Helping Communities Manage risks from the ground up.

The iCONGO is a coalition of NGOs, which brings together a wide cross-section of various charities, corporate and media companies, trusts & foundations, government bodies etc. and most of all individual citizens, youth, children, thought leaders from all sectors. iCONGO has created ideas like ‘The Joy of Giving’,  ‘RIGHT every WRONG’, ‘Karmaveer Puraskaar’, etc which have become movements on their own.

The “KARMAVEER PURASKAAR (KVP)” are the Global Awards for Social Justice and Citizen Action. The award honors concerned citizens who have shown themselves as KARMAVEER, inherently exemplifying Mahatma Gandhi’s saying “Be the change you want to see in this world”. Some of the past awardees include Ad guru and social activist Alyque Padamsee who built Lintas India to be one of the top agencies in the country; Professor M.S. Swaminathan, described by the United Nations Environment Program as ‘the Father of Economic Ecology’; Dr Leo Rebello, a world-renowned authority on AIDS and alternative medicine.

Dr. Dror is an exceptional social entrepreneur, who, through his founding organization, Microinsurance Academy (MIA) brought health protection to the poor. Prof Dr. Frans Rutten, professor of health insurance at Erasmus University Rotterdam and past President of the International Health Economics Assoc., who has known Dr. Dror since 2004 said, “His initiative as social entrepreneur is exemplified best perhaps by his efforts to establish the ‘Micro Insurance Academy’ in New Delhi.  I have seen no other person make such efforts, demonstrate such commitment, to implement on the ground, in difficult circumstances, social ideas that could benefit the poor.”

Dr. Dror developed a unique model of community based health insurance (CBHI) to deliver to the poor a demand-driven, context-relevant, nonprofit, mutual-aid microinsurance. Where the community members participate in their own risk assessment (the implied cost of getting insurance) and design a suitable product to meet their specific needs. Today, MIA has 45 staff and covers numerous villages with the support of volunteers and grassroots organizations. The CBHI model has been implemented in six sites in the states of Orissa, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. In the words of Dr. Harihar Dev Pant MIA’s implementation partner in Nepal, “Dr Dror had been instrumental in starting community based health insurance pilot project in the Banke district, Nepal, with the technical support from Micro Insurance Academy.”

MIA specializes in providing systematic technical support to resource-poor communities. The training tools MIA has developed are an important part of the microinsurance implementation process. MIA’s innovative educational tools have won huge applause from peers, for which MIA won the“Educational Service Provider of the Year 2011 Special Award” from Asia Insurance Industry for its exceptional contribution of bringing insurance to the masses. Mr. Sivam Subramaniam, the Editor-in-Chief of Asia Insurance Review & Middle East Insurance Review, said, “Prof. Dr. Dror’s tremendous contribution to the insurance industry in India and Asia has been praised by the sector and by other professionals in development and healthcare”.