3rd Silicon Valley

Challenge Trek

May 2016

Green Agrevolution Mission: To maximize profit per unit area of small farmers in India & South Asia

Green Agrevolution Pvt. Ltd. was started in 2012 with an aim of maximizing profit per unit area of small farmers. The company offers end to end agricultural services to farmers through mobile based technology- “DeHaat” & network of local channel partners. DeHaat is an ICT based platform & farmers’ marketplace which brings 360 degree agri offerings for small farmers under one roof. It connects small farmers to their various needs – Seeds, fertilizers, equipment, crop advisory & market linkage. DeHaat is used by last mile agri service providers such as micro entrepreneurs, agri business clinics & Farmer Producer Organization (FPO). Currently 7500+ farmers across Bihar and Odisha (2 States of India) are directly associated with 18 channel partners… and DeHaat / Agrevolution is aiming 100,000 households in next 3 years.

Leadership Shashank Kumar

Shashank had worked as a Business

Associate for 2.5 years in a

management consulting firm in

supply chain, retail and FMCG

sectors. He completed his B.Tech &

minor MBA from IIT Delhi in 2008. He has formed

an excellent team of people from IIT Kharagpur,

IIM Ahmedabad & NIT Jamshedpur.

He has led the team to many milestones

including Angel investment round ($ 400,000),

winning Eureka –IIT’B (2013), Millennium

Alliance (2014), Vodafone Mobile for Good

(2015) & Action for India-AFI (2016). Green

Agrevolution got also incubated at Global Social

Benefit Institute (GSBI), Santa Clara University,

CA in 2014-15.He has been awarded as “Ashoka

Fellow” in 2013 & Forbes 30 under 30 social

entrepreneur in 2014.

Saajha Mission: To create platforms for better parental and community engagement in Government schools thereby improving the learning outcomes of the children

Saajha works towards empowering School Management Committees (SMCs) and facilitating collaboration between schools and community Saajha Impact Schools Saajha started its interventions in 2013 at 57 schools under North and East Delhi Municipal Corporations in partnership with Pratham. An additional 30 schools were covered under operations under South Delhi Municipal Corporation • Inside school: Capacity building of teachers and

the headmasters in the schools • Community Engagement: Raise awareness

about issues related to learning of children • Biannual Workshops: Focus on peer-to-peer

learning of the SMCs Saajhedar Schools Started operations in 2015, in partnership with Government of Delhi to impact 1,000+ schools under Delhi Government • Government Trainers: Build capabilities of

Government trainers to enable them to build capabilities of the SMC members

• On-ground Support: Build capabilities of volunteers to enable them to provide on-ground support to SMCs in the schools

• Technology: Build a mobile-based application to create a reliable channel of communication among schools, Government and bureaucracy

Leadership Abhishek Choudhary A recipient of Echoing Green

Fellowship, Abhishek has worked on strengthening community support to schools in Mumbai. He is an English Literature Graduate

from Delhi University. At Saajha, Abhishek leads training and workshops and provides support for content development Prashast Srivastava An alumnus from IIM Ahmedabad,

BITS Pilani and the Young India Fellowship, Prashast is passionate about creating a lasting impact at

grass root level. At Saajha, Prashast leads data, analytics and financial management Saransh Vaswani Saransh has a degree in Computer

Science and is a recipient of Echoing Green Fellowship. He has previously worked on a venture connecting weavers in Chanderi to

online markets. At Saajha, Saransh leads partner management and technology

Swasti Agro Mission: To develop Vaccines and "Health-care System" for plants

Swasti Agro has developed ‘Vaccines for Plants’ and an innovative program - BioAVert - for prevention of a variety of diseases of plants. (1) “Bi” means block invasion (2) “oA” means optimize advantageous microflora and (3) “vertI” vertex inhibitor synthesis within plant defence. This program is based on novel biotechnology products (under patenting), which are 100% biological, eco-friendly and sustainable. Tests on variety of crops and prevention of major disease(s), indicated extra income of USD 70 to 100 per ha. All types of pathogens - viruses, bacteria, fungi, and nematodes - were studied. Cash crop pomegranate is devastated by bacterial blight, and extra income of up to We have a manufacturing capacity of USD 5 Million p.a., and we have launched our products Being the first mover in “vaccine for plants” Swasti developed a “health-care system” for plants comprising analysis of predisposal factors, plant physiology and pathogen load. The aim is to carry out such analysis mostly using IOT based gadgets, digitize all information, and suggest very rapidly preventive or predictive actionable points. This is expected to bring down the cost of cultivation by at least 30%, improve soil bio-fertility, reduce load of chemicals on the environment, and has a potential to improve productivity from 30 to 200%.

