Speakers
Arbind Singh - Social Entrepreneur of the year 2008 by Schwab Foundation
Founded by him in 1995, Nidan builds profitable businesses and ‘people’s organizations’ that are led by assetless, informal workers.
Nidan taps into the wealth of the poor—primarily their numerical strength—and then aggregates them into economies of scale. This process of ‘collectivizing’ generates social capital, representation and ‘voice’ for the unorganized poor, which they then leverage to launch their own businesses and shift policy to be recognized as wealth-creators.
Once ‘ultra poor’, but now entrepreneurs, shareholders and advocacy champions, Nidan’s members are reporting income growths of 100 percent and more. Two thousand children of Nidan members who could not access education, now go to 24 community schools launched by Nidan. Most significantly, Nidan is returning to Bihar a culture of accountability and honest enterprise.Under Arbind’s leadership, Nidan has received the first Bihar Innovation Forum Award from the state.
Prema Gopalan - Founder, Swayam Shikshan Prayog
She founded Swayam Shikshan Prayog (SSP) in 1994. It builds networks of rural ‘social businesses’ that are co-created by private corporations and women survivors of disasters such as the 2004 Asian Tsunami and the Latur and Gujarat earthquakes (of 1993 and 2001 respectively). With the facilitation of SSP, networks of rural women entrepreneurs have launched retail businesses in renewable home energy products, home groceries and health funds in partnership with BP (previously known as British Petroleum), LIC and others.
Working in the disaster-effected areas of three Indian states, SSP has since 1998, launched 8,944 agri and non-farm businesses through savings and group credit products. Further, it has nurtured 1,820 women retail entrepreneurs with a total consumer base of 63,000 families and cumulative earnings of 2.3 crores. It has ensured more than 33 percent income growth per entrepreneur.
Most recently, the Chinese government invited Prema to be a special advisor to their post-earthquake reconstruction work. Under Prema’s leadership, SSP won the Changemakers Award in 2008.
Dr. S. Rajagopalan - Founder, Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE)
TIDE is devoted to promoting sustainable development through technological interventions. It identifies economically rewarding, environment friendly technologies invented in India’s research institutions, and develops them into successful enterprises. TIDE focuses on those technologies which are suitable for the rural environment, address energy issues and build rural entrepreneurs.
He is an alumni of IIT Delhi and also holds a Management degree from IIM Bangalore. His belief that introduction of appropriate and ecological sound technologies can mitigate the poverty, unemployment and backwardness in villages, led him to join the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (KSCST). This government institute focused on development of rural innovations.
After 14 years, Rajagopalan along with a few of his colleagues left the KSCST and founded TIDE in 1993. They believed that activities of building rural markets, developing enabling mechanisms and entrepreneurship development are as important as the work of scientific innovations. They also wanted to prove that non subsidy based, environmentally sound rural enterprises could make economic sense.
Sohini Bhattacharya - Director, South Asia Partnerships, Ashoka Foundation
She is the Director of South Asia Partnerships for Ashoka Foundation in India. Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems.
Sohini worked in the field of economic development and women for 10 years prior to joining Ashoka in 2000. She started out working with Child In Need Institute (CINI), a premier Mother and Child Health organization in India and helped in the launch of a new program within the organization working on income generation and micro-credit for rural women. She joined Ashoka in March 2000 to help expand the Venture program in West India in which role, she brought together a diverse group of Fellows and strengthened the number of women in the fellowship. Later on, she ramped up the the venture program nationally, built systems and created awareness and resources for Ashoka in India.
Sohini holds a post-graduate degree in English Literature from Jadavpur University, Kolkata. She also sits on the board of CREA, an organization working on enhancing women’s leadership and focusing on sexuality, reproductive health, violence against women and social justice.
