Each Winner will receive support in proposal-writing to enable the further development of their solutions, in addition to an invitation to apply for a grant of up to $100,000.

Click here to read about the winners on SocialStory

YourStory.in since its founding, has strived to bring stories of entrepreneurs across sectors to the forefront. We have written about many social and green entrepreneurs, trends in the impact investing space and resources for social entrepreneurs. In 2010, we organized Sociopreneurship to recognize social enterprise startups in India. In November 2012, we launched SocialStory, a dedicated online media platform to provide a neutral visibility platform to social startups and innovators from India.The intent of SocialStory is to become a voice of and for social entrepreneurship.

With the acquisition of ThinkChange India, we want to further enhance our depth and reach of covering the Indian social and impact sector and strive to provide a better online hub to social and green enterprises with the merged entity.

Approximately five years ago, the four founders of ThinkChange India huddled up in a coffee shop near New York University (called Think Coffee, which the blog derives its name from) and hatched plans to create an online platform focused on social entrepreneurship in India. Back then, social entrepreneurship and social enterprise were still in its relative nascence in India – not too many people had heard of the term and there was little news and coverage on entrepreneurs.

“We also believe that the social enterprise sector in India is at the cusp of triggering the next stage of phenomenal growth, and platforms like ThinkChange India and SocialStory have a strong role to play. We recently worked with the SocialStory team to develop a proposal for the next generation information platform for the impact-investing sector. The proposal won grant support as part of the Impact Economy Innovations Fund (IEIF) launched by The Rockefeller Foundation, Omidyar Network and Dasra”, added the ThinkChange India team who will be working closely with SocialStory.

Speaking on this acquisition, Shradha Sharma, Founder and CEO, YourStory Media, said “I have been following ThinkChange India since 2010 and have a huge respect for the work they have done, with this merger I believe the true gainer will be the social enterprise space and social entrepreneurs in India. We are going to put massive efforts in making SocialStory the destination place for social entrepreneurs across India and eventually across geographies.”

Founded by P. Vijayraghavan, R. Balakrishnan, S. Manoharan and K. P. Nair, LEAF works with small holder vegetable farmers in South India and provides technical support and market linkages. The company works with farmers owning less than two acres of land and improves income realizations through yield improvements, productivity increases, and consistent produce pricing.

Read the full interview with Thomas Hyland on Social Story.

“We are looking for people with 6-8 years of experience,” said Sucharita Kamanth, Head of Innovation Ecosystem at Villgro. “We are trying to attract the right talent – people who have demonstrated leadership skills, but who are looking for something more. We want to find those people that are in the corporate sector now, but are looking to get into the social sector, to have more of a social impact in their work.”

Human resources tends to be a challenge for all startups and small enterprises. However, due to misconceptions and a lack of awareness of social enterprise, the social sector tends to suffer far greater from a dearth of human resources. A recent Intellecap study based on surveys of about 100 social enterprises throughout India identified “hiring and retaining good talent [as] arguably the greatest and most persistent challenge faced by India’s social enterprises.”

One of the main reasons for this human resource gap is the common perception that social enterprise is along the lines of charity work, and therefore not a profession. Many young professionals may have never heard the term social enterprise, and many of those who have are wary about the sector’s potential to provide career opportunities.

The aim of the fellowship is two-fold. First, to change this misconception about social enterprise and to prove its viability as a career option for young professionals. Second, to provide young social enterprises with the valuable human resources that they need to take their organizations to the next level.

Villgro Fellows have the opportunity to work closely with a social entrepreneur to both develop a deeper understanding of the enterprise and social entrepreneurship in general, and to exercise their own skills and explore their interests with a level of autonomy unavailable to them in the corporate setting. Past fellows like Ashish Sinha, placed with Villgro Innovations Marketing Private Limited, noted the exposure to developing skills and managing projects at a level that they never previously thought possible. Aparna Ram, placed with Villgro SEED, came to Villgro after almost a decade working in finance in London as an Analyst/Portfolio Management. She came to Villgro looking to take on new opportunities and new challenges, and was thrilled with the opportunity to do this while exploring the realm of social entrepreneurship.

Applications for this round of Villgro fellows are due May 15th. Applicants are expected to submit an essay along with their resume explaining their interest in the program, and will have the opportunity to apply for specific positions that suit their interests and skillset. The main prerequisite for consideration is an applicants work experience; a minimum of three years is strongly preferred.

In the coming weeks YourStory will be featuring two past fellows on the SocialStory platform to gain a deeper understanding of their experiences and the opportunities that the Villgro Fellowship offered.

Visit the Villgro website for more information.

Today, at the Indian School of Business (ISB) campus in Hyderabad, the 2013 edition of Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) Asia-Africa Finals concluded with two social ventures moving on to the global finals at UC Berkeley. For the past three days, social enterprises from four countries across Asia and Africa have gathered at ISB for an intensive weekend of consultation and mentorship from industry leaders in social entrepreneurship.

GSVC was established in 1999 by students at the University of California Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in order to foster and promote the emerging social enterprise community around the world. Each year, the competition awards $50,000 in prizes to promising social ventures, and to date has granted over half a million dollars in prize money to jumpstart new generations of social entrepreneurs.

Yesterday afternoon, after a day and a half of mentorship, the student entrepreneurs behind the 18 nascent social enterprises pitched their revised business plans to a panel of investors and social entrepreneurs. The ventures were then shortlisted down to six social ventures, which pitched earlier this morning in the final round.  Shortlisted ventures included Akshay Urja, Damascus Fortune, Utopia, Amrit Tulya, Kisan First, and Vi-Care (see below for details).

After a second round of pitches this morning, the judges selected two ventures to move on to the Global Finals later this year at UC Berkeley. The two winners of the Asia-Africa Finals were: Damascus Fortune, represented by Vivek Nair and Venkateswara Rao, which has developed ground-breaking technology to convert carbon dioxide emissions into carbon nanotubes, carbon fibres, and carbon nanotubes; and Vi-Care, represented by Abishek Khanolkar and Karthik Shandilya, a venture that has developed a ground-breaking mobile-based diagnostic tool to detect pneumonia in infants.

Damascus Fortune and Vi-Care will join the winners of the other regional competitions on April 12th, 2013 at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley, to compete for up to $25,000 to take their social ventures to the next level.

Note: YourStory.in was the media partner for GSVC Asia-Africa.

Complete list of the 18 social ventures selected for GSVC Asia-Africa 2013:

Akshay Urja from Great Lakes Institute of Management: Uses a solar hydrogen hybrid system to provide clean, grid-independent electricity that can power a house 24/7 and fuel that can be used to power cars and gas stoves.

Amrit Tulya from R.A. Poddar Institute of Management, India: Uses renewable solar energy to run a reverse osmosis system of water purification.

