Mohammad Yunus did it with his Grameen Bank and won the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Devi Prasad Shetty did it with his Narayana Hrudayalaya Institute of Medical Sciences and won the Social Entrepreneur of the Year award in 2005.

These are examples of how business methods, when put to social value creation, can yield meaningful plus profitable results. Social entrepreneurship, still not very popular, is fast gaining ground in India as a business as well as a career option.

Each year, awards are given to reward outstanding social entrepreneurship efforts and also to generate general awareness on the significance of such entrepreneurship in developing societies like India.

“India is a big country. It has a number of interesting social entrepreneurship models. Social entrepreneurship is still not given due recognition. There is hardly any awareness at the national level. To disseminate the idea, we decided to select social entrepreneurs from each country,” said Mirjam Schoning, director, Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.

She is here to shortlist a winner for this year’s Indian Social Entrepreneur Award.

The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, a Geneva-based sister concern of the World Economic Forum, was started by Klaus Schwab and his wife Hilde in 1998.

They were inspired by Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank model and decided to create a foundation that would provide a platform for innovative models to such crucial issues. Yunus has been a board member since then.

In India, Devi Prasad Shetty, founder of the Narayana Hrudayalaya Institute of Medical Sciences, was awarded last year. Shetty strives to make sophisticated healthcare available to all, regardless of their economic situation or geographic location, through what he calls the “Wal-Martization” of healthcare.

“We are looking for someone who combines a passion for social mission with a business zeal and entrepreneurial spirit,” explained Schoning.

“We look for innovation, sustainability, enterprise development and reach of the projects,” she added.

The Schwab Foundation is working in partnership with the Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation and in collaboration with the CII and the UN Development Program. The award will be given at the India Economic Summit on November 27 in New Delhi.