Ashoka Fellows "ready to globalize"


Vijay Aditya

Organization: Ekgaon Technologies

Country: India

Vijay enables businesses to reach customers at the bottom of the pyramid with financial, agricultural and citizen services. Across South Asian countries, his Ekgaon platform technology reaches 40,000 groups with its free microfinance management information system alone, and is ready for BOP solutions worldwide.

Sanjeev Arora

Organization: Project ECHO

Country: United States

Sanjeev’s project ECHO uses telemedicine, case-based learning, and best practice protocols to expand access to care for patients in rural areas with hepatitis C and other chronic, complex conditions. Proven to deliver medical care and retain medical staff in a variety of rural areas, ECHO is now ready to go global.

Rodrigo Baggio

Organization: Center for Digital Inclusion

Country: Brazil

With his 753 CDI community centers, Rodrigo has empowered 1.2 million disadvantaged youth and adults in 12 countries to use information technology to become changemakers in their communities. Rodrigo wants to go beyond South America to drive digital inclusion and entrepreneurship.

Jeroo Billimoria

Organization: Aflatoun

Country: Netherlands

Having brought ChildLine to over 120 countries, Jeroo is now about to take ChildFinance global. Building on Aflatoun's success in providing financial education, ChildFinance is poised to create a network of financial services for one million children by 2020.

Jean-Marc Borello

Organization: Groupe SOS

Country: France

Jean-Marc’s Groupe SOS is a holding of more than 130 French citizen ventures that promote professional inclusion and raise the bar for third sector innovation. While many like Sports without Borders and Article 23 are already international, he now plans to bring his social innovation toolbox to citizen organizations globally.

Al Etmanski & Vickie Cammack

Organization: Tyze Personal Networks

Country: Canada

Vickie and Al have created Tyze, a web strategy to create personalized social networks for groups vulnerable to social isolation. Within 5 years they plan to scale beyond Canada, the US, and the UK to support the elderly, family caregivers and people with disabilities worldwide.

Caroline Casey

Organization: Kanchi

Country: Ireland

Through the Ability Awards and her growing network of over 100 Ability Businesses, Kanchi has changed the perception of disability. Having reached 20% of the Irish working population within three years, Caroline is now launching franchises in Spain - with other countries soon to follow.

Steve Collins

Organization: Valid International

Country: Ireland

Steve has revolutionized community-based therapeutic care of Severe Acute Malnutrition through ready-to-use food and more effective distribution. His organizations Valid International and Valid Nutrition have spread the system internationally and reach 1 million children. He partners with businesses to achieve even greater coverage.

Jürgen Griesbeck

Organization: streetfootballworld

Country: Germany

Streetfootballworld is a network of over 80 civil society organizations that use football as a tool for development and social change. As an official 2010 FIFA World Cup partner, Jürgen leverages the momentum to expand his ecosystem, create a marketplace for changemakers, and tap into the social investment potential of football.

Andreas Heinecke

Organization: Dialogue Social Enterprise

Country: Germany

With Dialogue in the Dark and Dialogue in Silence, Andreas has created platforms to empower blind and deaf people as guides or trainers. Having transformed the perception of over 6 million visitors and created employment for 6,000 disabled people, Andreas next hopes to reach 100 million participants in cities globally.

Sompop Jantraka

Organization: Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities

Country: Thailand

Sompop’s organization DEPDC fights social issues related to global market phenomena like human trafficking and exploitation. His education-for-prevention programs operate internationally in the Mekong delta, and now move to address these issues in key global origin, transition and destination countries.

Greg Van Kirk

Organization: Community Enterprise Solutions

Country: Guatemala

Greg has developed the MicroConsignment Model as a sustainable, replicable means of delivering health-related goods and services by (women) entrepreneurs in remote Guatemalan and Ecuadoran villages. He spreads the model to organizations worldwide to lower risk and create viable bottom of the pyramid markets.

