Shri Kapil Sibal, Minister of Human Resource, Development, Science and Technology, Government of India

Social entrepreneurship was necessary to take forward the goal of inclusive growth. Any society that does not take care of its poor will not be able to preserve its rich.

Rajiv Khandelwal and Krishnavtar Sharma, Aajeevika Bureau

A study on the changing context of rural livelihoods in Rajasthan became the turning point in the lives of Rajiv Khandelwal, a graduate of the Indian Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) and Krishnavtar Sharma, a lawyer by profession. The study revealed the increasing dependence of poor households on labour migration. It was this evidence and the reality of people’s lives that inspired the duo to start Aajeevika Bureau in 2005. It was a huge challenge because the issue was barely spoken about that time. There was an inertia in recognising the issue and there were no models, practices or policy thinking on the subject.

Both Rajiv and Krishnavtar started from scratch and developed the Aajeevika Bureau model making it holistic through learning and experimentation with the community. They worked together for 20 years in various organisations before establishing the Aajeevika Bureau. Today, Aajeevika Bureau’s model has been replicated by over 30 civil society organisations in six high-migration Indian states.

“The SEOY Award has Facilitated Aajeevika Bureau’s Journey in Gaining Greater Visibility in Corporate, Government, Social and Media Spheres. These Awards Strengthen the Ability of Organisations, Particularly Ones that have Risen from Non-Established Spaces but have High Potential to Engage with Governments.”

Innovation and Impact

Aajeevika Bureau develops financial products, ‘photo-identity’ services and partnerships with local governments and businesses to help rural seasonal migrants succeed in difficult economies. Their solutions are designed to support seasonal rural migrants both at the source (i.e. resource-poor rural economies) and the destination points (i.e. exclusionary urban markets) of their migration cycles. It has developed a series of services that interlock to create a tight security net for seasonal migrants. Their services include: making of photo-id cards, access to financial products like insurance and loans, accelerated skills training and job placement programs, trade based collectives and legal services.

Making Change Happen

• Over 45,000 seasonal migrant workers used their ID cards to vote, acquire ration cards, get gas connections and purchase mobile SIM cards
• 3,000 migrants accessed composite loans and have been linked to insurance schemes

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“The SEOY award has facilitated Aajeevika Bureau’s journey in gaining greater visibility in corporate, government, social and media spheres. These awards strengthen the ability of organisations, particularly ones that have risen from non-established spaces but have high potential, to engage with governments at local, state and national levels. It also helps to strengthen the chances that issues raised by such projects/organisations will be able to invoke attention, helping the solutions grow and become mainstreamed in policy and in the larger development sector.”

Way Ahead

“We hope to expand our presence in urban areas, where there is an urgent need to make these spaces inclusive for workers, migrant labourers in particular. The central government has collapsed all labour legislations in the country into four labour codes. While the stated purpose of streamlining labour legislation is a useful one, the draft codes encapsulate changes to basic labour protection mechanisms. This is a cause for great concern. There is a need to revisit these codes, open them up to serious and meaningful discussions with labour lawyers, workers collectives and organisations.”

Shri Prithviraj Chavan, Chief Minister, Government of Maharashtra

Government or corporate companies cannot reach out to every area, but a social entrepreneur can plug this void.

Neelam Chhiber, Industree Crafts Foundation / Industree Crafts Private Limited (Brand Mother Earth)

When Neelam, an industrial designer from the National Institute of Design started working with tribal artisans, she discovered that the effective link between producers and market was incomplete. It was then she realised how important it was to create a holistic ecosystem to equip them with the necessary skills and tools to set up self-owned enterprises close to their homes, especially for rural women.

This ensured that these communities could become part of the mainstream value chains and therefore have greater control over their economic security. While in design school Neelam engaged with rural communities and upon graduation chose to work with rural artisans, developing new product designs to enable them to sell in urban Indian markets. These experiences formed the bedrock of the work that she was to do later by founding - Industree.

“The Award Helped Us Tremendously, The Personal Coaching While Visiting Davos, Peerl Earning, Networking And Being The Member of the Global Agenda Council, All Helped Industree Emerge with the Creative Million Strategy.”

