Hilde Schwab, Chairperson and Co-Founder, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship during the ceremony for the Crystal Awards at the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, WEF, in Davos, Switzerland.
| Photo Credit: AP
The World Economic Forum on Tuesday (January 21, 2025) announced Schwab Foundation Awards for 18 social entrepreneurs and innovators from 15 organisations across 13 countries, including India.
Announcing the awards during the annual meeting here, the WEF said it kicks off a three-year journey to empower recipients, who have joined a global community of nearly 500 individuals whose work is impacting 931 million lives.
The awards are given by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, in partnership with the Motsepe Foundation.
The 18 leaders from 15 organisations are values-driven entrepreneurs pioneering transformative business, social development and environmental models that are helping build a more equitable and sustainable world, it said.
Awardees in the social entrepreneurs category included Akshay Saxena, Co-Founder of Avanti Fellows, a non-profit that aims to provide equitable access to India’s top science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) colleges.
Vineet Singal, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of CareMessage, has also been given the award in this category. His organisation is a US-based technology non-profit building the largest patient engagement platform for low-income populations in the US.
In the Collective Social Innovators category, the award recipients are people who bring together organisations to solve complex problems that cannot be tackled by individual actors.
These include Ved Arya, Director of the Buddha Institute and National Convener of the Responsible Coalition for Resilient Communities (RCRC), a collective of 98 grassroots civil society organisations across 15 states in India that formed during the Covid-19 pandemic due to its disproportionate impact on vulnerable communities.
Arya’s fellow RCRC leaders and 2025 Schwab Foundation Awardees include Poonam Muttreja, Executive Director of the Population Foundation of India, and Apoorva Oza, Global Lead for Agriculture and Climate at non-profit the Aga Khan Foundation.
Published – January 21, 2025 04:23 pm IST
