

Since childhood, Vikas was keen on following the foot-steps of his mother, who ran a chain of schools as an entrepreneur in Jammu. Vikas initially worked in the corporate world, most of which was spent in the Tata Group. In 2008, he was approached by a leading head-hunting firm to work for WaterHealth International, a California based social sector enterprise providing clean and safe water to the underserved communities globally. Vikas liked the idea of working as an intrapreneur and that too for a social cause. He joined WaterHealth and catapulted it from nearly 100 to 400 centres in India. An incident in Ghana in 2011 inspired him to work with the double vigour of providing safe water to the underserved. Read more...

Finalist - Mrinalini Kher, Yuva Parivartan

Collective moments and experiences put together, pushed Mrinalini and her husband Kishore to start ‘Yuva Parivartan (YP)’ in 1998. Working with school children, it was heart wrenching for Mrinalini to see them disappearing from school rolls, wandering around due to lack of supervision and mentoring. It was stark in comparison to the love and care she received in her own growing-up years. Nurturing youth for a better life of dignity became her only aim. Mrinalini, a teacher by training, had joined Kherwadi Social Welfare Association (KSWA) in 1988 and started working with the local Balwadis. Read more...

Finalist - Hilmi Quraishi & Subhi Quraishi, ZMQ

Twin brothers, Hilmi Quraishi and Subhi Quraishi, co-founded ZMQ , a global ‘Technology for Development’ social enterprise in 1998. With their schooling in New Delhi; they completed their MS degrees in Computer Science from Russia and began their doctoral studies. But due to unfortunate demise of their father Prof. Zaheer Masood Quraishi, both Hilmi and Subhi had to return to India only to embark upon a new journey. With staunch Gandhian values instilled by their father, they decided to continue their father’s vision of a just society and conceived the idea of an organisation which would serve the under-privileged and marginalised using technology, known today as ZMQ after their father, as a tribute to him. Read more...

2015

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2015

Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced Poonam Bir Kasturi of Daily Dump, as the winner of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year- India 2015 Award.

Finalist - Suparna Gupta, The Aangan Trust

Having worked with India’s top advertising agencies, it was Superna’s childhood volunteering experience in children shelters that eventually forged her calling. In 2002, Suparna founded Aangan, with the commitment to protect the most excluded, isolated, vulnerable groups of children. She recalls how an eight year old rescued child labourer, placed in a state-run shelter home, had said to her, “Why do they run these shelter homes like prisons? If I ran one, I would run it like an ashram instead.” This made Suparna wonder that such a basic need of child – to feel cared for, safe and secure was not a priority. She knew that if the policy maker heard this directly from the child, it would be impactful. Read more...

Finalist - Ashraf Patel, Pravah and Commutiny Youth Collective

On December 6th, 1992, just married Ashraf and Arjun, both employed in the corporate sector, caught themselves trapped amidst the sociopolitical chaos followed by the demolition of Babri Masjid. They were returning from their holiday in Andaman Islands when all flights to Delhi stood cancelled indefinitely due to violence and riots across the country. Stranded, they were also deeply disturbed and noted how little what was happening in the country, seemed to matter to most people around. Back in Delhi, they met with their friend Meenu (an IIM-B alumnus) and they wondered together had the education system failed the society completely? Read more...

Finalist - Prema Gopalan, Swayam Shikshan Prayog Group Of Ventures

After her post-graduation in social work, Prema was restless in a research role and wanted to be part of directly making a difference in the lives of people, especially women in poor communities. The post earthquake disaster in Maharashtra (Latur), offered a once in a lifetime opportunity for her to step into an unknown territory and work on scale to transform a beneficiary oriented re-construction program into a community driven effort! Prema helped empower ordinary women in 500 earthquake affected villages to lead from the front as community facilitators.

After the project was completed in 1998, these women told Prema, “We are not going back home, you may have helped us in building our houses, but we don’t want to sit in those houses anymore, let us begin a new chapter to involve more women to lead their communities.

These women were Prema’s inspiration to start Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) and later the Group of ventures. Prema has advised international institutions such as the Huairou Commission, World Bank and the UNDP on implementing programs through women leadership and strategies and has won several national and international awards.
Read more...

