2 INDIAN ENTREPRENUERS GOT ACCOLADES

As many as 37 social entrepreneurs including two Indians have been recognised by the Schwab Foundation as Social Entrepreneurs of the Year 2014. The two Indian awardees are -- Shelly Batra of Operation ASHA and Chetna Vijay Sinha of Mann Deshi Bank and Mann Deshi Foundation. The 37 social entrepreneurs working in health, education, employment, and the environment were selected in recognition of their innovative approaches and potential for global impact, Schwab Foundation said in a statement. On 'Operation ASHA', Schwab Foundation said it is "tackling the fractured delivery system of Government of India's TB control program through a doorstep TB detection and treatment service that is low-cost, high quality and accessible to the poor." Operation Asha is active in India and Cambodia and the number of direct beneficiaries stood at 30,500 fully treated patients, the statement said. Meanwhile, Mann Deshi Mahila Bank was founded as India's first rural cooperative bank in 1997. Its client base (and membership) is 100 per cent composed of semi-literate or illiterate poor rural women with an average annual income of less than USD 1.5 per day. The number of direct beneficiaries stood at 209,000. "Social entrepreneurs are the driving force behind innovations that improve the quality of life of individuals around the world, and they represent an integral and dynamic community of the World Economic Forum," Hilde Schwab, Co-Founder and Chairperson, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship said. The 2014 awardees include: Seiko Adachi & Masue Katayama of Shinko Fukushikai (Japan); Shaikh Saif Al Rashid of JITA (Bangladesh); Richard Barth & Mike Feinberg of KIPP Foundation (USA); Jay Kimmelman and Shannon May of Bridge International Academies (Kenya); Adina Tal of Nalaga’at (Israel); Chris Underhill of BasicNeeds (United Kingdom) and Allen Wilcox of VillageReach (Mozambique) among others. The awardees will become part of the broader Schwab Foundation community of social entrepreneurs. The community includes 250 social entrepreneurs from 60 countries.