Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award in India

Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award in India

Background

The Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation (the Foundation is establishing the “Khemka Fellow” Awards for Social Entrepreneurs (SE) in co-operation with renowned organizations such as the Schwab Foundation.

Social entrepreneurs are pragmatic visionaries who achieve large scale, systemic and sustainable social change through a new invention, a different approach, a more rigorous application of known technologies or strategies, or a combination of these. They combine the characteristics represented by Richard Branson and Mother Teresa.

The Schwab foundation searches for social entrepreneurs around the world and selects them after a thorough due diligence process. Until today, the network includes 95 social entrepreneurs around the world. In each country one “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” is selected and celebrated. The Schwab Foundation chooses social entrepreneurs who have already established their venture, proven their business model and are on the verge of proliferating their vision.
Project

The Foundation will establish jointly with the Schwab Foundation a high-profile selection committee, who will select the “Social Entrepreneur of the Year in India”. The Foundation and the Schwab Foundation will jointly host a high profile national award ceremony at or close to the World Economic Forum - India Economic Summit (at the end of November) to honour the winner, who will be named the “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” and the finalists. Last year the winner was awarded by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. The entire programme will be one of high visibility and will be promoted through prominent media coverage in terms of a series of articles and publications, TV and radio interviews, and through websites.

Send application to AMITA KAPUR at amikapur54@hotmail.com

List of Social Entrepreneur awards in India

- iDiya by Indian School of Business (ISB)
- Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC)
- "innovation for india" awards by Marico Foundation & Erehwon Innovation Consulting
- Trident Group's Aavishkaar Awards by Abhishek Industries Limited
- “Khemka Fellow” Awards for Social Entrepreneurs (SE) in co-operation with the Schwab Foundation

If you know of any other Social Entrepreneur award available in India, please list it here.

List of Social Enterprises in India

SammaaN Foundation
Under the Mango Tree
Vortex India
Education Access for All
Moksha-Yug Access
Inclusive Planet
Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions
DesiCrew
Dial 1298 for Ambulance
LifeSpring Hospitals
Servals Automation
Village Hand
Women Tech
Satin Creditcare Network
Bandhan
Spandan
Gram Mooligai Co Ltd
Sasha
National Innovation Foundation
Villgro Innovations Foundation (formerly Rural Innovations Network)
Jiva
IDEI
Manthan Associates
Meghdoot Gramodyog Sewa Sansthan
Drishtee Development and Communication Ltd
Datamation Consultants P Ltd
CraftsBridge
IndusTree Foundation
Rang Sutra
Pardada Pardadi
BASIX
The Civil Society
Fumes International
Tiny Tech India
KRITI
Shri Mahila Griha Udyog
Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank
Soma

If you know of any other Social Enterprises in India, please list them here or send us the names and we will list them here.

Start a Social Enterprise to build an INDIA that you want

NGOs have been playing a phenomenal role in changing India for the better for a long time now. In recent times, businesses are joining hands with NGOs for the same. With MNCs coming in to India in early 90s, they invested in the social development space as it was part of their corporate mandate even in their home countries. New age Indian companies followed suit.

In the last decade or so, a whole new breed of companies have started 'social enterprises. These are spearheaded by social entrepreneurs and yet these are different from social entrepreneurs such as Asoka's Social Entrepreneurs.

These social enterprises and entrepreneurs have started businesses with a difference. These businesses offer solutions/products to the market that is very difficult to capture, has innumberable difficulties to cater to, is very hazy in quantitative terms, with high risk. They raise money just like any other business from one's own pocket, friends, family, VC funds, other companies, banks etc. They pay interest and give returns on investment to their investors. They have income and expenses just like any other company. What they do not have are programme funds and donations like NGOs. They sell their product/solution and make their income.

There are several social enterprises in India today and they are growing. But we need thousands and lakhs of them now. Following are some social enterprises:

Drishtee Dot Com Pvt Ltd
Provides govt and private services to villagers in villages below 5,000 population through ICT for a small fee.
www.drishtee.com

Datamation Consultants Pvt Ltd
Specifically hires handicapped persons, widows, poor persons for their BPO work. Almost their entire staff is only from the above mentioned categories of society.
www.datamationindia.com

BASIX
Provides loans for livelihood generation to poor people in rural areas.
www.basixindia.com

Jiva
Provides healthcare services in rural India through cellphones and use of ayurvedic medicines.
www.jiva.org

What makes these businesses different is that:
- they are not NGOs, not dependent on charity money,
- they are not motivated by sheer profit, although it is their top priority as well,
- they evaluate all their decisions against social, ethical, moral standards,
- they measure their success both by ROI and SROI (social return on investment),