Innovation and Impact

Industree Foundation has built an ecosystem that holistically tackles the root causes of poverty by creating an ownership based, organised on and off farm SME ecosystem for women micro-entrepreneurs. The foundation works to ensure that communities can become part of mainstream value chains and have greater control over their economic security and resources. This has led to significant social gains such as social security, better health care, improved resilience to crisis and overall resilience. Having already impacted 60,000 producers, the aim is to strengthen the resources of millions of producers in the next 10 years, to achieve both economic and social impact. Industree works extensively in apparel and lifestyle value chains with great potential to herald in supply chains of the future, that have positive social and environmental footprints. This is done by enabling producers to equitably engage with global and local markets like IKEA and H&M through producer-owned enterprises, thus becoming wealth creators, resulting in resilience to life crises and helping society meet its sustainable development goals.

Making Change Happen

• Supported over 60,000 individual artisans by incubating their enterprises
• Sources from 400 crafts-based collectives and SHGs in 10 Indian states
• 73% of the benefitted artisans are women

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“The award helped us tremendously, the personal coaching while visiting Davos, peer learning, networking and being the member of the global agenda council, all helped Industree emerge with the Creative Million strategy. Also the award led to training in ‘Art and Science of Systems Change’ program of the Harvard Kennedy which led to growing the strategy of the organisation.”

Way Ahead

“Taking the cause of women empowerment forward to tackle it at a larger scale, Industree Foundation initiated Mission Creative Million. Industree’s mission is to build sustainable livelihoods in the farm and creative manufacturing sectors to ensure that underemployed producers can receive high and regular incomes, decent and equitable working conditions, and resilience to financial pressures. In India I feel that the government must treat the women economic empowerment on highest priority. Under the double farmer income initiative of the Government, off farm sector should also be taken on priority.”

Smt Sheila Dikshit, Chief Minister, Government of NCT of Delhi

We need more social entrepreneurs to come forward and help those still in the growing stage and thus help the community at large. We need to make our schemes for the poor more effective, so that the funds should be available to them faster, instead of getting delayed due to bureaucratic functioning… Social entrepreneurship as a concept has grown over the years from just small entities. Now we have reached a stage where entrepreneurs who are doing great work in the society, need to be recognised for their efforts, but there are very few avenues for this.

Anshu Gupta, Goonj

Anshu Gupta learnt early in life the importance of optimal utilisation of limited resources. As a graduate student he travelled to a cataclysmic earthquake hit area and the shock of what he saw, stayed with him. Another chance encounter with a disposer of dead bodies opened his eyes to the ignored basic need of clothing, for saving lives in winters. The words of ‘Bano’, the daughter of the dead-body disposer shook Anshu; she said, “When I feel cold I hug a dead body. It doesn’t turn around, it doesn’t trouble me.” After six years of corporate work Anshu moved out to start Goonj. He registered Goonj in 1999. It later earned him the title of ‘The Clothing Man of India’.

As a leader, Anshu has transformed nationwide ideas into nationwide movements and constantly redefined traditional notions of service to give the world a new currency for development. In 2015, Anshu received the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay award. He has received many other international recognitions including Ashoka Fellowship and has been listed as one of India’s most powerful rural entrepreneurs by the Fortune magazine. His ideas have had a ripple effect on many fields like menstrual hygiene, disaster relief and rural livelihoods.

“The SEOY Award Highlighted Goonj ’s Idea of us Ing Urban Surp Lus for Rural Deve Lopment While It Connected Me to the Larger Community of Innovators and Activists.”

Innovation and Impact

Goonj has created a systemic channelising of urban surplus of India not as charity but as a reward, bringing dignity and development to rural communities. Every year Goonj successfully works across 23 states of India, triggering 5000+ development projects on diverse issues like water, sanitation, agriculture, education, livelihood, disaster relief and rehabilitation with over five million kgs of urban surplus. Mobilised and motivated by Goonj, every year village communities work on solving their own community problems like setting up schools, roads, bamboo bridges, digging wells, sanitation work etc. across thousands of villages. With its ‘Not Just a Piece of Cloth’ initiative around menstrual hygiene Goonj has created and reached more than two million cloth sanitary pads out of urban surplus cloth, to rural women, establishing menstruation as a human issue. Goonj’s bigger work has been around creating a new vocabulary and ecosystem of mindful giving in urban and rural India. With an evidence backed model, Goonj under Anshu’s leadership has brought a dignity lens and mindset to development work where the so called ‘beneficiaries’ emerge as equal contributors and stakeholders in development work while urban surplus material is repositioned as a new currency for development.

