The Problem

Finderbrige wants to improve/solve a host of poor situations/problems in North East India be it Unemployment, Discrimination towards this part of the Land, Unequal pay, poaching in the forests, Poor connectivity & transportation, Low standard of living and bringing into light the concept of “Sustainable- tourism”. They are also aiming to provide Socio-Progressive tours as Excursions to imbibe the knowledge about Northeast India.

The Solution

The idea of men and women in leadership roles should not be presented as oppositional. Also, Gender equality matters for social change and to solve global problems. However, the same conditioning that shapes young girls to be more compassionate and nurturing can be the biggest quality of women leaders to create meaningful social impact. Research has shown that women have an advantage in responding to global challenges following crises. This is because women tend to practice more democratic and inclusive decision-making approaches believes in inspiring others. Its time to recognise that each gender brings unique traits to a leadership position and in order to cultivate a strong community of social impact leaders, we need to include both styles at the decision-making table.

Contemporary research has shown that there are some differences between men and women when it comes to entrepreneurship too. Men tend to focus on the economic reasons for business ownership whereas women also seek to make some kind of social contribution.

Keeping the various researches and studies made over the years regarding leadership styles and motivation and the differences between the unique abilities of men and women, She For Change has been initiated to bridge the gap between women’s leadership and social impact while also helping young girls cultivate leadership skills and other professional skills while growing up through exploration of the social impact space.

 The Venture

She For Change is a non -profit initiative to help the social entrepreneurship ecosystem for female leaders by providing them with resources, tools and assistance while at the same time encouraging participation of young girls to foster their leadership skills by encouraging their participation in boosting meaningful social change. We have created a digital platform to connect women social entrepreneurs from across India to engage in fruitful collaboration and to be able to share resources and increase the impact of their work.

We are also currently working on a platform to connect young girls as volunteers to social organisations and initiatives and a three-tier opportunity platform consisting of Apprenticeship, Internship and Shadow Programs for girls to get on-ground skills training while being mentored by women leaders and entrepreneurs at the same time.

The Problem

Finderbrige wants to improve/solve a host of poor situations/problems in North East India be it Unemployment, Discrimination towards this part of the Land, Unequal pay, poaching in the forests, Poor connectivity & transportation, Low standard of living and bringing into light the concept of “Sustainable- tourism”. They are also aiming to provide Socio-Progressive tours as Excursions to imbibe the knowledge about Northeast India.

The Solution

They identify spots by surveying various places and engage with local communities to find places where tourist activities can be developed. They relay this information on their web-site. These new places will boost employment in those areas and help solve problems of poverty. They want to be a one-stop destination for offbeat places in the NE. Through their platform, they want to spread information about the north-east and show its true beauty. They have classified various spots like places of cultural interest, places of natural beauty, festivals, etc. They also want to bring local small scale businesses related to tourism like small hotels, home stays, guides, etc under their platform. People can book these through finderbridge as well. They have put together A strong community of 200 passionate bloggers, photographers, goodwill members and Youtubers have joined the cause to highlight their own native places. These talents get a platform to showcase their creativity as Finderbridge displays information in the form of blogs, photos and videos with due credit to the creator. These people send content that is then relayed on the multiple online platforms Finderbridge operates on. This in return helps them establish travel/tourism specific services in their region. They also receive help from Swapnanils team.

 The Venture

The northeast has 220 diverse suburban communities. These can serve as cultural and natural hotspots for tourism. Finderbridge plans to work with the government, village panchayat and other NGOs to identify these new tourist spots and boost village tourism. Finderbridge wants to create new tourist spots. Crowdfunding and government grants help Swapnanil negotiate access to funds. They have also tied up with some NRIs from the region who want to see the region develop. Eg; To start with, lately a single post about Tea gardens in their FB Page reached about 2.30 lakhs people keeping in mind the page started this year. They have a ready base of inventory of Home-stays, Hotels and guest houses which could be outsourced for constant bookings and use of Finderbridge hotel management app keeps them organized.

