Category Archives: Education

Samarthanam: a vision for the future for the visually disabled

Posted on October 2, 2010 | Leave a comment

I recently had the opportunity to host an amazing group of people visiting from India. The Sunadha dance troupe, part of the Samarathanam Trust for the Disabled based in Bangalore was visiting Boston. We had the opportunity to see them perform at the Sri Lakshmi Temple where the visually disabled dancers performed an amazingly choreographed set of dances.

Dancers from Sunadha troupe

Samrathanam was founded by Mahantesh, who is also visually disabled, to help provide opportunities for deserving, young, and talented children with disability of any form, or from marginalized economic backgrounds. Over the years they have built a school that provides education for over 600 disabled children and is designed to meet the needs of the physically challenged. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education, Health, India, Information Technology, Schools, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, Waste

Tagged Boston, Carroll Center, Education, Health, Helen Keller, India, Perkins School for the Blind, Samarthanam, Schools, Social Entrepreneur, Sustainable ventures, visually handicapped

Help select a winning teen social entrepreneur

Posted on March 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Ashoka Youth Venture and Best Buy Children’s Foundation have teamed up to create the @15 Community Impact Challenge. Ashoka is known around the world as the institution that coined the term social entrepreneurship and has been actively supporting social entrepreneurs for nearly 30 years. Ashoka’s Youth Venture works to encourage this spirit of innovation and social entrepreneurship in young people. With Ashoka’s Youth Venture’s support youngsters design and launch their own social ventures to target social issues and challenges.

The Best Buy Children’s Foundation hopes to empower teens at the most critical time of their lives – early adolescence. Its @15 programs provide teens with a platform to affect social change. @15 working together with Ashoka’s Youth Venture has created the Community Impact Challenge. Youth teams from around the nation applied to enter the competition. A set of 15 finalists was chosen based on an assessment of their potential for community impact and a vision of how they would create sustainable change. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education, Schools, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation

Tagged @15, Ashoka, Best Buy, Education, Social Entrepreneur, social entrepreneurship, Social Impact, Teen entrepreneurs, teenagers, Youth entrepreneurship, Youth Ventures

Akanksha – engaging children in education

Posted on March 21, 2010 | Leave a comment

Typical Akanksha Classroom

Last year we had the chance to host Vandana Goyal and Ruchika Gupta from Akanksha when they visited Boston. Over the years we had heard of the wonderful work this NGO had been doing in India and it was great to hear about their plans for expansion when they presented to a small group of interested folks at MIT. When we decided to visit India around December, we made sure that we had set aside some time to visit Akanksha at one of their facilities.

Twenty years ago, the first Akanksha center opened for children from the slum communities of Mumbai, an innovative after school program designed to provide them with fun, engaging learning opportunities. Founded by Shaheen Mistri at the age of 18, these centers develop children’s English language fluency as well as equip them to go on to college, attain a good job and become change agents in their communities. Today, over 80% of Akanksha children go on to college to begin professional careers compared to only 30% of Indian children who successfully complete the 10th grade. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education, India, non-profit, Poverty, Schools, Social Ecosystem

Tagged Akanksha, Education, Mumbai, non-profit, poverty alleviation, Schools, Shaheen Mistri, slums, Social Impact, Teach for America, Teach for India, Vandana Goyal, Wendy Kopp

Another successful year for ForSE 2009

Posted on November 5, 2009 | Leave a comment

Another successful conference on Social Entrepreneurship was held on October 23rd, this time at Babson College in Boston’s Wellesley suburb. Details on the conference and photos were posted in a local e-magazine, Lokvani.com and are reproduced below for those who could not attend. Continue reading →

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Posted in Conference, Education, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, sustainable development

Tagged Babson college, Boston, Carol Cone, Conference, ecosystem, Leonard Schlesinger, microfinance, non-profit, Pamela Hawley, Philanthropy, Pitch contest, Rural Education, Social Business, Social Ecosystem, social entrepreneurship, Social Impact, social Innovation, Social Investment, sustainable development, venture philanthropy

A visit to the Agastya Center in Kuppam

Posted on February 27, 2009 | Leave a comment

Last year I had written an article about an interesting organization, Agastya, that was transforming rural education in India by bringing a fresh new approach to teaching and introducing science and technology concepts to parts of the country that are typically ignored. Since then I was fortunate to visit Agastya founder Ramji Raghavan in Bangalore and accompany him to their Agastya Center in Kuppam.

The Agastya center is strategically positioned on 170 acres of rolling hills with panoramic views of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Each day a small flotilla of buses ferry hundreds of kids from neighboring schools to attend a day long series of sessions with Agastya teachers. The center has several discovery centers rooms each dedicated to a subject – biology chemistry and so on. Eager teachers encourage the students to explore, examine and investigate the scientific phenomena being discussed through hands on experiments. Continue reading →

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Posted in Education, India, Rural Development, Rural Education, Schools, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation

Tagged Agastya, Education, Indian Education system, Kuppam, Mobile Lab, Ramji Raghavan, Rural Education, rural teachers, Schools, Science Center, Science Education