MASTER OF DEVELOPMETN STUDIES (M.A) DEGREE PROGRAMME

Course:

SOCIAL ENTREPRENERUSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT (MADVS4001E04)

A SURVEY OF INDIAN SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS

INSTRUCTOR

PROF. (Dr ). KRISHNAN CHALIL

11 APRIL 2020

Prof. (Dr.) Krishnan Chalil

Department of Development Studies

Central University of South Bihar

She is the founder and CEO of SHEF( Study Hall Education Foundation), anorganisation dedicated to offering education to most disadvantaged girls inIndia. She has worked with over 900 schools and changed the life of 1,50,00girls directly and 2,70,00 girls indirectly with her program. She was felicitatedwith the ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ award in 2017.

She is the co-founder and director of the Digital Study Hall, which extends thepedagogical practices developed by the foundation to rural and urban schools inUttar Pradesh and reaches out to over 1,00,000 students and teachers. A prolificsocial entrepreneur, Dr Sahni also founded DiDi’s, a social enterprise generatingsustainable livelihoods for women, where she employs 65 Prerna graduates andtheir mothers.

Dr Urvashi Sahni

Dr. Harish HandeThe co-founder of Selco, a rural sustainable energy company which

has over 80,000 installations and 25 retail sales and service centers allover Karnataka, a state in Southern India. Among its manyaccomplishments, Selco has created India’s first rural solar financingprogram using regional banks

An Indian social entrepreneur who founded Goonj,a non-governmental organisation (NGO)headquartered in Delhi. Gupta is an Ashoka fellowand was conferred with "Social Entrepreneur of theYear Award" by Schwab Foundation for SocialEntrepreneurship in 2012. He won the RamonMagsaysay Award in 2015.

Anshu Gupta

Ajaita Shah

Bringing light and hope to the rural India – AjaitaShah, Founder & CEO, Frontier Markets. FrontierMarkets is a business that sells Solar energy poweredproducts at an affordable cost to the ruralcommunities of India. Ajaita Shah Founder & CEOof Frontier Markets is now one of the mostsuccessful social women entrepreneurs in India. Shewas also featured in the Top 30 under 30 list forSocial Entrepreneurs by Forbes. The company hastill date sold 10,000 Solar solutions across all ruralcommunities in India.

Trilochan SastryProfessor, Decision Sciences at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore

He founded the Centre for Collective Development (www.ccd.ngo) andFarmveda (www.farmveda.in ), two social ventures that establish cooperativesand market branded food products. All profits go to farmers. CCD has beenoperational since 2004 and as of 2019 had organized over 25000 farmers witha focus on marketing and value addition. These Farmer ProducerOrganizations (FPOs) have grown and made profits since inception withoutany subsidy. The MOOCS Course is based on extensive field for 15 years, andfrom observation and participation in many other initiatives beyond CCD,and with Governments, Donor Agencies and International Agencies. It is alsobased on a course on Social Entrepreneurship taught at IIM Bangalore. He isalso the founder and Chairman of the Association for Democratic Reforms(www.adrindia.org ) which works on improving elections and politics inIndia in a non-partisan manner.

MADHU PANDIT DAS

Madhu Pandit Dasa is the President of ISCKON Bangalore and a trustee of theAkshaya Patra Foundation- the world’s largest mid day meal program, feeding morethan a million school children. Every day! His love for science and his unparalleledintellect fetched him a seat in IIT Bombay, one of the most coveted engineeringinstitutes in India. The pursuit of physics acquired a philosophical dimension whenMadhu spent hours on end in the IIT Library trying to discover the original cause ofeverything, the “cause behind the cause.” Amid this existential frustration, he cameclose to suicide before discovering Krishna and embraced the spiritual path. Madhuthen found his rhythm and since then there was no looking back. Akshaya Patra hasnot just changed the lives of a million children but also the character of the temple.It has given ISCKON Bangalore an identity, a heart which contains smiles ofmillions of children altogether.

Bhushan Punani, a graduate of IIM Ahmedabad madethe unconventional choice of joining Blind Person’sAssociation to learn for himself whether managementprinciples can be applied to the development sector. Hehas created a wealth of knowledge, of network and ofempowerment today touching hearts of thousands.Satisfied with a salary less than what an IIM freshgraduate gets every year Bhushan believes that he hasfound everything that money cannot buy.

BHUSHAN PUNANI

SUMITA GHOSE

Sumita Ghose attributes Rangasutra’s success today tothe social capital she built from years spent inRajasthan. Rangasutra is a for-profit venture whichsources craft and textiles from villages and retailsthrough Fabindia. She has been weaving lives togetherwith the help of her market oriented social businessthat poignantly sweeps into the lives of the rural poorwho are extremely talented and hardworking. Shedescribes what she gets from the people as ‘priceless’.Rangasutra has broken the NGO mold and has charteda new language for the social sector in India.