Banana from Buddha Institute of Science and Research College, Indi: Reduces Banana Pseudostem Waste with a machine that produces fibre, pulp and sap from the banana pseudostem, helping the environment and expanding employment to rural communities.

Banana Beauty from University of Dhaka, Bangladesh: Improves the living standards of tribes in Bangladesh by employing them to produce high quality and low cost yarn processed from the banana stem.

Breson from Wellingkar Institute of Management, India: Designs and manufactures customized small wind turbines and pumps with the potential of powering a 15 story building for 12 hours per day.

Damascus Fortune from IIT-BHU, India: Has developed ground-breaking technology to convert CO2 emissions into carbon nanotubes, carbon fibres, and carbon nanotubes – materials that can be used for manufacturing planes, trains and automobiles – while simultaneously reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

DriveLease from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies (NMIMS), India: Partners with existing driving schools to train aspiring youth to become well-trained professional drivers in order to reduce the amount of accident-related deaths in India.

EcoResin from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, based in Bangladesh: A triple bottom line company that produces high grade post-consumer resin (PCR) out of recycled plastic to introduce a new, “green plastic” to Bangladesh.

Jan Ni Jal Dhara from Tata Institute of Social Science, India: Hopes to provide solar powered manual irrigation systems to promote proper utilization and revitalization of small surface water irrigation resources such as tanks, ponds, check dams and wells.

Kisan First from Kellogg School of Management (alum), India: Empowering farmers by establishing processing units for their crops, allowing them greater ownership over the value chain, and enabling them to turn greater profits on their crops.

Noble Snails from University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Nigeria: Addresses the issues of unemployment and malnutrition in Nigeria by farming snails as a rich source of protein and distributing them to the meat to markets throughout the country.

SIFI from Indian School of Business (ISB), India: Serves as a matchmaker between enterprising individuals who want to create a positive social impact and the social-impact activities of credible organizations.

Utopia from Symbiosis Centre for Information Technology, India: Has developed rickshaws capable of being operated by physically differently-abled individuals, as well as a water purification system that works using the energy generated by operating the rickshaw.

Vi-Care from IIT-Madras, India: Offers a ground-breaking diagnostic tool to detect pneumonia in infants using a mobile phone.

Your Legal Consult from ISB, India: Uses a web based platform to expand the knowledge and awareness the Legal Rights of a user, who would typically go uninformed due to the high cost of attaining legal services.

Summer A.B.E School from MPUC, Kenya: Working to expand secondary education to Mombasa County by establishing schools aimed at enrolling students over 18 years old, offering quality secondary education, motivation, and mentorship using a non-formal and time-flexible education structure.

GoRecycler from Strathmore University, Kenya: Uses a mobile and web based platform to engage and unite various segments of the waste sector into a holistic and transparent process of supply chain integration.

Cheru Tours from Strathmore University, Kenya: Serving tourists with a desire to simultaneously experience the beauty of Kenya and to help serve those in need by connecting them with initiatives to help underprivileged children.

We at YourStory are celebrating women and everything about them. As a runup to Women’s Day, which falls on 8 March, YourStory in association with Milaap announces a Twitter Chat to exchange stories about womanhood and entrepreneurship. The Twitter Chat will happen between 3pm to 4pm on 6 March, 2013.

Besides discussing questions surrounding life as a woman entrepreneur, participants will have the chance to share their own stories or nominate an inspiring woman entrepreneur for the chance to win a $25 Milaap gift card. The gift card giveaway is part of Milaap’s campaign to encourage women to support other women entrepreneurs. Using the gift card, winners will be able to loan up to $25 to women entrepreneurs of their choice on the Milaap website. Those joining in the chat have to tweet using the “#women4change” hash tag to qualify for the $25 gift card.

Participants are encouraged to share stories of women entrepreneurs who are making a difference in society and helping change people’s lives. YourStory and Milaap will go through the chats and decide up to 80 of the best conversations to reward with the $25 gift card.

The Twitter chat will serve as a precursor to YourStory’s event on March 7th, SheSparks, a meet-up for women in entrepreneurship and technology to share and learn from each other’s compelling stories. Register here to be part of the event.

Don’t forget to join us on 6 March, 2013, between 3pm to 4pm, and in the meantime, get the conversation going by tweeting #women4change to @Milaapdotorg or @YourStorydotin.

In case you haven’t kept up to date with what’s been going on with SocialStory for the past couple weeks, here is a roundup of what you’ve missed.

Perspective

As much as we love our social entrepreneurs, it’s always refreshing to get a new perspective on what’s going on in the social enterprise space. In this roundup, SocialStory presents you with unique insights on crowdfunding and the health-tech industry.

Crowdfunding in the social sector: some on-ground challenges & technical solutions: Shrinath V discusses his insights from a recent panel he sat on at the Tech Camp in Mumbai, organized by the US Department of State. The panel discussion centered on how crowdfunding platforms could help the social sector in developing markets like India.

[YS TV] Scott Mark Of Medtronic, World’s Largest Medical Technology Company: Scott Mark, Senior Innovation Program Manager of Medtronic, global leader in medical technology solutions, discusses the role of technology in healthcare and how Medtronic hopes to learn from the Indiancommunity.

Celebrate Failure!

SocialStory’s Celebrate Failure Series has continued with the brave stories of entrepreneurs who have experienced failure in their pursuits, and who have learned a lesson as a result. Their stories illustrate the importance of discussing failure for all entrepreneurs, so that we can all learn from each other’s mistakes and avoid repeating them. If you have a failure story to tell, let us know at failures@yourstory.in.

Together We Stand, Divided We Fail: Hemant Nitturkar and CARMa Venture Solutions: Hemant Nitturkar describes how disunity within his team at CARMa Venture Solutions eventually forced him to divest his share of the company. His failure taught him a lot about managing an early stage startup.

Failing is inevitable, every once in a while. Fail Well. Fail Successfully: Niranjan Rao, co-founder and Managing Director of www.WeOwn.in,explains the importance of transforming our perceptions of failure into a more positive outlook. There is nothing wrong with failing, as long as fail well, by leveraging these failures for future success.

Kevin F. Adler’s Baby Steps ToSuccess With alumn.us: Kevin F. Adler, founder and CEO of in this, describes the failure he experienced with is prior venture, alumn.us. While he was eager to share his story, he urges entrepreneurs to move past the “failure” and “success” jargon. We wouldn’t look at a baby learning to walk, Kevin notes, and call that baby a failure.

Failure In The Classroom Sparks Innovation With Impact: Teach For India fellow Devanik Saha explains how his failure in the classroom taught him lessons that ultimately led him to develop Maths In A Box, an innovation that got him recognized as one of the Top 25 Educational Innovators in Delhi by UK-based NGO, STIR Education.

