---
layout: default
title: "Ashoka Fellowship of Sunil Abraham"
description: "A standalone article on Sunil Abraham's Ashoka Fellowship, its background, significance, and his continuing involvement with Ashoka."
categories: [Sunil Abraham]
permalink: /sunil/ashoka-fellowship/
created: 2025-12-05
---

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The **Ashoka Fellowship of Sunil Abraham** refers to his selection in 1999 as an Ashoka Fellow for work that linked digital technology with democratic participation.

## Background

Ashoka is an international organisation that supports social entrepreneurs whose work addresses structural social challenges. By the late 1990s, Ashoka had begun expanding its interest into technology-led social innovation, particularly initiatives that broadened access to knowledge and participation. In this setting, Sunil Abraham's experiments with open technologies and low-cost communication tools provided a model for aligning digital infrastructure with public interest outcomes.

During the 1990s, Sunil Abraham worked with civil society groups to introduce free software and decentralised communication systems. His focus on openness, local empowerment, and reducing barriers to information resonated with Ashoka's search for ideas capable of long-term systemic impact.

## Induction as an Ashoka Fellow (1999)

Sunil was inducted as an Ashoka Fellow in 1999. The fellowship citation noted his work in "exploring the democratic potential of the Internet using free software". At a time when digital access in India was limited, Abraham demonstrated that grassroots organisations could adopt open technologies without prohibitive cost or technical dependency.

The fellowship enabled him to expand collaborations, explore new applications of openness within governance, and take part in broader conversations on technology and public interest.

<div style="max-width:720px; margin:1.5rem auto; padding:1rem 1.2rem; border-left:4px solid #0b66d1; background:#f7f9fc; border-radius:6px; box-shadow:0 1px 4px rgba(0,0,0,0.06);">
  <p style="font-size:1rem; line-height:1.55; color:#222; margin:0;">
    <em>"24 years ago Gananath SN, Manisha Gupta and Bill Carter took a bet on me with this fellowship. It enabled Mahiti to achieve many things that would have been much more difficult without the credibility. After almost ten years of serving as a second opinion interviewer, I got to work on my first Indian panel with four candidates. Very grateful to Bill Drayton, Ashoka staff and the global fellowship for these transformative experiences."</em>
  </p>
<p style="text-align:right; font-size:0.85rem; color:#555;">
    — Sunil Abraham, 19 May 2024<br>
    <a href="https://www.facebook.com/abrahamsunil/posts/pfbid0adJ9U9Ce2YXynMVCY24WGuvXd5CaPrqg2sWhasNbpJYGz2NMoqmG9ti9myDAKHN2l" style="color:#0b66d1; text-decoration:none;">Facebook post</a>
  </p>
</div>

## Role as Second Opinion Reviewer (Second Op)

During the fellowship, Sunil Abraham later served as a Second Opinion Reviewer in Ashoka's global search and selection programme. The Second Op stage provided an independent assessment of a candidate’s idea, method, and potential for long-term impact.

In this role, he conducted extended one-to-one interviews with leading social entrepreneurs, often lasting more than three hours. These conversations examined the originality of the candidate's idea, its capacity to create systemic change, and the entrepreneur's ethical framework and personal commitment.

At this stage, Sunil contributed to structured discussions with other evaluators, ensuring that each candidate was examined from multiple perspectives and that the standards for fellowship remained consistent across regions. His work covered applicants from Africa, Europe, and North America, reflecting Ashoka’s international scope and the depth of its assessment framework.

## Media

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    <iframe 
      src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/QprvyCtY1DU" 
      title="Google Hangout with Ashoka Fellow Sunil Abraham (2012)"
      style="position:absolute; top:0; left:0; width:100%; height:100%; border:0;"
      allowfullscreen>
    </iframe>
  </div>
  <p style="font-size:0.85rem; color:#555; margin-top:0.4rem; text-align:center;">
    <em>Google Hangout with Ashoka Fellow Sunil Abraham, 2012.</em>
  </p>
</div>

<div style="max-width:720px; margin:1.5rem auto; text-align:center;">
  <img 
    src="https://github.com/sunilabrahamindia/sunilabraham/blob/main/sunil/images/sunil-ashoka-fellowship-1999-cheque.jpg?raw=true" 
    alt="A scanned copy of a December 1999 letter from the Ashoka Foundation addressed to Sunil Abraham, enclosing a fellowship cheque for the months of November and December 1999." 
    style="width:100%; height:auto; border-radius:8px; box-shadow:0 2px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.1);">
  <p style="font-size:0.85rem; color:#555; margin-top:0.4rem;">
    <em>Ashoka Foundation letter enclosing Sunil Abraham's fellowship cheque, December 1999.</em>
  </p>
</div>

## External link

- [Ashoka Fellow Profile](https://www.ashoka.org/en-nl/fellow/sunil-abraham) of Sunil Abraham