New Delhi: Crowdera, the world’s only 100% free fundraising and crowdfunding platform, organized the Giving Economy Changemakers Summit 2021. The 4th edition of the annual summit recognized and awarded impactful changemakers and protagonists of global movements. The GEC Excellence awards went to Mr. Vishnou Toolcanon, General Envoy – Sub – Saharan Africa , Secretary General – Kenya, Mr. Vikas Bagaria, Founder & CEO, PeeSafe, Dr. Prahalathan KK, Co-founder, Bhumi, Prof Ajit Parulekar, Director Goa Institute of Management, Mr. Ravinandan Sinha, Director MSME Business Forum, Dr. Bhushan Bhave, Educationist from Goa, and Ms. Gayatri Vasudevan, CEO, LabourNet. Over 25 more changemakers were awarded for ‘Amplified Impact’.
The summit focused on innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship and brought together leading philanthropists, entrepreneurs, social innovators, activists, artists and NGOs to lead the transformative change towards sustainable development goals (SDG) implementation by exchanging ideas and developing solutions.
Chet Jainn, Founder & CEO of Crowdera Foundation, curator of this summit, Mr. Vishnou Toolcanon, General Envoy, Sub-Saharan Africa, Secretary-General, Kenya, and Mr. Shantilal Muttha, Founder of Shantilal Muttha Foundation inaugurated the five-day summit on November 30, 2021 – the globally celebrated giving day “Giving Tuesday”. The key speakers at the summit were Mr. Kunal Sood, founder of NOVUS, X fellows and We The Planet, Mr. Sameer Sathe, Executive Vice President, Wadhwani Advantage at Wadhwani Foundations, Mr. Ravi Nandan Sinha, Director MSME Business Forum amongst a host of other eminent speakers and panellists.
“In 2016 when I attended the Novus Summit at the UN General Assembly Hall in New York, my life was transformed. It was my birthday and I felt like I found my new purpose and that very moment I decided to align my every future action with Sustainable Development Goals. But when I visited India and South-East Asia, I realised the extent of unawareness of people on SDGs. Since then our relentless search for changemakers and eagerness for creating more changemakers is on”, said Chet Jainn, founder & CEO of Crowdera Foundation and the brain behind the GEC.
Commenting on the occasion, Vishnou Toolcanon mentioned, “This summit has been an opportunity to partner with Crowdera and to discuss digital transformation in Africa. And to work together to support fundraising literacy in the region of Africa.”
The summit hosted important panel discussions on themes like Achieving Quadruple Bottom Line – Role of Corporations & Startups in Leading Social Impact & Building Giving Economy, Access to Capital & Importance of Strategy for SMEs – (Supporting UN SDG 8 & 9), and Achieving SDGs and Importance of Philanthropy at Every Stage.
Summit also saw a Panel Discussion on Film & Documentary Fundraising Hacks. The panellists shared their personal experiences and discussed building sustainability for independent filmmakers via alternate finance, crowdfunding, cause sponsorships & more. The panel included Riya Mukherjee – Former Radio Mirchi-EVP & Writer Producer, Sanjay Khanduri, director and writer, creator director & Co-Producer for Sony Studio Next and Director Abundantia Entertainment and Shailesh Narwarde, Marathi writer, filmmaker and media professional.
The main aim of GEC is to raise awareness about the United Nations defined Sustainable Development Goals to be achieved by 2030 for the welfare, and enrichment of the people, fellow earthlings, and the planet. This year there were over 250 nominations for GEC Awards from countries like the United States, Canada, Kenya, South-East Asia, South Africa and the Middle East, Poland, India.