MR BUNKER ROY

Founder, Barefoot College

Clinton Global Citizen Award winner 2013
Time 100, top 100 most influential personalities 2010
Unit: Developing Leadership Identity
Topic: Learning as a Sustainable Competitive Advantage

Sanjit ‘Bunker’ Roy is a social activist and educator who has dedicated more than 40 years of his life to helping some of India’s most disadvantaged people. He is the founder-director of the Barefoot College and the founder-chairman of the Global Rain Water Harvesting Collective, which were established to support rural communities in their transition into the age of mass production and globalisation.

The Barefoot College provides a range of infrastructure and educational programs that focus on empowering India’s remote villages and allowing them to become self-sufficient and sustainable. The College has trained more than 37,000 men and women over the last 40 years as educators, engineers, mechanics, health professionals, skilled labourers, accountants, architects and much more. The college also supplies solar electricity to remote villages, which has brought light into the homes of more than 450,000 people.

Bunker Roy has received a long list of awards for his social entrepreneurship and work with the underprivileged. He was named as a Clinton Global Citizen Award winner in 2013 and listed as one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2010.

Through his work with the Barefoot College and the Global Rain Water Harvesting Collective, Bunker Roy has become a leading figure for sustainable development in the Indian NGO community. He is a continuing inspiration to India’s entrepreneurs and works to spread his message of social activism with his inclusion in Dūcere’s Global Faculty.