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Social entrepreneurs are often credited with having a one-track mind. There is no barrier strong enough or challenge tall enough to stop these positive deviants from achieving their goals. For Ashoka Fellow Tri Mumpuni, not even the harrowing experience of being held hostage by separatist rebels in...

Open source thinking is no longer a skill reserved for software engineers, but a valuable skill for social entrepreneurs. It's an exciting topic to discuss, and many in the Ashoka family believe that open growth platforms have begun to replace crowdsourcing as the next brightest frontier in social...

On Friday, October 21, 2011 Bill Drayton joined the ranks of Nelson Mandela, Bill and Melinda Gates, and the World Health Organization in receiving the Prince of Asturias Award for International Cooperation. The award, referred to as the Spanish Nobel, is an annual recognition of one person or...

We in Hungary who are fighting for the freedom of an Ashoka Fellow Dr. Agnes Gereb, for the right of midwives to assist at homebirths and for the rights of Hungarian mothers' to fulfill their constitutional right to homebirth have been so fortunate to have Ashoka as our ally and friend. From the...

I sometimes wonder if it’s my perception of a place or the place itself that changes. Just last year, I was in Ethiopia for a few weeks but I don’t recall being shocked at the number of sex workers that lined up on every busy street in the Addis. I definitely don’t recall there being so many when I...

Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies (MILLEE), a non-profit organization uses mobile phone games to improve literacy skills in emerging countries. Founded in 2004, MILLEE develops human-centred, immersive and enjoyable language learning mobile games which are modelled...

More than 1 billion people (1 in 6 of us) live in an urban slum and this number is expected to double by the year 2030. That is enough to make anyone pessimistic. For one Ashoka Fellow, however, the future is in our hands—we control our own fates. “ Make the surroundings your product,” Amlan Ganguly...

How can technology make your government more open? “At its purest, technology can sponsor transparency and empower citizens,” said Emma Jane Cross, the founder BeatBullying and the online community powerhouse The BB Group. “It can fight corruption, strengthen governance, encourage democracy, and...

Daniel Canning is Vice President, U.S. Money Transfer at Western Union Financial Services. In 2011 he traveled to India to work with Drishtee, an organization founded by Ashoka Fellow Satyan Mishra that provides essential services to rural villages via locally run franchisee kiosks. By expanding its...