Social Enterprise

From healthcare, to impact investment, to kitchenware, these last few weeks have brought us in contact with some notably impressive social entrepreneurs working to improve the lives of Indians and people around the world.

Eyenetra’s Plan To Revolutionize Eye Care In India: Interview with David Schafran, Co-founder and CEO of EyeNetra, a low cost mobile device that promises to disrupt the Indian healthcare space at the point of diagnosis. Schafran expects the Eyenetra device to help the millions in India with eye conditions that go untreated due to the difficulty of receiving proper screening and testing.

Extinguishing The Killer In The Kitchen: Mumbai-based Greenway Grameen Infra offers rural consumers a cleaner, more efficient, and more convenient way of cooking. GGI’s innovative,stand alone Smart Stove reduces dangerous smoke emissions by 80% and fuel consumption by 65%.

[YS TV] Mark Friess, CEO OfWelvu, Is Working To Disrupt How Healthcare Information Is Delivered: In an exclusive YSTV interview, Mark Friess discusses his soon to be launched mobile application, Welvu. The goal of his platform, he explains, is to reduce the 20 million people per year that die around the world largely due to lack of information.

Changing How Healthcare is Delivered, MediAngels, The World’s First Online Hospital: Exclusive SocialStory interview with Dr. Debraj Shome, co-founder of Mediangels. Dr. Shome and his partner Dr. Arbinder Singal are working to turn Mediangels into the world’s first online hospital, enabling users to access consultation from doctors around the world through their online platform.

FemS3: Impact Investment With An Emphasis On Impact Exclusive SocialStory interview with Dr. Martin Vogelsang, Director of Fem Sustainable Social Solutions, a Bangalore based nonprofit focused on nurturing social entrepreneurs to alleviate poverty. Dr. Vogelsang answers questions and discussed FemS3’s new OPES Impact Fund.

Now that you’re all caught up, make sure to keep up to date with what’s going on in the social startup space at SocialStory!

The social entrepreneurship space is buzzing in India. SocialStory, a YourStory.in sister concern tracks all the developments in the space and here is a roundup of the activity from the last week. Health 2.0 was a highlight from the last week, apart from which we had the second article in the ‘celebrating failure’ series and  couple of social venture profiles:

Out of Web 2.0 Comes Health 2.0: A Movement in Modern Healthcare

Just as Web 2.0 has given rise to companies that have broken down geographical barriers to communication and information sharing; Health 2.0 is giving rise to companies that break down the barriers that prevent the widespread adoption of healthcare best practices.  Learn more about the best practices, the paths being taken to transform modern health care, and some of the players innovating in the health care

[YS TV] Indu Subaiya On Upcoming Health 2.0 Conference In Bangalore

Indu Subaiya, Co-founder and CEO of Health 2.0, dives into what led her to start Health 2.0, some exciting Indian healthcare tech companies, and the underlying mission behind her dream.  Health 2.0 has evolved into an annual series of conferences that take place in cities across the globe, including Berlin, Dubai, Paris, and San Francisco. Yet, Health 2.0 is not just about holding conferences… They have a bigger picture in mind; learn more about the movement and the process to enable the Transformation of Healthcare in the 21^st Century.

Human Centered Approach To 21st Century Healthcare Issues

A diverse crowd of doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, investors, insurance providers, techies and more gathered to spark conversations about how to increase collaborations and solve problems that are rampant in health care.  Led by IDEO, one of the most prolific design companies in the world, Dheeraj Batra, Head of Business Design for IDEO explains how to overcomes some of your greatest business challenges using what it calls human centered design, a process that has been readily adopted by social enterprises.

Earth-100: Biodiesel For A Clean, Sustainable, And Energy Independent Future

We need to figure out a way to produce alternative energy in a way that can meet the growing demand. Solar and electric sources of alternative energy have become all the rage, but COO of Earth-100, MeghaRathee, explains that Earth-100 is working to find an all-encompassing solution as opposed to relying only on one source for energy. Rathee dives into the benefits of using biodiesel, its challenges and opportunities in the market, and its potential to change the future of energy.  With partners such as Mahindra & Mahindra, learn more about Earth-100 and the energy future they envision.

VChangeU: Educating Youth To Curb Harmful Alcohol And Tobacco Consumption

Vijay Bhaskar, Founder and President of VChangeU explained, “We are addressing the biggest menace in the world, claiming 8 million people every year, a burden for any nation. We will continue to address this menace by taking it to schools, colleges and companies to protect students and the younger generation. They look to the globalization of the tobacco and alcohol trade as two of the greatest challenges they have faced as these two industries have grown to be powerful forces in the world economy. What do you think?

Leverage The Failures Of The Past For Greatness In The Future – Steve Hardgrave

You are going to make mistakes in a small, crazy start-up that is trying to do tough things. You need to tighten the feedback loop because there is less room for error in a young business. You must critically question everything, recognize mistakes, eat humble pie, backtrack, and course correct. For this installment of SocialStory’s Celebrate Failure series, we spoke with Steve Hardgrave, a social entrepreneur who has worked in Mexico, the United States, and India.

Check out more on SocialStory.in!

Health 2.0: Healthcare in the 21st century

This week YourStory has partnered up with Health 2.0 to cover the Health 2.0 India conference this Saturday in Bangalore. Health 2.0 is a global event that is bringing together leaders from all realms of the healthcare space – from corporates, to insurance companies, to entrepreneurs – to explore the challenges and opportunities of the healthcare sector in the 21st century. As partners, Health 2.0 has given YourStory readers access to an exclusive discount, and will be giving a free ticket away to 5 of our readers. Read the rest to receive the discount code and find out how to win a free ticket.  

“Let’s Celebrate Failure”

Failure means something different to everyone, and it can be as small as a mismanaged project or as a large as shutting down your organization. The goal is not to hide the failures, but to learn from them. What lessons can be drawn from the mistakes or circumstances that led to the failure? Failure is something that should not be looked down upon but celebrated. To foster this spirit, SocialStory has launched the Failure Series.

Halabol: A changemaker’s platform 

For all of those aspiring changemakers that never felt enough support to leap into your own initiatives, Halabol offers an avenue to realize your dreams. Halabol is an online platform that aims to bring likeminded people together for collaboration and support, offering a space to blog, initiate campaigns, sign petitions, make pledges, organize an event, and crowdfund for a project of your own. We had a discussion with Ankur Gupta, founder and CEO of Halabol, to discuss his venture and get some advice for aspiring social entrepreneurs.

