On 15th of August, 2009, I promoted India's Largest Design for Giving (www.designforgivingcontest.com) contest for school children. Through a simple toolkit that was translated into 8 languages, we reached over 30,000 schools and around 100,000 children (rural, urban, private and public). The competition focused on 10 to 13 year olds with the sole purpose of changing the perception of children being 'helpless' to seeing children as 'drivers of change'.

Stories of change poured in from all over India-from places as far off as Nagaland, from remote villages in the Rajasthan heartland, and from the mountains of Sikkim. The contest had ignited something profound. From converting the waste dump outside their school into a garden, to stopping child marriages, to reaching out to the invisible members of our society- the elderly, mentally challenged, and disadvantaged, school children took action to change their world for the better.

The contest asked students to do three very simple things:Feel, Imagine, and Do. What the contest made visible was that this framework inspired children across India to say "I Can!"The contest culminated on Gandhji's birthday, October 2nd, and the final top 100 stories of change were announced on Children's Day, 14th November. Partnering in this contest were some of the top design minds in the world - the National Institute of Design (India), d.school (Stanford), IDEO, dcontinuum and leading independent designers.

On 6th November, 2009, I presented this story at TEDIndia and the overwhelming response to the simplicity of the idea has taken Design For Giving to the World's Largest Design For Change Contestfor children ( www.designforchangecontest.com ).

The countries being infected through Design for Change contest 2010 are Mexico, Brazil, Ireland, Canada, Chile, USA, Japan, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, UK, Australia, Finland, Tehran, Romania, New Zealand, Taiwan..... and growing. The passion and enthusiasm Design For Change Contest has been able to engender in people across the world is colossal. While stories of change have already started pouring in from Finalnd (http://bit.ly/cMhjj1) and Bhutan (http://bit.ly/cMPn2o), Mexico will launch the contest in August with almost ten thousand school, Mr. Charles Sandy, our partner from Japan, presented Design For Change Contest at Tedx Tokoyo (http://bit.ly/cvGdli) to spread the infection further.

Recently Mr. C Neil Linton, our partner from New Zealand, climbed Mt. Fuji exclusively to raise funds for Design For Change New Zealand and got twenty nine sponsors to sign up. Very soon we are going to have Design For Change theme song titled 'I Can' sung Mr. Raffi, an international children's singer. In India the contest will kick off on 15 August, the Independence Day and we have already been able to sign on our principal sponsor and brand ambassador.

With Design For Change Contest 2010 looking bright and high we are going to bring a wave of change huge enough to infect minds across the world with the spirit of 'I CAN'. I'll be sharing some of the best stories with Core77 readers over the coming months, so stay tuned.