The 2013 India DM is focused on identifying social enterprise projects that have the potential to scale the impact of their work in the States of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Read more about the eligibility criteria for the 2013 India DM.
The call for proposal was launched in January 2013 and we received over a 190 proposals in response. After a series of rigorous, merit based evaluations by a panel of development experts from inside and outside the World Bank, 30 projects were shortlisted for the due diligence and capacity building diagnostic. Seven teams comprising of senior assessors from the World Bank, Innovation Alchemy and independent subject matter experts have been traveling all across the country in the last two weeks to meet with the teams at the head office as well as in the field to identify the gaps in the model (if any) and determine how the World Bank could support these projects in addressing them, if they won the grant funding.
Following the in-depth evaluation and needs assessment review of the projects, 20 projects have been invited to showcase their projects at the Development Marketplace event in Bhopal on 1st May 2013.
An Introduction to the finalists
The projects include a very rich and diverse range of products & services targeted to impact the base of the pyramid in these states. Models built around low-cost infant warmers; mobile science labs for rural schools and mobile phone based information & case research systems demonstrate innovative application of technology. Other programs target complex social challenges such as adolescent girl trafficking; connecting school drop out youth to skills & jobs; managing tuberculosis treatment in very poor communities and facilitating use of organic fertilizers. And some of the projects demonstrate extensive experiments in enhancing business models, such as a hybrid model for facilitating bee keeping, exploring sustainable business through carbon credits, agro forestry and rural productivity hubs for farmer collectives.
Of the twenty finalist projects, seven of them are registered for-profit organizations, twelve projects have a non-profit base and one operates as a hybrid. Six of the finalist projects are targeting Madhya Pradesh for scale and replication; seven projects are targeting their work in Jharkhand; 4 in Chhattisgarh and 3 projects intend to work in more than one target state.
Four projects are intended to directly impact women and another four projects are seeking to impact children, including one that is focused on the girl child. Apart from that projects are designed to impact tuberculosis patients in poor communities, farmers, rickshaw drivers and the youth.
Projects Targeting Jharkhand
- SOUTH VIHAR WELFARE SOCIETY FOR TRIBALS – Combating human trafficking by empowering adolescent girls and improving their health status.
- ALTERNATIVE FOR INDIA DEVELOPMENT – Delivery of banking/ financial inclusion products/ services to excluded families by combining Panchayat kiosk banking outlets and Self Help Group strategies.
- WATER LIFE INDIA – Sustainable community water systems for safe drinking water.
- EMBRACE INNOVATION – Deployment of Embrace infant warmers in low-resource government hospitals and measuring impact over time.
- OPERATION ASHA – Implementation of eCompliance to supplement their treatment/ prevention of tuberculosis and turn the tap off on Multi-Drug Resistant TB in Jharkhand’s tribal regions.
- DIMAGI SOCIAL INNOVATION – Working on using/ developing technology to increase the quality of services provided by community health workers.
- IMERIT TECHNOLOGY SERVICES – Empowering marginalized women by training them in IT-based livelihoods.
Projects Targeting Madhya Pradesh
- ACCESS DEVELOPMENT SERVICES – Help aggregate small and marginalized farmers to create Producer Companies/ Cooperatives.
- AGASTYA INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION – Facilitating hands on education by developing Mobile Science Labs.
- REAL MEDICINE FOUNDATION – Empowering women as a means to address malnutrition in India.
- RANG DE – Enabling individuals to become rural entrepreneurs with cost effective micro-credit for enterprise development and education.
- AGA KHAN RURAL SUPPORT PROGRAMME – To reduce the cost of cultivation at a large scale by using organic fertilizers.
- UNDER THE MANGO TREE – Using beekeeping to supplement income of tribal farmers.
Projects Targeting Chhattisgarh
- BILT TREE TECHNOLOGY – Changing lives of tribal farmers of Chhattisgarh through sustainable agro-forestry.
- MICRO INSURANCE ACADEMY – Help facilitate self-reliant community based health insurance schemes of and for low income communities in remote regions of India.
- VIGYAN ASHRAM – Empowering youth to build a human powered generator, solar lighting and laptop charging system.
- VRUTTI – Aims at re-strategizing extension services through demand led market based farmer enterprises focusing in accelerated growth in agriculture.
Projects Targeting Multiple States
- KHERWADI SOCIAL WELFARE ASSOCIATION – Looking to provide vocational training with inputs in life skills and work readiness to 1 million school-dropout youth.
- SMV WHEELS – Provide a unique solution to cycle rickshaw drivers to become owners of their own vehicle in just over a year along with vocational support services.
- ESAF – Provide clean energy solutions to lower income groups with the help of Micro-credit programs.
This blog was originally posted in the Innovation Alchemy blog.