Atif Mumtaz’s Tele-healthcare project, Jaroka, was short-listed for DHL’s YES Awards.
He is among the five finalists in the social sector in Pakistan and the only with a medicine related project. You can learn more about the award by visiting Atif’s blog
Date: Thursday Jun 14th
Location: DV Lounge
Time: 11am-12pm
Speaker bio:
R. Gopalakrishnan is executive director of Tata Sons, chairman of Rallis India and vice-chairman of Tata Chemicals. He is a director of several Tata Group companies such as Tata Motors, Tata Power and Tata Internet Services. He also serves on the board of two non-Tata companies, ICI and Castrol India.
A key member of the Tata Group Executive Office, Mr Gopalakrishnan plays a vital role in providing direction and impetus to the Group’s forays into potentially viable areas of the new economy.
Mr Gopalakrishnan joined Hindustan Lever (HLL) as a management trainee in 1967. In 1987, he joined HLL’s management committee as executive director of exports. In 1991, he was appointed chairman of Unilever Arabia, based in Jeddah, to establish and manage Unilever’s consumer products business in Arab countries. On his return to India in 1995, he was appointed managing director of Brooke Bond Lipton. After the company’s merger with HLL, he was designated vice chairman of Hindustan Lever. After 31 years with HLL, he joined Tata Sons in August, 1998.
A graduate in physics from Calcutta University, Mr. Gopalakrishnan also has a degree in engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur.
His recently published book, The Case of the Bonsai Manager: Lessons from Nature on Growing (Penguin India, 2007) is about nature, management and intuitive leadership.
With sadness we announce the passing of Prof. V.K. Samaranayake. Dr. Sam, as he liked to call himself, was an illustrious figure in the world of ICT for developement in Sri Lanka. In the brief time he was at Stanford Dr. Sam was an inspiration to his fellow fellows. He was a vissionary, a teacher, and a mentor to an entire nation. Forceful and graceful. He will be missed.
The Digital Vision Program would like to send our condolences and all of our thoughts and prayers to his family and friends.
Ken Banks’ organisation, kiwanja.net, in collaboration with Stanford University, has been awarded a $200,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to build on its work with FrontlineSMS. The MacArthur Foundation is a private, independent grantmaking institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting improvement in the human condition. Read the rest of this entry »
Ken Banks has just returned from a ‘Mobile Activism in Africa’ workshop organised by Fahamu and Tactical Tech, held in Nairobi, Kenya. The purpose of the meeting was to enable activists to exchange experiences and plan strategies to support their work. There are also plans to establish an African regional network of social justice advocates who use mobile technologies, and to facilitate an ongoing support network for these organisations
Following a successful presentation at the W3C Workshop in Bangalore last December, Ken Banks was interviewed about his work with kiwanja.net in Africa for Nokia’s “Emerging Horizons” magazine. “Emerging Horizons” is a quarterly newsletter targeted at anyone interested in new growth markets and reaching the next billion subscriber milestone. It also provides industry insights from different players, including operators, regulators and research companies. A PDF of the interview can be read here.
Date: Monday 4 Jun
Location: DV Lounge
Time: 10-11am
Speaker bio:
Growing up in a family of four that barely had enough, Anshu always felt the pain of the needy. Years later, he heard an echo within him that couldn’t be denied. With his wife, he took 67 items of clothing from their closet and donated it. Soon after, he quit his corporate job, and started ‘Goonj’ — a Hindi word that means echo. Six years later, Goonj transports over 10,000 kilograms of donated clothes every month, to the most remote regions of India. Moreover, they’ve done it largely with a volunteer network! It’s an incredible story.
Anshu grew up in Dehradun (one of the states where I piloted Knowledge Games), has a communications background, worked at a telecom company and quit in 1998 to start Goonj (http://goonj.org/). He is an Ashoka fellow (http://www.ashoka.org/node/2523 and http://www.changemakers.net/journal/300510/displaydis.cfm) and has recently won a World Bank Global Development Marketplace award (http://dmblog.worldbank.org/and-winners-are-0).