Making Change Happen

• Annually collects, processes 5 million+ kgs of urban surplus material that reaches 23 states in India
• Partner network of hundreds of grassroot organisations, thousands of volunteers with a strong relationship with 200+ institutions

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“The SEOY award highlighted Goonj’s idea of using urban surplus for rural development while it connected me to the larger community of innovators and activists. This award has also created a powerful ecosystem for collaborative work with stakeholders collectively invested in systemic solutions against poverty.”

Way Ahead

“Our aim is to grow more as an idea and not just as an organisation. We are now focusing on the idea to grow and replicate.”

Shri P Chidambaram, Finance Minister, Government of India

The 2% spending by India’s corporate sector on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) will have a multiplier effect in bringing out greater inclusiveness. With CSR becoming mandatory, there is room for funding the social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship, both for profit and not for profit, is essential for the betterment of the society.

Chetna Sinha, Mann Deshi Group of Ventures

Chetna had been living in Mhaswad (Maharashtra) for some time – having moved from Mumbai to be with her husband who was an activtist and a farmer. They were together working for the Shetkari Sanghatna, which was a farmers’ movement. Chetna was also working with women on organising toilets and Panchayati Raj. One day, Kantabai, a woman who worked as a welder and lived on the streets, came to her and told her about how she wanted to buy a tarpaulin sheet to protect her family. However, every bank Kantabai approached refused to let her open an account because she wanted to save a small amount every day! Chetna couldn’t believe it and went with Kantabai to the banks and was horrified on how she was being rejected.

Kantabai only wanted a safe space to save her hard earned money, no handouts or subsidies. Chetna felt that if no bank would open her account, she would rather set up a bank that did. That’s how Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank was born. The first cooperative bank for and by rural women in India. Winner 2013

“I was Made the Co-Chair of World Economic for Umindavos 2018 Exactly Because of the Seoy India Award and That Really put Mann Deshi on the Global Map Like Never Before!”

Innovation and Impact

Mann Deshi Ventures (MDV) is transforming rural women from daily wage earners into role model entrepreneurs. It is catalysing wealth creation in resource-scarce and drought-prone regions of India by building the capital quotient of local rural women. Mann Deshi runs a bank for rural women, a foundation which runs business schools to help women set up and grow their businesses and a chamber of commerce to help women network, scale up their enterprises and reach new markets. Mann Deshi also incubates and supports women-led social enterprises grow and become independent - most recently it has set up a farmer producer company for women farmers and a company to brand and sell products made by rural women micro entrepreneurs. 50% of MDV’s customers are small producers, vegetable, milk and street food vendors, nomadic goat and sheep farmers and micro-cottage industry entrepreneurs. The other half is casual labourers.

Making Change Happen

• Enabled 1,85,000 women to save
• Enabled 10,000 women to own property and 42,000 to set up businesses

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

““SEOY gave us an incredible amount of exposure including crucial introductions to many partners – funders, think tanks, institutions that were working in similar spaces. I was made the Co-Chair of World Economic Forum in Davos 2018 exactly because of the SEOY India award and that really put Mann Deshi on the global map like never before!””

Way Ahead

“We want to really strengthen and deepen our work so we can reach a million women in the next three to five years. We are at half our target. We want to set up the first social impact fund that specifically lends to women micro enterpreneurs and demonstrates the need and enormous market for micro enterprise loans for women. We are also exploring the possibility of setting up a small finance bank for women. India needs to promote two key things: firstly women’s access to doorstep savings and second, promoting women’s access to enterprise loans.”

Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister of Finance, Corporate Affairs and Defence, Government of India

At the very outset I would like to compliment the three finalists and in particular Dr. Sudarshan and the Karuna Trust who is the eventual winner this year for the exemplary work that they are doing in the fields and the areas that they have chosen… The whole concept of charity in India has always been part of our society. Infact it’s the corporate charity that is a late entry... CSR alone in its very first year is going to contribute about Rs 14,000 crore into the (social) sector and that’s reasonably a large amount of money. This is going to increase year after year as corporate profits increase.

