It’s my belief that most .gov innovations go unnoticed and the role of the government as an innovator is overlooked by many in the Social Entrepreneurship space. Of course, here at ThinkChange India, we capture pattern-breaking social change ideas wherever they happen – .com, .org and yes even .gov. The Indian Finance Ministry in the [...]

The Economist is accepting nominations for their 2008 Innovation Awards. Nominations are welcome until April 7, 2008 in seven different categories, including “Social and economic innovation.” More details, including the criteria for selection, can be found here.

On Wednesday, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram attacked developing nations’ usage of crops for biofuel, referring to the policy as “uncaring” in light of a relentless rise in prices of food and commodities.  Chidambaram isn’t the only one getting alarmed about the nexus between agricultural productivity, rising food prices, and poverty - in fact, just yesterday, the [...]

Last year alone, India spent Rs. 1,300 crore on the Polio Eradication Programme, with Rs. 1,042 crore more allocated for this year. Despite these efforts, however, the success of the past few years appears to have been reversed, as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative has placed India on top of the world polio map, with [...]

What are the “linkages between corporate strategy and development”?  How can public and corporate sector leaders implement strategies that provide opportunities for the world’s 4 billion people to lift themselves out of poverty?  The World Bank Institute has recently launched an “Executive Development Program” to help company managers and public sector leaders develop sustainable, yet [...]

To celebrate International Women’s Day, Grameen Foundation released a list of women to be recognized for their work. Vinatha Reddy was the sole woman from India on that short list. Hats off to her: A Montessori teacher by training, Vinatha Reddy’s career took a different turn after an encounter with an extremely poor student. After [...]

Ashoka Fellow Pradeep Ghosh has embarked on a novel way to educate children in the Bhopal region that otherwise would not have access to schools. Ghosh explains how his 120 students learnt their first lessons at the National Museum for Mankind, the only museum of its kind in the country. An entire hill has been [...]

Phil Hope, the Minister of the Third Sector in the UK spoke about the creating of a social stock exchange and its ability to promote transparency in the global social entrepreneurship field. Karen Tse, of International Bridges to Justice spoke about the cross cultural challenges associated with being a social entrepreneur across borders, but also [...]

In an effort to figure out what actually distinguishes a successful entrepreneur from an unsuccessful one, Social Equity Venture Fund (S.E.VEN) has invested $100,000 to conduct primary research. S.E.VEN has awarded this money to Harvard poverty expert Michael Kremer, as a part of a total of $400,000 that it has invested in researchers working on [...]

Livemint reports that while the many is ready and waiting, sufficiently appealing opportunities are not coming across venture capitalists’ desks. “We are keen on investing in this segment but are not able to zero in on the kind of companies that would interest us enough. As a venture capital firm, we are looking at defensible [...]