This document profiles several social entrepreneurs from India who have worked to empower disadvantaged groups. It describes Ela Bhatt's founding of a trade union for self-employed women workers, Nand Kishore Chaudhary's social business model connecting poor weavers to global markets, and Thinlas Chorol's organizations supporting women's welfare and generating income through homestays in Ladakh. It also outlines the philanthropic work of Abraham George and Bunker Roy in areas like education, healthcare, and renewable energy, as well as Anshu Gupta's NGO that addresses rural development needs through collection and redistribution of urban waste. Finally, it discusses Hanumappa Sudarshan's contributions to uplifting

1. Social
Entrepreneurship
Heroes
of
India

2. Ela Bhatt
She is a cooperative organiser, activist
and Gandhian, who founded the Self-Employed
Women's Association of India in 1972, a trade
union for poor, self-employed women workers
in India.. A lawyer by training, Bhatt is a part of
the international labor, cooperative, women,
and micro-finance movements and has won
several national and international awards,
including the Ramon Magsaysay Award , Right
Livelihood Award and the Padma Bhushan.

3. Nand Kishore
Chaudhary
He established the social business model of
Jaipur Rugs, connecting the poor weavers with
the global markets by building a global supply
chain focused on developing human capability
and skills at the grassroots level, providing steady
income for rural men and women in the most
depressed parts of India and connecting them
with markets in the US. He is regarded as
the Gandhi of the carpet industry due to his
commitment to uplifting society through the art of
carpet weaving.

4. Thinlas Chorol
Chorol co-founded the society Ladakhi
Women's Welfare Network to work for the
welfare of women, to support the victims of
crimes directed towards women and educate
them on their legal rights.
She also founded the Ladakhi Women's
Travel Company which uses Homestays, a
way to help women in the villages generate
income for themselves. She has written articles
on tourism in Ladakh and other issues and has
won Sanjoy Ghosse Ladakh Women Writers'
Award.

5. Abraham George
An Indian-American businessman, academic,
and philanthropist, is the founder of The
George Foundation, dedicated to the welfare
and empowerment of economically and
socially disadvantaged in India. His foundation
has initiated numerous projects in poverty
alleviation, education, healthcare, lead
poisoning prevention, women's empowerment,
and press freedom.
He also pioneered the successful effort to
remove lead content from gasoline throughout
India in April 2000 and was instrumental in the
creation of the National Referral Centre for
Lead Poisoning in India.

6. Bunker Roy
An Indian social activist and educator who
founded the barefoot college, a voluntary
organisation working in the fields of education,
skill development, health, drinking water, women
empowerment and electrification through solar
power for the upliftment of rural people. It has
trained more than 3 million people for jobs. He
was selected as one of TIME’s 100 most
influential personalities in 2010 for his work in
educating illiterate and semi-literate rural
Indians.

7. Anshu Gupta
He founded Goonj, a NGO that positions the
under-utilised urban material as a development
resource for the rural parts of India. He
started Goonj in 1999 to work on the basic need of
clothing, an issue that does not have a place in the
development agenda. Goonj has taken the
growing urban waste and used it as a tool to
trigger development work on diverse issues;
roads, water, environment, education, health etc.
in backward and remote pockets of India. He won
the Ramon Magsaysay Award in 2015.

8. Hanumappa
Sudarshan
An Indian social worker and tribal rights
activist. He is well known for his contributions
to the upliftment of the forest dwelling tribes
in Karnataka. He is also the founder and
Honorary Secretary of the Karuna Trust,
which is dedicated to rural development in the
states of Karnataka and Arunachal Pradesh.
He claims inspiration from the man-making
and nation-building ideals of Swami
Vivekananda.
He advocates Gandhian ideals for rural
development. He is also a recipient of
the Right Livelihood Award and the Padma
Shri.