The Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) is a non-profit organization whose mission is to design, fund and implement solar energy solutions to benefit those in poor rural communities without access to an electrical grid. This allows students to study at night and brings computers and Internet into schools. It makes it possible to bring in water for irrigation without having to hand-carry it long distances, allowing women to spend their time on money-earning enterprises. Access to electricity and water improves health care. SELF has completed several projects in more than 20 countries including a solar powered drip irrigation in Benin, a health care centre in Haiti, telemedicine in the Amazon rainforest, online learning platform in South Africa, and a microenterprise development in Nigeria.
Devi Prasad Shetty is an Indian entrepreneur and cardiac surgeon who is the chairman and founder of Narayana Health, a chain of 21 medical centers in India. He has performed more than 100,000 heart operations. In 2004 he was awarded the Padma Shri, the fourth highest civilian award, followed by the Padma Bhushan in 2012, the third highest civilian award by the Government of India for his contribution to the field of affordable healthcare.
SELCO Solar Light Pvt. Ltd. is a for-profit social enterprise based in Bangalore, India. SELCO has played an instrumental role in improving living standards of poor households in rural India especially in the state of Karnataka through solar energy based interventions and low smoke cook stoves. In recognition of the services towards reduction of the gap in access to energy, SELCO has been awarded the prestigious Ashden Awards twice, in years 2005 and 2007. SELCO India was founded in 1995 by Dr.Harish Hande an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur with INR 15,000 funding from its co-founder Mr. Neville Williams. SELCO India has installed solar light systems in 2,000,000 houses till date.
Shiv Nadar is an Indian billionaire businessman and philanthropist. He was the founder and chairman of HCL Technologies, and is chairman of the Shiv Nadar Foundation. Nadar founded HCL in the mid-1970s and transformed the IT hardware company into an IT enterprise over the next three decades. In 2008, Nadar was awarded Padma Bhushan for his efforts in the IT industry. Nadar, nicknamed by friends as Magus, since the mid-1990s he has focused his efforts on developing the educational system of India through the Shiv Nadar Foundation. According to Forbes, He is the 3rd richest person in India and the 30th richest person in the world with an estimated net worth of US$40 billion as of February 2024.
Mahabir Pun is a Nepali researcher, teacher, social entrepreneur and an activist known for his work in applying wireless technologies to develop remote areas of the Himalayas, also known as the Nepal Wireless Networking Project. He is a widely known figure in Nepal, and his work has been recognised by the Ashoka Foundation, the Ramon Magsaysay Foundation, [University of Nebraska Kearney],and Global Ideas Bank.
The Grameen family of organizations has grown beyond Grameen Bank into a multi-faceted group of both commercial and non-profit ventures. It was first established by Muhammad Yunus, the Nobel Peace Prize-winning founder of Grameen Bank. Most of the organizations in the Grameen group have central offices at the Grameen Bank Complex in Mirpur, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The Grameen Bank started to diversify in the late 1980s when it began attending to unutilized or underutilized fishing ponds, as well as irrigation pumps like deep tubewells. In 1989, these diversified interests started growing into separate organizations, as the fisheries project became Grameen Fisheries Foundation and the irrigation project became Grameen Krishi Foundation.
Vijay Mahajan is the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation and the director of the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Contemporary Studies.
The Lemelson Foundation is an American 501(c)(3) private foundation. It was started in 1993 by Jerome H. Lemelson and his wife Dorothy. The foundation held total net assets of US$444,124,049 at the end of 2020 and US$484,432,021 at the end of 2021.
SolarAid is an international development charity which is working to create a sustainable market for solar lights in Africa. In line with the Sustainable Development Goal 7: "Ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all", the organisation's aim is to reduce global poverty and climate change through providing access to solar lights for rural communities. SolarAid wholly owns the social enterprise, SunnyMoney, the largest seller of solar lights in Africa. SolarAid was founded by Solarcentury, a solar energy company based in the UK.
Bioregional is a British entrepreneurial charity, which aims to invent and deliver practical solutions for sustainability. It was founded in 1992 on the belief that overconsumption of resources was the driving force behind environmental degradation, and set out to find new ways for people to meet more of their needs from local resources.
Chris Underhill is an English social entrepreneur.
Fábio Luiz de Oliveira Rosa is a Brazilian social entrepreneur whose initiatives have focused on rural electrification and the use of renewable energy sources.
E+Co is a non-governmental organization based in Bloomfield, New Jersey, United States, that from its founding in 1994 to its restructuring in 2012 made over 250 clean energy investments in developing countries. Over these 18 years, E+Co maintained field offices in San Jose, Costa Rica, Bangkok, Thailand, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Accra, Ghana. The company's name is pronounced, "E and Co".
Nileema Mishra is a social worker from the Indian state of Maharashtra. She received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Emergent Leadership in 2011. Nileema was born into a lower-middle-class family in 1972 in the village of Bahadarpur Taluka Parola, Maharashtra, District- Jalgaon, Maharashtra. She is a postgraduate in psychology from the University of Pune. After her education, she worked with Vigyan Ashram, Pabal under the guidance of Dr Kalbagh. She registered Bhagini Nivedita Gramin Vigyan Niketan formally in the year 2005 with the help of Dr Jagannath Wani. Nileema has association with Caring Friends, Mumbai and Let's Dream foundation, Delhi. She donated her award money to her Bhagini Nivedita Gramin Vigyan Niketan, which helps poor women through micro-financing. She was awarded Padma Shri in 2013 for social work.
Rahul Alex Panicker is a technology leader and entrepreneur, formerly Chief Innovation Officer at the Wadhwani Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and best known as the President and Co-founder of Embrace Innovations and Embrace, a social enterprise startup that aims to help premature and low-birth-weight babies, through a low-cost infant warmer.
Tri Mumpuni, also known as Bu Puni is an independent researcher, social entrepreneur, philanthropist, social activist, and micro-hydropower inventor who was involved in the project for the development of hydro power electricity for more than half a million people in Indonesia. In 2010 she was elected as board member of National Committee on Innovation. For her work she was awarded the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2011. On 13 October 2021, she was appointed a Member of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Steering Committee by Joko Widodo.
Goonj is a non-governmental organisation headquartered in New Delhi, India, that undertakes disaster relief, humanitarian aid and community development in parts of 23 states across India. Goonj focuses on clothing as a basic but unaddressed need.
Anshu Gupta is an Indian entrepreneur. He founded the non-governmental organization Goonj. Goonj works on bridging urban and rural inequality. It does this by channelizing the urban surplus to initiate rural upliftment, disaster relief, and rehabilitation. Through Goonj, Anshu is building a parallel trash-based economy by creating barter between rural communities and urban surplus material. Anshu has been recognized by the Ramon Magsaysay foundation for his "creative vision in transforming the culture of giving in India".
HelpUsGreen is a social enterprise based out of Kanpur, India founded in 2015 that preserves the Ganges by flowercycling the waste from the places of worship and converts them into patented lifestyle products with the help of rural women enabling circular economy. The company was founded in 2015 by Karan Rastogi and Ankit Agarwal. In 2019, the founders split mutually and formed 2 individual companies. Help Us Green LLP is owned by Mr. Karan Rastogi.