Spring Health: Designing solutions for clean drinking water in rural India

Spring Health is a venture founded by Paul Polak, social enterprise guru, founder of Windhorse International, and author best known for writing Out Of Poverty. Paul brought Spring Health to India to establish a for-profit, sustainable venture that would provide inexpensive, clean drinking water to rural communities. After establishing himself in Orissa, Paul was in need of a CEO, and turned to Bangalore-based Idiom Design and Consulting, whom they were commissioning at the time for Spring Health design and branding. We sat down with Jacob Mathew, Idiom co-founder and now CEO of Spring Health, to get the story on how he used his background in design to overcome some of the major barriers he faced in the Spring Health villages.

SocialStory now in Hindi

Last week, SocialStory announced its partnership with RuralCall, an online media venture that produces all of its content in Hindi. Under the partnership, RuralCall will be translating select SocialStory posts into Hindi and posting them on their site. The collaboration with RuralCall will allow SocialStory to reach out to the Hindi reader base, many of whom might have a vested interest in what is happening in the social enterprise space.

Across the world in a solar powered tuk tuk

The must-read, must-watch social story of the past two weeks is that of Project Tejas and the Solar Tuk Tuk. After attending a presentation on the Solartaxi while working at Reva Electric,Naveen Rabelli decided to begin a solar powered journey of his own. He started Project Tejas, quit his job, recruited a team, and began work to transform an Indian tuk tuk into a fully functional solar hybrid vehicle that would take him 8,800 km from Bangalore to London. We visited Naveen’s garage to check in on the progress of the tuk tuk, and to hear his inspiring and ambitious story first hand.

Check out more on SocialStory.

This event will be open to the public on April 16th, followed by an exclusive two day event for Ministerial and high-level private sector attendees. This is an ideal opportunity for companies in the clean energy space to showcase their innovative work to a wide and relevant audience. There is also the chance to network with high level government, ministerial and other dignitaries. This global event is a great place to showcase your achievements and truly innovative products in the areas of Solar & Wind, Bio Energy, Lighting and Appliances, Energy Storage, Smart Grids, Electric Vehicles, Financing for Clean Energy, Combined heat and power and other clean-technology areas.

There are several booths available for showcasing companies, with CII partnering with the event to take care of setting up the booths/stalls and renting them out. To apply to showcase your products at the event, please fill out this simple application form. The last date for applying is February 25th. The results will be out by 8th March.

The event will be inaugurated by a high level dignitary on 16th April (on the eve of the CEM 4). Side events include C3E, SEAD and the Award ceremony will take place at the Pavilion on both evenings, 16th – 17th April.

So if you’re an innovative startup or an established company with a great product in the clean energy space,

submit your application now!

Disclaimer: YourStory.in is an Outreach Partner for this initiative. 

The Impact Circle offers investment opportunities to make a sustainable impact at the Base of economic Pyramid (BoP) in India while generating financial returns for investors. Members support early-stage enterprises in scaling up their impact by providing capital, expertise and access to their network.

Key Highlights:

• 15+ impact investors spanning angel investors, impact funds and foundations.
• Global investor membership representatives from countries like India, Switzerland, Vienna, Japan and the US.
• Active partnerships with Toniic, Impact Partners Asia and the Artha Platform
• Access to preferred service providers (CA’s, legal support, audit, taxation)

Seed investment has been closed by one Impact Circle member and due diligence is on for two others. Early stage social startups in the food, energy, healthcare, water and education sectors are the right kind of firms for Impact Circle to fund.

More about social entrepreneurship on SocialStory.

Being the apex development bank in India that facilitates credit flow for or promotion and development of agriculture, small-scale industries, cottage and village industries, handicrafts and other rural crafts, NABARD Awards recognizes 12 rural innovations in 6 categories with the potential to change the face of rural India.

Winners & Runners Up of NABARD Award 2012 are:

Academic/Research Institutions:

L.V.Prasad Eye Institute: (Winner)

L.V. Prasad Eye Institute is a World Health Organization Collaborating Center for Prevention of Blindness. Headquartered in Hyderabad, L.V.Prasad Eye Institute has 92 village vision centres in Andhra Pradesh. They have treated 14 million people in the last 25 years with over 71% of their patients receiving treatment free of cost.

For more info, take a look at http://www.lvpei.org/

Amrita Centre for Wireless Networks and Application: (Runners Up)

Amrita Centre for Wireless Networks and Application has developed a system using wireless sensor technology to detect landslide and provide warning in landslide prone areas in the country such as Himalayas and Konkan Region. This system allows facilitation of evacuation and disaster management thereby saving millions of lives in these regions.

For more info, take a look at http://www.amrita.edu/awna/

NGO/Trust:

Society for Energy, Environment & Development: (Winner)

Society for Energy, Environment & Development was started to utilize technology to improve the life of rural population in India. The technological innovation implemented by them is a high efficiency solar dryer for fruits and vegetables developed and patented by the team headed by their founder, Prof. M.Ramakrishna Rao.

For more info, take a look at http://www.seedngo.com/

Veppamarathupatti Small Farmer’s Welfare Association: (Runner Up)

A social experiment initiated by K. Periyannan as an after effect of the 2002 drought situation, Veppamarathupatti Small Farmer’s Welfare Association harvests waste water and proportionately distributes the water to farmers in the region.

Public/Cooperative Sector/Government

North Eastern Development and Finance Corporation: (Winner)

North Eastern Development and Finance Corporation is a public limited company that provides financial assistance to micro-level to large enterprises for setting up industrial, infrastructure and agri-allied projects in the North Eastern Region of India apart from microfinance through MFI and NGOs. It is the designated nodal agency involved in the distribution government incentives to the industries in the North East Region of India.

For more info, take a look at http://www.nedfi.net/

Jilla Sahakari Kendriya Bank: (Runner Up)

Jilla Sahakari Kendriya Bank has been providing various banking and financial services to rural population in 82 naxal affected villages in the country through mobile banking. They have been facilitating schemes such as MNREGA, various credit card schemes etc.

Private Sector:

Brizz TV Media Labs Pvt Ltd: (Winner)

Incubated at NSRCEL, IIM Bangalore, Brizz TV is a digital media technology company that is providing cost effective internet services to household through DTH connections in a way to bridge the digital divide. Their current focus is on media and education.

For more info, take a look at http://www.brizztv.com/

Reuters Market Light: (Runners Up)

Reuters Market Light provides personalized information service to the farmer community in India. They provide information such as crop advisory, weather forecast, market price etc.  They have nearly 1 million registered users in over 50,000 villages in India.

For more info, take a look at http://www.reutersmarketlight.com/index.html.

Individual:

Roshan Lal Vishwakarma: (Winner)

Roshan Lal Vishwakarma’s innovation is a sugarcane bud chipper that chips sugarcane buds to avoid wastage and use the buds for replanting. This chipper also requires low maintenance.

