Unitus to recieve $9 million support from Omidyar Network

IndiaWest Online reports that Unitus, Seattle and Bangalore based organization providing consulting support to MFIs, just received a $9 million grant from Omidyar Network. The grant is meant to support expansion of Unitus programs beyond India.
The article features one of Unitus partners, MokshaYug Access (MYA). MYA recently received $2 million funding from Unitus Equity [...]

[TC-I Changemaker]: CGAP’s Gautam Ivatury on the linkage between technology and financial empowerment of the poor

The ThinkChange India staff is committed to providing our readers with interviews with people we believe are at the brink of something special but have for the most part been overlooked by the mainstream media. Readers will be able to see other conversations under our TC-I Changemakers tab.
This week, Vinay sat down (over the phone) [...]

[TC-I Changemakers]: Interview with Maya Ajmera of The Global Fund for Children

The ThinkChange India staff is committed to providing our readers with interviews with people we believe are at the brink of something special but have for the most part been overlooked by the mainstream media. Readers will be able to see other conversations under our TC-I Changemakers tab.
Maya Ajmera is the Founder and President of [...]

[TC-I Changemakers] A book for every child — the mission for Pratham Books

The ThinkChange India staff is committed to providing our readers with interviews with people we believe are at the brink of something special but have for the most part been overlooked by the mainstream media. Readers will be able to see other conversations under our TC-I Changemakers tab.
This week we had the opportunity to [...]

Interview with India’s Rural BPO Guru

Its been almost three years since Businessworld India published a feature on Rural BPO, writing about a company called Lason. Lason had just just set up its first rural BPO unit in Kizhanur village, 50 km from Chennai. The unit was the brainchild of Pradeep Nevatia, then managing director of Lason India, a subsidiary of [...]

[TC-I Changemakers]: Interview with Kal Raman of GlobalScholar.com

Editor’s note: The following interview is part of an ongoing series for ThinkChange India where we interview social entrepreneurs firsthand. The ThinkChange India staff is committed to providing our readers with interviews with people we believe are at the brink of something special but have for the most part been overlooked by the mainstream media. [...]

SocialSync: Creating a web presence for Indian non-profits

SocialSync is a exciting new Indian social sector start-up. I pulled out the below presentation from their homepage. Turns out there are 500,000+ NGOs in India and many of them lack a real web-presence. At the same time, there are 40 million web users and 10 million on Orkut alone! So, SocialSync has created a [...]

Pioneers in Microfinance, Part 2: MYRADA

Today, Microcapital.org published the second part of their “Pioneers in Microfinance” series, in which they continued their interview of a pioneer in microfinance, Aloysius P. Fernandez, Executive Director MYRADA and Chairman of the Board of Microfinance Institution Sanghamithra Rural Financial Services.   To refresh your memory on Part One of this series, read this earlier post by Vinay.
The [...]

Apply for the 2008 YouthActionNet Fellowship

From the YouthActionNet Website:
Each year, YouthActionNet selects 20 young social entrepreneurs to
participate in its Global Fellowship Program. These accomplished young
leaders are distinguished by their records for success in achieving
positive change in their communities, by their innovative approaches,
and by their ability to mobilize their peers and community members in
support of their social change visions.
The program is [...]

Semam Microfinance Investment Literacy and Empowerment (SMILE) and Gram-Utthan receive loan of $2.7 million

As per the most recent newsfeed, Microcapital.org reports that Semam Microfinance Investment Literacy and Empowerment PVT (SMILE) of Madhurai and Gram-Uttham of Orissa have both received loans in the total amount of $2.7 million from Oikocredit, a Dutch cooperative fund.   A profile of the two NGOs follows:
Semam Microfinance Investment Literacy and Empowerment PVT (SMILE) is the largest [...]

Joe Madiath, Founder of Gram Vikas speaks on Human Dignity and Development

The Social Edge Blog interviews ED Joe Madiath of Gram Vikas, about his vision for 2017. He speaks of creating a world rooted in human dignity.

Kanavu - Where Dreams are Built

In the words of Paulo Freire, Brazilian educator, activist, philosopher, and author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed:
Self deprecation is … characteristic of the oppressed, which derives from their internalization of the opinion the oppressors hold of them.  So often do they hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing and are incapable of learning [...]

Change-Agent Profile: Shedding Light on Poverty

Change-Agent: Harsh Hande; Company: Selco 
From Deutsche Welle (Germany’s international broadcaster): 
   57 percent of the population in India has no electric light, and many would be unable to afford regular electricity even if it were available. But Harish Hande is working to improve the situation. He set up a company called Selco in Bangalore, which now supplies [...]

Sristi: Nuturing Grassroots Innovations

Vinay just posted an interesting video made, produced by Discovery Channel on grassroots innovators in India. The organization behind identifying and nurturing such innovators is Sristi:
SRISTI is a non-governmental organisation setup to strengthen the creativity of grassroots inventors, innovators and ecopreneurs engaged in conserving biodiversity and developing eco-friendly solutions to local problems

Sristi was founded by [...]

A safe haven for war torn girls

Often it is easy to become so engrossed with the political and strategic factors of a conflict like that in Jammu/Kashmir that we completely overlook the devastating effects that such violent endeavors have on the innocent bystanders stuck within. The most obvious example of this is orphaned children, who must suffer from images of death, [...]