Vikram Akula conferred ''social entrepreneur of the year'' award for 2006
29 Nov 2006
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.