Innovation4Impact (i4i) Competition Announced
By Vikash Kumar Photography
The Xavier School of Management (XLRI), a leading Business School in India, along with the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) have announced they will host a national level competition titled, Innovation4Impact (i4i), to recognise innovators who have enhanced access to finance in poor communities. The competition aims to provide an opportunity for innovators and social entrepreneurs to demonstrate their success stories to experts, industry representatives, researchers, and business school faculty and students.
Commenting on the initiative, Mr. Subrata Gupta, Chief General Manager, NABARD, said, “the idea is to popularize successful cases in the arena of financial inclusion that are recognized as replicable models. We wish to disseminate innovative experiments to the wider audience comprising different stakeholders so that the models can be adopted in other locations.”
The event will be conducted alongside the 3rd XLRI International Workshop on Inclusive Finance. The last date of entry to the competition is 12 September, 2014.
The competition invites successful models involving livelihood initiatives with finance, innovations in Bank-BC financial inclusion initiatives, banking products for poor, products and innovations in microfinance, savings and insurance, sustainable innovations for those in extreme poverty, innovations in financial literacy and consumer protection (including literacy initiatives through Financial Literacy Centres), and inclusive technological innovations, including mobile banking.
The three day International Workshop on Inclusive Finance will bring academicians, practitioners, banks and microfinance institutions, NGOs, and policy makers together to deliberate on research as well as contemporary issues regarding financial inclusion. The event will have a series of (i) special sessions by distinguished speakers; (ii) thematic panel discussions; (iii) presentations of research papers and case studies, and (iv) a “Knowledge Fair” showcasing theme based ‘information kiosks’ of a variety of organizations.
Announcing the initiative, Dr. HK Pradhan, Professor of Finance and Economics & Convener of the Workshop said that “The event is expected to serve as a forum for intensive discussions among all stakeholders involved in financial inclusion. The i4i competition in particular provides opportunity for a ‘face to face’ interaction where innovators showcase and talk about their passions and explain their projects’ potential for upscale.”
Details of workshop themes and submission deadlines are provided here.
The competition details can be found here.
