Sarikonda, Founder/CEO of Sanlaap-NA and MBA candidate at Wharton, receives $10,000.
By Raghavendra M
Follow @ambazaarmag
CommonBond, a leading marketplace lending platform that lowers the cost of student loans for borrowers and provides financial returns to investors, has announced Indian American Sindhura Sarikonda as the winner of the 2015 CommonBond Social Impact Award, which honors the nation’s top MBA social entrepreneur.
Sarikonda, a Class of 2016 MBA candidate at the Wharton School and Founder/CEO of Sanlaap North America, received $10,000 to put toward her organization, which rescues, shelters, and empowers human trafficking victims.
In addition, Sarikonda will also receive mentorship from CommonBond CEO and Co-Founder David Klein and the rest of CommonBond’s executive team.
“This is one of the most meaningful awards I’ve ever gotten,” said Sarikonda in a statement.
We won the @CommonBond #SocialImpact award! Thank you to everyone that voted for us! #cbsocials pic.twitter.com/8qqYUQitcK
— Sanlaap NA (@SanlaapNA) August 6, 2015
“We’ll be using the funding that we get from CommonBond to fund 120 scholarships for our girls so that we can stay true to CommonBond’s social mission, as well as our own mission”, she added.
Sarikonda received the award at “Spark Tank,” a CommonBond-hosted event on August 5th, at Projective Space on the Lower East Side in New York City. The three MBA social entrepreneur finalists pitched their ventures before a panel of judges.
“Since Day 1, CommonBond has had a strong social mission. The CommonBond Social Impact Award is our way of encouraging and enabling others to build companies with social impact as well,” said Mr. Klein.
“While we were absolutely blown away by all of the finalists, we were very impressed with what Sindhura has accomplished and how dedicated she is to her organization. We have high hopes for Sindhura and her team at Sanlaap North America”, he added.
The finalists were selected from more than 600 nominations nationwide. The two runners-up, DocPronto and Project Pregnancy, were also awarded five complimentary branding sessions from interactive agency Dom & Tom to help them take their ventures to the next level.