H Sudarshan, Karuna Trust

Sudarshan’s mother gave birth to him in a cowshed. When Sudarshan was 12 years old, he went with his father to meet his aunt in a village in Karnataka. In an unfortunate turn of events, his father died in front of him there, without any medical help as there was no doctor in that village. Sudarshan decided to become a doctor and save lives. He also wanted to provide safe deliveries to all women in remote areas. Deeply inspired by Vivekananda and Gandhi he decided to ‘reach the health care to the un-reached’. Sudarshan established the Karuna Trust in 1986 in response to the alarming incidences of leprosy in the Yelandur Taluk.

He worked unfettered serving the poor people, until in 1996, when he met the Health Secretary and discussed the Public- Private-Partnership model for improvement of primary health services in Karnataka.

This encounter led to the etablishment of Karuna Trust which would transform the government PHCs. Over three decades later, today Karuna Trust provides primary health care to over 1.5 million people in India. It has averted 600 infant deaths and provided safe deliveries to more than 20,000 mothers. Sudarshan has also received the prestigious Right to Livelihood award and the Padma Shri award.

“The SEOY India Award Ledus to the International Social Entrepreneur Award of Schwa B Foundation/World Economic Forum Too. Participating in The World Economic Forum and Meeting The Fellow Socialentr Epreneurs Helped Me in Scaling Up My Work!”

Innovation and Impact

Karuna Trust has been transforming dysfunctional government Primary Healthcare Centers (PHCs) into professional hubs of ‘last mile’ healthcare service delivery. It has pioneered a unique Public Private Partnership (PPP) model that brings the government, the village community and the social venture together to deliver high quality primary healthcare to rural India. The government invests in upgrading infrastructure and pays for the efficient running of the PHCs; Karuna Trust brings in healthcare management systems and disruptive health innovations to the centers; village health councils hold their PHCs accountable for reporting higher health outcomes and functioning as zero-corruption zones.

Making Change Happen

• Revitalised 71 PHCs across 7 states
• Worked in remote corners of India, including North-East
• Served more than 1.5 million people

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“The SEOY India award led us to the International Social Entrepreneur Award of Schwab Foundation/World Economic Forum too. Participating in the World Economic Forum and meeting the fellow social entrepreneurs helped me in scaling up my work!”

Way Ahead

“Going ahead we would like to scale up the PPP model in primary health care to other states as well. We are also planning to take it to other developing countries. According to me, an important pillar in improving primary health system in India is the Ayushman Bharat Yojana - The health and wellness centers and the Universal Health Assurance are other initiatives that give massive hope.”

Shri Piyush Goyal, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Power, Coal, New & Renewable Energy, Government of India

“I compliment Poonam Bir Kasturi and other finalists Ashraf Patel, Prema Gopalan and Suparna Gupta, for their outstanding contribution to the society. They deserve the highest accolades for the work they are doing and are the true women of substance.

Poonam Bir Kasturi, Daily Dump

As a student pursuing a career in a creative field, one assumes that the goal would be to work for famous design brands. As an industrial design student at NID (National Institute of Design) Ahmedabad, Poonam got interested in how design could help solve messy problems. She chose waste as an area of inquiry since it was something that she felt was connected to wellbeing eventually. She enjoys the mundane and tries daily to convince people that maggots in compost are good to have!

Poonam was passionate about waste and the way it was produced and treated in India. In her own words, waste is a symptom of a bigger problem.

Poonam established Daily Dump in 2006. Today, 13 years later, Poonam is known as India’s famous “Compostwali”!

“After Daily Dump Won The Seoyaward,I Got An Opportunity To Go for an Educational Program At Harvard.I Realised That Once There,You are Able to See How Your Work is Sitting in The Larger Perspective.”

Innovation and Impact

Poonam is the founder of Daily Dump (DD), an initiative that has fused design thinking, traditional pottery and the science of composting to develop more than 70 products and services that enable urban Indians to compost wet waste at home. Her flagship product is the terracotta home composters known as ‘Kambhas’. Daily Dump has also catalysed new networks of ‘waste evangelists’ or urban compost entrepreneurs across 17 cities. The growing demand of Kambha is tripling the income of the potter communities rapidly too.

Making Change Happen

• 58,000 committed users, impacted 3,00,000 individuals
• Keeps 49,000 kgs of organic waste out of landfills every day
• Works with 6 potter communities in 4 states of India

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“After Daily Dump won the SEOY award, I got an opportunity to go for an educational program at Harvard. I learnt new things there, as I was never a trained MBA graduate. I realised that once there, you are able to see how your work is sitting in the larger perspective. You can go back and bring changes in your organisation. To scale-up any innovative idea, increasing its circle of influence is highly critical. SEOY definitely helps social organisations get visibility and credibility.”

