In India, and so many places around the world, girls face steep challenges to things so many of us take for granted.  From the moment they are born, proper health care, nutrition, and education may not be available.  Big problems, that seem impossible to overcome - poverty, access to healthcare, too few schools and even worse, a long standing tradition that girls stay home to do chores and marry at a young age - now this is the kind of list that seems impossible to solve, right? Guess again!  We are in an exciting time when truly brilliant social innovations are unfolding all around the globe, changing the course of lives with simple solutions.  This week we will feature just a few brilliant ideas that are helping girls in India lead better lives, grounded in simple ideas that have been really well developed by smart, fearless, amazing women.

What is social innovation?

The story of Ashoka explains this new way of bringing ideas for a better world to life.  Watch the video or click here to learn more about Ashoka and social entrepreneurs around the world.

 

Here is one brilliant example - an exciting new social innovation is being rolled out to help save the lives of babies in India.  As part of a Stanford University Business School project, Jane Chen responded to the health crisis of infants dying in India. She knew that over two million babies under the age of five pass away every year.  Many of these babies are born early and do not have enough body fat to keep warm or to allow their normal growth and development.  Jane’s team found out that in rural areas there are very few babies who can be kept warm in a hospital incubator because they are so expensive and not available.  They new that they could save lives and help babies to grow up healthier if they could find a simple, local and affordable solution to keep babies warm in their homes and rural health clinics.  They have spent the last few years developing the “Embrace” sleeping bag and starting this month they will solve a big problem with a simple idea.