Zubaida Bai, the founder of ‘ayzh’, a for-profit social venture providing health and livelihood solutions using technology to impoverished women worldwide, was named among the 10 ‘2016 Global Compact SDG Pioneers’, an initiative launched by the United Nations to search for “entrepreneurs” who can play a pivotal role.
The award selects 10 “champions and pioneers” under the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative that calls on companies to align with universal principles of human rights, environment and anti-corruption.
The UN Global Compact, the world’s largest corporate sustainability initiative, supports companies to do business responsibly by aligning their strategies and operations with ten principles of human rights, labour, environment and anti-corruption; and to take strategic actions to advance broader societal goals, such as the UN Sustainable Goals with an emphasis on collaboration and innovation. The UN noted that trillions of dollars will be invested in infrastructure in the coming years and that the Paris Agreement and the SDGs give the private sector an unprecedented opportunity to create clean-energy, climate- resilient, sustainable economies.
Bai was brought up in Chennai. She had developed an infection after giving birth to her first child which “caused her to suffer for years.” This inspired her to help rural women who needed access to healthcare.Bai was named a TED Fellow in 2009, an Ashoka Maternal Health fellow in 2010–2011, and an Echoing Green fellow in 2012. In 2011, her design for JANMA, a clean birth kit, was selected by INDEX Awards as one of 61 products “globally designed to improve life.