Way Ahead

“The World Bank estimates that India’s garbage will grow to 150 million tons of waste per year by 2025. Young people getting jobs that are related to our Earth can only bring about change in the world. Right now those jobs are only done by NGOs. These jobs are extremely important for our country. Talking about earth and environment, we also need fundamental research in material and change the way we use it.”

Shri Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport, Highways and Shipping, Government of India

Politics is an instrument of social and economic reforms. There is a need to create awareness on social consciousness and social responsibility. I appreciate the work done by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation in recognising and rewarding the efforts of the social entrepreneurs over the years. I congratulate the finalists and all the social entrepreneurs for working towards a greater cause at the grassroot level.

Neichute Doulo, Entrepreneurs Associates

Neichute remembers the time when he last visited Kohima, Nagaland in 1990. He had just completed his 10th and was about to begin college. What shocked him there was the aversion of the educated youth against any kind of manual labour. Young students and educated youth refused to carry their own luggage and bags, hiring others to do so. This was a total contrast to life in his own village, where traditionally and culturally everyone was encouraged to work hard. Around that time, Nagas were also at the brink of a new narrative of giving up their farming and trade practices and seeking government jobs for a much easier life, with assured income. Though young, Neichute knew that this would go against them eventually.

This skewed misconception of education and deviation from the traditional practice of dignity of labour continued to bother him deeply, triggering him to form a group called ‘Beacon of Hope’ in 1992, with like-minded friends. These young volunteers took to the streets of Kohima, during their college vacation and took to all forms of manual jobs like porter, waiting tables in restaurants, loading and unloading trucks, selling newspapers and ice-creams among others. This was the beginning of many other initiatives, finally leading up to the Entrepreneurs Associates in 2000.

“SEOY has broadened our view and has opened the world to us, giving us the preception that our work matters. Though it may be limited to a corner of the globe.”

Innovation and Impact

Entrepreneurs Associates (EA) was set up to counter insurgency, a broken economy and the landscape of despair among the Naga people. It aimed to do so by building the spirit of self-reliance and entrepreneurship into the psyche of an apathetic Naga youth. EA trains first-time entrepreneurs from the agriculture and nonagriculture sectors. It then lays out a broad safety net for them. It offers credit, intense hand-holding, business acceleration programs, and in certain cases, stands as guarantor for bank loans. Over 20 years, EA has successfully launched the first generations of Naga and Manipur entrepreneurs, built up vibrant local markets; catalysed local production; generated local jobs; activated financial institutions and inspired government’s will to demonstrate that entrepreneurship can be the route to peace building.

Making Change Happen

• Harnessed faith based organisations, banks, government, corporates and educational institutes to infuse capital upto Rs. 4 billion
• Over 20,000 hectares of Jhum (slash-and-burn) land reforested, popularised crops for export, such as kiwis, large cardamom, avocado, kidney beans etc

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“It has helped our organisation by giving us invaluable visibility and recognition in the country and internationally. SEOY has broadened our view and has opened the world to us, giving us the perception that our work matters, though it may be limited to a corner of the globe.”

Way Ahead

“Aligning with the visions, Entrepreneurs Associates strives to develop entrepreneurship and profitable livelihood in other parts of North East India and also the North West region of Myanmar, that lies geographically close to us.”

Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu, Minister of Commerce & Industry Government of India

Social entrepreneurs deal with different aspects and challenges that exist in the society. They are bringing technology with their commitment and passion to transform lives of many people. I firmly believe that changing lives is far more important than anything else and hence to have a happier society we need many more social entrepreneurs like we have seen today.

Urvashi Sahni, Study Hall Educational Foundation

Urvashi Sahni’s cousin sister was 24 with a two year old daughter, when she was a victim of a dowry murder, dressed up as a suicide in 1982. She was about two years younger to Urvashi and both were educated in the same convent school. The incident shook Urvashi to her core. Urvashi had faced gender discrimination in her family, but she had accepted it, like several other women in Indian society. Her cousin’s death changed all that. She began to question everything. She started a women’s rights organisation in Lucknow, the first of its kind in Uttar Pradesh in 1983. This led her to schools and colleges as she conducted workshops with young girls about their right to equality, their right to protest and to take charge of their lives.

