We have featured Jagriti Yatra in TC-I in the past. Its quite a phenomenal idea to encourage social entrepreneurship among young people through enabling them to participate in a train journey across the country. This year, the journey took a new dimension with participants from around the world.

On a socio-economic train voyage of India, Isaac Abeiku Otoo, a youth leader from Ghana, realised what one could do with just Rs.1,000 ($20). Inspired by Infosys founder N.R. Narayana Murthy’s success story, the 34-year-old wants to motivate people in his country.

Otoo is one of the 35 foreign nationals, several of them from Africa, who took part in Jagriti Yatra Dec 24-Jan 8. They joined over 400 Indian youngsters on the 15-day train journey, spanning 7,000 km and stopping at 13 institutions that have developed unique solutions to India’s challenges, in an effort to awaken the spirit of entrepreneurship among them.

By enabling young people from other developing economies, especially in Africa, to participate in such opportunities, India is creating a rather unique model of south-south knowledge sharing and collaborative learning. We hope this trend continues in the coming years.