Pompy Sridhar: (Runner Up)

Pompy Sridhar has initiated a project that integrates insurance and healthcare services using biometric smart cards that will enable the provision of healthcare to rural and below poverty line households in India. These households will be provided a smart card that can be identified at rural clinics using computers and mobile based applications.

Others:

Karunakara M Reddy: (Winner)

Karunakara M Reddy has designed an efficient water treatment and purification system through his company Smaat Aqua Technologies to make clean drinking water available and affordable to rural population in India.

Chintakindi Mallesham: (Runner Up)

Speeding up the process of making a Pochampally saree, Chintakindi Mallesham has developed a Laxmi Asu Machine that lets weavers make one saree in just one and half hours where originally it took the weavers about five hours to weave one saree.

Through the Scale platform, for instance, ennovent connects social enterprises with its extensive network of experts, and allows entrepreneurs and innovators to post specific requests for services needed to help them scale their enterprise. Through Finance, ennovent not only offers a crowdsourcing platform but also connects innovators with its own network of impact investors and utilizes its impact investment portfolio to provide early stage funding and equity needed to get businesses off the ground.

The Discover platform is a combination of an entrepreneur directory, an interactive forum, and challenges that promote the discovery and development of social innovations. Various institutions organize these challenges and team with ennovent, which serves in some cases as a supporting partner or sponsor, in other cases as a means of outreach through their online platform. Currently, ennovent is accepting applications for the Millennium Alliance Challenge for sustainable and scalable innovations with a development impact in India, and the Power to Empower challenge for skill building enterprises in India.

For the Power to Empower competition, ennovent has partnered with India@75 and the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a public-private partnership (PPP) that promotes skill development by fostering sustainable vocational training enterprises. To be eligible for this challenge, an enterprise should focus on imparting a specific skill or skillset to its clients or employees. The organization should also be scalable, sustainable, should target the bottom of the pyramid population in India, and produce a significant impact. Applications and nominations for the Power to Empower competition are open until November 1, 2012.

“There are a lot of opportunities for short listed entrepreneurs to get the support from NSDC, and along with NSDC we’re involving a lot of other investors, ennovent investors, etc.,” said Digbijoy Shukla, Director of the ennovent Impact Circle. “These investors will be evaluating ventures not just from an investment perspective but will actually be getting involved in mentoring and acceleration. Its actually the process of mentoring from November onward when entrepreneurs start getting opportunities for attracting investors, meeting with entrepreneurs, industry leaders, things like that, and that is one of the key value adds of the program.”

The second challenge is being organized and directed by Millennium Alliance, an award under the leadership of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and in partnership with USAID and the Technology Development Board, which seeks to discover and nurture innovative solutions to development across India.

“The initiative is very interesting,” explained Digbijoy. “It’s a very broad based challenge, looking at innovations that are solving problems, between healthcare, to agriculture, to education, etc. This is a much broader challenge in that sense. The main focus is to discover, support, and finance the innovations that are happening at the grass roots level and the innovations that are actually affecting the people they target.”

The Millenium Alliance award is organized into two stages, during which winners will receive funding directed at bringing their innovation to fruition. Stage 1 funding is given to establish proof of concept and viability, and typically ranges from Rs. 25,00,000 to Rs. 50,00,000. Stage 2 funding will be geared toward testing innovations at scale and providing tools to assess the development impact of these innovations, and will typically range from Rs. 2,50,00,000 to Rs. 3,75,00,000. In both cases, the size of funding as well as its structure (grant, debt, equity, or some combination) is subject to the judgment of the Evaluation Committee. Applications and nominations for the challenge are open to for-profit, non-profit, and private individuals until.

There is no doubt that the Indian entrepreneurial landscape is rife with potential for social innovation, but the lack of support and visibility and limited attention from investors often hinders its ability to manifest. ennovent’s efforts to reverse this trend are compounded by the discover challenges it supports. Despite the variance in eligibility criteria, these challenges maintain a common goal to discover and accelerate social innovations across India and to catalyze their potential for development impact.

Want to apply or nominate someone for a social innovation challenge?

Dr Devi Prasad Shetty, Chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya, who has been honoured with the Padma Bhushan award in 2012, is already a recipient of Padma Shri, awarded in 2004. He has awarded the Padma Bhushan award for his outstanding work in the field of medicine by providing affordable healthcare especially heart surgeries at one-tenth of its cost in the United States of America. I had the opportunity to hear his speech and also talk to him after his speech. Here are the excerpts of the speech and my conversation with him.

Current State of Health Care in India

•             47% of the rural population and 37% of the urban population sell their assets or borrow money to pay for their medical bills.

•             2.5 million heart surgeries are required to be done in a year yet only 95,000 surgeries are done every year.

Unfortunately tax payers money can no longer pay for the health cost of the entire population. This was possible only 20 years ago. Now people retire at 60 years of age and live to celebrate their 90th birthday. With citizens now living for 30 years without any income, the need to relook at the health system in place becomes essential. 40 million people are covered under the ESI scheme in the organized sector whereas the 400 million people in the unorganised sector really need healthcare. Indian hospitals are short of 2 million beds. The money spent on building hospitals with marble flooring and air-conditioned rooms will not subsidise the cost of heart surgeries. So how can the woes of these voiceless millions be addressed?

Answers for State Funded Health Care

Yeshasvini, the world’s cheapest micro-insurance scheme was started by Dr. Devi Shetty 10 years ago. Realising the potential of this scheme, the government of Karnataka decided to launch this all over the state. “Over the last 12 years I have been speaking to farmers on paying Rs.5 every month for a medical insurance that would make them eligible for all 1650 surgeries,” shared Dr. Devi Shetty. Currently, 4 million farmers are covered under this scheme in Karnataka. Learning from the success of this scheme in Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu governments have also launched similar schemes.

Also, as a way to further subsidise surgeries, Dr. Devi Shetty and his team of doctors are working with L&T to launch a subsidized hospital in Mysore especially built in 6 months with just 6 million rupees including equipment and 300 beds. Since central air conditioning does not prevent infection, this hospital will not be air conditioned. It is fresh air and ample supply of sunlight that keeps infection away. Hence keeping in mind these factors, this hospital is being designed to provide good natural ventilation. The post surgery primary healthcare in this hospital will be provided by the spouse and not nurses. An audio-visual course with Stanford’s help has been designed to train the spouse.

Healthcare Industry’s Road ahead with ICT

“With more than 800 million mobile subscribers in India, if we can charge Rs.20 from the money they spend on their phone calls, health care can be covered for all,” suggests Dr. Devi Shetty. In another 5 years, special software will be used for smarter diagnosis and in 10 years’ time, it would become a legal requirement to use software for correct diagnosis. The entire health care system will be driven by Information & Communication Technologies (ICT). Mobile phone will be the primary healthcare vehicle becoming ECG, X-ray and other diagnostic machines for doctors and healthcare workers on the move. Government will primarily be a regulatory agency and not a funding agency.

