Vikram Akula, founder and CEO of SKS Microfinance Private Limited has been named the Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2006 in India. Sonia Gandhi, chairperson of the United Progressive Alliance presented the award to Dr Akula during the World Economic Forum''s India Economic Summit. The Schwab Foundation and the Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation have collaborated with Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and UNDP to select and award the ''Social Entrepreneur of the Year'' in India.

Akula''s micro finance institution SKS Microfinance, based in Hyderabad applies global business practices to the field of micro finance. Known as the ''Starbucks of micro finance'', SKS standardises micro finance processes and uses technology to accelerate growth; from 1998 to 2004 SKS was the fastest growing micro finance institution with a 300 per cent growth rate.

It has lent over Rs3.2 billion in income-generating loans and has benefited approximately 1.5 million individuals. Its borrowers improve their economic well being by 11 per cent annually, often breaking the cycle of poverty within three years. Akula was born in Hyderabad and grew up in the United States. He witnessed poverty on numerous family visits to India and made a promise to himself to eradicate it.

The others named as ''social entrepreneurs'' are:

• Amitabha Sadangi is the CEO of International Development Enterprises India (IDEI) based in New Delhi. Since 1992, IDEI has developed and marketed affordable micro-irrigation technologies to 800,000 marginal and small farmers of India. The irrigation technologies have vastly improved their agricultural productivity, strengthened their food security bases, and integrated them into rural markets. This often lifts the user out of poverty by raising income by 33 per cent to 50 per cent.
  
  
• Padmanabha and Rama Rao are the co-directors and co-founders of Rishi Valley Institute for Educational Resources (RIVER) based in Madanpalli, Andhra Pradesh. RIVER has developed a multi-Grade, multi-Level (MGML) methodology that turns the many problems of rural education into advantages. RIVER has worked with the government to adopt the MGML methodology in more than 25,000 schools and provide quality education to 7.5 million children.
  
  
• S. Rajagopalan and Svati Bhogle are the Chairman and CEO respectively of Technology Informatics Design Endeavour (TIDE) based in Bangalore. It identifies economically rewarding, environment friendly technologies and adopts them to be sold by rural entrepreneurs by demonstrating the local economic benefit of technology use and overcoming socio-cultural obstacles. This has led to improved livelihoods for 15,000 individuals and conservation of 150,000 tonnes of natural resources.

The founder of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab and his wife, Hilde, started the Schwab Foundation for ''social entrepreneurship''. Since its inception in 2000, the foundation has been searching for the world''s leading social entrepreneurs, who implement innovative and pragmatic solutions to social problems by tackling the root causes and creating a social transformation.

The network of the foundation spans 105 social entrepreneurs and their organisations from more than 40 countries. A recent evaluation study showed that the budgets and the number of beneficiaries reached of the selected social entrepreneurs grew three times faster while part of the network. In one year alone, the Schwab social entrepreneurs raised close to $80 million as a direct result of the contacts and opportunities offered by the Foundation.

The Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation is an Indian public charitable trust. Its mission is to develop and promote institutions and initiatives that make a substantial impact on poverty, deprivation and disempowerment of the human and natural environment. IT helps promote multi-stakeholder collaboration as an instrument of change and collaborative approaches both within India and internationally.