By Campus Varta
Bill Drayton is recognized as one of the pioneering social entrepreneurs of our time. Drayton founded Ashoka: Innovators for the Public in 1980, which takes a multifaceted approach to finding and supporting social entrepreneurs globally.
Professor Muhammad Yunus is renowned for the popularization of microfinance and microcredit, which serve as the cornerstones of the Grameen Bank, founded in 1983. In 2006,
Sanjit “Bunker” Roy had a privileged upbringing in India, in contrast to many Indians who live off of less than $1 per day. When Roy visited some of his country’s rural villages, he had a life-altering experience and decided to find a way to improve the social-economic inequities in his country.
He founded Barefoot College in 1972, a solar-powered college for the poor. Roy describes Barefoot College as “the only college where the teacher is the learner and the learner is the teacher.”
Shaheen Mistri is an Indian social activist and entrepreneur, as well as an educator. She founded the Akanksha Foundation, a non-profit organisation, in the year 1989. She established this foundation in order to provide a high-quality education to children that belong to communities and families of low income.
Wanting to do more for society and inspired by the Teach For America model; in 2008, Shaheen established Teach For India, a non-profit organization. Since it has been established, through Teach For India, Shaheen has placed over 700 students in schools across India.
Born into a lower middle-class family in Bihar, Ranjan Mistry witnessed the necessity of an entrepreneurial ecosystem to accelerate the development in Bihar. So, he founded several social ventures like Women School of Entrepreneurship, and accelerate the ecosystem serving as Board Member of several Social Impact Ventures.
Jeroo Billmoria is one of the renowned social entrepreneurs of India who is supervising several International NGOs for the betterment of society. She initiated the ‘Childline’ that aims to provide help in form of healthcare and police assistance, especially to street children.
Born in a middle-class family in Uttar Pradesh, took media as a profession and while as an intern he witnessed the need of proper clothing for the poor in rural India. Anshu then founded Goonj, a social enterprise that collects used clothing from the urban crowd, sort them, fix and later distribute among the poor and needy.
Ajaita Shah works with a mission to empower rural India. She started at the gross level and aims to provide the best of technological solutions to the remote villages in India at the cheapest price possible. Ajaita Shah is the Founder & CEO of Frontier Markets that supplies solar energy powered products to rural India at an extremely affordable cost.
Ashraf Patel is a founder member and board member of Pravah and Commutiny–The Youth Collective. She is presently Director, Learning Voyages–Pravah and Organization Facilitator at Commutiny–The Youth Collective. An Ashoka Fellow and among the finalists of the Jubilant Schwab Award (SEOY- 2016), and winner of SEOY-2020.
Neelam Chhiber purused Industrial Design from NID, Ahmedabad. For the past three decades, Neelam is working with Artists in Rural areas by providing design, technical, marketing and management solutions. Neelam has contributed to many solutions such as self-owned enterprises, mainstream value chains for economic security. .