These burgeoning entrepreneurs will be announced as AFI Silicon Valley Fellows after a selective competition during Action For India’s 3rd Annual AFI Forum. On January 11th and 12th, at two venues across the national capital area, 100 of India’s leading social innovators will gather with 100 key influencers comprised of impact investors, CSR professionals, technology titans, corporate executives, IAS officers and government officials. The Action For India Forum is an exclusive annual event bringing together the best from the private, public and social sectors to facilitate cross sector collaborations for change.
Sam Pitroda (Adviser to the Prime Minister of India in Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations), Desh Deshpande (Adviser to U.S. President Obama and Founder of Deshpande Foundation), Ronnie Screwala (Founder and CEO of UTV), Chandrasekhar Rentala (President Elect, NASSCOM Foundation), Professor Shevgonkar (Director General, IIT Delhi) and Raju Reddy (Founder and CEO, Sierra Atlantic) are among the many distinguished influencers who will gather this weekend at the Om Shanti Retreat Center in Gurgaon and within the renowned campus of IIT-Delhi to promote social enterprise and entrepreneurship across the country.
AFI Founder, Sanjay Kadaveru said, “We are excited to host the Forum for the third year bringing 100 of India’s leading social innovators and key influencers onto one platform. We will launch several new initiatives in the coming year. We are particularly thrilled about the functioning and expansion of the national network of regional social innovation hubs across the country.”
AFI Forum 2014 aims to help entrepreneurs make actionable progress with their social ventures by facilitating technology to scale operations, encourage dialogue with power brokers and policy makers, and cultivate a network of mentors to provide prudent advisory support to young business leaders who are keen on empowering their communities, pan-India.
Sam Pitroda, Public Information Infrastructure and Innovation Adviser to the Prime Minister of India, and Honorary AFI Forum Chairman said, “The idea is to bring innovators and investment communities together to network, share their experiences, and showcase examples of success and learning. Ultimately, the aim is to create products, wealth and jobs with social conscience and social benefits.”
Desh Deshpande, Adviser to U.S. President Obama and Founder of Deshpande Foundation, said, “If we are able to combine the execution excellence of for-profit organizations with the compassion of not-for-profit organizations, we can do magic. India needs to come up with solutions that are cost-effective and scalable. We can achieve this by setting benchmarks to raise the aspirations of social entrepreneurs, and collaborate with the government, private sector and financial institutions. AFI Forum is an excellent platform to bring all these parties together. Connections are made. People pursue those connections to do what they want to do, and AFI helps facilitate that.”
This year’s Forum will see the launch of many new initiatives for Action For India including the unveiling of a network of five social innovation hubs, which will be built with the support of business champions including Raju Reddy, Lt. Gen Rajender Singh of the DLF Foundation, Sangita Reddy of Apollo Hospitals, SriniRaju of Peepul Capital and DilipModi of Spice Telecom / EkSoch Foundation. These Hub Champions will help launch a social innovation hub in each of five locations across three states - Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana. Each Hub will support numerous social businesses and NGOs by providing financial and capacity building resources, with the aim of scaling each venture within the immediate proximity of the respective hub, and then leveraging the network to further its growth.
This hub network has been inspired by the successes of the Deshpande Foundation’s Sandbox project in Hubli, across Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Haryana to support emerging social ventures. The Sandbox project facilitates a critical mass of activity to spur innovations in India through insights and learnings from social enterprises in Silicon Valley.
In a related move, the AFI has embarked on an ambitious mission of “20 by 2020”, which will see the development of twenty social innovation hubs by 2020.
The previous year was busy for the young organization, which saw the launch of a new chapter in California. The Silicon Valley Chapter serves as an outpost of Indian business talent abroad and includes talented academics, technology leaders and business executives who are all united in their efforts to pool resources to accelerate leading social ventures in India. The primary purpose of this international expansion is to mobilize angel impact investments from the Valley to fund social innovations in India.
AFI is currently courting additional philanthropists, corporate sponsors, impact investors and foundations to help create actionable social interventions through market-based solutions. Action For India’s goal is to address the stark realities of nearly ten million young people entering into the Indian workforce each year through the creation of ventures that seek to solve some of the nation’s most pressing challenges around livelihoods, health and education.
About Action For India
Launched in 2012, with headquarters in New Delhi and a developing chapter in Silicon Valley, Action For India is inspired and guided by Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the Prime Minister of India and Chairman of India’s National Innovation Council. With the goal of helping social innovators in India overcome barriers to scale and achieve greater impact at the Bottom of the Pyramid, AFI connects social innovators with impact investors, mentors, technology resources, government contacts and local partners.
The organization’s financial supporters include Desh Deshpande, Adviser to the US President Barack Obama & Founder of the Deshpande Foundation, whose work to build and support the social enterprise sector has been a source of major inspiration to the leadership at AFI.