2014

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2014

Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced Dr. H Sudarshan, Karuna Trust, as the winner of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year awards India-2014.

Finalist - Yogendra Bhushan, Bodh Shiksha Samiti

Inspired by the democratic movement of the 1970s and call to the youth to understand urban poverty, Yogendra began working in Jaipur’s largest slum in the 1980s. He was working with collectives and movements of marginalised people along with his friends. They began a series of informal conversations with the residents of the slum, where the community identified education for its children as their most treasured aspiration. From there began introspection on what could be the design and processes of a truly value-adding school for the community? How could learning, assessments and curriculum truly respond to the life context of its students and create dignity? Read more...

Finalist - Matthew Spacie, Magic Bus

When Matthew was 18, he took a gap year in high school to travel to India to work at Mother Teresa’s hospital for leprosy patients. Several years later he got posted in Mumbai as the COO of Cox & Kings. He was 29 when he took up that role and spent the first few years focusing on the job. Matthew was also a passionate rugby player and played at the Bombay Gymkhana each week. Many of the young men living on the adjacent street or in communities nearby would regularly watch the game. One day he invited them over for a game of rugby. Read more...

2013

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2013

Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced Chetna Vijay Sinha, Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation, as the winner of the 2013.

Finalist - Mallika Dutt, Breakthrough

In 1985 Mallika had to spent a couple of nights in a hospital in Mumbai to take care of a friend who had met with an accident. Those few nights in the women’s ward of a private hospital in Mumbai became life changing for her. The ward had more than 100 women admitted who were burned for dowry. Some of them were lying on the mattresses on the floor because there were not enough beds in the hospital. All through-out the night, Mallika heard them scream in pain. Dogs and rats kept attacking the women patients lying on the floor. Mallika moved around the ward for two nights, shooing away dogs and rats and trying to find nurses to give medicines to women in pain. Read more...

Finalist - Shelly Batra, Operation ASHA

In 1977, Shelly Batra joined King George’s Medical College, Lucknow as a medical student. She was struck by the misery she witnessed there. Patients would come from far and wide, having sold their possessions and worldly goods to get to the hospital. One day Shelly met a patient who was a bonded labour and was suffering with multiple illnesses. He had managed to escape from his slavery. His grandfather had taken a petty loan to pay for a health issue. The debts kept mounting up as the interest was extortionate and ultimately the whole family landed into bondage. Both his parents died of overwork and starvation Read more...

Finalist - Mrinalini Kher, Yuva Parivartan

Collective moments and experiences put together, pushed Mrinalini and her husband Kishore to start ‘Yuva Parivartan (YP)’ in 1998. Working with school children, it was heart wrenching for Mrinalini to see them disappearing from school rolls, wandering around due to lack of supervision and mentoring. It was stark in comparison to the love and care she received in her own growing-up years. Nurturing youth for a better life of dignity became her only aim. Mrinalini, a teacher by training, had joined Kherwadi Social Welfare Association (KSWA) in 1988 and started working with the local Balwadis. Read more...

2012

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2012

Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced Anshu Gupta of Goonj as the Social Entrepreneur of the Year India 2012.

Finalist - Sameer Sawarkar and Rajeev Kumar, Neurosynaptic Communications Private Limited

On seeing the pioneering work of the Tenet group at IIT Madras, where technology was being applied to solve rural problems to impact the local GDP of the village, Sameer and Rajeev realised the huge potential of the combination of technology and rural problems. Sameer spent the early part of his life in Amravati, Maharashtra where while pursuing engineering studies, crop failure leading to tragic farmer suicides were being commonly reported in the Vidarbha region. Hailing from a family of rural reform activists, Sameer envisioned a life where his work could create a difference. Read more...