The Entrepreneur

About Swapnanil: Undergraduate - electronics and telecommunication, in GIMT Guwahati. He also Innovated a device for differently abled, paralyzed people. It helped them turn pages of books. He was given an award from APJ Abdul Kalam. In 2015 he ran a campaign to educate youth on innovation and entrepreneurship (grninnovare) - he was selected as Innovation scholar at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. He has also worked with NASA in Germany Speaker at world youth conference speaker, State in charge of Meghalaya for international youth committee. Swapnanil is a well-travelled person. Through his journey, he met many people who had a lot of content online about their hometown that they could show. Swapnanil felt that he should do something similar in NE India which has long been a neglected region. The reason no one knows about northeast is the lack of tourism. He feels that tourism can solve the issues of unemployment and poverty too. He feels these are the main social issues and tackling them will help tackle other social issues like health and education also. With these two thoughts in mind, he launched an online platform known as Finderbridge. They have also launched an app available on various operating systems of smartphones. Finderbridge acts as a platform to develop new tourist spots. Create new spots local tourism hence opportunities for Socio-progressive tourism. Not only sustainable but trying to bring as many people as possible under their venture. Bring in unemployed youth. Bring in small scale businesses on their platform and help propagate them.

The Problem

During the monsoon season in Mumbai intense flooding poses a huge problem for families that live on the pavements. Pavement dwellers are often left to sit under closed shops during the night holding pieces of plastic over their heads to protect themselves from the downpour. These families deserve a safe roof over their heads and at the very least, temporary shelter from the rain during monsoon season.

The Solution

Poster to Shelter distributes used posters to help pavement dwellers survive the rains. The P2S team collects used banners from outdoor advertising agencies, companies, political parties, filmmakers, etc. and distribute them as roofs. They also recycle smaller posters to make utility products (bags and other accessories) that have led to the following benefits: proceeds from sales help sustain the daily cost of the project, the products benefit the environment as they are made of non-biodegradable material and underprivileged tailors who recycle the products can earn a living.

The Venture

Poster to Shelter supported 70 pavement families in the last monsoon season. Through these efforts, the venture has raised general awareness of the need for temporary shelter during monsoon seasons until the pavement dwellers are permanently rehabilitated by government programs.

Going forward the P2s team hopes to increase their reach across cities in India, generate out for more corporate sponsorship, create a website, collect data about those being positively affected by the project, sell more P2S products, and use these proceeds to eventually set up education programs for children born on the pavements.

The Problem

Women within rural villages have low revenue from their food products sales because they don’t have the ability to anticipate the actual market size and revenue cutting by intermediaries. This inability is due to the lack of information they have regarding consumer preferences, pricing, product standardization, cost minimization, etc., which leads to lower revenue.

The Venture

Sanjeevani is a market linkage programme that connects food products manufactured by the rural women in the Shyampur village of Hapur district, Uttar Pradesh to the untapped potential markets of consumers through a diversified distribution channel.

Vision 2020 South Asia takes actions in 5 different sectors. They are:

1. Quality education- Teaching the poor kids skill-based education instead of textbook education.

2. TechnologyTeaching the youth about outsourcing, and about how technology can be used in a beneficial way.

3. Good health and Wellbeing- Many do not know about proper nutrition and diet. So they conduct different campaigns on proper nutrition, healthcare, different diseases etc.

4.Gender equality- The children are taught what good and bad touch is. They learn about sexual harassment. Besides this, many girls are made economically solvent by engaging them in sewing works or boutiques.

5. Decent work and economic growth-Leadership training is provided to the youth for their skill development, and they are trained to be assets for the country. 

After observing the difficulty shopkeepers were having with debt accountability in his neighborhood, Sadar decided to help. He created a mobile app called Baki Khata as a solution to this issue. The app uses fingerprint identification to ensure that debtors will not disappear to avoid paying back the shopkeepers. The app can also connect to the cloud so that vendors can see how much an individual owes to other shopkeepers in the area. This helps vendors determine whether an individual is reliable and trustworthy. Lastly, the app allows shopkeepers to keep a detailed record of their goods and services sold without having to worry about their record books being stolen or misplaced. Information from the app can be synced to the cloud whenever it reconnects to the internet.