Johann Koss

Organization: Right to Play

Country: Canada

Right to Play targets over 700,000 children and youth worldwide with sport and play to teach life skills, promote health, and develop peaceful communities. “Going deep” and “going broad”, Johann wants replicate his business model to reach one million young people on a weekly basis in 23 countries.

Tri Mumpuni

Organization: Institut Bisnis dan Ekonomi Kerakyatan (IBEKA)

Country: Indonesia

Through her organization IBEKA, Tri uses community-owned micro hydro to electrify and empower villages in developing countries. Her holistic and carbon-free solution involves the whole community, incubates local enterprises, and could spread from Indonesia as a solution to one of the world’s biggest development challenges.

Arnold Noyek

Organization: CISEPO

Country: Canada

Bridging the Arab-Israeli divide through cooperative health initiatives, CISEPO has pioneered a health-to-peace approach that creates networks of peaceful professional cooperation and knowledge sharing. Also engaged in fighting Malaria in Zimbabwe and psychiatry in Ethiopia, Arnold has a blueprint for many conflict zones.

Hilmi Quraishi

Organization: ZMQ Software Systems

Country: India

Hilmi’s organization ZMQ has created a mobile gaming channel for public health communication, awareness raising and disease management. Its dozens of games in regional languages leverage the ubiquity of 3.5 billion mobile phones and have already logged 12 million gaming sessions in South Asia and Africa.

Jean-Michel Ricard

Organization: SIEL Bleu

Country: France

SIEL Bleu uses unique physical exercises to delay the onset of age-related health problems and help seniors retain independence and social connections. Jean-Michel not only adds years to the lives of 60,000 elderly people, but adds life to their years as well – a model for the challenges of ageing societies far beyond France.

Salomón Raydan & Jean Claude Rodriguez-Ferrera

Organization: Comunidades Auto-Financiadas

Country: Spain

Ashoka Fellows Salomón Raydan and Jean Claude Rodríguez-Ferrera jointly take their Self-Financing Communities (SFC) from Venezuela and Spain to currently 7 countries on 3 continents. The model: communities provide small credits and insurances to themselves, promote financial education and reduce poverty.

Bright Simons

Organization: mPedigree

Country: Ghana

Bright’s mPedigree text messaging technology allows item-unique coding of medicines to enable consumer verification at the point of purchase for free. He generates fees from drug companies and incorporates the approach into national standards, reducing suffering from counterfeit medicines in Africa and soon beyond.

Gary Slutkin

Organization: CeaseFire International

Country: United States

With a background in infectious diseases, Gary recognized that violence develops like epidemics, and created CeaseFire International to prevent violence through interventions with former perpetrators. His model has thus far been applied in the US and Iraq, almost halving shootings and eliminated retaliatory killings in target communities.

Thorkil Sonne

Organization: Specialist People Foundation

Country: Denmark

Thorkil changes the way society perceives autism by transforming it from a handicap to a competitive advantage. His Specialist People Foundation employs autistic people, who have a ten times lower fault rate in software testing and other tasks. Thorkil now plans to go beyond Denmark, empowering people with ASD globally.

Rebeca Villalobos

Organization: ASEMBIS

Country: Costa Rica

ASEMBIS is a participatory treatment system that has brought high-tech health care to 65% of the Costa Rican population. Having started as an eye care program for the poor, Rebeca’s model has emerged as a comprehensive and replicable low-cost solution to medical care in Central and Latin America.

Estela Villareal

Organization: Unidos Somos Iguales

Country: Mexico

Estela uses public recreational spaces to facilitate interaction between disabled and nondisabled youth, promoting mainstream integration for people with special needs throughout Mexico and Central America. UNIDOS’ public-space interactions and follow-up strategies are now ready to “tip” awareness in many societies.

Jerry White

Organization: Survivor Corps

Country: United States

Conflict survivors often repeat cycles of vengeance and cruelty. With his worldwide peer-to-peer program Survivor Corps, Jerry transforms these survivors from passive victims into active, empathetic leaders, and works with strategic partners in over 20 countries to help end the currently 39 armed conflicts in the world.