Business Wire IndiaGrameen Foundation India (GFI) has been awarded the NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum (NSIF) Challenge 2017. The award includes complimentary advisory support from Accenture Tech Labs. GFI was awarded under ‘Other Social Issues’ category for its work to integrate mobile financial education and services in India. Our project, ‘Integrating Mobile Financial Education and Services for Financial Inclusion in India,’ is enabling microfinance clients to use digital payment channels to repay their microloans. As part of the Advisory Support from Accenture Tech Labs, GFI will receive valuable technology advisory for further development and enhancement of their solution such that it leads to increased sustainability, scalability and on ground impact.
GFI has worked with Sonata Finance Pvt. Ltd., a leading Indian microfinance institution, and Oxigen, a payment provider to develop a digital payment platform for Sonata’s clients. The new model enables clients to make loan repayments via digital channels and at agent locations. The pilot phase reached out to over 23,222 beneficiaries in training them on mobile financial services and enabled transactions worth INR 1.5 cr have been routed through Oxigen. The model is now being scaled to 150 branches to several lakh clients of Sonata. Other institutions are also looking to replicate the model.
Commenting on the occasion, Ms. Chandni Ohri, CEO, Grameen Foundation India stated, “We are honoured to receive the prestigious NASSCOM Social Innovation Award. Our key motivation for this project was to increase access to financial services, especially among women, by harnessing the growing presence of mobile phones in rural India and technological developments in digital financial services.”
Now in its ninth edition, NASSCOM Social Innovation Forum is a property of NASSCOM Foundation, in collaboration with industry leaders Mphasis and Accenture. It is a platform that fosters innovative use of technology to create sustained social impact. Arguably, the largest Social Innovation Honours in India, NSIF received over 1300 applications this year out of which, 9 winners were chosen after going through a rigorous two level Jury process in the categories of Primary and Secondary Education, Primary Healthcare, Accessibility, Livelihood and Agriculture, Environment and other socially relevant areas.
The jury that selected the winners comprised of many renowned industry stalwarts like Debjani Ghosh, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, Managing Director, South Asia, Intel Corporation; Padmaja Ruparel, President, Indian Angel Network; Sanjay Podder, Managing Director and R&D Head- Accenture Labs India; Sara Chamberlain, Director Digital, at BBC Media Action, India; Puneet Bhirani, Executive Vice President – Chief People & Administrative officer, Mphasis; Dr. Ganesh Natarajan, Executive Chairman, Founder, 5F World, Chairman, NASSCOM Foundation. All shortlisted projects were evaluated on five parameters; ICT innovation, social impact, scalability and replicability, cost and sustainability. 
About Grameen Foundation
Grameen Foundation is a global nonprofit organization that harnesses the power of mobile technology to deliver a vital mix of financial, agricultural and health services and information to the world’s poorest people. Our innovations enable women, smallholder farmers, and poor communities to build their assets, educate their children, protect their health and strengthen their resilience.
Grameen Foundation was founded in 1997, inspired by the work of Nobel Laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank, whose microloans sparked innovation and entrepreneurship among the poorest of the poor. Professor Yunus was a founding member of our board of Directors and today serves as member emeritus. Grameen Foundation is headquartered in Washington, D.C., with offices in Colombia, Ghana, Kenya, India, the Philippines, Uganda, and the United States. For more information, please visit www.grameenfoundation.org or follow us on Twitter @GrameenFdn.
About Grameen Foundation India
Grameen Foundation India (GFI) is a social business and a wholly-owned subsidiary of Grameen Foundation USA that catalyses double bottom line approaches to serving the poor and the poorest. Its mission is to enable the poor, especially the poorest, to move out of poverty by strengthening institutions and businesses that serve them. Grameen Foundation India aims to achieve this by enabling the growth of truly double bottom line entities that use quantitative and verifiable measures of social results and by demonstrating new business models for serving the poorest. It currently focuses on enabling the provision of financial services and information. For more information, please visit please visit www.grameenfoundation.in
