New Delhi January 18,
2012
Come Saturday, January 21 and
India’s most celebrated social innovators – bureaucrat Anil Swarup,
entrepreneur William Bissel, social innovator CP Das, energy expert Swati
Bhogle, healthcare change agent Dr Ashwin Naik, Self-Help Group pioneer Anish
Kumar, skill development agency chief Dilip Shenoy – will put their heads
together to galvanize 100 Young Social Innovators to discover how technology
can help social enterprises get more pervasive in coverage and impact.
Tech Czar Sam Pitroda who invests
a day leading Young Social Innovators session in the capital says, “Social
innovations are critical for solving India's challenges of inclusion and
fulfilling unmet needs of a large number of people.”
“Our young social
innovators can break barriers and seize new opportunities to enhance
development that reaches many more people,”
added Pitroda who guides
Action For India (AFI) as the Honorary Chairman.
The first ever Action For
India Forum will focus on scaling social impact through technology at a day
long session at IIT Delhi campus.
Of the 100 young social
innovators those who leverage technology and show an outstanding impact over
the next six months, will be eligible for five Action For India Growth Prizes,
one each for education, healthcare, agriculture, energy and livelihoods.
.
Each Growth Prize will
consist of Rs 5 lakh as well as non-monetary benefits.
Ashoka, the leading global
organization focused on identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs, will guide
the evaluation and selection process.
“Action For India will identify
innovators addressing critical social problems and help them unleash the
potential of technology,” says
Sanjay Kadaveru, Founder and President, Action For India and a Charter Member
of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).
“India is full
of young innovators who impact their communities in myriad ways. But in a country
of 1.2 billion, we need to scale their proven solutions to serve a much
wider swath of the population. By connecting successful entrepreneurs with
technology experts and resources, our goal is to accelerate this scaling
process,” adds Kadaveru.
An in-depth
report highlighting barriers to scale and how technology and government can
play a role in overcoming these challenges, specially developed by Dasra, a
strategic philanthropy foundation, will also be unveiled.
Young social
innovators, under the age of 40, who have made significant impact with
their innovations in the field of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Livelihoods
and Healthcare, will place their specific needs before technology providers
such as Nokia, Intel, ‘A Little World’ and M Power forum from
Spice group and seek their support for widening impact at the ‘Action For India
Forum 2012’.
‘Action For India’, a not
for profit body works with social entrepreneurs who make a real difference to
the everyday lives of people and are India's best hope for long-term, large
scale social change. A billion plus people require a wide variety of solutions,
and AFI believes that those solutions are already all over India, in the minds of social
entrepreneurs, just waiting to be tapped.
Action for India Partners
Action for India is
partnering with TiE Delhi-NCR, IIT Alumni group, Deshpande Foundation, Nasscom
Foundation, National Social Entrepreneurship Forum, Centre
for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, IIM, Ahmedabad, Sankalp Forum, IDEX, Nishith Desai Associates, Dasra and
Ashoka. These organisations are active
in the social entrepreneurship, technology and innovation space and offer their
resources, especially the expertise of experienced members to Young Social
Innovators.
About Action For India
Action
For India (AFI) is a social start-up enterprise dedicated to helping social
organizations scale their impact by leveraging Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT). They offer training and guidance to social entrepreneurs to
sustainably scale their organizations through the use of technology.
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