Want to know more about the work Dr. Devi Shetty does at Narayana Hrudayalaya? Take a look at Narayana Hrudayalaya’s website

Social entrepreneurship is always plagued with challenges of a different kind. Financial gain is never looked upon as a motive and this kind of reduces the bar for seriousness. It is more often than not looked upon as an NGO which is looking at just ‘giving’. But as we all know, it is a rather tricky situation as many are in the field because they want to make a change but also earn a good living and build a profitable organization.

Talking about starting up, the first topic to surface is funding. Getting financial support is tough and more so because what investors are looking for is a team, scale and technology. The first thing is plausible but scale and technology are always tricky. “When you look at rural India, the average electricity supply is half an hour a day and in this situation how can one even think of tablets and technology!” exclaimed a participant. Very true indeed and inspite of knowing this, most of us shy  away because the effort required is huge and the gains are slow and low. And this is the very reason why investors don’t want their money to get stuck and the entrepreneurs can’t get started as they don’t have the backing. Chicken and Egg problem you’d say, yes sir, that is what it is.

Other thing is scale. The startup ecosystem is gaga over scaling up and we even had the very successful Techsparks 2012 themed around it but when one is talking social, the concept falls apart. There seems to be an inherent flaw that seems to be very hard to overcome. “Problems are very local and solving it can go deep and pervade throughout the area, but you can’t employ that in any other region. It is very region specific,” said an entrepreneur from his experience. Scaling up doesn’t seem to be the logical or the correct way forward and the investors accepted it to be a tricky situation.

Talking about challenges in the segment, hiring people and setting up processes came up as the toughest obstacles; be it a rural BPO or a distribution & supply chain company. One key takeaway is about design thinking. A participant of the meetup who has dealt with artisans shared her experience saying, “It’s more about understanding the thinking process of these people. Take for instance, weaving a tablemat. The rural folk who’re employed to do this don’t know what the mat is for? They have their meals on the floor and the whole concept of setting up a table is alien to them. But when you explain them the process and what they’re doing; they understand the whole thing. They themselves realize that embroidering the middle portion of the mat doesn’t make sense as it is going to remain beneath the plate anyways! This increases their productivity manifold.” It is very important to sit with the people and understand their thought process.

Moving on, a social enterprise builds products or services for people in the rural areas but are they really looking for it? It is more of a moral question when sometimes, one asks why are we trying to force things onto the population? Is there something to learn for the social entrepreneurs themselves, about how to live frugally? How to be ‘product’ independent? “People in rural areas are not really looking for a smokeless chulha or a product that will make their life easy. Most of the time, they’ll pick a INR 400 portable radio over an INR 200 Chulha that works with solar power!” said a participant. It becomes very important to know what they want. You cannot just force something that you think they need. The entire landscape is mind-numbingly different. Sometimes one is even left with the thought that should we just let it be?

On the encouraging side, the satisfaction one gets when you achieve some success is immense! When a social enterprise is recognized and is valued by the people for whom it is meant, there is nothing like it. The first meetup succeeded in bringing up some very deep conversation points and has shaped the way for many more ‘theme’ based meetings to follow. The next meetups which will be a monthly affair will have an agenda and a theme with an expert from that field.

Let’s build some momentum and keep the flag hoisted! Keep checking Yourstory Events for more updates.

The aim of this initiative is to encourage social entrepreneurship at the grassroots level as well as to support projects which create positive social/environmental change and are sustainable, innovative, scalable and credible. Last year, Surya Nepal Asha Social Entrepreneurship Award (SNASEA) recognized five such winners for their achievements and encouraged others to follow these examples of individuals creating social, environmental and economic impact.

Chhahari Production Pvt. Ltd., one of the winners of the Asha Social Entrepreneurship Award last year, is a project that empowers women through capacity building and income generation training. Selected from among 66 applicants, the project staff say the Award not only gave them the much needed financial aid, but also built public awareness about the project and its work through media coverage.

The deadline for receiving applications is 10 September 2012 and individuals can either apply themselves or nominate deserving social entrepreneur/s. The eligibility criteria are:

Applicants must (No age restrictions)
1. Be Resident in Nepal
2. Possess the passion to create a social impact through innovation
3. Have demonstrated entrepreneurial potential

Applicants’ project/s should
1. Benefit a deprived community or the public at large in Nepal
2. Have the ability to develop a model capable of scaling-up and of being reproduced by other entrepreneurs
3. Have an income-generation component, and show capacity to sustain through their own income streams

Applicants’ project/s should not
1. Be continuation of an existing organisation that was not initiated by the applicant
2. Involve political campaigning or advancement of religion
3. Involve activities outside the law or anything that fosters ethnic, religious or commercial disharmony
4. Be used to undertake academic qualifications

For more information, visit http://changefusionnepal.org/index.php/intro/ImageList/100

# Previous Year’s recipients are eligible to apply but have to demonstrate value addition or changes
##Detailed eligibility and selection criteria available at website above.

Inventors and developers from all regions worldwide are invited to enter simple and appropriate technical products and solutions in the categories Water & Waste Water, Energy, Waste Management & Recycling, Health, Food & Agriculture, Housing & Construction, and Information & Communication Technology. Entries are to be made online on the project website. The competition calls for inventions like for example innovations that create power for the operation of single machines or the supply of energy in homes, filter systems for water supply, e-health solutions or technologies for composting or recycling. The main requirement here is that the solutions or products can be implemented with the resources in the areas themselves. The entries will be professionally evaluated and an international jury will select winners.

Enterprises should fulfil the following criteria

• The enterprise develops solutions or products which have the potential of social impact for people in developing and emerging countries.
• The enterprise develops solutions or products which are already successfully implemented to improve basic supply in developing or emerging countries.
• The enterprise has a strong focus on job creation.
• The enterprise follows values such as fairness, social responsibility and self-sustainability.
• The enterprise is not a microfinance institution, private equity fund or deposit taking institution.

Following the competition, the technical innovations will be categorised in a new long-term database which aims to offer international practitioners in developmental cooperation a speedy and comprehensive overview of operational solutions from the categories defined. The online platform is also designed to foster an international exchange of knowledge, the initiation of cooperation and the further development of the products and solutions available. The aim of the Siemens Stiftung is to encourage the broad use of effective and tailored technological solutions in the appropriate basic supply context. This is to make a valuable contribution in improving living condition in the regions affected most.

Click here to visit the award website and apply for the awards.

