Action For India: Advancing Social Entrepreneurship in India
I look back at the more than a decade of our work at Action For India (AFI) with both gratification and pride. Many of you know the joy of seeing an investment translate into results – a seed of an idea growing into a unicorn perhaps. That is the same feeling I get when I look at the dozens and dozens of change agents we have enabled and supported. These social entrepreneurs have gone on to impact millions of farmers, generated innumerable jobs, and empowered thousands of women and children. Collectively, they have demonstrated the power and potential of social entrepreneurship in shaping India’s future.
Like the social entrepreneurs we have enabled, we too started as a kernel of an idea that has sprouted into a massive tree that harbors many innovators determined to drive social change and create massive impact.
If you’re reading this you are probably aware of what entrepreneurship, angel investment, venture capital, and unicorns are in terms of tech start-ups. Social Entrepreneurship uses the same principles that are applied to a start-up, but the business is designed to directly impact a social cause. Similarly, social venture capitalists, also known as impact investors, provide seed money to a great idea that will germinate new ideas and then help push that along to developing a scalable solution.
AFI Silicon Valley Challenge (SVC) Fellows meeting with John Podesta (the Former White House Chief of Staff for President Clinton & President Obama) and his team at the Center for American Progress in Washington DC
This is where we come in. Action For India (AFI) started over 10 years ago based on the question, who is going to solve the problems in India? Is it the Government? Is it Business? Or Civil Society Organizations? Our realization was that it is not one particular sector that can take on the gigantic problems that plague society at large. In young and energetic social entrepreneurs, we found our vehicles for change. AFI was launched in 2012 and has supported more than 1000 early-stage social entrepreneurs, enabling them to develop and scale solutions to big problems in sectors such as education, healthcare, agriculture livelihoods, and climate change, thereby having a positive impact on millions of Indians using market-based approaches. The successful Indian tech entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley infused us with their support in the early stages of AFI.
Since 2012, AFI has hosted an annual Forum where we bring together sector champions in these diverse domains. These convenings have been of immense value to the more than 1,000 social entrepreneurs who are part of the AFI ecosystem. Every year, the AFI team identifies the best social entrepreneurs in India and decides which ones we will support and arrange mentors for during the following year. AFI is blessed with an influential group of mentors globally from India to Silicon Valley and London, who have been invaluable to the AFI partners. The AFI network has become a nurturing ecosystem for social entrepreneurs that helps them succeed through funding, mentorship, and technology.
AFI's Silicon Valley Challenge Fellows meeting with Kanwal Rekhi, Co-founder TiE, in Silicon Valley
Let me give a tangible example. Shashank Kumar, of DeHaat, said attending the AFI Silicon Valley Challenge Trek in 2016 widened his horizons, stretched his imagination of what is possible. Shashank comes from a rural farming background and created DeHaat, an online marketplace that connects farmers with suppliers in an effective and efficient manner. While at the AFI Forum, he was able to make connections that led him to many investors and put him on a solid growth and scale trajectory. Soon after he raised $10 million from Sequoia India. In his last funding round, he received over $115 million, the largest venture funding ever received by any agritech entrepreneur in India. DeHaat is currently serving more than 1.8 million farmers across India. Another example is Akshita Sachdeva, a distinguished alumna of Action For India (AFI) and co-founder of Trestle Labs, who is enabling visually impaired people access inclusive education and employment. She just won the esteemed TiE Women Global Pitch Competition in Singapore, yet another significant accomplishment in her entrepreneurial journey.
Members of Indiaspora belong to one of the most successful diasporas in the world. Your successes have put you in a position to help shape the future of social entrepreneurship in India through your donations, investments, and mentoring of emerging leaders. AFI has benefitted from support from diaspora leaders and is now in a position to grow the social entrepreneurship movement in India significantly during our second decade. I hope that everyone reading this will consider contributing what they can to help us bolster a new generation of social impact entrepreneurs and also strengthen the India-U.S. bridge in the process. Beyond donations, which of course are essential for our future growth and impact, we are also on the lookout for mentors, advisers, and coaches for each successive cohort of early-stage social entrepreneurs.
To learn more about Action For India and to hear directly from the two social entrepreneurs featured in this blog (Shashank Kumar & Akshita Sacheva), please join us on a webinar that will take place on Wednesday, December 6 at 11am ET. To register, click here.
About the Author
Sanjay Kadaveru is the Founder & Chairman, of Action For India (AFI), an initiative to help social entrepreneurs in India overcome barriers to scale and achieve greater impact at the Bottom of the Pyramid. AFI connects social entrepreneurs with impact investors, mentors, technology resources, government contacts, and local partners. AFI is headquartered in New Delhi, India, and has chapters in Silicon Valley, California and London, UK.
