ASHOKA IN INDIA

Innovation and Impact

Fall 2009

Ashoka envisions an Everyone A Changemaker™ world.

A world that responds quickly and effectively to social challenges, and where each individual has the freedom, confidence and societal support to address any social problem and drive change.

Our Impact

Our Demographics

Our Supporters

28 Years of ImpactAshoka selected our first Fellow in India.

Gloria D’Souza, Parisar Asha Field of Work: Education Year of Election: 1982

“And I think I can do something very important with this idea. If we can help children grow up learning to think rather than memorize and repeat, learning to problem solve, learning to be creative, learning to be actors rather than be acted upon, we can create a generation that will be very different. And India will be very different. And that’s a revolution.”

“More than financial assistance, the faith that someone puts in you at a time when you are a nonentity, that’s what makes a world of difference. That, I feel, is the special contribution of Ashoka.”

– Gloria D’Souza in How to Change the World

28 Years of ImpactFor almost three decades, we have identified and supported over 300 of India’s leading social entrepreneurs.

Fellows elected 1991-2009306 Fellows

Ashoka Fellows Worldwide in 20092000 Fellows

India

Ashoka has deepened its roots in India, even as we have expanded around the rest of the world.

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90

155

15 %

28 Years of ImpactAshoka Fellows by sector/state

Ashoka Fellows by Area of Work, as of 2009306 Fellows

Education

Human Rights

Health

Environment

Economic Development

Civic Engagement

*Disputed regions and boundaries also seen on the map used

** One Ashoka Fellow in India moved subsequently to Switzerland

Ashoka Fellows by State*, as of 2009305 Fellows in India**

28 Years of ImpactAshoka Fellows in India work across every field in the sector.

Ashoka Fellows by Area of Work, as of 2009306 Fellows

Education

Human Rights (61 Fellows)

• Asim Sarode introduces concepts of grassroots victim support and witness protection programs to change the legal environment.

• Aman Singh revives a tradition of community-managed forests to protect the access rights of the poor, promote livelihoods, and safeguard natural resources of the community.

Human Rights

Health

Environment

Economic Development

Civic Engagement

Health (52)

• Armida Fernandez reorients the scarce resources of India’s public health system to provide efficient, quality maternal and neonatal care for low income families.

• Ratnaboli Ray works to transform India's state mental institutions, which are little more than holding cells, into centers of modern, high-quality professional care. Environment (42)

• Ritwick Dutta teaches communities to prevent environmental damage caused by development projects in five states of India, making the paradigm of saving the environment community-driven

•Suprabha Seshan diagnosed and rebuilt an entire ecosystem of endemic species, despite conventional strategies in India of either preservation or indiscriminant replanting.

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28 Years of ImpactAshoka Fellows in India work across every field in the sector.

Ashoka Fellows by Area of Work, as of 2009306 Fellows

Education

Civic Engagement (35 Fellows)

• Vishal Talreja builds networks of volunteers that offer vulnerable children opportunities to increase their chances for normal childhood development.

• Sikha Roy organizes daily-wage-earning women to exercise a legal right over unused land and then to farm it appropriately

Human Rights

Health

Environment

Economic Development

Civic Engagement

Economic Development (64)

• Anita Ahuja combines enterprise and social commitment in a business that recycles waste plastic into handbags/accessories and provides employment to a marginalised segment of urban India—the ragpickers.

• Solomon JP solves 2 challenges faced by low-income workers : sustaining profitable small enterprises, and regulating and organizing day wage labor opportunities

Education (52)

• Kiran Sethi redesigns childhood in an Indian city via her education curriculum and initiatives that build a healthy relationship between students and their community

• Umesh Malhotra democratizes the emphasis and practice of reading among children through holistic learning centers

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What are Ashoka Fellows saying about Ashoka in India?

“The Ashoka Fellowship forced me to think about what value based social entrepreneurship is all about.”- Bhargavi Davar, Ashoka Fellow India

Bhargavi works to restore dignity and autonomy of people with mental illness by reforming failed institutions and outdated laws, and by establishing centers that prove the healing power of self-reliance and community support

“Enabling or mainstreaming an innovation cannot happen at an individual level, it only makes sense to talk about productivity as a sector. It is the Ashoka Fellow who has expanded the meaning of productive entrepreneurship.”-Ved Arya, Ashoka Fellow India

Ved’s approach to water management focuses on enhancing water supply as well as managing escalating and competing water demands. Ved has developed collaboration models between the water users i.e. the farmers and the civil bodies responsible for maintenance and supply.

