AshokaTech
Introduction
AshokaTech is a blog about technology and invention within the realm of social entrepreneurship. It is part of an initiative between Ashoka and the Lemelson Foundation.
Ashoka and the Lemelson Foundation believe that invention and social entrepreneurship can align in powerful ways to improve the world and enable people to be changemakers and problem-solvers.
Our partnership, which began in 2006, aims to find, support, and celebrate social innovators whose technologies offer fresh, effective approaches to advancing social change. We are building a cohort of Fellows who fit one or more of these groups:
- Innovators who invent or adapt a technology for use as a social change tool
- Innovators who inspire, teach, and grow new problem-solvers
- Innovators who develop new economic models and marketing strategies for disseminating technologies and socially useful products to overlooked customers
- Innovators who create an enabling environment for invention through field-level reforms
Our primary aim is to help members of the growing cohort succeed in their work, develop useful and supportive peer-to-peer relationships, and attract recognition and resources that will allow them to reach more people.
We also want to bring to bear this cohort’s experience on such challenges as: how to connect the right essential products with people who need them but are disregarded by traditional commercial channels; how to develop the right financing opportunities to allow low-income and poor customers to purchase technologies and essential products; how to sharply cut the cost of new technologies; how to pair social entrepreneurs with R&D specialist teams to invent, refine, and test products that benefit poor communities.
If you know a social entrepreneur who is pursuing a systems-changing idea that fits the Ashoka-Lemelson partnership, please nominate a Fellow.