CHF International, an international development firm based in the United States, received a $1 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The grant will support CHF’s urban development work, and more specifically, create a virtual employment marketplace for day labourers who live in slums.  The EarthTimes explains the value of this virtual tool, [...]

Hillary calls for inclusive education - Teach India and Teach for India, two new initiatives were both covered here on TCI NComputing Deployment Wins Prestigious Award for Social Impact – PCQuest honors Indian state of Andhra Pradesh for using NComputing to empower 1.8 million students with computers [Check out TCI's interview with the founder of NComputing] [...]

Srei Sahaj e-Village, a subsidiary of Srei Infrastructure and Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) plan to collaborate to provide distance leaerning programs to villages in rural India. While unsurprising, it is a very serious issue as “[t]he net enrollment ratio of the rural youth stands at a mere 7.48 percent for boys and 4.5 [...]

Microfinance’s  small-town success attracts venture investors - Livemint story on the increasing Venture-Capital activity in the microfinance sector in India Poverty of will - R.Ramkumar from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) argues that new UPA government’s first Budget is marked by the absence of strong commitment to raise social sector spending ‘There needs to be [...]

The spirit of social entrepreneurship is back! ThinkChange India has been following TATA Jagriti Yatra over the last year as it happened (read Discover your inner Social Entrepreneur on the Train and Jagriti Yatra) and now we are glad to report that  registration for 2009 leg of TATA Jagriti Yatra is open.  For the uninitiated, [...]

Editor’s Note: Guest blogger Adrienne Villani is an Associate at Intellecap, where she is involved in the conceptualization and creation of content for Beyond Profit, Intellecap’s publication on social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, both in print and online. Trained as a demographer, she received her M.Sc. in Population and Development from the London School of Economics and [...]

As it happens every year, Tata International Social Entrepreneurship Scheme ( TISES ) brings more students from UC Berkeley and Cambridge University to India to help them learn and take a stab at improving their quality of lives. Media Newswire reports that five students who are arrived are from Cambridge University, but from different educational [...]

“Badlaav 2009: Be the Change! “is a week-long climate camp to be held in the nation’s capital, Delhi. We aim to have hundreds of young people come from across the country to Be trained on skills of organizing, running projects, lobbying, direct action, presentations, and facilitation. Participate in eye opening discussions of equity, theories of [...]

The ThinkChange India staff is committed to providing our readers with interviews with people we believe are at the brink of something special but have for the most part been overlooked by the mainstream media. Readers will be able to see other conversations under our TC-I Changemakers tab Its July and it is that time [...]

One Billion Minds 2009 Fellowship Program Applications Open | Application Deadline: August 15, 2009 The One Billion Minds 2009 Fellows Program is designed to engage students from top Indian universities in pushing the open innovation envelop for social innovation. Our Fellows will work closely with key Corporate and Non Profit stakeholders as well as the [...]