What needs to be done is:
- Existing businesses can change themselves into a social enterprise,
- Existing businesses can diversify into social enterprise product/solution,
- Businesses/Individuals/Investors/Banks/VCs can invest in social enterprises,
- Industry associations need to be started to support such social enterprises,
- Centre for Social Entrepreneurship should be setup for research, documentation, promotion, training etc in social enterprise
- Courses in Social Entrepreneurship can be started in MBA and other institutes on social entrepreneurship and social enterprises
- Setup fund to invest in social enterprises

Asian Institute of Management (AIM), Manila, Phillippines recently launched "Creating Space in the Market: Social Enterprise Stories in Asia", a Social Entrepreneurship Book. Edited by Marie Lisa Dacanay with a foreword by Dr. Eduardo Morató Jr., both AIM professors, the book documents 13 cases of significant or exemplary practices in social entrepreneurship in four Asian countries, namely, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines.The book aims to provide a comprehensive discussion on the birth and evolution of social entrepreneurship in Asia and how various elements of social entrepreneurship foster the growth of businesses in the marginalized regions of Asia. For inquiries, please contact Rosario Espino at respino@mail.aim.edu.ph

It is a movement that has been recently started and am sure will take over the world in years to come. It is not pure charity, not pure business, a good middle ground where we can all meet. Join the movement and bring about a change for yourself, your country and the world.

Green revolution to e-revolution - total indepedence

To rise up the value chain in software industry we should not rely on someone else’s software like windows, oracle etc. because this will result in those companies always having the upper hand. The only way out of this trap is open source and hence open source is extremely important component of India’s growth strategy.

With our limited resources in India open source, which is free and easily accessible, Indians and Indian companies can develop software for OS, Database, Office, E-mail, Browser etc. etc. This will be cheap also for the users to buy and we will not be dependent on foreign software saving precious $$$. Also, just as we achieved independence from Britishers and then became self reliant in agriculture produce, its time for us to now become self reliant in day to day use Software products.

This will create millions of job opportunities for Indians inside India leading to eradication of poverty to a large extent.

ChandraPrakash Loonker
cp@vsnl.com

Follow the Chinese model

Just like China is developing a socks city, a pant city, a shirt city, etc to ensure that they have extremely high growth in textile industry we also need to ensure that our core focus knowledge industry also grows well.

We should also build like a dozen knowledge cities. In each of the knowledge cities we should have IIT + IIM + IISc + AIIMS. The “Indian Institute” part being common amongst them will create the necessary hype around it for media to provide this good coverage. We should allow private sector to take 100% stake in these knowledge cities which will further ensure more hype and marketing around it.

Concentrating a certain industry in an area and developing infrastructure around it always attracts talent, investments and businesses. This model is amply proven by Chinese in their various export zones or specific product zones. India has also achieved a certain level of success in past with this model in their STP-software technology park concept and more recently in EPZ-export processing zones such as for floriculture, agriculture, leather, food processing, automotive etc.

ChandraPrakash Loonker
cp@vsnl.com

With changing times, the needs change : India does not need any more NGO/NPO, but sustainable development

There are several ways to tackle the current unfortunate situation(s)
prevailing in India. The need of the hour is a fast, visible change. Such a change is possible via (1) increased participation of common people in the nation-building/reforming process; (2) making conditions amenable so that the right people (bureaucrats, IAS officers, etc.) are in the right place; and (3) improving the economic scenario of people, esp. in the rural areas where still 70 percent of our population resides.

All the above three action programs will be most effective when they are implemented either in a parallel fashion or in quick succession. Needless to say, within each action agenda, there can be various ways to go about implementing them. A few possible ways are outlined below which calls for reader's attention.

Interestingly, NRIs can play a direct or indirect yet influential roles in all the above three areas.

1. National Level Seminar or Lecture Series : People's Participation

Hope, ideas, passion sustain life and its encompassing progress. With the current level despair prevailing in the country, the first thing that can help us see the light at the end of the tortuous tunnel is HOPE.

To generate this HOPE, a national level seminar/lecture series in all 530 districts on a national basis by scores of speakers aggresively for an year (and at a slower pace thereafter) is proposed. The details of which are outlined below :

- Identify and have big personalities, the stalwarts like Arun Shourie,
Kiran Bedi, Girish Karnad, Nani Palkhiwala, Ratan Tata, Sam Pitroda, Parmeshwar Rao, ManMohan Singh, T N Seshan etc. to speak at various key locations. These are the people that have seen the system, had stood for their beliefs, most importantly survived, and in turn brought subtle yet perceptible changes in the system.

