Villgro Fellowship, India

Deadline: 20 May 2011
Open to: All interested
Funding: Rs. 25,000/- per month to cover meals, housing and incidental costs

The Villgro Fellowship is a 1 year program that aims to cultivate a pipeline of future leaders, who have the social commitment, leadership and operational skills to bring about permanent change in rural India, using principles of social entrepreneurship, while filling a critical talent gap within Villgro’s incubatee companies. In the last 3 years, 14 Villgro Fellows have brought about sustainable change in the lives of the rural poor, inspiring many more to join them in this movement for change.

Villgro empowers rural development by identifying and incubating innovations with strong commercial potential. The Villgro Fellowship has been established to unleash high potential talent for the development of social enterprises and in the process develop social enterprise leaders of tomorrow.

Opportunities:

• Work closely with Villgro’s incubatees and develop an in-depth understanding of innovation and social entrepreneurship.
• Be a part of meaningful mentoring and leadership training programs that will hone your professional skills
• Develop social entrepreneurial skills by working closely with successful social entrepreneurs.

Post Fellowship, Villgro Fellows have gone to:

• Work for social enterprises.
• Study entrepreneurship and policy issues at premier institutes such as Wharton, MIT, John Hopkins.
• Consult social enterprises.

Eligibility

• Passionate and motivated leaders wanting to contribute to ending rural poverty.
• Professionals with work experience, who want to apply their skills to practical solutions and create a social impact.
• Potential social entrepreneurs who are passionate about creating social change through enterprise based models.
• Professionals who have worked in one or more of the following functions: Strategic planning, Finance and accounts, Human resources, Sales and marketing, Design and Operations.

You are a Villgro Fellow if you are a professional who:

• Takes Initiative
• Can implement
• Has clarity of thought
• Build relationship
• Is curious to learn
• Possesses Passion

Funding

Villgro will provide Rs. 25,000/- per month to cover meals, housing and incidental costs.Travel: Villgro will bear your travel costs from your current location to Chennai and back. Travel expenses for Villgro meetings during the Fellowship will be borne by Villgro.

Application

• Send in your detailed Resume, along with a 500 words essay on What motivates you to work in the Social Enterprise sector  to fellowship@villgro.org before 20th May 2011.
• Short listed candidates will be intimated and will have to send in a 500 word essay on “Describe one of your accomplishments from the personal  or professional front which impacted others” along with 2 professional references.
• This will be followed by a telephonic interview and shorltisting.
• The shortlisted applicants will be required to take an online 16 personality factors test.
• The applicants shortlisted for the second round would be required to attend an interview.
• The offer letters would be issued in July to the applicants selected for the fellowship.

The Official Webpage