Champions Of A Better Tomorrow – Five Pioneer Social Innovators Are Finalists Of Social Entrepreneur Of The Year Award India 2022

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation announced the finalists of the 13th Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award 2022 today.

The following highly accomplished individuals with their transformational social ventures have been selected as the finalists:

1.        Osama Manzar

Digital Empowerment Foundation, www.defindia.org

2.        Ajaita Shah

Frontier Markets, www.frontiermkts.com

3.        Aniket Doegar

Haqdarshak, www.haqdarshak.com

4.        Wilma Rodrigues

Saahas Zero Waste & NGO Saahas, www.saahaszerowaste.com, www.saahas.org

5.        Meera Shenoy

Youth4Jobs, www.youth4jobs.org

The winner of the ‘13th Social Entrepreneur of the Year’ (SEOY) Award - India 2022 will be announced in an event on Thursday, 15 September 2022. The award ceremony will be attended by dignitaries from various fields, across the globe to celebrate and appreciate the extraordinary contribution of these passionate individuals.

The SEOY award aims to honour and recognise accomplished social change leaders across a diversity of large-scale, system change and social innovation models in society. These change leaders are key enablers of an inclusive, sustainable and equitable world.

The winner of the SEOY Award - India will join the world’s largest and the first inter-sectoral community of social innovators in the world affiliated with the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship. The Winner and Finalists of SEOY India will also get an opportunity to apply for the Hindustan Times Fellowship for the Stanford Seed Transformation programme. 

This year’s finalists of the SEOY Award India, are inspiring, visionary individuals who met various stringent criteria of evaluation for their selection. The chosen finalists are technology-enabled experts working for the underserved in fields of digital literacy and empowerment (financial inclusion), financial technology, agricultural technology, e-commerce, rural echnology, social protection, livelihood, waste management, education and skilling and advocacy for people with disability.

Using creativity and innovation in their respective initiatives, these social entrepreneurs are delivering impact through the use of technology, market-linked skilling, large-scale advocacy, innovative expansion of the market, data analysis etc.

The SEOY award – India 2022 opened for applications in February 2022 and received over 100 submissions, out of which over 60% are women. The diverse categories of the interventions included healthcare services, clean technology, media communication, disability, energy, enterprise development, labour conditions, microfinance, nutrition, sustainable farming, and water and sanitation.

Over the last decade the SEOY Award – India, has established itself as one of the most reputable awards for social entrepreneurs. This year the award celebrates its 13th year. In 2010, the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation came together to promote social innovation in India through the Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY) Award – India and has since recognised and supported the growing field of social innovation in India.

Osama Manzar_PPMeet the Finalists:

Osama Manzar

DIGITAL EMPOWERMENT FOUNDATION; www.defindia.org

Year Established: 2002

Sector: Digital (Access & Infrastructure, Education & Empowerment, Governance & Citizen services, Markets & Social enterprises, Research and Advocacy, Knowledge Hub & Networking)

Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) is a non-profit organisation working towards empowering citizens through digital literacy and digital tools to gain access to better healthcare, education, skills and livelihood opportunities. DEF focusses on making technology easily accessible to the masses, so as to empower women, youth, persons with disabilities, artisans and the elderly through providing functional digital literacy, media literacy and digital up-skilling across agriculture, micro and nano-businesses, health, education, livelihood and entrepreneurship. Over the last 20 years, DEF has directly impacted over 30 million people, through its 1,500 strong Community Information Resource Centers. These centers are supported by a widespread network of 10,000 digital foot soldiers located across 24 states and 135 districts in rural, tribal, marginalised and unreached areas.