Finalist - Vanita Viswanath, Udyogini

Co-designing an independent program for the Japan Overseas Development Aid changed Vanita Viswanath from an employee at the World Bank to a social reformer. The mandate was to design a program exclusively for Asia, which would train rural women and operate through direct partnerships with local NGOs. This led to the launch of the Women’s Enterprise Management Training Outreach Program for Asia (WEMTOP) which Vanita co designed. Vanita searched for implementation partners in India, Bangladesh and Philippines to execute the programme. With micro entrepreneurship being in a nascent stage that time, the right leadership and experience required to run the WEMTOP program was not found. This led to the birth of Udyogini to manage the WEMTOP program in India. Read more...

2011

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India – 2011

Neelam Chhiber was designated with the title of the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 for India by Prithvi Raj Chavan, Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

Finalist - Manoj Sinha, Husk Power Systems

A chance encounter with a gasifier salesman in Bihar proved to be the turning point for co-founders of Husk Power Systems - Gyanesh Pandey, Ratnesh Yadav and Manoj Sinha. They found out that several rice millers in Bihar were powering their mills with rice husk, but with a 35-50% mix of diesel. With the support of Dr. S. K. Singh, a scientist with India’s Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Gyanesh developed a prototype biomass gasification engine with husk as the single fuel and within six months they brought electricity to a remote village in Bihar for the very first time. The technological breakthrough was then converted into a viable business model. Co-founder Manoj who is currently leading Husk Power Systems, grew up in Bihar in 1980s and had a first hand experience of serious power outages in his home town. While he was lucky to have graduated from IIT Varanasi and then went on to pursue his dream in the US, it was always his desire of finding ways to solve this problem of lack of electricity in his home state. Read more...

Finalist - Matthew Spacie, Magic Bus

When Matthew was 18, he took a gap year in high school to travel to India to work at Mother Teresa’s hospital for leprosy patients. Several years later he got posted in Mumbai as the COO of Cox & Kings. He was 29 when he took up that role and spent the first few years focusing on the job. Matthew was also a passionate rugby player and played at the Bombay Gymkhana each week. Many of the young men living on the adjacent street or in communities nearby would regularly watch the game. One day he invited them over for a game of rugby. Read more...

Finalist - Sudesh Menon, Waterlife India Private Limited

Sudesh Menon, an engineer from IIT Kharagpur was well-established in his high paying job when he was approached by Dr Anji Reddy, the late founder chairman of Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories who came to meet him personally in Singapore. Dr. Reddy shared with him that while people in countries like Singapore could drink water from their taps, in India the rural poor people do not have access to safe water, even after seven decades of independence! This fact moved Sudesh immensely. So when Dr. Reddy asked him if he could shift back to India to try to make a difference and change this situation, Sudesh believed that this was worth a try. Read more...

2010

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award, India - 2010

Rajiv Khandelwal and Krishnavtar Sharma, co-founders of Aajeevika Bureau, were the winners of the India Social Entrepreneur of the Year award for the year 2010.

Finalist -Anant Kumar, LifeSpring Hospitals Private Limited

A report by World Development in the year 2004 said that ‘the services have failed the poor’. It was not only hindering poverty alleviation but was also contributing to inter-generational continuity of poverty. The report showed the need for affordable, quality services available at scale. This need, laid the foundation of LifeSpring Hospitals. During a fieldwork related to promotion of family planning involving several public hospitals it was revealed that the poor women did not get adequate antenatal care due to overburdened public health system. Moreover, the distances involved in reaching the government maternity hospitals and non-availability of services in the non-working hours further discouraged the pregnant women from availing antenatal care. Read more...

Finalist - Santosh Kumar Choubey, AISECT

Santosh, a telecommunications engineer, rejected entry into the Indian Civil Services to dedicate his life in addressing the urban and rural divide in terms of ICT based education and services. Santosh felt that the English language was also coming in way of technical education in rural India. Santosh was passionate about popularising science & technology and was one of the founding members of the Delhi Forum for Science, a Science and Technology policy planning NGO. He also went on to set up the Madhya Pradesh Forum for Science. In the 1980s, when the wave of computer technology was sweeping India, there were hopes that it would bring about transformation of the Indian society in terms of access to better education and employment. However, Government and private organisations were focusing all their efforts on the development of urban societies, which already had a robust infrastructure. Read more...

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