2/2/2010
Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise (GSSE) student, Zubaida Bai, has been selected as a TEDIndia Fellow. Zubaida Bai is the founder of AYZH, a social enterprise providing livelihood enhancing technologies to rural women. Over the past decade, the number of women living in poverty has increased more rapidly than the number of men, especially in developing communities; women worldwide are now earning 50 percent less than men, on average. AYZH is looking through the eyes of world’s most impoverished women to identify the tools they want and need to help improve their standard of living. AYZH sees this global challenge as an opportunity to engage innovations developed in university labs that were created with the developing world in mind. They deliver by providing women with low-cost, high-quality appropriate technologies that are proven to help them generate more income. Historically, such innovations have been challenged by supply chain inefficiencies and a lack of thorough market testing. Therefore, AYZH is working with companies focused on aligning their core business activities with corporate social responsibility to test, manufacture, and disseminate these innovations. We imagine a world without poverty, create solutions to meet that vision, and connect stakeholders with the solutions they need to start alleviating poverty one woman at a time.
TEDIndia was held in November 2009, just outside Mysore, India. TEDIndia offered a three-day stage program featuring 18-minute talks, music, comedy, dance, short talks, and video interludes. Before the conference, there was a day where attendees gave their own short talks or performances. The event, titled “The Future Beckons,” was the first-ever TED in Asia and it hosted a class of 103 TED Fellows from around the world. The TEDIndia Fellows were a diverse group of men and women, representing India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Canada, Tajikistan, the United States, China, Nigeria and Oman. The principal goal of the TED Fellows program is to empower Fellows to effectively communicate their work to the TED community and to the world.
Website:
www.ayzh.com