Note: The Siemens Stiftung has now extended the deadline for submissions – close of the competition is now on 31.01.2013.

To begin with, 360Navigator a great phone based navigation service is Mumbai recently covered by us has won the mBillionth award. Our hearty congratulations to team 360Navigator!

Speaking of navigation and travel, Padhaaro is a newbie startup offering greeter service to foreign tourists visiting India. These are focused on changing the perception about India.

We also have amazing Aseem Foundation, a not for profit organization that has been fostering entrepreneurship in the politically torn state of Kashmir as a means of livelihood and development.

Tana Bana is also a community based enterprise for artisans in the district of Bhagalpur, Bihar. Their focus is to create a self-sustaining community for the artisans of Bhagalpur and Bihar making great products.

As for as great products go, WorkshopQ, a green startup selling fun and colourful eco-friendly products says, “People don’t have to Purchase Our Products to be Eco-Friendly.”

Chandra Dubey is on a mission to help the poor farmers in Madhya Pradesh through Bhushan Agro, an agro-startup that works on a leasing model to increase productivity and yield.

In case you missed the G2012 Mexico Financial Incusion Twitter Conference, you can take a look at our takeaways from the Twitter conference compiled for you.

We have also started a mSocial Ventures Series via which we intend to cover mobile innovations in the social enterprises. m.Paani that designs mLoyalty program for the underserved was the first startup covered under this series.

This August, micro-lending platform Milaap observes Independence Day through ‘Adopt an Entrepreneur’ initiative.

If you run or know of a great social startup then write to us giving us the details. We would love to have a chat with them and write about them.

Each day, leading up to India’s Independence Day, you can adopt any one of the entrepreneurs on the campaign page. When you do, you are taking on the challenge to get him/her fully funded by August 15th. Milaap will set up a fundraiser page for you where you can direct them so that they can make a loan. Once your entrepreneur is fully funded, Milaap will sponsor your trip to come and see him/her in action for a day or more.

Their goal is to provide loans of Rs 35,000 ($625) each to 30 entrepreneurs.

Click here to visit the ’Adopt an Entrepreneur’ page. 

With an intent to explore the possibilities and ways to include everyone in the formal financial sector, the future of financial inclusion was discussed at the G2012 Mexico Financial Inclusion multi-lingual #SocEntChat on Twitter held on July 25, 2012.

Here’s a summary of the third session on future of financial inclusion

Panelists:

Alliance for Financial Inclusion (AFI) – Robin Newnham and Bernadette Victorio

Jatinder Handoo, Manager – Strategic Alliances FINO

Bindu Ananth, IFMR

Tara Thiagarajan, Madura Microfinance

FUNDEFIR, Salomon Raydan

Summary of the Twitter conference on Future of Financial Inclusion:

The chat began by looking at some of the big trends in financial inclusion including digitization, blurring of distinctions between financial product distribution and advice, inclusion that would go beyond consumption smoothening solutions and solve more complex problems like retirement and portfolio diversification. The first question put forth to the panelists was on the benefits of financial inclusion for undeserved and excluded communities. Interesting answers were put forth by panelists and participants alike. The need to empower entire communities (crowd funding) including educating women on financial management, apart from the need for better management than creation of new resources was also recognized.

Moving from the benefits, the focus shifted to the likely innovations in financial inclusion including digitization, agent and mobile banking, product, process and channel innovations apart from investment incentives for the private sector to develop cost effective, customized solutions to address pressing issues. The trend of moving from savings towards micro credit and from banking towards self-finance groups as a change from the traditional belief of seeing formal banking as the only safe financial service was also seen as a significant innovation.

With the world being the era of social media and technology, the next question to the panelists was posed on the role of social media and technology in financial inclusion. Social media was seen as a way to provide social proof for procuring financial services. Social media as a means to promote different type of financial transactions between people without banks was also seen as a possibility. While some of the organizations that use technology extensively like Kiva, m-pesa and Rang De were discussed, it was also realized that the only way forward for financial inclusion is scalable technologies and not just experiments.

With the future of financial inclusion on the discussion table, it was only prudent to discuss community based models and their contribution to advance financial inclusions. The need for financial education for both clients and financial institutions alike was seen as one of the needs of the hour.  Micro pension through self-help groups was also seen as another insight.

The next question to the panelists was on the role of startups in financial inclusion. With startups being unique positioned to challenge the status quo, they were seen as a force to push innovation forward by pursuing new ideas. The other possible roles for startups that came during the chat were to identify new consumer needs, identify new business opportunities and point out where innovation is needed. Some of the other interesting insights were around school savings and success stories of school savings in U.S.A and Africa.

In an attempt to summarise the main lessons and best practices of financial inclusions, the last question was put forth to the panel. While several pointers did emerge, it was also concluded that this sector was too new to pick the best practices. That said, the need for lot more innovations and breaking of the mould was also recognized. The signing of the Maya Declaration for financial inclusion by over 80 countries is seen as a huge sign of hope to achieve the dream of freeing the economically backward people from their financial miseries.

How can we include everyone in the formal financial sector? How can getting all citizens access to savings accounts, credit, insurance, and other services to improve their standard of living? These are the questions that will be explore during the 6 hour long virtual Twitter based conference being organized by Ashoka Changemakers as part of the G2012 Mexico Financial Inclusion: Innovative Solutions for Unlocking Access competition.

Ashoka Changemakers on Wednesday, July 25th from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. EST is organizing a Twitter based #SocEntChat on Financial Inclusion.

In this six-hour, multilingual Twitter conference, you can discuss your ideas and chat with expert panelists about solutions from all over the world. The #SocEntChat will include three back-to-back sessions: Technology & Financial Inclusion, Financing Livelihoods, and The Future of Financial Inclusion Innovation.

A #SocEntChat is a real-time, Twitter-based discussion about social entrepreneurship focused on a specific theme. It is designed for current and aspiring social entrepreneurs, funders, journalists, and supporters to share their ideas, discuss the state of the field, identify the latest innovations, and pinpoint areas requiring deeper exploration.

Joining the conversation is easy. Just log-in to Twitter at 8 a.m. EST on Wednesday, July 25th, 2012. Then:

• Use the #SocEntChat hashtag to make your comments visible in the stream. During #SocEntChat, use search.twitter.com or an application like Tweetdeck (www.tweetdeck.com) or thwirl (www.thwirl.com) to follow the hashtags and keep up with the conversation.
• Introduce yourself and take a minute to get to know the other chatters when you join.
• Send your questions to @changemakers without the hashtag (to keep them out of the stream) to have them considered for the conversation.

Find out more about the Twitter based conference here. You can also enter your solution or nominate an organization in the G2012 Mexico Financial Inclusion competition today

Note: YourStory is a content partner of the Twitter based conference.

