Dalai Lama speech on Peace

His Holiness the Dalai Lama will visit the Madras University on 21 January from 2:00 pm to 4:00 pm. The University is expected to officially invite 15 members to represent each college in the city. The Tibetan Students who are studying in different colleges in and around Chennai are also expected to turn out.

E4SI Fellowship 09

'Engineers for Social Impact' is a unique fellowship program that connects top engineering talent to credible social enterprises driving market-based solutions to development in India. It serves a dual need: matching talented students with worthy social enterprises and increasing awareness of for-profit approaches to development.

Conference on Providing access for Sustainable Development

The conference aims to explore the broad areas where social entrepreneurs could make a difference, by creating effective mechanism to make the resources accessible to those in need. The Conference will aim to provide a platform to leading NGOs to put forth their point of view and network, liaison & collaborate and promote social entrepreneurship among students and the community.

Organizers: XLRI Jamshedpur

Date: 31st Jan to 1st Feb 09

Genesis 09 - a Social Entrepreneurship B-Plan Competetion

Genesis is a social entrepreneurship competition that aims at bringing about a confluence of students, entrepreneurs, NGOs, innovators, incubators, corporates and financers and creating a holistic platform for the initiation and development of exemplary social enterprise models.Spread over 3 - 4 months, the contest provides a stage for those interested in the social entrepreneurship field to:

Come up with innovations and business ideas that can bring about radical improvements, catering to specific problems faced by the society.
Get your ideas reviewed by experienced VCs, incubators and successful social entrepreneurs, refine and fine-tune business-plans and models.
Find like-minded people on the forum and build up a strong team, collaborate with mentors and financers.
Face the stumbling blocks on the path to enterprise development through strong backing and guidance by our associate organizations.

The competition is open to all students and working professionals (including NGOs) who have ideas that are innovative, feasible and can benefit society. The only restriction is that 50% of the registered members of every team that enters this competition should be students.

Organizers: IIT Madras, Chennai

Starting Date: 10th Jan 09

Duration: 3-4 months

Community Health Learning Program (CHLP) 09

What is the content of the Community Health Learning Programme?

• Orientation to concepts of community health and the health situation in India through interactive sessions.
• Understanding of field reality through placements in selected health and development programmes in India under guidance of mentors.
• Skill based training depending on intern’s capacities and needs.

Organizers: Community Health Cell, Bangalore

Starting date: May 09

Duration: 9 months

No of Vacancies: 8

Globalisation on the global poor: C. K. Prahalad

Solution for some of the problems of the World

Innovation for Clean Drinking Water

Center for Rural Technology, Nepal

Centre for Rural Technology, Nepal (CRT/N) is a professional non-government organization engaged in developing and promoting appropriate/rural technologies effective in meeting the basic needs of the rural communities and improving their life support system. Initially it was established in 1989 under the Company Act, CRT/N is now registered with His Majesty's Government of Nepal under the Social Registration Act since 1998. Since its establishment, the organization has been dedicated and actively engaged in upgrading traditional technologies and developing new technologies and effectively promoting and disseminating these technologies to technologies that strengthen the capability of rural poor communities to respond to their needs and creating better options and opportunities for sustaining the rural livelihood.

Africa's future: Donation or Wealth Creation?

Andrew Mwenda is a print, radio and television journalist, and an active critic of many forms of Western aid to Africa. Too much of the aid from rich nations, he says, goes to the worst African countries to fuel war and government abuse. Such money not only never gets to its intended recipients, Africa's truly needy -- it actively plays a part in making their lives worse.

Set your priorities right...

Adjunct Professor and Director Bjørn Lomborg has been heading Copenhagen Consensus Center at Copenhagen Business School since its start January 2006.

Bjørn Lomborg author of Cool It and The Sceptical Environmentalist and editor of the three books on the Copenhagen Consensus: Global Crises, Global Solutions (2004), How to Spend $50 Billion to Make the World a Better Place (2006) and Sollutions for the World's Biggest Problems (2007).

The Copenhagen Consensus Center analyzes the world's greatest challenges and identifies cost efficient solutions to meeting these challenges. The Center works with multilateral organizations, governments and other entities concerned with mitigating the consequences of the challenges which the world is facing.

With the process of prioritization, the center aims to establish a framework in which solutions to problems are prioritized according to efficiency based upon economic and scientific analysis of distinct subjects.

I made a Windmill for my house

When he was just 14 years old, Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba built his family an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts, working from rough plans he found in a library book.

DesiCrew - a rural BPO

DesiCrew is a unique BPO service provider whose philosophy envisions a win-win situation between urban clients and the rural workforce of India. By 2008, an estimated 100,000 villages in India would have Internet kiosks. Given that ICT infrastructure is now available in rural areas and basic computer literacy is growing, DesiCrew is today building a new outsourcing model to provide employment in rural India with a strong social objective. The business model developed by DesiCrew not only utilizes the power of Information Technology to provide quality and cost effective solutions to clients, but also pays close attention to a social agenda.

Pot-in-Pot technology for preservation

Farmers and small vendors doesn't get a fair return on their efforts because of many reasons. Spoilage and lack of preservation facilities is one among them. Every year many farmers all over India, due to lack of proper preservation systems, sell their produce at throw-away prices. Pot-in-pot is an innovative solution consisting of two earthenware pots of different diameters, one placed inside the other. The space between the two pots is filled with wet sand that is kept constantly moist, thereby keeping both pots damp.

Q-Drum water carrier

India is still suffering from water scarcity and transportation problems. In many parts of India people specially women and children have to travel a long distance to get water for their houses. Q-Drum is an affordable solution for this problem. The idea of Q-Drum originated in response to the needs of rural communities for clean and portable water. This is not very common in India but has a great potential to impact millions of lives in rural India.