--- layout: default title: "How Ashoka Is Changing the World by Attempting to Bridge the Digital Divide" description: "A CIO India report by Stewart Deck on Ashoka Fellows including Sunil Abraham, whose Bangalore-based organisation Mahiti brought 6,700 volunteer organisations in India online." categories: [Media mentions] date: 2001-08-15 authors: ["Stewart Deck"] source: "CIO India" permalink: /media/how-ashoka-is-changing-the-world-by-attempting-to-bridge-the-digital-divide-cio-india/ created: 2026-05-22 --- **How Ashoka Is Changing the World by Attempting to Bridge the Digital Divide** is a *CIO India* article by Stewart Deck, published on 15 August 2001. The report profiles Ashoka Fellows working on the digital divide, including [Sunil Abraham](/sunil/), whose Bangalore-based consulting and technology services organisation, Mahiti, had brought 6,700 volunteer organisations across India online and 570 groups in Bangalore alone. ## Contents 1. [Article Details](#article-details) 2. [Full Text](#full-text) 3. [Context and Background](#context-and-background) 4. [External Link](#external-link) ## Article Details
📰 Published in:
CIO India
📅 Date:
15 August 2001
👤 Author:
Stewart Deck
📄 Type:
News Report
📰 Article Link:
Read Online
## Full Text

Sunil Abraham has not only helped wire 6,700 volunteer organizations in India by getting them Internet access, but he's also teaching them how to use the Internet for networking and fund raising. In the city of Bangalore alone, Abraham's consulting and technology services organization, called Mahiti, has brought 570 groups online.

Rodrigo Baggio has opened more than 200 financially self-sufficient computer schools in some of Brazil's most destitute communities. Baggio's group, the Committee to Democratize Information Technology, has trained more than 65,000 students to use computers, and his training schools are spreading to Chile, Colombia, Japan, Mexico and Uruguay.

Both Abraham and Baggio are Ashoka Fellows, their work built on seed money from the nonprofit group Ashoka, based in Arlington, Va., a CIO-100 honoree that is quietly changing the world. These two so-called social entrepreneurs and more than 1,100 people like them are on the verge of bringing about extraordinary global changes, says William Drayton, Ashoka's CEO and founder. "Ashoka's core idea is that the world is in the midst of a profound historic change, catalyzed by social entrepreneurs," he says. Ashoka, like a venture capitalist, bestows fellowships on people whose ideas can change social systems and bring replicable services and ideas to underdeveloped and deprived areas worldwide, Drayton explains.

Through a rigorous selection process, Ashoka finds individuals who are social catalysts and provides them with a three-year fellowship and a connection to a network of similar thinkers around the world. Giving the money to individuals instead of programs launches irresistible forces that bring about profound societal changes, says Drayton, a former MacArthur Foundation Genius Grant recipient. "We want to cut in at the life-cycle moment of the idea when a small investment of money and colleagueship can have a huge impact," he says.

Last year Ashoka awarded its first 10 Ashoka Fellowships to people in the United States, including Paul Rice, who founded TransFair U.S.A. to assist family coffee farmers with fair pricing, and D.J. Powers, whose Austin, Texas-based Center for Economic Justice brings basic economic services to low-income and minority Americans.

Drayton says the best is yet to come. "In four or five years Ashoka's impact will be many multiples of what it is today as many of these new programs take hold," he says. "There is nothing more powerful than a new, pattern-changing idea if it's in the hands of a continental-scale social entrepreneur."

For more information on Ashoka, visit www.ashoka.org.

{% include back-to-top.html %} ## Context and Background This article was published in August 2001, when the digital divide — the gap between those with and without access to computers and the internet — was a central concern in discussions about development and civil society. Ashoka, the Arlington-based social entrepreneurship organisation, was at the time expanding its fellowship model beyond its traditional focus on the Global South to include the United States. Sunil Abraham's work at Mahiti in Bangalore represented an early effort to bring civil society organisations online in India at a scale that went well beyond individual institutions. The focus was not merely on connectivity but on equipping volunteer groups to use the internet for networking and resource mobilisation. The article situates this work within Ashoka's broader model of funding individual change-makers rather than institutional programmes. ## External Link - [Read online](https://www.cio.com/article/266500/it-organization-how-ashoka-is-changing-the-world-by-attempting-to-bridge-the-digital-divide.html)