Photo Credit: N. Raghav & Raman Taneja

Two year program is packaged with 25 different courses that blend with cutting edge practical experience as well as personal mentorship through real entrepreneurs. Deshpande centers have been launched in renowned universities in US and Canada with a sole objective to make “learning relevant and responsive to real time challenges” and embark on an even more ambitious aim to help students not just ‘learn’ about entrepreneurship but find the inspirations and tools of becoming an entrepreneur themselves.

With an aim to demystify social entrepreneurship for young and creative minds this residential program is designed from a practitioner’s perspective. MSE is hosted by Deshpande Center for Social entrepreneurship (DCSE) that has been a breeding ground of several start-ups, an international network of enterprises and concrete partnerships with over 100 for profits and not –for profits who all are engaged in solving social issues with a compassionate heart and entrepreneurial mind set.

Who should join MSE?  Graduates in any field who are looking to step into creating or managing a social enterprise themselves. People who are passionate about social issues but still possess an entrepreneurial acumen to venture into innovative and yet sustainable initiatives. Being located DCSE MSE program brings an added advantage of possibility of getting incubated in our Entrepreneur in Residence program, an incubation centre where several other start-ups will accompany you as you chart the journey of developing a small idea into a big impact. Through their established network of organizations, placement support will be provided to students in both for profit and social enterprises.

How to apply?

Application can be downloaded from their website. For complete details please visit www.detmse.com  . Seats are limited and deadline to receive application is 31^st July 2012.

Mr Ramesh Ramanathan, co-founder of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, a non-profit organization focused on improving urban governance in India, presided over the event. Ramesh has worked closely with government on urban issues in a pro-bono capacity; hence his insights into the socio-entrepreneurship segment were lauded. The event also had the backing of the Rotary Club of Bangalore and Janalakshmi Social Services.

Jeff Slayter & Kane Minkus of the Industry Rockstar System gave a presentation on how they go about creating a lasting impact on the society and assisting everyone who comes in touch with them. Dr John De Martini, the Lead Actor of the movie The Secret presided over the event and went about describing how his father had gone about instilling seeds of entrepreneurship in him. He also concisely described the De Martini method, a breakthrough discovery and cutting edge personal transformation methodology which results in a new perspective and paradigm in thinking and feeling. The event was attended by a crowd interested in creating a social impact as well as in assisting others who are planning to do so.

Jeff & Kane highlighted an important point pertaining to Indian entrepreneurs, “Indians are highly talented but where they lack a bit is the selling part. The brilliant products created by them are not effectively marketed and sold. There are more millionaires today than they have been at any time in the History, this is the testimony of the fact that today if you are ready to invest in yourself and have an internet connection, you can startup and succeed from any place on the earth.”

YVS Vinod, Director, Future Competency, the organizer of this event said, “We at Future Competency are taking this crusade to alleviate social and economic issues in our country. These experts are here and with their expertise and connections in the international business communities, they aim to share practices and information to support and implement their ideas.”

We at YourStory are glad to be a part of such an event and look forward to contribute our bit on the socio-entrepreneurship front.

For more on Social Entrepreneurs, check out YourStory’s exclusive coverage here.

The NCDs, which are listed on the Bombay Stock Exchange, will be fully financed through funds advised by responsAbility Social Investments AG (responsAbility), one of the world’s leading impact investment companies. This NCD issue follows a similar INR 35 Crores NCD issued by GFSPL last year in the month of February 2011.

“This transaction is another milestone for Grameen Koota and is very critical given the current phase of the industry.  This transaction will help improve our liquidity situation and disburse loans to many of our long standing waiting borrowers. This NCD investment from a leading impact investment firm in our company is a demonstration of faith on the performance of company`s commitment to financial inclusion,” said Suresh Krishna, Managing Director, Grameen Koota.

“This transaction is very important and stabilizes our liquidity position due to the nature of the transaction. With support of social-oriented investors along with greater support from domestic banks and institutions, we will be able to consolidate as an efficient MFI,” said Udaya Kumar, CEO, Grameen Financial Services Pvt. Ltd.

“We remain optimistic about the microfinance and access-to-finance sectors in India, and are excited about the opportunity to continue to support high-quality institutions such as Grameen Financial in improving access to financial services,” said Anand Chandani, Regional Director, responsAbility.

“We are seeing a strong rebound in funding to the MFI sector from multiple avenues. Grameen Financial is a pioneer in the sector and it is fantastic to have seen their portfolio witness a strong growth over the last one year – these are definitely encouraging signs for the entire sector. We are delighted to continue our association with Grameen Financial and assist them in raising long term debt capital through the NCD route,” stated Eric Savage, President & Co-Founder, Unitus Capital, who acted as the sole arranger to the issue.

About Grameen Financial services Private Limited:

Grameen Financial Services Private Limited (GFSPL), a microfinance institutions headquartered in Bangalore, popularly known as Grameen Koota has about 4 Lakh members with 1300 employees working out from 168 branches in Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. It had loan outstanding of Rs 381.26 crore as of March 2012. Being socially focused Microfinance Institutions; Grameen Koota has over a decade of experience in micro lending towards Joint Liability Groups formed exclusively of women from poor and low income households with other support products like Water, Sanitation, Health Care, Energy Efficient Cook Stove etc.  For more information, visit www.gfspl.in

Action for India has launched the Growth Competition on Ashoka Changemakers platform for Indian Social Innovators and enterprises. 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).  The purpose of the Growth Competition is to identify social entrepreneurs who demonstrate constant success or progress in scaling—or preparing to scale—their ventures and impact. The Competition deadline June 18, 2012. The Competition is open for social entrepreneurs working in the field of education, healthcare, agriculture, energy and livelihoods.

India is full of ingenious and resilient entrepreneurs working at the grassroots level to solve urgent social problems in a variety of sectors. But in a country of over 1.2 billion people—most with unmet basic human needs—solutions that scale are needed. The goal through this initiative is to help entrepreneurs overcome barriers to scaling their innovative solutions.

There is one prize for each sector and each of the five winners will receive INR 5L in funding,  plus a bundle of free IT, legal, financial and consulting services. All participants will also benefit from this opportunity to grow and promote their enterprise using the globally recognized Ashoka platform for social innovation, and will be invited to participate in the 2013 AFI National Forum.

To Join the Competition

1.) Visit the AFI Community http://www.changemakers.com/community/afi  and learn more.

2.) Login and set up a Changeshop

3.) Fill out your entry after setting up your ChangeShop at

4) Deadline to participate is June 18, 2012.

The entry period is underway now. Judging begins from June 19, 2012. If you have any questions, connect with AFI at info@actionforindia.org or isharma@ashoka.org