ANAND KUMAR

“Lack of circumstances and resources are not barriers. Passion,commitment and drive matters”, says Anand Kumar who is amathematics teacher and runs coaching classes in Patna. His passionfor his work and his drive to do something for the needy made himkick start an experiment, now recognised by the name “Super 30”. Hetook in a batch of 30 poor but talented students and decided to trainthem free of cost to crack the JEE. A whole new class of aspirants andan equally inspiring teacher who was hungry to unleash that force in awilling student made super 30 phenomenally successful. The programstill continues opening the doors of the hallowed IIT to students whoare gutsy enough to dream big without fear.

DHRUV LAKRA

Most of us are socially inclined but have strong perceptions likethe sector does not pay well, it’s not professional, and it’s forpeople who do not want to make it big in life. For these kinds ofpeople, Dhruv Lakra is an inspiration, an embodiment of thedream that they nurture but prefer to keep it till there becauseof lack of resources and profit. “Find out what your true callingis, then go follow that path”, says Lakra the owner of MirakleCouriers- a robust business competing with the best. You mightbe wondering what the miracle is? Mirakle is a company whichexclusively employs the deaf. The light in the eyes of theemployees and the unparalleled growth of the company in ashort span of two years, says it all.

SALONI MALHOTRA

Saloni Malhotra, a young engineering graduate from IITMadras formed India’s first rural BPO in the nameof ‘DesiCrew’. She countered the challenge ofsetting up a business, with a social objective withflying colors. Little had she imagined that herdream would take her from Delhi to the dustyroads of Tamil Nadu. However, this is the beauty ofa dream it can take you anywhere. DesiCrew hasbrought income, empowerment and exposure toyoung people staying in towns and villages.

BINDESHWAR PATHAK

Caste stratification is an evil prevalent in our societyin its most vicious form. We do not feel the need toaddress it until and unless we are directly affected byit. However, a Brahmin boy decided to lead amovement known as ‘Sulabh’ and brought a revolutionin toilets and a rightful place in society for those whoonce cleaned them. His movement aims at restoringthe human rights and dignity of untouchables and toachieve that he has already done commendable work.

Founded in 1976 by Dr. G. Venkataswamy, Aravind EyeCare System today is the largest and most productive eyecare facility in the world. From April 2007 to March 2008,about 2.4 million persons have received outpatient eyecare and over 285,000 have undergone eye surgeries at theAravind Eye Hospitals at Madurai, Theni, Tirunelveli,Coimbatore and Puducherry. Blending traditionalhospitality with state-of-the-art ophthalmic care, Aravindoffers comprehensive eye care in the most systematic wayattracting patients from all around the world.

A social entrepreneur, business woman and peace negotiator, her pursuit in solving the problem of global water shortage in the form of m.paani led her all the way to be honoured by president Bill Clinton with 1 million dollars.

In 1965, Roy was a young postgraduate student fromSt.Stephen’s College, Delhi. When he volunteer tospend the summer mapping 100 drought prone area infamine affected Palamu, District of Jharkhand (earlierpart of Bihar). He made his life’s mission to fightpoverty and inequality. He founded social works andResearch Centre (SWRC). In 1972 he found way toaddress problems by new models and strategies. Hisfirst initiative was to address the water situation bysetting up water pumps.

She presently work as the founder and managing director of child and youth finance international (CYFI). She has ably led CYFI to work with 91 governments to create national initiatives for economic citizenship education and financial inclusion.

Dr.Verghese Kurien started a Co-operativeorganization AMUL. Amul has been a sterling exampleof a co-operative organization‘s success in the longterm. It is one of the best examples of co-operativeachievement in the developing economy. The AmulPattern has established itself as a uniquely appropriatemodel for rural development. Amul has spurred theWhite Revolution of India, which has made India thelargest producer of milk and milk products in theworld.

He was born and bought up in Patna, Bihar, this 26 year old socialentrepreneur is on a mission of connecting children from remotest areawith best opportunities. Sharad believes that the next generation ofleaders are sitting in the classrooms right now, and if provided with theright opportunity, can change the whole world. With this vision, hefounded Dexterity Global at the age of 16, and has providedopportunities to more than 1.2 million students. Sharad is one of thefew Indians to be enlisted in the Forbes 30 under 30 list and also one offew to reject a masters degree from Harvard University. What’s more,he has also been invited by the former U.S president Barack Obama tothe white house for an inaugural ceremony. To keep adding to hisachievements, the Rockefeller foundation also inducted him in the listof 100 next century innovators.

Ria Sharma is a social activist and the first Indian toreceive the UNICEF Global Goals Awards for2017.Sharma is the founder of NGO Make Love NotScars that works in all aspects of rehabilitation for acidattack survivors in India. Sharma also founded theworld's first rehabilitation centre for acid attacksurvivors in the world.