What are Ashoka Fellows saying about Ashoka in India?

“Before this… we felt like small fish in a small pond. Now we know we’re actually part of a big school of fish that could attack a whale.”

— Seema Prakash and Prakash Michael, Ashoka Fellows India

“At a time when people paid little attention to my ideas, Ashoka spent hours listening. So many times during the process, I had tried to reconsider my strategies, throw out unrealistic plans, and react to hypothetical situations…it was one of the most introspective and forward thinking processes I had ever experienced.”

— Ratnaboli Ray, Ashoka Fellow India

What is the World saying about Ashoka Fellows in India?

Vijay Pratap Singh AdityaFirst Annual Dell Small Business Excellence Award in India (2009)

Dipendra ManochaIIML Lakshmipat Singhania National Leadership Award 2007 presented on February 12, 2008 at Vigyan Bhawan by the President of India

C V Madhukar"Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum Eisenhower Fellowship, 2008

Arbind SinghSocial Entrepreneur of the Year, World Economic Forum India Economic Summit 2008first and fourth award of the First Innovation Forum organized by Bihar Govt in Oct 2007

Madhavi Kuckrejaone of 6 Women Achievers of Lucknow by Tata Consultancy Services and Taj Group

Sriram AyerDevelopment Marketplace award in 2008

Kousalya Periasamy, Sunitha Krishnan, Sonam Wangchuk, Subroto Das, Anil Joshi, Sharad SharmaReal Heroes Award presented by CNN-IBN and Reliance in 2008. Kousalya also nominated for CNN-IBN Indian of the Year award, and won the Rising Star award. Sunitha’s organization won Arab Gulf Award for its pioneering work in the anti trafficking field.

What is the World saying about Ashoka Fellows in India?

Sugandha SukrutarajDerozio Award for abetting social change through Education (2008)Semi-finalist for the Jeet and Kemkha Fellowship and the Indian Social Entrepreneur (2007); Sugandha’s AMBA Centers for the Economic Empowerment of the Intellectually Challenged received an Intel award for smart usage of technology in abetting economic empowerment to the intellectually challenged community; Short listed for the TERI CSR Award (2007) for support to the AMBA CEEIC project; Helen Keller Award (2007)

Vineet RaiInternational Finance Corporation Sustainable Investor of the Year Award: Finalist (2008); L-RAMP Investor of the Year Award (2007); World Business Award by UNDP-IBLF (2006)

Satyan MishraFastest Growing High-Tech Company in India by Deloitte (2006) Top 8 Start-up Indian Companies by Red Herring (2006)ZDNET Asia Top Asian Technovisionaries Award and Asia Technopreneur of the Year (both 2006); Schwab Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award by World Economic Forum and CII in India (2005)

Amol GojePCQuest Best IT Implementation of the Year (2008)

Lenin Raghuvanshi2007 Gwangju Human Rights Awards

Our Impact

Our Demographics

Our Supporters

Ashoka Fellow Demographics

61 Fellows

By Gender

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1981-1991 1991-2001 2001-2009

W

Year of Election

An increasing proportion of Ashoka Fellows in India are women.

• Chetna Sinha runs India’s largest microfinance bank run by rural women

• Anjali Gopalan achieved national policy change, leading the effort to overturn laws banning homosexual activity, which disproportionately affected access to justice for HIV/AIDS affected constituency

• Monica Kumar creates a social market for mental health care in India, via multimedia awareness campaigns, policy advocacy and partnerships with citizen sector organizations, corporate entities, and schools.

MW MW

90 Fellows 155 Fellows

Anjali Gopalan has achieved national policy change and significantly impacted the field of work serving HIV/AIDS affected communities.

Ashoka Fellow Demographics

1981-1991 1991-2001 2001-2009

Year of ElectionBy Geography

Rural

UrbanBoth Rura

l

UrbanBoth Rura

l

UrbanBoth

34 % of India’s Fellowship (103 Fellows) work across rural/urban divides.

