Boond, a friend and ally of Arc Finance and a social enterprise organization expanding alternative energy in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and other northern states of India, was recently invited to join Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in San Francisco as he gave a speech highlighting innovative Indian start-ups that focus on clean energy and technology.
ReadThe Prime Minister addressed entrepreneurs and technology leaders in Silicon Valley as part of the day-long event promoting the “India-US Startup Konnect 2015,” a program to promote and further develop the strengths of India’s start-up ecosystem and encourage Indian-US collaboration. Organizers Nasscom and the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad’s Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) nominated Boond for this significant honor. Simpa Networks, an Arc partner under the Renewable Energy and Microfinance Microenterprise Program (REMMP), has also been in the news this week, winning the WWF Climate Solvers and Savers award by WWF India in Delhi. Simpa is a pioneer in enabling thousands of Indians to access affordable clean energy through a proprietary pay-as-you-go model called “Progressive Purchase,” and was one of two winners in the Energy Access category, recognized for its innovative business model by a diverse group of government officials and public sector stakeholders. After winning the award, Simpa was congratulated by Shri Prakash Javadekar, the Indian Minister of Environment, Forest & Climate Change, in a video message conveyed during the award ceremony. We’d like to congratulate both of these remarkable organizations for their recent successes, and fast-growing international reputations. They represent just a small glimpse of the innovation and entrepreneurship underway in the Indian clean energy space today.