The Sankalp Forum, Intellecap’s flagship initiative is a revolutionary impact enterprise platform which brings together pioneering social enterprises together with governments, corporations, influential platforms, media and civil society to drive a paradigm shift in inclusive development approaches.
The Sankalp Global Forum, held in Mumbai, aims at recognizing and awarding innovations that can be taken to scale and can impact The Next 3 Billion. The Next 3 Billion (N3B) is an economically active demographic segment presenting a valuable opportunity to think about innovations in a whole new way, where making profits and making sustainable impact are indispensable to growth strategy.
Celebrating entrepreneurship at its very core, Sankalp Forum had announced 16 finalists for the Sankalp Awards 2016, across critical needs sectors including – clean energy and technology; health, education and vocational training; financial inclusion; technology for education and development; and women empowerment. These enterprises truly represent responsive products and services for the masses that are both affordable and contextual.
The chosen finalists include Bill Cloud, Book My Bai, Chippersage, BikeCleanse, ConveGenius, Dharavimarket.com, Innovision, Infraeyes, Jeevtronics, Ketto, Kopykitab, Leaf Wearables, Oorja, Pool Circle, Rise Legs and Sohum Innovation Labs.
These finalists were evaluated through a rigorous process on multitude of criteria by an illustrious jury comprising industry forerunners like Ankita Vashistha from Saha Fund, Sanjay Bhalla from Panasonic India, Tom Singh from Rianta Capital Zurich, Jonathon Addleton from USAID, Audrey Selian from Artha Initiative, Jun Zhang from IFC and Susanne Dorasil from German Embassy.
Announcing the 2016 winners, Director-Sankalp Forum, Aparajita Agrawal said, “Entrepreneurship is the fuel that drives the engine that is Sankalp, and we are delighted to see such deserving enterprises being recognized for the work that they are doing. As Sankalp, we will continue to provide them a platform that they can leverage for scaling up the enterprises.”
Innovision by Surabhi Srivastava and Shyam Shah emerged victorious as winners of The Sankalp Awards 2016, India’s leading social enterprise awards. The First Runner up was a tie between Sohum Innovation Labs and Jeevtronics. The first three are all innovators around the healthcare device space. The Second Runners Up was Ketto, a crowd funding platform. All the winners stand to receive a grant from Artha Initiative.
Audrey Selian from Artha said, “This year’s finalist cohort at Sankalp has been truly one of the most exciting and inspiring that we have seen. The quality of the social entrepreneur pipeline is extremely high and the potential for funders to collaborate around this pool of innovators is immense.”
The Summit is hosting over 100+ speakers share their perspectives through 30+ sessions. Some of the key speakers include Shinjini Kumar, CEO, PayTM Payments Bank; KRS Jamwal, Executive Director, TATA Industries; Kiran Karnik, Former President, NASSCOM; Arun Maira, Former Member, Planning Commission; Matthias Fuchs, Boehringer Ingelheim, Germany; Asif Saleh, Executive Director, BRAC, Bangladesh; Kevin Jones, Founder, SOCAP, US; Jack Sim, Founder, World Toilet Organisation and BoP HUB, Singapore; Ehon Chan, Executive Director, Social Entrepreneurship, Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre, Malaysia.
About Intellecap
Intellecap is a pioneer in providing innovative business solutions that help build and scale profitable and sustainable enterprises dedicated to social and environmental change. Founded in 2002, the Aavishkaar and Intellecap Group have directed US$ 600 million of capital to entrepreneurs working on such challenging problems sustainably through equity funds, venture debt vehicle, microfinance lending or investment banking intermediation. Intellecap provides a broad range of consulting, research and investment banking services to multilateral agencies, development finance institutions, social enterprises, corporations, investors, policy makers and donors. Select clients include the Rockefeller Foundation, Gates Foundation, GIZ, DFID, Hindustan Unilever, International Finance Corporation, Asian Development Bank and Michael and Susan Dell Foundation.
About Sankalp Forum
Sankalp Forum, an Intellecap initiative, aims to influence the global inclusive development discourse through its work with entrepreneurs, impact investors and inclusive businesses in developing markets. Keeping entrepreneurs and the social impact that they create at its core, Sankalp engages governments, corporations, influential platforms like the G8 and G20, media and civil society to drive a paradigm shift in inclusive development approaches. Sankalp’s Global Summit, held in India annually, brings together over a 1000 of these engaged stakeholders from around the world to discuss, debate and create a roadmap for development. The forum expanded to Africa in 2013 and to Southeast Asia in 2015. Since its inception in 2009, it has connected over 400 enterprises to investors and funders, and built an engaged community of over 25,000 worldwide.