India's New Breed of Social Entrepreneurs

A number of Indian professionals settled in cushy jobs and businesses abroad are returning home to set up social enterprises and make a meaningful impact where it is needed most. India's pressing problems of shortage of water and power, and lack of healthcare and education in the rural regions is motivating these successful global professionals to find socially innovative solutions to these challenges.

Gyanesh Pandey, a highly successful entrepreneur in LA in the semiconductor industry, is a shining example of an expat Indian who left the lure of a comfortable life to return to his native village in Bihar, which is one of the poorest states in India. Pandey returned to his home state and set up a company called Husk Power Systems with the help of his native friends. The company generates electricity at very low rates for the villagers by using rice husk. It is a cheap, simple, environment friendly solution to provide power using a natural raw material available in ample quantity.

Pandey had been trying for years to achieve a breakthrough in rural electrification. In 2007, he got the idea to produce cheap green power using rice husk. He set up his first power plant in Tamkuha, which is a remote village in Bihar, and very soon the village that had never seen electricity was flooded with light. Within four years, Husk Power has managed to set up 84 plants, which are lighting up more than 350 villages across India at a very affordable cost.

Neelam Chibber, who is co-founder of another Indian social enterprise called Industree that helps village artisans sell their wares in urban markets, says that social entrepreneurship is not about philanthropy. "We look for market-led solutions, not for the corporate social responsibility type of solutions, because that is not going to be sustainable," says Chibber.

Sudesh Menon, former country head of GE in Malaysia, also returned to India to set up a social enterprise called Waterlife. Waterlife pursues a mission to provide drinking water in rural India. It has launched pioneering water purification systems that provide drinking water across 1,500 villages in India at a very low rate. "When we started this model, we were ridiculed by everybody -- government, bureaucracy. They said village people will never pay for water. But we proved all of them wrong. Our next target is urban slums," says Menon.

Photo Credit: Ambrozjo