[Money will be needed to pay for all the expenses + presentation facilities ]

- the speakers choose the topics they want to speak (of course topics need to be non-controversial, development and society-related and thought provoking). Let these speakers address the issues that they think is important with a good dose of motivation mixed in their speeches.

- through dialogues and participatory speeches these speakers give the
audience a local (or national ?) vision and there is one-to-one
interaction between the two.

- Each motivated individual will come up with her own set of ideas and
action programs based on his thought process and societal background.
Thus, these motivated people, which may range from just one to hundreds, will be provided with sufficient information (on hard copy) about NGOs, ideas, local activists, willing and helpful business people whom they can contact for pursuing and transforming their newly found hopes/ideas into action.

This chain action-reaction in individuals will hopefully bring the light at the far end of the tunnel appear closer and even brighter. Each motivated individual will act like a "small" lighthouse to himself and a few around him.

2. Catalysing/Lobbying to get the right bureaucrats quickly in an
administrative place where they can make drastic changes affecting the
population at large.

If you see why people are so much aware of elections, election commission, voting, candidates, spending in elections etc. - it is mainly because of one person T N Seshan. Why we have STD facilities in every nook and corner of India - because of Sam Pitroda. Why Surat is so clean, has footpaths, wide roads, and people are more socially aware of their duties in Surat - it is mainly attributed to S R Rao. Why Bangalore is changing is so rapidly
and it will be a world-class city like London, New York - because of its new commissioner. The list of examples can go on.

But the point is that on a daily basis, no where in the world do the
politicians actually run the country - it is a handful of bureaucrats
because of whom the system works or does not work. The point here is not that if T N Seshan is a great person or S R Rao is a wonderful guy or one of these should be made the Prime Minister of India. The point is that we really just need a few bureaucratic positions filled with right, honest, motivated, go-getter IAS officers.

The politicians always listen to the NRI community because of their
(misplaced, superficial, wealth, whatever) aura. Now if this influence can be used to lobby to get the right candidates quickly into positions where they can make the change without being jerked around, the country will change at a much faster, visible rate. In other words, we need some key people at central govt. bureaucracy and some bureaucrats at state levels. A big task but not humungous, difficult but not impossible.

The Plan of Action :

- Identify the honest, go-getter IAS officers involved in various sections of the day-to-day governance in India. This is to be done via individual contacts and media reports.

- Identify the people (Ministers, Senior IAS officers) who influence the transfer/promotion of IAS officers i.e. find the influential people in the system (note : these may or may not be corrupt)

- Use NRI power (economic influence, contacts, money) to influence these 'influential people' and get the honest IAS offices higher and higher up in the bureaucratic ladder. The NRI power can come from big shot NRIs like CEOs, economists, etc. as well as collective voice of support from average, concerned NRIs - common individuals like you and me.

3. The Indians across the globe should start on their own, fund new ventures, or partner with their friends/relatives in India; to start several labour intensive businesses/industries in villages, towns, cities. A small company employing even 10-100 people can do as good as a few NGOs together and more importantly, it brings in sustainable
development and creates real wealth within the country.

When you are employing a person, you are supporting an entire family (on average 5 persons). In Indian context you go much beyond that because if you are supporting a family you are supporting the brothers/sisters of the person whom you are employing and his/her spouse's brothers/sisters and their families. You will understand this more clearly if you just think of your own family and how the entire web of brothers/sisters etc. is helped/supported by each other in India. So just giving one salary, you are fending for their education, health, food, living, children, brothers, sisters, their families, clothes etc. So just one company does a sustainable development for 250 individuals. Out of these 250 individuals on an average one can expect 2 individuals to donate, volunteer, join an NGO, start a business, be a successful enough bureaucrat to influence the society for good or be a school teacher etc.

Again, a business needs a lot of things and so in turn support at least 10 other business/industries by purchasing services/goods from them, each of whom in turn support on an average 250 persons each just as your company.

If we go on like this, this domino effect is endless and is the most sustainable.

This company/business/industry can be as simple as a grocery store, electrical or plumbing shop, petrol station, courier franchise etc or as no profit enterprise as school, college, library etc or as complex as food processing plant, airplane manufacturing facility, corporate orchards, gardens, farming etc. depending on the level of investment available, how involved you want to be, etc.

For the above you do not have to go back to India for good, you just have to identify among your friends, relatives, contacts or just any person whom you can trust enough to work on a long distance business relationship. It does not have to be a business where the services/goods are sold in some other country.

When people have their basic needs taken care of, they do not go into anti-social activities, they are more aware and try to remain in the legal system.

If NRIs world over even start one business per NRI, we will change the entire country for good. But again, to expect every one to do is impractical, so we just need a handful of NRIs to do large # of such businesses in different fields in different geographical areas across the country.