• Hilmi Qureshi brings social media on HIV/AIDS and climate change to urban and rural audiences alike through mobile gaming

• Brij Kothari increases literacy via same language subtitling (SLS) on popular television programmes across India in several languages

• Ritwick Dutta seeks to build environmental democracy, mitigating damage caused by development projects in 8 states, working directly with affected communities to bring impact assessments to national decisionmaking

61 Fellows 90 Fellows 155 Fellows

22 States

Brij Kothari increases literacy across India.

Ashoka Fellow Demographics

1981-1991 1991-2001 2001-2009

Year of ElectionBy Field of Work

61 Fellows 90 Fellows 155 Fellows

Education

Human Rights

Health

Environment

Economic Development

Civic Engagement

Although proportions across fields of work remained steady over time, Fellows in India work fluidly across them, esp. in economic development.

• Ravindranath melds his citizen-led disaster management strategies with livelihoods opportunities during flood season

• Ishita Khanna, Muthu Velayutham and Bablu Ganguly achieve energy and environmental conservation by promoting rural economies with local products

• Dipendra Manocha and Sugandha Sukrutaraj expand civic participation by disabled people partly by enabling them for employment opportunities

Ravindranath improves civic and market resiliency in flood-prone areas.

Bridging the urban/rural divide: Anshu GuptaAnshu exemplifies how Fellows can leverage Ashoka.

Anshu Gupta, Goonj Field of Work: Civic Participation Year of Election: 2004 What does Goonj/Anshu do?

“Ashoka gave us lots of good friends, people like us, on a platter. It was my role to exploit that, and I have. With Fellows, there’s no insecurity about the concept. It’s not a typical donation/charity model. They’re usually not money-minded. They’re family.

New Idea

Strategy

Results

Development Marketplace Award for Sanitary Napkin project

"Indian NGO of the Year” (2007)

World Bank Development Marketplace Award

School to school (S2S) initiative was the Winner of Ashoka's Changemakers Innovation Award

Get clothes as wages. Anshu is turning cloth giving from a ‘charitable act’ into a part of the village development process through his ‘cloth for work’ program. Wherever Goonj reaches, beneficiaries pursue a development activity for their village. E.g., a few volunteers pulled together by another Ashoka Fellow grew to an entire village in MP who earned cloth for their work from Anshu’s Goonj.

-Changemakers award winning sanitary napkin initiative uses the most worthless urban surplus to address most basic but taboo subject of a clean cloth sanitary napkin for the village women

- Changemakers award winning initiative ‘School to School’ is building up relationship between urban and rural schools by using underutilized school material as a resource.

Anshu redistributes creates a culture of giving of idle surplus in rich homes (a substantial yet latent economic resource) and a culture of self-sufficiency in poor homes via “cloth for work” programs.

His organization, GOONJ, has built a nationwide movement to encourage and manage a massive transfer of used clothes, household goods, and other essential items.

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Bridging the caste divide

-- Anshu Gupta

I am the one everyone is watching.

What I do, the others will do, as I am the head when I’m handling a disaster situation. So the first day I said to the lower caste member of the team, you eat first, then I will use your plate, and we’ll all eat together. I broke everything, and then everyone on the team did, and then they go to villages and work that way. We tell the villagers this is the way we work. If you don’t want to work this way, we will go to another village.

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Network Effect: Anshu and Ashoka

Anshu Ashoka+ +

Anshu enhances existing dimensions of other Fellows’ work by delivering a new service that creates additional credibility from their constituencies

Pradip Arbind ElangoMN

Amin RehanaSeema & Prakash

Pradip Sarmah (Assam) – flood-affected people built embankments in return for clothes Arbind Singh (Bihar) – local people provide ferry services on Kosi River in return for clothes Elango Rangaswamy (Tamil Nadu) – schools provided with books from Goonj Seema Prakash & Prakash Michael (Madhya Pradesh) – village came together to dig bore wells for clothes; government later provided cement /materials to make wells permanent, and see this example as a national best practice MN Amin (Orissa) – embraced disaster relief services in Orissa, made possible by Anshu’s involvement and Goonj’s clothes, to serve the community of migrant workers who use his remittance services Rehana (Uttar Pradesh) – used clothes and sanitary napkins as a practical additional service to her movement for women, encouraging health and hygiene as human rights

Our Impact

Our Demographics

Our Supporters

Ashoka’s Supporters in India

Individuals

Foundations Businesses

Devdarshan ChakrabortyJulia HieberSreeratna KancharelaArti MadhusudanNeeru SharmaParul SoniJayashi TalapatraParth S. TiwariHarry Roels

Ashoka Support Network

Partners

Bhasin & Co. AdvocatesGoodwill Warehousing

Subroto BagchiHema DivakarBhairavi JaniB.K. JhawarAvi NashAlok VajpeyiCK Baljee

What are Supporters Saying about Ashoka in India?

