Leaders and Co-Creators

Ashoka is the global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs—men and women with system changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems. Over a 30-year span, we have elected and funded over 2,800 leading social entrepreneurs in more than 70 countries. Rather than building one school or clinic in one community, Ashoka Fellows work at the systemic level, transforming the way children learn or creating new healthcare delivery systems. Ashoka then distills action-principles that cut across the work of these social entrepreneurs and creates frameworks for collaborative entrepreneurship to author global change.

65% of India’s population is under 35 years old. Millions of people graduate every year yet remain unemployed because they lack the appropriate skills or are unable to find opportunities. How can we create a new model that delivers high quality and relevant education to millions of young people who will be driving India’s growth in the next 20 years?

30% of India’s population lives in urban areas and this number grows by 2.5% every year. In developing countries such as India there is often a lack of infrastructure. Moreover, mass migration towards cities is damaging the rural economy. What can businesses and citizens do to guarantee a sustainable way of living in both cities and in the villages?

In India, more than 65% of the population has no access to healthcare, 21% of the transmittable diseases are related to unsafe water, and almost 70% of the population has no access to proper sanitation. How can we develop affordable products and services to improve the lives of millions of people and, at the same time, create new business opportunities in the country? 

In India, Ashoka has over 350 Fellows working to address challenges such as those outlined above through several innovative solutions.

Ashoka is looking for entrepreneurs who can lead and/or co-create initiatives that will bring different players from the social and private sectors to work together and develop solutions to address some of India’s most urgent problems. These authors of change should possess passion, vision and energy to conceptualize, develop, and drive high-impact initiatives in India.

As leaders and/or co-creators, we want people who have a proven commitment to innovation and have a track record as entrepreneurial innovators with demonstrated leadership in the social or business sectors – people who have founded and grown a significant start-up in the business or social business sectors, anywhere around the world. We also want people who have strong client management and communication skills.

David Green has worked with many organizations to make medical technology and healthcare services sustainable, affordable and accessible to all. He helped establish Aurolab in India, to produce affordable intraocular lenses (now has 8% of the global market share) and suture. He has helped develop high-volume, quality eye care programs that are affordable to the poor and self-sustaining from user fees, including Aravind Eye Hospital in India - which performs 300,000 surgeries per year (70% of the care is provided free of charge or below-cost, yet the hospital is able to generate substantial surplus revenue). Within this paradigm of “humanizing capitalism”, David works as an Ashoka VP to create social investment instruments to support sustainable social enterprises (in eye care and solar energy).

If you are ready to address a major challenge in India by building an innovative solution with other high caliber global entrepreneurs, please get in touch with us at 'india@ashoka.org.'