Villgro Awards recognizes contributors to social entrepreneurship

The 5th Villgro Awards recognized key influencers in the social entrepreneurship ecosystem space by awarding them with a cash prize and a plaque. The jury for the awards comprised Dr. Ashok Jhunjunwhala (Head, RTBI, IIT-M, Chennai), Ms. Bindu Ananth (President, IFMR Trust), Mr. Solomon Prakash (Country Director, ASHOKA), Ms. Valerie D’Costa (Program Manager, Infodev, World Bank).

The uniqueness of the award is recognizing people who have contributed over the years to inclusive rural upliftment, shining enterprise, key investor, empowering incubator, grassroots innovator, and media, which covers thought-provoking stories. Put together, they contribute to the evolving social entrepreneurial ecosystem.

Dr. Devi Shetty, Narayana Hridayalaya, won the lifetime achievement award for his longstanding contribution to inclusive cardiac care. SECLO, the innovative solar power company that reaches rural homes, won the Social Enterprise category. Mohammad Haque won the grassroots innovator award for his paddy thresher.

Shradha Sharma, founder of YourStory, won the journalist of the year while India Today emerged winner in the Media category.

Bamboo Finance was the winner in the Investor category while MITCON won the Incubator of the year award.

The awards were given away by Mr. Tripat Singh, MD, Ennovent India, Mr. H. K. Mittal, Head, NSTEDB, Mr. Rathin Roy, a senior consultant to International Agencies and Mr. Paul Basil, CEO, Villgro.

Wantrapreneur

Three Wantrapreneurs were encouraged by another eminent jury. Grassroutes, a network of village tourism destinations managed, owned and run by local communities, founded by Inir Pinheiro, won the startup category while Nurulights, cofounded by Deepak Punwani and Sameer Hajee, won the runner up award in the startup category. It is interesting to note that Nurulights was one of the 15 social startups that presented at the YourStory-CNBC-TV18 Young Turks program Madura Microfinance Sociopreneurship India 2010 on November 23, 2010 at Bangalore.

Samriddhii^TM, which is a green carts service aimed at reinventing the vegetable supply chain that brings together the two ends of vegetable supply chain won the Early Growth category.

The winners were awarded with Rs. 4 lakhs of cash prize each and the runner up was awarded Rs. 2 lakhs.