Ashoka is looking for agents of change. Are you a potential candidate? Read more below: Ashoka is growing. We are looking for creative, entrepreneurial people to lead major initiatives worldwide. We are looking for people who demonstrate the highest ethical standards, a deep sense of collegiality, and a strong self-image to lead positive change. If [...]

Not long ago, we had written about Envirofit, a company that manufactures and sells clean burining high-efficiency cookstoves to consumers in India. Nextbillion reports that they have already sold 10,000 stoves and are ramping up production quickly. Of course, its a drop in the ocean, but definitely a great start. Congrats!

The Net Impact Fellows Program is a 12-month part-time fellowship for two individuals dedicated to using the power of business and a network of like-minded individuals to change the world. Fellows will help Net Impact scale its impact internationally with a specific focus on India, China, Brazil and Western Europe. [Thanks, Nitin]

NGO Post has an interesting story on a solar micro-enterprise in Hassan District in Karnataka. The business operates a battery charging station powered by solar photovoltaic panels and rents out solar powered CFL lamps street vendors. On an average, the vendor pays $0.25 per day for renting out the lamps and the business services 120 [...]

Yesterday, Acumen Fund‘s Chief Investment Officer Brian Trelstad came to NYU to conduct a live case study on a real company that Acumen Fund invested in, in an effort to educate MBA and other students on the investing strategy and process of this innovative social venture fund. I actually wrote about Acumen’s approach sometime back. [...]

The concept of vocational training usually brings forth images of ITI classrooms filled with relevant machinery for learning technical skills – with the one catch that those technical skills may not be relevant for the Indian market. A Livemint.com article reports on an encouraging development in government that will create new courses that are actually [...]

Editor’s Note: Aparna Dalal works with the Financial Access Initiative, a research consortium between New York University, Harvard, Yale, and Innovations for Poverty Action. FAI is focused on finding answers to how financial services can better meet the needs of poor households. FAI aims to provide rigorous research on the impacts of financial access and [...]

Prerna announced the acceptance of nominations for the 2008 Manthan Awards back in March, and Livemint.com now provides highlights of the innovative winners. The full list of winners can be found here. On first glance, I was amazed by the sheer number of categories (there are 13) and the diversity of tech products out there. [...]

TC-I has been around now for about 8 months, and so far we have enjoyed breaking into a new space that covers significant news and features surrounding social entrepreneurship and innovation in India. We could not have done it without the faithful support of all of our readers to this day, and we wanted to [...]

Madura Micro Finance has received an investment by Unitus Equity Fund to ramp up their offerings to women self help groups (SHGs) in rural India. Madura Micro Finance will use UEF’s funding to increase its management bandwidth and institutional capacity as well as continue to expand its customer base, which is comprised primarily of women.  [...]