Speeches

Action For India announces the 5th Edition of its Annual Forum on social entrepreneurship.

~A platform where 100 leading social entrepreneurs and 100 key influencers come together enabling collaborations for scaling social impact~
~The 2 day Forum will be organized on 30th & 31st, January at IIT Delhi~

New Delhi, January 21, 2016: The mission of Action For India (AFI), a not for profit with presence in New Delhi and Silicon Valley, USA, is to stimulate social enterprises in India. The upcoming 5th edition of the AFI Annual Forum at IIT-Delhi will bring together 100 leading social entrepreneurs from around the nation to interact with 100 key influencers at the intersection of business, technology, entrepreneurship and social impact. The influencers include eminent personalities from diverse sectors including donors, investors, IAS officers, technology executives and policy analysts.
The Forum will witness sector-specific, cross-sectoral intensive discussions along with speed-dating sessions between social entrepreneurs and influencers. The Forum will also host a unique Silicon Valley Challenge where 5 leading social entrepreneurs will win a 2 week all-expense paid trip to Silicon Valley, California to interact with leading investors, executives and entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley.

The forum will be graced by the presence of Rajiv Pratap Rudy, Union Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship & Parliamentary Affairs. Other thought leaders who will be speaking at the Forum include: Sam Pitroda, Former adviser to Prime Minister of India & Honorary Chairman, AFI; Desh Deshpande, Former Advisor to the US President, Barack Obama and Founder of Deshpande Foundation; R. Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM; Ashish Dhawan, Founder & CEO, Central Square Foundation; Rajeev Gowda, Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha; and Nagaraja Prakasam, Co-Founder IAN Impact.

AFI Forum 2016 will also feature several panel discussions on themes such as “Leveraging Technology for scaling impact”; “Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”; “Vision 2020” – AFI’s pan India network of Regional Social Innovation Hubs; Impact Investment and a special panel on “StartUp India – Impact Bharat.”

The invitees to the Forum, both social entrepreneurs and influencers, are selected through a rigorous evaluation process to ensure quality interactions and to maximize chances of fruitful collaborations for growth of the social enterprises. Interactions at the past Forums have benefited more than 350 social enterprises with 400 influencers coming together to encourage their ventures.
About Action For India Action For India’s mission is to help social innovators in India overcome barriers to scale and achieve greater impact at the Bottom of the Pyramid. AFI connects social innovators with impact investors, mentors, technology resources, government contacts and local partners. AFI is headquartered in New Delhi, India and has a chapter in Silicon Valley, California. Launched in 2012, AFI is inspired and guided by Sam Pitroda, Former Adviser to the Prime Minister of India. AFI’s financial supporters include Desh Deshpande, Former Adviser to the US President Barack Obama & Founder of the Deshpande Foundation.

Regional hub – another way for inclusive growth!

Round Table on sustainable cities in New Delhi. Great to know Telangana has a green channel for startups who want to bid for Govt. projects.

“Why create a single enterprise worth thousand crores….why not a thousand enterprises worth a single crore ?”…..the defining philosophy of our theory of change for positively transforming the craft sector by creating equitable value across stakeholders.
The key component of the narrative at ‘The Craft Catapult’ Delhi Roundtable Meet yesterday led by Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship‘s Startup Oasis where the dialogue panned ground realities, situations, and concerns over the product- market fit, need for appropriate and timely design intervention, effectively countering competition, particularly from the factory made, artisan and stakeholder incomes, long gestation periods and resultant irregular cash flows, craftspeople motivation and orientations, use of technology to maximize process efficiency, ‘one of a kind’ vs ‘volume’ production
There was plenty of cross-learning and education geared towards evolving an ecosystem for creating, incubating, nurturing and accelerating, ethical, eco-friendly, value-oriented businesses by startups working in the craft environment.

https://www.sahyadri.edu.in/NewsMedia/newsDetails/1331

Expert with Global Experience visits Sahyadri to encourage Entrepreneurial activity in the campus
20-Sep-2019

Mr. Nagaraja Prakasam who is a versatile and passionate leader with 27 years of global experience (decade in the USA and a decade in India), lead angel investor, lead 15 deals, invested in 22 start-ups, server\s 13 boards, seen 6 exits 2 write offs, visited the campus on 19th Sep’19.

Morning session was a meet up of local Entrepreneurs Isaac Vas (incoming president of KCCI), Divakar Pai (incoming secretary KCCI), Vathika Pai (Vathika Enterprises), Lionel Arhana (CA) and Dr. Molly Chaudhuri (MSNM Besant Institute), Dr. Vishal Samartha (Director-MBA) along with the Start-up heads of Sahyadri to initiate an Entrepreneurship development forum in Mangaluru region.

During the afternoon session Mr. Nagaraja interacted with the aspiring students on the topic of Entrepreneurship for local development with the advice that as long as the problem statement is valid and the solution original, never give up.