Binoy Job

Binoy Job (Malayalam: ബിനോയ് ജോബ്)is Director in the Prime Minister's Office, India. A Young Global Leader of World Economic Forum, and a serial social innovator, he was inducted in Prime Minister's Office in the second term of Dr. Manmohan Singh in 2009. He was chosen as "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum in 2012 for his professional excellence and for his role in making huge social impact through his various social initiatives.

Prior to his role at the PMO, Binoy Job was heading few social initiatives with emphasis on information communication technologies, youth and innovations. He was Editor-in-Chief of 'Development Channel' – a news portal focussing only on 'development news' which uses technologies such as IT, Internet, television, mobile etc. with the support of young volunteers to provide access to information. With more than 100,000 volunteers, Binoy's youth initiative, Leaders for Tomorrow Foundation, is one of the largest youth movements working for social change and leadership training. Binoy Job worked with NDTV, pioneer in Television News Broadcasting in India for more than a decade prior to joining the Prime Minister's Office.

Social initiatives

His other social innovations include :-

1) Leaders For Tomorrow Foundation (LFT)- A youth movement aimed at grooming college students in 'leadership and social development' by imparting training and by providing roles in live development projects.

2) www.developmentchannel.org– First ever portal dedicated for development news

3) Television for Social Change – a media forum that is working on policies pertaining to Media to use the strength of media for social change.

4) i-CORD – The Institute for Community Media, Rural Reporting and Development Journalism.

5) ABBA boys home – a boarding house project in cities meant for outstanding children selected from BPL families to provide them better opportunities and education.

6) Indianovators – This is an initiative focussing on incubation and mentoring technological innovations from rural and urban youth in India.

7) 101 Leaders – This is an initiative working on 101 entrepreneurial projects-both business and social entrepreneurship. All of them will be working in the rural areas with an aim at larger social impact.

8) Development Festival – This is a week-long annual festival on development issues. This festival held in the capital city consists of Leadership Summits, Youth Conclaves, Documentary Film festival, Competitions, Music Band performances, Youth rally etc. with delegates from all over the country participating.

9) Reporters For Tomorrow (RFT) – This is an initiative to create a large pool of Journalist Volunteers. These are campus reporters, who will report as a volunteer from their localities. These reporters focus on 'Development Journalism'.

10) Igniting Young Minds (IYM) – This is an organisation working on imparting LIFE SKILLS and SOFT SKILLS to the underprivileged children. The volunteers from Universities and colleges spend 2 hours every week in educating the kids from slums, orphanages, etc. on Confidence Building, Public Speaking, English, Computers, Ethics, Good habits, Manners etc.

Prior to his induction in Prime Minister's Office, he relinquished all the executive posts and positions from his initiatives.

Journalism career

Before he started working full-time on social initiatives, he was managing them along with his professional commitments as a journalist with New Delhi Television (NDTV), one of the most prominent news broadcasters in India. He had worked with "STAR News"-India's first 24-hour news channel and NDTV's two news channels-NDTV 24X7 and NDTV INDIA, right from inception. He is more known in the media circles for his intrepid qualities to keep a track of every major news and news-makers. He is well respected for his quality programming ideas-many of them went on to become most respected and popular programmes. During his long stint with NDTV, he worked in almost all areas of television broadcasting as a producer, reporter and editor. He was involved in almost all programmes besides daily news, such as Good Morning India, News Hour, Big Fight, Question Time India, election coverage, and special interviews with prominent personalities including Heads of State such as Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Tony Blair, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Bill Gates, Jeff Immelt. His core focused areas in television were programming and planning. While at NDTV, he worked closely with its chairman, Dr Prannoy Roy. Rajdeep Sardesai (Editor of CNN IBN) and Barkha Dutt are two his colleagues from NDTV who joined the board of directors of 'Leaders For Tomorrow Foundation' and other social initiatives.

Television for social change

Binoy Job quit NDTV soon after the 2009 general elections to create a forum for Television Channels to come together and make an effort in using Television as a tool for development-"Television For Social Change". In a short span of time, he had brought in many Editors from various news media organisations, to this not-for-profit forum- "Television For Social Change Foundation". Along with this he took the initiative to launch first of its kind media institute focusing on "Community media, Rural Reporting and Development Journalism", called i-cord.

Academic career

Besides being a journalist and social entrepreneur, Binoy Job is a Visiting Faculty of Television Journalism at Delhi University and various media institutes. He has been delivering lectures at various institutions on "Leadership", "Social Entrepreneurship" and "Development Journalism" It is during his academic stint at Delhi University he initiated LEADERS FOR TOMORROW in its first appearance as YLSD-"Young Leaders For Social Development".

Binoy Job has authored an academic book on television journalism and a book on breathing & yoga. He has also contributed to various books. He is also a trained Yoga teacher and has made more than 20 documentaries on Social Issues. He has also worked in five feature films.

Early life

He hails from a remote village called Kainakary a lower Kuttanad area in Alleppey District of Kerala. Born to very little educated farmer parents as their 13th child, he is educated in various institutes from his village school, and completed his schooling in Government schools. But he went on to do his higher education in

1. Journalism(Hons) from Delhi University (DU), and MA in Mass Communication

2. Gurukul Senior scholarship on Globalisation and Leadership at London School of Economics (LSE).

3. Global Leadership and Public Policy programme from Kennedy School of Government,at Harvard University

4. Emerging Leader Fellowship at Melbourne University

He has won many fellowships in Leadership and Journalism including, British Chevening Programme on Globalisation and Leadership, International Leadership Programme of US etc.

Awards and recognitions

1. Chosen as one of Asia 21 Young Leaders by Asia Society in 2010

2. Selected as "Young Global Leader" by the World Economic Forum in 2012

3. Selected as "Emerging Leader Fellow" by the Melbourne University in 2014

Sources

News articles on Young Global Leader Honourby WEF

Express article
The Hindu Newspaper article
rediff slideshow on all Young Global Leaders
Kerala IT news article
Malayalam article
The Development Channel
The Leaders For Tomorrow Foundation
Prime Minister of India's website
Facebook Page of Binoy Job
News article on Binoy Job's selection as Asia's Young Leader
News article on 'Leaders For Tomorrow's work

Biographical sketch World Economic Forum biography