“Wherever I’ve been, and I’ve been to over 20, maybe 25, countries in Africa, I’ve noticed how their backbone is broken.

They always think a white man will solve their problems from outside for them.” – Bunker Roy.A product of the ‘silent generation’ who was born two years before India gained independence, Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy was born into affluence and could have gone the industrialist or business way given that he attended one of India’s best school, The Doon School and topped it up with a bachelor’s from Delhi’s prestigious St. Stephen’s College.He though had different plans.

With a “real” education digging open wells for drinking water as an unskilled labourer for 5 years between 1967 and 1971, he turned to social entrepreneurship when he felt the need to equip people with “real” skills.

This led to the “Barefoot College” coming about in the year 1972 for which he is said to have taken inspiration from none other than the Mahatma himself.The Social Work and Research Centre (SWRC), otherwise known by its pet name, the Barefoot College is an NGO in India is known for having done great work in bringing about much-needed changes.

At the grass-root village level in India, it has done yeoman service in important fields that include education, skill development, women’s empowerment, health and provision of potable water, and rural electrification through the use of solar power.In all, these are known to bring about significant and measurable upliftment in the lives of the rural populace in India.

Without a set syllabus, as is the case with other educational institutions, the Village’s Barefoot College in Rajasthan’s Tilonia village in Ajmer district teaches its ‘students’ essential life-skills including gaining literacy, knowledge of accounting and every endeavour that makes people self-sufficient and forward-oriented in life – despite obvious hurdles and hardships.Most of the education takes place in night schools which operate outside the traditional hours of education in normal institutions and is meant by design to facilitate those who have to work in order to survive and feed a family.

Every one of us wants to be someone, a person others recognize and respect for great deeds.

Every one of us come with unique ideas and insights to existing problems thus bringing different perspective and solutions to solve modern problems.

However, not all these aspiring individuals have the capability to deliver extraordinary solutions and drive the change themselves.That’s where the term social entrepreneurship comes in.

For over 4 decades, social entrepreneurship or ‘quiet revolution’ has supported common citizens who come upfront with the ideas to impact and improve the lives of people around them.Think of Florence Nightingale, who in the 19th century invented modern nursing during the Crimean War.

Or Margaret Sanger, who launched the birth control movement in America by founding American Birth Control League in 1921.In 1960, a Harvard-trained attorney Roy Prosterman during his visit to South Vietnam realized how giving farmers rights to their property would lead them out of dire poverty.

His organization, now known as Landesa has been supporting rural land reform ever since and has improved the lives of 150 million people across 50 countries.While this quiet revolution has been going on for decades it was in 2006 that social entrepreneurship gained global recognition when Mohammed Yunus was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for launching a microfinance firm to support small businesses started by the individuals and communities belonging to a lower economic class.However, it was Bill Drayton, named as one of America’s 25 Best Leaders in 2005, who is responsible for the rise of the phrase ‘social entrepreneur’.Entrepreneurship in the early daysKnown as one of the most prominent social entrepreneurs, Bill started his entrepreneurial journey during his childhood when he started and ran a student newspaper.

“If you just go out and try to make money by starting a business, you’re going to come up with something that’s just like what everyone else has done.

But if you look at the world and see opportunities that can be taken more seriously, then you come up with a great idea.”“The goal isn’t how much money you make but how much you help people.”“We’re in business to create a better tomorrow.

If we live for one another, together we can change the world.”“Anyone can make a difference, so you don’t have to have it be some huge global campaign.

In fact, he does seem to have coined or re-invented the word itself with a never-before idea of donating exactly the same quantity (or in the proximity) that he sells!Yes, his venture (although, no more associated to him) Toms, a for-profit maker of shoes, eyewear, coffee, apparel, and handbags which by its very vocal admission, uses a third of its profits for “grassroots good” which according to its website means “the result of a community mobilizing to address an issue they’re all impacted by, like services that are scarce, or statistics that are too high.

In the company of a volunteer organization providing shoes to needy children, he spent days traveling between villages where in his own words to The Business Insider he said “I witnessed the intense pockets of poverty just outside the bustling capital.

Yes, I knew somewhere in the back of my mind that poor children around the world often went barefoot, but now, for the first time, I saw the real effects of being shoeless: the blisters, the sores, the infections.”Back in the US, Mycoskie founded Shoes for Better Tomorrows.

Others find solace in finding solutions to quench humanity’s thirst.The first remain consumers.

The latter has all the markings of a successful social entrepreneur, Scott Harrison’s tribe.It wasn’t always like that for Scott.

From 18 to 28 years, this is precisely what he did.

And he did that for close to 40 establishments which lined his pockets with commissions and perks, sometimes by as much as USD 3000 to 5000 on a single night!As a promoter of nightclubs and high life where he would host parties for names that included MTV, VH1, Bacardi, and Elle, Scott was paid to keep people partying by making available everything that made people party through the night.

Holed up with a friend from his partying days, he started to apply to humanitarian organizations for a position.None reverted, and not surprisingly given the limited use they would have of a party manager.

Mercy Ships, a non-profit NGO of floating hospitals bringing medical aid to the needy worldwide happened because Scott agreed to pay them USD 500.00 every month for taking him on board.Stationed off the coast of Liberia, Scott had the opportunity to take pictures (close to fifty thousand of them!)

Charity has its advantages, though it may seem far-fetched to most, given the ROI-driven model of financing we are brought up on all through our lives.

What if someone tells you that Charity has an advantage and that too in the immediate circumstances?Alex Stephany of Britain, and today the Founder and CEO of Beam is its loudest votary whose work in the field of helping the homeless, the destitute, and the socially marginalized pick-up life skills including the right job-oriented education that’s seeing people come off the streets and temporary shelters and enter their own homes.Besides bringing a sea of change in the way people view the destitute, it’s even changing the way the poor and the marginalized look at themselves.

He has used crowdfunding as a means to get people to donate for a just cause which from the looks of it has moved people to reach out and help.So successful has this project been that the likes of MIT have awarded it the Best Tech for Good in Europe, and Best Financial Inclusion Startup in Europe!Looking back, you realize Alex always had it in him to get his hands dirty doing things most others would happily gloss over.

Before Beam, it was JustPark (formerly ParkatmyHouse) where under his stewardship the company in 2015 executed the then-largest equity crowdfunding project for a start-up!

It brought them GBP 3.7 million in just four days against their target of GBP 1 million!Later in the year, they won Virgin Media’s ‘Pitch to Rich’ competition that saw Richard Branson on the judging panel.

As for the company’s app itself, it today assists nothing less than a million folks in Britain to find ideal parking spaces which is a boon to everyone from drivers to property owners!Stephany is as British as it gets.