Action for India Forum ’12 to focus on scaling social impact through technology

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Innovators, tech gurus to galvanize Young Social Innovators

Jan 19,2012

Come Saturday, January 21 and India’s most celebrated social innovators – bureaucrat Anil Swarup, entrepreneur William Bissel, social innovator CP Das, energy expert Swati Bhogle, healthcare change agent Dr Ashwin Naik, Self-Help Group pioneer Anish Kumar, skill development agency chief Dilip Shenoy – will put their heads together to galvanize 100 Young Social Innovators to discover how technology can help social enterprises get more pervasive in coverage and impact.

Tech Czar Sam Pitroda who invests a day leading Young Social Innovators session in the capital says, “Social innovations are critical for solving India's challenges of inclusion and fulfilling unmet needs of a large number of people.

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“Our young social innovators can break barriers and seize new opportunities to enhance development that reaches many more people,” added Pitroda who guides Action For India (AFI) as the Honorary Chairman.

The first ever Action For India Forum will focus on scaling social impact through technology at a day long session at IIT Delhi campus.

Of the 100 young social innovators those who leverage technology and show an outstanding impact over the next six months, will be eligible for five Action For India Growth Prizes, one each for education, healthcare, agriculture, energy and livelihoods.

Each Growth Prize will consist of Rs 5 lakh as well as non-monetary benefits.

Ashoka, the leading global organization focused on identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs, will guide the evaluation and selection process.

“Action For India will identify innovators addressing critical social problems and help them unleash the potential of technology,” says Sanjay Kadaveru, Founder and President, Action For India and a Charter Member of The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE).

“India is full of young innovators who impact their communities in myriad ways. But in a country of 1.2 billion, we need to scale their proven solutions to serve a much wider swath of the population. By connecting successful entrepreneurs with technology experts and resources, our goal is to accelerate this scaling process,” adds Kadaveru.

An in-depth report highlighting barriers to scale and how technology and government can play a role in overcoming these challenges, specially developed by Dasra, a strategic philanthropy foundation, will also be unveiled.

Young social innovators, under the age of 40, who have made significant impact with their innovations in the field of Agriculture, Education, Energy, Livelihoods and Healthcare, will place their specific needs before technology providers such as Nokia, Intel, ‘A Little World’ and M Power forum from Spice group and seek their support for widening impact at the ‘Action For India Forum 2012’.

‘Action For India’, a not for profit body works with social entrepreneurs who make a real difference to the everyday lives of people and are India's best hope for long-term, large scale social change. A billion plus people require a wide variety of solutions, and AFI believes that those solutions are already all over India, in the minds of social entrepreneurs, just waiting to be tapped.

Concluded.

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