Emerging Rural Social Ventures

Avika (http://avikaonline.com/)

Profiles of

Avika was founded by Malavika Sharma, and XLRI alumnus and an ex-HR professional, about two years in Ranchi, with the mission to Bring wearable contemporary wear with work forms of an ethnic art form. Starting with 7 rural women, Avika now touches lives of 400 women in the rural handicraft sector. Avika products span across 35 types of hand embroidery, Madhubani painting, Zardozi work, bead jewellery making juts work, etc, and blends ethnic art form with modern wear. The product range includes garments (e.g., kurtas, saris, stoles, dupattas, tshirts, etc.) and jewellery sets (e.g., necklaces, earrings, bracelets and anklets, etc.). The products are sold through net, special stalls at events and through established outlets, such as Mother Earth stores. Founded by two Bangalore-based IT professionals, Satish Viswanathan and Venkat Sriraman, evidyaloka is a not for profit organization which focuses on transforming the education landscape in the rural and remote regions of the India. The venture strives to achieve this by involving the local communities to own the digital class rooms, and mobilize professionals to volunteer (from across 6 countries) to provide education to rural children inspire and empower the volunteers to contribute back, from wherever they are, by providing standardized lesson plans and teaching aids for a consistent learning experience to the children. The focus is to improve the learning outcome of the children who participate through the Digital class rooms, established in the remote locations and ensure that they "understand and apply the concepts of their respective standards in their regular curriculum subjects". The vision of the venture is to provide quality education services, bringing people and technology together, and currently has operations in 3 states (Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Jharkhand).

evidyaloka (http://www.evidhyaloka.org/)

Delhi) and Manish Kumar (from IIT Kharagpur) with the aim of providing end to end solutions (from field to market) to small and marginal farmers. FnF aims to revive the current agriculture sector and increase the earnings of land owners, farmers and farm labourers - in the northern states of India by improving land profitability through use of technology, sustainable and needbased organic farming, improving soil fertility, building more robust supply chain, etc. Starting with one small village in Vaishali, the venture now has presence in seven districts of Bihar.

Farms and Farmers Foundation (http://farmsnfarmers.org/) Farms and Farmers Foundation (FnF ) was started in 2010 by Shashank Kumar (alumnus of IIT

As a student at XLRI Jamshedpur, Kumar Ankit started his venture, "Green Leaf Energy Private Limited", working in the renewable energy space. The company objectives are to provide employment opportunities, arrest migration, alleviation of poverty, improve the living standard in rural Bihar and produce renewable energy. The venture has conducted awareness programs in

Green Leaf Energy Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.thegreenleafenergy.com/)

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rural areas of Bihar for utilization of wastelands by doing Pongamia plantation. The venture has also formed a contract with 200 farmers over 500 acres of area in Gaya, Bihar, and is looking to scale up the plantation area to 1 lakh acres of wasteland in Bihar. The venture will set up its Biodiesel extraction unit to produce Bio-diesel, as per the National Biofuel Policy. The venture will also set up Bio-gasifier power plant unit generating power from the shells of Pongamia plants for rural electrification. The project has already been appraised by NABARD, Indian Oil and Punjab National Bank for technical and financial support. Founded by Vinay Jaju (alumnus of SP Jain Instt. St Xaviers College, Kolkata with experience of working with GE-Australia and Grameen Shakti in Bangladesh) Piyush Jaju (alumnus from St. Xaviers College, Kolkata and an ex-investment banker having worked in India, Hong Kong and South East Asia) ONergy is a Renewable Energy venture committed to sustainability and equity providing complete energy solutions to BoP in rural India - using appropriate renewable technologies. The venture operates across locations in West Bengal and through its Energy Resource Centers and partners, provides basic, affordable and clean low-cost solar lighting products, solar home electrification systems, smokeless cook stoves, etc., to remote populace through innovative distribution, pricing and financing through rural banks and MFIs. ProtoVillage is an initiative of Kalyan Akkipedi, an automobile engineer from Sri Venkateswara University - with 6 years of experience of working with Hyundai Motor India Ltd, Evalueserve and Genpact and the founder of http://integreater.org/. ProtoVillage is a project to develop a remote village cluster in Andhra Pradesh (India) into the prototype of an "Adequate" (i.e., socially, economically and environmentally viable) village cluster, which can be a replicable model for integrated rural development. ProtoVillage works on 12 inter-linked, and interdependent dimensions (Food, Water, Shelter, Clothing, Energy, Income Generation, Education, Health Care, Public Domain, Connectivity, Social Equity and Eco-Conservation & Disaster Management) of sustainable rural development), and has tie-ups with IISc, Bangalore and with DRDA.

ONergy (http://ONergy.in/)

ProtoVillage (http://protovillage.org/)

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