I am impressed with the deep conviction of the Ashoka Fellows, which is a key to overcoming the enormous hurdles that come in the way of achieving their dreams. Their entrepreneurial skills rival the skills of any entrepreneur that I have seen in Boston or the Silicon Valley.

Gurujaj “Desh” DeshpandeFounder, Sycamore Networks, Inc. & Founder, The Deshpande Foundation

“You are truly creating a superpower that in times to come will lead the world order in a direction that not only such a group can envision and achieve, but that the entire world will cherish. Congratulations!”

Nihar KothariManaging Director & Executive Editor, Rajathan Patrika Group

The common link, and most important ingredient in young Changemakers is madness. I saw the emergence of so many different backgrounds, classes – I saw a new India here.

Dr. Anand Nadkarni (speaking about Ashoka’s Youth Venturers)Vice President, Group Corporate Affairs, Tata Council for Community Initiatives

Impact Example: Deshpande Sandbox

Participating Ashoka Fellows who have completed pilots in their home communities will concentrate their efforts in a development vacuum, holistically building capacity for standard of living improvements.

The Deshpande Foundation provides financial and professional support for projectsAshoka counsels Fellows in project implementation and ensures accountability and effectiveness.

Ashoka Fellows in the Sandbox: • Chetna Sinha (rural women’s banking)• Ayappa Masagi (rainwater harvesting)• Ved Arya (watershed management)• Ravi Aggarwal (biomedical waste disposal)• Shibram Pailoor (agricultural journalism) • Mukti Bosco (micro health insurance)• SLN Swamy (ecotourism)

Chetna Gala Sinha – Rural Women’s Bank

•Opened a full Hubli office (over 2000 microfinance beneficiaries)

•Launched a mobile business school for women (courses on yogurt making, fast food making, tailoring, financial and marketing skills)

•Actively establishing networks of women’s self-help groups (SHGs) to teach healthy financial habits.

Ayappa Masagi – Rainwater Harvesting

•Implemented stream water harvesting, borewell/groundwater recharge

•Retrofitted urban ward for harvesting. Wells will recharge, hard water will become soft/potable, utility bills will fall

•Educated more than 1000 farmers to replicate his models

•Extending water literacy programs to 12 more villages

The Ashoka-Deshpande partnership aims to turn Northern Karnataka into a collaborative entrepreneurship laboratory.

Ashoka Fellow Lisa Heydlauff

Pro Bono Engagements

Ashoka Fellow Pratima Joshi

Ashoka Fellow Satyan Mishra

Free Google Earth Pro license and training from Google engineers for Pratima’s team

Detailed memorandum on legal queries relating to dispensing health care services in rural India

Researched expert adjudicators for Lisa’s Be! Fund Youth Entrepreneurship Competition

Questions? “WHO IS A SOCIAL ENTREPRENEUR?”

“Bill Drayton of Ashoka is inclusive in how he defines a social entrepreneur. For him, even Vinoba Bhave (with whom he walked during the Bhoodan movement) and Florence Nightingale are social entrepreneurs. By his measure, Deep Joshi, this year’s Magsaysay Award winner and co-founder of the NGO Pradan would qualify.

“Roger L Martin and Sally Osberg, board members of the Skoll Foundation... kept two activities out of the ambit of the definition of social entrepreneur: social service, as most NGOs are engaged in, and social activism, indirect action by way of campaigns or advocacy. This would keep... even Arvind Kejriwal, an Ashoka fellow who helped usher the Right to Information Act, out of the group. Definitions are nebulous and evolving.”

Naren Karunakaran, Special Projects EditorOutlook Business, September 5, 2009