Ashoka Fellow Darin Gunesekera helped more than 670 families – 4,000 people - who formerly lived in a slum in Sri Lanka secure deeds to a brand new condominium. Darin used a variation of a stock exchange market to raise funds for the construction of these new dwellings and proceeds from the sale of the land freed from the slum were used to pay back the stakeholders. A win-win solution!

Despite the complex legal and social structure in different places, there is promise of replication of the success of this model in other areas like Kibera, Africa (world's largest slum of about a million people), for the weaver community in Varanasi through the Varanasi Weaver's Trust and Bangalore, India.