Action For India Annual Forum, 2015, in Bangalore

Leveraging Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to help social organisations scale, Action For India, a social enterprise, is set to host its fourth Annual Forum in Bangalore in January, 2015.

The event is on 31^st January and 1^st February, and applications are closing this week. Given that the previous Forums were held in Delhi, the shift to Bangalore is significant mostly because a large number of social enterprises and many other partners of the event are based out of Bangalore.

The aim of the forum is to offer training and guidance to social entrepreneurs to sustainably scale their organisations through the use of technology. This includes not only connecting stakeholders, but working hands-on with social entrepreneurs to scale their organisations by providing knowledge, skills, advice, mentorship and technology to help accelerate the social change they want to bring about.

The Forum is an annual event bringing together 100 curated/shortlisted social innovators and 100 influencers, which includes donors, IAS officers, technology leaders and impact investors to help the former scale their organisations. The Forum aims to benefit social entrepreneurs working in the following five sectors: agriculture, education, energy, healthcare, financial inclusion and livelihoods.

The conference will feature keynote addresses by two leaders in the field of social enterprise: Sam Pitroda, who was Advisor to former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and Manmohan Singh and was former Chair of India’s National Innovation Council, and Desh Deshpande, a serial entrepreneur and, as co-chair of the U.S. National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship, Advisor to U.S. President Barack Obama. He is also founder of the Deshpande Foundation.

The selected social entrepreneurs walk away with access to financial, governmental, human and intellectual capital resources; new connections with potential mentors, advisors and investors; access to technology companies that can offer products and services along with useful insights; best practices and solutions from experienced sector champions.