Leadership Abhay Shendye, PhD

A doctor in Molecular Biology he has more than 20 years of experience in the space of product and market development for

sustainable agriculture. He has single handed developed market for two innovative products for other companies in the past. He has one granted international patent and one application. His interests are soil bio-fertility, plant disease prevention, use of scalable analytics for preventive diagnostics. The current focus of his work is building disease resistance in plants using non-toxic patented sprayable products. The current area of work is bacterial blight of Pomegranate caused by Xanthomonas sp. Use of android applications, and analytical hardware integrated with android devices is sought for scaling of the product application.

Uber Diagnostics Mission: To make healthcare diagnosis affordable and accessible

When it comes to heart health, rural communities are at a significant disadvantage due to lack of quality diagnostics equipment and lack of cardiologist within a reasonable distance. Often, patients must travel for 3-4 hours to reach cardiac clinic for a simple diagnostics evaluation. A cardiovascular incident generally leads to expensive loans that they cannot afford. Such an incident in a family ends the dreams and aspirations of family forever because of the cost of invasive intervention. uber Diagnostics has developed Cardiotrack, a 12-lead ECG monitor that is easy to use, provides clinical grade ECG output that can be sent to a cardiologist or a cardiac clinic far away. This process is designed for early diagnosis of CVD to reduce the need for invasive intervention and save the families from lifetime of debt. Cardiotrack solves 3 critical problems: • affordable and accessible healthcare

diagnostics closer to patients’ home • portable healthcare information to seek advice

from cardiologist for immediate intervention • efficient healthcare services by minimizing

avoidable cost through early diagnosis Providing Tele-cardiology service to general physicians uses cardiologists’ time efficiently. Deployment of Cardiotrack at the primary care level can save lot of lives and lot of livelihoods. A single Cardiotrack deployed at primary care level in India can potentially save upwards of USD 250,000 per year in invasive intervention alone.

Leadership Ashim Roy, CEO

Ashim did his BE (Hons.) in

Electronics from BITS, Pilani; M.

Tech from IIT, Delhi and Ph.D. from

the University of Adelaide and

holds several patents. He has been an adjunct

professor at Catholic University of America in

Washington, DC. After 3 decades in Australia,

Canada and USA, Ashim has returned to India to

leverage his experience in telecommunications

to spearhead activities that bridge the healthcare

and education gap between urban and non-

urban communities.

Avin Agarwal, COO

Avin and medical electronics have

shared a strong bond since the

time he graduated in engineering

from VTU, Bangalore. He has

worked in the Netherlands but the call of making

a mark in his chosen field was too strong for him.

Avin has received a grant from the prestigious

Gates Foundation for diagnostic research and

holds a patent.

WeMakeScholars Mission: To build the biggest scholarship database with more than $1 billion in total available funding to help every deserving student

Today 1 million students fly abroad just from India, China and South Korea. And, every year billions of dollars of funding is given as scholarships by various bodies. WeMakeScholars (WMS) is a free tech enabled scholarship search platform which provides details on global scholarships from high school till Post-Doctorate Research levels. With over 60 million dollars' worth scholarships listed on this portal, WMS connects students to universities worldwide, helping them achieve their dreams. These include scholarships given by Universities/Corporates/trusts/foundations and Ministries, listed at a single place, making it easier for deserving students to find and apply. The portal was inaugurated on 29th April, 2015 by Dr. Shashi Tharoor, Ex- Under Secretary- General of UN. Since launch, it has over 4000 Scholarships being used by more than 800K students from 214 countries. The startup has been endorsed for its social impact by Helen Clark, Ex-PM of New Zealand and current administrator of UNDP and by organizations like Deshpande Foundation, Action for India.

Leadership Damini Mahajan & Arjun

The idea of WMS originated with the struggle its founders Arjun & Damini had, while searching scholarships to do masters in 2012. Later, they received the prestigious “UK Queen’s Jubilee Scholarship” and “Developing Solutions Scholarship” respectively. Then they started an online community

to fill the gap between available opportunities and students. It grew exponentially to 160K members and the users requested to build a dedicated platform to keep data more organized & upto date. Prior to their MS in Biological and Bioprocess Engineering from the University of Sheffield, Arjun completed his B.Tech Biotechnology from VIT University and Damini completed her B.Tech Industrial Biotechnology from Shri Mata Vaishno Devi University, J&K.

Sanjay Kadaveru

Founder & President Action For India

sanjay@actionforindia.org

USA: + 1 408 966 4819 | India: +91 81057 32008

actionforindia.org