14 social enterprises to contend for the Sankalp Awards 2014

Intellcap’s initiative Sankalp Forum has announced 14 finalists of the 2014 event of Sankalp Awards, who are cumulatively looking at raising Rs.40 crore in impact investment. The categories the finalists were shortlisted from are agriculture, food and livelihood; clean energy and technology; health, water and sanitation, education and vocational training; financial inclusion; technology for development; and women empowerment.

The winning skills that would earn participants the awards will be clear ability to scale and enhance real social impact.

The Director of Sankalp Forum, Aparajita Agrawal, said, “We are excited to see great innovations focused on tackling social challenges at the BoP. This year, our finalist pool comprises 63% first generation entrepreneurs highlight the need to build more robust ecosystems to enable startups to go to scale.”

The jury that will evaluate the 14 finalists on April 9-10 in New Delhi will include Sunil Wadhwani of iGate, Vikram Gandhi of Asha Impact, Satya Bansal of Barclays and Audrey Selian of Artha.

As a new partnership for this year’s awards, the crowdfunding platform Ketto, which was co-founded by the actor Kunal Kapoor, will be present at the event to provide participants the opportunity to leverage on their services.

Finally, the four companies shortlisted will have the possibility to win Sankalp People’s Choice Awards based on their popularity on social media and the investments they raised through other channels.

The finalists for the Sankalp Award 2014 are:

• Agriculture

I Say Organic is an ecommerce farm-to-fork organic food supplier based in Delhi which connects organic farmers direct to consumers

Janta Meals, based in Haryana, provide affordable meals for less than Rs. 30 to blue collar workers in Delhi / NCR

Krishi Star based in Maharashtra, enhance farmer-owned processing units by providing capital and know-how. They farmers up the value chain from raw material to processed food to boost margins

Parvata Foods is one of the first organized players to supply organic produce from Sikkim and other Himalayan states to NCR and the export markets under its own brand / co-brand name.

• Clean Energy

Swami Samarth is a Maharathi company that develops and sell clean cookstoves and improve quality of indoor air and women’s health

• Education

Guru-G Learning Labs based in Karnataka, is the world’s first gamified platforms for teaching and teacher training

The Better India is India’s fastest growing positive news website headquartered in Karnataka.

• Healthcare

Brun is a device for feto-maternal health monitoring designed under Stanford BioDesign Program

Medula Healthcare is an affordable preventive, curative and health services and insurance for the base of the pyramid and works out of Maharashtra

• Livelihood

Eco Corner is one of the only retailers of eco-friendly products to have established presence through shop-in-shops & online channels in last 3 years. The team started out in Maharashtra.

• Sanitation

Ekam Eco the Delhi-based company created a waterless urinal technology called Zerodor

Sampurnearth is a Maharashtra-based end to end decentralized waste management services for households and corporate

• Tech for Development

ReMaterials – ModRoof Makes slum roofs with recycled materials providing superior shelter and their team started out in Gujarat.

• Water

Drinkwell Stsytems is a west Bengali company which provides clean drinking water through its technology in arsenic –affected areas affordably.

For more information about the Sankalp Formum Awards 2014, check their website here, whereas to know more about Intellcap, click here.