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 Dr Urvashi Sahni She is the founder and CEO of SHEF( Study Hall Education Foundation), an organisation dedicated to offering education to most disadvantaged girls in India. She has worked with over 900 schools and changed the life of 1,50,00 girls directly and 2,70,00 girls indirectly with her program. She was felicitated with the ‘Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ award in 2017. She is the co-founder and director of the Digital Study Hall, which extends the pedagogical practices developed by the foundation to rural and urban schools in Uttar Pradesh and reaches out to over 1,00,000 students and teachers. A prolific social entrepreneur, Dr Sahni also founded DiDi’s, a social enterprise generating sustainable livelihoods for women, where she employs 65 Prerna graduates and their mothers. Dr. Harish Hande The co-founder of Selco, a rural sustainable energy company which has over 80,000 installations and 25 retail sales and service centers all over Karnataka, a state in Southern India. Among its many accomplishments, Selco has created India’s first rural solar financing program using regional banks Anshu Gupta An Indian social entrepreneur who founded Goonj, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) headquartered in Delhi. Gupta is an Ashoka fellow and was conferred with "Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award" by Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in 2012. He won the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015. Ajaita Shah Bringing light and hope to the rural India – Ajaita Shah, Founder & CEO, Frontier Markets. Frontier Markets is a business that sells Solar energy powered products at an affordable cost to the rural communities of India. Ajaita Shah Founder & CEO of Frontier Markets is now one of the most successful social women entrepreneurs in India. She was also featured in the Top 30 under 30 list for Social Entrepreneurs by Forbes. The company has till date sold 10,000 Solar solutions across all rural communities in India. Trilochan Sastry Professor, Decision Sciences at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore He founded the Centre for Collective Development (www.ccd.ngo) and Farmveda (www.farmveda.in ), two social ventures that establish cooperatives and market branded food products. All profits go to farmers. CCD has been operational since 2004 and as of 2019 had organized over 25000 farmers with a focus on marketing and value addition. These Farmer Producer Organizations (FPOs) have grown and made profits since inception without any subsidy. The MOOCS Course is based on extensive field for 15 years, and from observation and participation in many other initiatives beyond CCD, and with Governments, Donor Agencies and International Agencies. It is also based on a course on Social Entrepreneurship taught at IIM Bangalore. He is also the founder and Chairman of the Association for Democratic Reforms (www.adrindia.org ) which works on improving elections and politics in India in a non-partisan manner. MADHU PANDIT DAS Madhu Pandit Dasa is the President of ISCKON Bangalore and a trustee of the Akshaya Patra Foundation- the world’s largest mid day meal program, feeding more than a million school children. Every day! His love for science and his unparalleled intellect fetched him a seat in IIT Bombay, one of the most coveted engineering institutes in India. The pursuit of physics acquired a philosophical dimension when Madhu spent hours on end in the IIT Library trying to discover the original cause of everything, the “cause behind the cause.” Amid this existential frustration, he came close to suicide before discovering Krishna and embraced the spiritual path. Madhu then found his rhythm and since then there was no looking back. Akshaya Patra has not 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 of millions of children altogether. BHUSHAN PUNANI Bhushan Punani, a graduate of IIM Ahmedabad made the unconventional choice of joining Blind Person’s Association to learn for himself whether management principles can be applied to the development sector. He has created a wealth of knowledge, of network and of empowerment today touching hearts of thousands. Satisfied with a salary less than what an IIM fresh graduate gets every year Bhushan believes that he has found everything that money cannot buy. SUMITA GHOSE Sumita Ghose attributes Rangasutra’s success today to the social capital she built from years spent in Rajasthan. Rangasutra is a for-profit venture which sources craft and textiles from villages and retails through Fabindia. She has been weaving lives together with the help of her market oriented social business that poignantly sweeps into the lives of the rural poor who are extremely talented and hardworking. She describes what she gets from the people as ‘priceless’. Rangasutra has broken the NGO mold and has charted a 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 a mathematics teacher and runs coaching classes in Patna. His passion for his work and his drive to do something for the needy made him kick start an experiment, now recognised by the name “Super 30”. He took in a batch of 30 poor but talented students and decided to train them free of cost to crack the JEE. A whole new class of aspirants and an equally inspiring teacher who was hungry to unleash that force in a willing student made super 30 phenomenally successful. The program still continues opening the doors of the hallowed IIT to students who are gutsy enough to dream big without fear. DHRUV LAKRA Most of us are socially inclined but have strong perceptions like the sector does not pay well, it’s not professional, and it’s for people who do not want to make it big in life. For these kinds of people, Dhruv Lakra is an inspiration, an embodiment of the dream that they nurture but prefer to keep it till there because of lack of resources and profit. “Find out what your true calling is, then go follow that path”, says Lakra the owner of Mirakle Couriers- a robust business competing with the best. You might be wondering what the miracle is? Mirakle is a company which exclusively employs the deaf. The light in the eyes of the employees and the unparalleled growth of the company in a short span of two years, says it all. SALONI MALHOTRA Saloni Malhotra, a young engineering graduate from IIT Madras formed India’s first rural BPO in the name of ‘DesiCrew’. She countered the challenge of setting up a business, with a social objective with flying colors. Little had she imagined that her dream would take her from Delhi to the dusty roads of Tamil Nadu. However, this is the beauty of a dream it can take you anywhere. DesiCrew has brought income, empowerment and exposure to young people staying in towns and villages. BINDESHWAR PATHAK Caste stratification is an evil prevalent in our society in its most vicious form. We do not feel the need to address it until and unless we are directly affected by it. However, a Brahmin boy decided to lead a movement known as ‘Sulabh’ and brought a revolution in toilets and a rightful place in society for those who once cleaned them. His movement aims at restoring the human rights and dignity of untouchables and to achieve that he has already done commendable work. Founded in 1976 by Dr. G. Venkataswamy, Aravind Eye Care System today is the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world. From April 2007 to March 2008, about 2.4 million persons have received outpatient eye care and over 285,000 have undergone eye surgeries at the Aravind Eye Hospitals at Madurai, Theni, Tirunelveli, Coimbatore and Puducherry. Blending traditional hospitality with state-of-the-art ophthalmic care, Aravind offers comprehensive eye care in the most systematic way attracting 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 from St.Stephen’s College, Delhi. When he volunteer to spend the summer mapping 100 drought prone area in famine affected Palamu, District of Jharkhand (earlier part of Bihar). He made his life’s mission to fight poverty and inequality. He founded social works and Research Centre (SWRC). In 1972 he found way to address problems by new models and strategies. His first initiative was to address the water situation by setting 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-operative organization AMUL. Amul has been a sterling example of a co-operative organization‘s success in the long term. It is one of the best examples of co-operative achievement in the developing economy. The Amul Pattern has established itself as a uniquely appropriate model for rural development. Amul has spurred the White Revolution of India, which has made India the largest producer of milk and milk products in the world.