It was during the course of this work that she realised how deficient even ‘high quality’ education in private schools was. It taught girls many technical skills, but failed them, because it did not teach them that they had the right to use these skills to shape their own lives. Urvashi began to question the definition of ‘quality education’ and in 1986 she started a small school in her garage. That small school has today reached nearly a million students, teachers and communities!

“The SEOY Award has Helped Our Organisation Tremendously.It has Given National And International Visibility to us and has Lent Our Work More Credibility. We have Attracted Funders Because of this Visibility.”

Innovation and Impact

Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF) has shaped and scaled a model of education that includes, empowers and builds leaders among India’s most disadvantaged girls. SHEF runs a network of schools, based on two critical innovations. The first is ‘feminist pedagogy’ or a gender- empowering method of education. Delivered through ‘critical dialogue’, it enables girls and boys to go beyond academics, understand and build the agency needed to transform their worlds. Second is the Universe of Care practice. Recognising that care itself is a vehicle for empowerment, SHEF creates classrooms where teachers and learner are held in relationships of respect, trust and empathy; where teacher and student are equal and learning is conducted through dialogue; where art, music, sport are integral to schooling. Aided by technology, policy push and partnerships with the state governments of Rajasthan and UP, SHEF has scaled its model to 900 schools and trained 5,000 teachers. More than 2,000 videos of transformative classroom sessions, created by SHEF are being accessed and practised across remote rural government and private schools of India.

Making Change Happen

• Trained 24,000 teachers and impacted more than 5,00,000 children
• Impacted 1,50,000 girls directly and 2,70,000 girls indirectly

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“The SEOY Award has helped our organisation tremendously. It has given national and international visibility to us and has lent our work more credibility. Most importantly, it has drawn attention to the issue of gender equality and gender education. We have attracted funders because of this visibility.”

Way Ahead

“We are working on a strategy to expand our outreach 10 times in the next five years. We hope to reach atleast five million students – both boys and girls, their parents and teachers in the next five years in our effort to build a feminist consciousness.”

Dr. Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman, NITI Aayog, Government of India

India is at the forefront of social entrepreneurship and the Social Entrepreneur of India Award, in my view, is the platform where real transformation is taking place. Social entrepreneurs are the people who are doing well by doing good and are creating long term value with their work. Social entrepreneurs are devoted to serving the underserved and I feel privileged to be here at the award ceremony.

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.

“ The SEOY is about spotlighting social entrepreneurship as a pathway to inclusive development at the grassroot. The opportunity offered to connect with media, government and business leaders and peers is one of its kind!”

Innovation and Impact

Over two decades, SSP has demonstrated that entrepreneurship can be a vehicle for women’s empowerment in India. The SSP Group of ventures namely SSK, SSEN and SURE collaborate to form an enabling ecosystem for grassroot women entrepreneurs. Through the Group, SSP facilitates women-led rural markets at three levels: by extending financial support to rural women foraying into entrepreneurship; by making women part of the rural economy through business-coaching; by creating Sakhi entrepreneur networks to scale their operations through strategic partnerships between corporate and women entrepreneurs. SSP offers platforms to build products that benefit the community, and assist the businesses to grow. SSP’s holistic model seeds entrepreneurship to tackle complex sectoral challenges across food security and agriculture, energy, health, water & sanitation by creating women’s peer networks and collaborative multi-stakeholder ecosystems.

Making Change Happen

• Transitioned 1,70,000 women in 8 states into entrepreneurs and farmers
• Impacted 2,000 climatethreatened villages in 7 states
• Enhanced women’s annual income by Rs 70,000 - Rs 3,60,000 from diversified enterprises

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“The SEOY is about spotlighting social entrepreneurship as a pathway to inclusive development at the grassroot. The opportunity offered to connect with media, government and business leaders and peers is one of its kind!”

Way Ahead

“To add to the growth momentum, over the next five years, SSP aims to catapult an additional 50,000 women entrepreneurs and farmers, impacting eight million people in climate-affected communities and nurture 2,000 women for higher level of leadership who in turn will facilitate agency building of women in their communities to address issues and offer solutions. Women leaders are no longer beneficiaries. Women in grassroot communities do not look at themselves as recipients. They look at themselves as farmers, entrepreneurs, leaders, resource persons and even partners to the governments and corporates.”

Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs & Ministry of Civil Aviation and Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India

Congratulating the winner and applauding the work of all finalists of this year’s SEOY India award, Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs & Ministry of Civil Aviation and Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Government of India said, “I would like to express my appreciation, for the hosts of this evening, the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation and the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, who have for the last one decade provided a crucial platform to recognise the effects of the social entrepreneurs. Each one of them who have been featured here have done outstanding work.”

“I am very happy to see how youngsters are becoming change agents in the society.”

“The announcement of a Social Stock Exchange, in the Budget this year will help social enterprises access to finance. The Finance minister recently announced that Companies can now invest in social enterprises which are aligned with government supported incubation centres.”

Shanti Raghavan and Dipesh Sutariya, EnAble India, Bengaluru

EnAble India (EI) is rapidly building the Indian eco-system of skilling, employment and entrepreneurship for persons with disabilities (PwDs) through technology innovations, breakthroughs in skill trainings, new workplace solutions and behaviour change tools. By changing the mind set of 729 business houses and building frameworks of inclusion in universities and government agencies, EI has created a robust business case for employing PwDs in formal and informal sectors across India.

Over 20 years, Shanti, Dipesh and their teams have cumulatively transformed the lives of 2,20,000 individuals with disabilities and their families, community leaders and employers, across 28 states. Working across a wide bench of 14 disabilities, all EI trainees perform at par, and receive salaries at par with their non-disabled peers. Through partnerships with 200 non-profit organisations, EnAble India is set to transform one million PwDs as confident tax payers, active citizens and nation-builders over the next three years.

Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Hon. Minister of Women & Child Development & Textiles, Government of India

Congratulating the winner and appreciating the finalists of this year’s SEOY Award India 2020, Smt. Smriti Zubin Irani, Hon. Minister of Women & Child Development & Textiles, Government of India said, “I acknowledge and appreciate the contribution of Schwab Foundation and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation in celebrating social entrepreneurs. I would like to congratulate all the social entrepreneurs who have been considered by the esteemed jury for this prestigious award. This award today highlights to the rest of our country, that compassion is not only the most endearing but also an equally profitable business skill. Those who have come to this platform are the champions of digital India.”

The SEOY Award India 2020 winner – Ashraf Patel has been bringing revolutionary change through development of a generation of empathetic, sensitive youth change-makers in India. It is doing so, through psycho-social interventions and helping them build more inclusive identities & societies.

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?

They felt, that an alternative learning process was required to shi" the a#itude of apathy and exclusion. The best way to move forward was to start work with adolescents and young people through volunteer workshops in schools. Gradually the initiative became much bigger and took the form of Pravah and over a decade later Commutiny Youth Collective (CYC) along with a number of social entrepreneurs as co-founders.

“The SEOY selection process was extremely rigorous in itself. It helped us deep dive into our own experiences, records and consolidate our data like never before!”

Innovation and Impact

Emphasising ‘youth development’ over ‘youth for development’, Pravah and Commutiny - The Youth Collective (CYC) have been promoting the concept of a unique 5th Space. The 5th Space focuses as much on the self-transformation of youth as it does on transforming society through them. By design, 5th spaces are co-created and led by the youth. They are safe spaces of learning and active experimentation to shape social change. For the last 25 years, Pravah and Commutiny are building vibrant eco-systems across India to launch young social entrepreneurs, changemakers and active citizens and propel their models of positive social change.

Making Change Happen

• Impacted over 6,78,900 youth across India
• 57,500 young leaders supported so far

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award (SEOY)

“SEOY, gave us a really big platform to present our work on. To be celebrated and honoured at a public platform that represented some of the best in different sectors including Government, private and civil society is indeed an outstanding experience not only for the social entrepreneur but also for the organisation and the sector they represent. The SEOY selection process was extremely rigorous in itself. It helped us deep dive into our own experiences, records and consolidate our learnings like never before!”

Way Ahead

“While expanding our youth fellowship programs with college youth (SMILE fellowship) and with social entrepreneurs (Changelooms) we also aim to co-create a cross - sectoral platform – a ‘Youth Centric Consortium.’ I feel as a country, India needs progressive and inclusive policies and investment to foster safe, empowering and democratic spaces that are co-led by young people. Self to society journeys must be part of all youth engaging institutions and spaces to nourish social inclusion, constitutional literacy, adolescent and youth participation and active citizenship leadership.”