To strengthen the poor information ecosystem in rural communities especially in the backward districts that has alienated a majority of India’s population from social and economic entitlement gains.
Background
In India, Social entrepreneurship is growing day by day alleviating myriad problems of the society by giving them timely solutions. The key aim of which is to inculcate sustainable and dignified living to the under privileged and the marginalized citizens.
The notion of social entrepreneurship can mean different to different organization and individuals. Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) believes that it’s a process of making services available at village level not just to empower the rural community but creating a sustainable livelihood option for the local level entrepreneurs. The idea is to create a social benefit that is not limited by personal gain.
SoochnaPreneur is an ambitious programme of Digital Empowerment Foundation (DEF) and QUALCOMM launched in April 2016. The project is designed to serve various information services needs of citizen consumers, especially at Village, Panchayat and Block levels in each of the 25 administrative development blocks in 6 backward districts in India
Under this, a pool of rural entrepreneurs would be created in order to strengthen and democratise the environment of public schemes information dissemination, services and final entitlement gains for focused groups and beneficiaries. The project shall run by rural youths who can become change agents by being SoochnaPreneurs (Soochna Sevaks), while the actual beneficiaries are the rural households and individuals who are majorly left out of the public schemes information access and delivery networks. People excluded from real and timely public entitlements in critical areas of education, health, livelihood, employment, social security and financial inclusion. Using mobile devices equipped with connectivity and other tools, the project seeks to create a nexus of services, on demand by rural consumers.
GOALS AND OBJECTIVES
The goal of the project is to strengthen the poor information ecosystem in rural communities in India especially in the backward districts that has alienated a majority of India’s population from social and economic entitlement gains.
Objectives
1. To promote new age social entrepreneurship scope, possibility and exploration in rural information service among unemployed youths in India as a social venture using digital tools and applications
2. To bridge the real and serious gaps in public schemes information and services access and delivery and eventual citizen entitlements in backward districts in India
3. To address the information decentralization and democratization need in India where critical information resources are centralized, controlled, and not democratized