In August, the Google Impact Challenge came to India with one question for its social entrepreneurs: How would you use technology to improve your community and the world?
Thousands of teams submitted applications for how to spark social impact in India. The proposals were so great that it took over 160 Googlers to review the pile and handpick the top 10 finalists.
On Thursday, the leaders from the 10 finalists pitched their breakthrough solutions to a panel of judges at a live event in Delhi. The room sparked with inventiveness, passion and also urgency for the importance of all of these projects.
After a tough deliberation, the judges selected three winners to receive Global Impact Awards for their innovative plans to make a positive impact on people’s lives.
Join me in congratulating the inspiring judge selections:
Agastya: Launch a network of motorbike science labs to address the lack of science equipment and digital resources for rural children.
Digital Green: Scale a video hub and an online knowledge platform to help farmers gain the agricultural skills they need to lower their costs and increase their productivity.
The public picked a fourth winner. Over half a million votes were cast during the ten day voting period. Who was the winner? The fan favourite was a project from Social Awareness, Newer Alternatives that combines solar-powered micro-ionizing water purification and biodigesting technology to improve water and sanitation infrastructure for rural villages.
The four winners each received a Rs 3 crore Global Impact Award (approximately $500,000), as well as Google mentoring to help get their projects off the ground. We can’t wait to see the impact of their work in India!
Winner Joylita Saldanha, Judge Nikesh Arora, Judge Ram Shriram, Winner Rikin Gandhi, Judge Ana Agu, Winner K.Thiagarajan, Judge Jayant Sinha, Winner Sanchaita Gajapati Raju, Judge Jacquelline Fuller
We also had a surprise for the six remaining finalists. The proposals were so impressive that we invested seed funding of Rs 1.5 crore into each project (approximately $250,000) to refine and scale their impact.
Interested in following the Global Impact Awardees on their journey of implementation? Follow updates on their work on Google Giving G+ page.
Posted by Rajan Anandan, Vice President and Managing Director, Google India
