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!

Lumiere has a new address… We are at Sarjapur Main Road now !! Our 4th store in Bangalore was inaugurated today, 6th November 2016 @ 12 noon.

The store was inaugurated by Shri Ricky Kej, Grammy award winner musician, composer and conservationist, who also expressed his views on Organic cultivation, which were in alignment with Lumiere’s ideology and principles.
‘During his address to the small gathering at our new store, Shri Ricky highlighted that organic cultivation in simple terms means the way our ancestors grew food – ‘the natural way’ -just as nature intended it to be. He also expressed the irony, that in today’s world we have to label the organic produce which is pure and natural. However, there is no labeling required for the inorganic produce – in terms of pesticides and artificial fertilizers which are used to grow them. He also referred that in present times the Government would bring about radical changes only if the same is supported by the masses. Hence, it is pertinent that more and more people are made aware about supporting, cultivating and consuming nothing but pure and Organic food’.

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.