List of prominent global Indian social entrepreneurs launched

Indiaspora, a non-profit organisation of global Indian origin leaders, launched a list of 61 young social entrepreneurs of Indian origin, who are founders of 49 companies making impactful contributions to society, earlier this week. The list titled DiasporaNEXT is an initiative to recognise and build a community of young professionals of Indian origin who are leading or aspiring to be leaders in their respective fields.

“We are proud to be able to highlight successful Indian-origin individuals across a myriad of fields through our ongoing lists project. We hope to continue to inspire the next generation of Indian diaspora professionals through our DiasporaNEXT initiative in the years to come,” said Sanjeev Joshipura, the Washington DC based executive director of Indiaspora.

The list was launched through two separate sessions, each featuring a panel of founders who were honoured on the list. The first panel session, moderated by Shivani Garg Patel, chief strategy officer of Skoll Foundation, an US-based organisation that invests in, connects, and champions social entrepreneurs and social innovators; consisted of Indo-Canadians Alwar Pillai and Abid Virani from Fable Tech Labs, which has created a tool that helps companies build more inclusive products; Pooja Viswanathan from Braze Mobility, an organisation that has created the world's first patented blind spot sensors that can be added to any wheelchair; and Indian-American Vivek Kopparthi, co-founder of Neolight, a technology company primarily focused on lean medical devices for newborn care. The second session, featured Indo-Singaporean Mayur Singh of Green Collective SG, that offers a range of eco-friendly products.

The founders discussed their journeys to social entrepreneurship, the impact their companies make, and the hardships they have faced along the way. Murali Vullaganti, founder and executive chairman of PeopleShores, a US based public benefit corporation focusing on empowering and transforming young adults in under-served communities in the US into knowledge professionals and Singapore based angel investor Jayesh Parekh; both of who assisted with the selection process for the list, also spoke during the launch.

“When I think about the first two years of starting Fable, [our biggest challenge] was around convincing people that this is a problem worth solving, and that this a problem worth putting your money behind,” said Alwar Pillai, CEO and co-founder of Fable.

“We were so grateful to have such inspiring social entrepreneurs speak at our launch session for the Social Entrepreneurs List. The stories they told and the pieces of advice they gave were extremely moving and motivating for our audience, particularly those who are interested in becoming social entrepreneurs themselves, or in supporting social enterprises,” said Raka Mukherjee, senior coordinator of marketing and communications, Indiaspora.