Five Women Social Entrepreneurs Who Changed the World for Better in 2020

By: WE STAFF | Monday, 28 December 2020

Women in India are now doing miracles. Miracles that the whole world is watching and admiring. Notably, many women in India are heeding the need for innovation in areas of agriculture, environment, and women empowerment, among others, thereby contributing to the larger social good. Not just that but they are etching their names as leaders, successful businesspersons and also influential icons all across the world, leveraging their excellence in diverse fields. In this article, we will have a look at five women social entrepreneurs who changed the world for better.

Abhilasha Purwar

Abhilasha is a social entrepreneur who founded Blue Sky Analytics in July 2018 to tackle the impact of climate change. The artificial intelligence (AI)-based startup provides real-time environmental data and offers actionable environmental insights into air and water qualities. Abhilasha, who started Blue Sky with her brother Kshitij, wants to make their app BreeZo the Bloomberg for environment-related data. Abhilasha was determined to do something when she saw the impact of climate change up close when a river turned orange in Chandrapur, Maharashtra. BreeZo provides all of the information on air quality at a single glance. It shows historical data and changes in air quality across space and time through interactive graphs and visuals which give the user greater information about the changes in the air around them. Leveraging BreeZo’s prowess, users can now determine cleaner air routes, when to go outside and what areas to avoid at certain times.

Ajaita Shah

Ajaita works with a mission to empower rural India. Born and brought up in New York, it was impossible for Ajaita to know the real picture of rural India. However, she always had her roots deep in the country as her parents were originally from the state of Rajasthan. She was born in a rich family and her father owned a Jaipur Jain Jewelry Community long chain of jewelers. She never needed to take a peep into the rural and do something for them. But that was not the type of person Ajaita was. Ajaita is the founder and CEO of Frontier Markets. She started at the gross level and aims to provide the best of technological solutions to the remote villages in India at the cheapest price possible. Frontier Markets supplies solar energy powered products to rural India at an extremely affordable cost. The company has sold over 10,000 solar solutions until now and there is no stopping them until they light the remotest corners of the country.

Ashraf Patel

Ashraf is the Co-Founder of Pravah and ComMutiny Youth Collective. In partnership with UNICEF ROSA, they developed an appreciative enquiry tool to assess the impact of COVID-19 on the lives of adolescents in eight South Asian countries. ComMutiny members across 17 states reached 30 thousand vulnerable households with relief supplies in the times of COVID-19 crisis. These two organization even won the Social Entrepreneur of the Year (SEOY) award instituted by the Schwab Foundation and Jubilant Bhartia Foundation. The award was presented to Ashraf representing Pravah and ComMutiny by Smriti Irani, minister of women and child development and textiles, at a virtual event. Established in 1993, Pravah has been facilitating the development of a generation of empathetic, sensitive youth change-makers in India through psycho-social interventions, helping them build more inclusive identities and societies. ComMutiny which was formed in 2008, works on the idea of making collectives out of organizations like Pravah.

Ruchi Jain

Ruchi, the Founder of Taru Naturals, an endeavour to empower small-scale farmers across India by connecting them to fair trade markets and to help them increase their productivity with technological practices. Ruchi left a government job to connect with farmers on the ground who play an important role in the economy. After acting on four different ideas and exhausting all her savings, Ruchi invested Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 2,000 in a group of farmers who were unable to sell their jaggery produce and eventually founded Taru Naturals. Taru Naturals operates under two verticals. The first - sources products from local communities and sells them to customers via its website and online presence. It also supplies ingredients to restaurants and other food businesses. Ruchi gives the credit to her mother Poonam Jain, a naturopathy expert, for the inspiration behind Taru Naturals. Her mother helps her with the R&D for products and also helps come up with recipes. Jain has been working in the development sector since the age of 18. She has an MSc from Oxford University and has even worked for the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

Sushmita Ghosh

Sushmita is the founder of Ashoka Changemakers, an open-ended platform for social innovation that was one-of-its-kind in the world. A former journalist, she began her career as the Executive Editor of Maneka Gandhi’s national Indian news magazine, ‘Surya’, before launching her own freelance journalism service that covered big ideas of any kind. She met Ashoka with the intent of writing about the organization and ended up joining it, to scale up Ashoka’s social entrepreneurship program in India. She later co-launched its activities in Latin America, launched Changemakers and served as Ashoka’s President. She currently serves on Ashoka’s leadership team. Sushmita aims to revive the craftsmanship and talent that is unharnessed in rural India and aims to provide them with their deserving recognition. She started with ‘Rangasutra’, a retail chain from FabIndia and it turned out to be a huge success.