Nurturing social enterprises

Providing a common platform to social entrepreneurs, support organisations and facilitators was the main aim of the two-day “Network Expansion Workshop” conducted by IIM Ahmedabad's Centre for Innovation, Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), a German organisation devoted to social incubation initiatives, at LM Thapar School of Management, Dera Bassi, last week.

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The workshop, which acted as a forum for social enterprises and support organisations to explore synergies and give shape to business ideas, was part of a series of workshops being conducted by CIIE in collaboration with GIZ across the country. in this first of its kind workshop CIIE associated with Thapar Venture Lab in an effort to build an entrepreneurial eco-system in the northern region. The Thapar Venture Lab, which is among the 10 incubators CIIE is working within India, intends to develop a holistic entrepreneurial ecosystem in Punjab and neighbouring states by providing technological, financial, infrastructural and strategic support to budding social and commercial entrepreneurs from both within and outside Thapar University.

Talking about the need to promote social enterprises LMTSM Director Dr Padmakumar Nair said, “Social enterprise is the need of the hour as the fruits of development and tech advancement have till now been used mostly to solve the problems of the ‘rich’ and as a result very little has been done to provide solutions to the concerns and needs of the have nots. Budding entrepreneurs who are venturing into the value-based start ups need guidance and mentoring to effectively take innovative ideas to the common man through such initiatives.

He also stressed on the need to cultivate the mindset of social accountability in students. “This should be given prime importance in every educational institution as this is the ethical compass that will help business leaders of tomorrow balance corporate and social good”, he added.

The workshop began with support organisations like NGOs, foundations, business incubators, industrial bodies, academic institutions and other big enterprises underlining the importance of social enterprises and the need to develop them from the ideation phase to the scaling phase. While social enterprises tried to build their capacities through a session on "Service Blueprinting", support organisations looked into the practical problems being faced by social entrepreneurs in running their enterprises and worked towards designing viable ecosystems for them.

LMTSM is also complementing the CIIE initiative with a seed money competition for early-stage start-ups, ‘Ankurit’, on February 28, where the best business plans will get cash awards of Rs 5 lakh, free workspaces at Thapar Venture Lab and assured assistance from various support organisations and start-up-friendly agencies. The incubatees can also recruit student interns from Thapar University. In the three-phase ‘Ankurit’ contest, the participants first submitted executive summary of business ideas along with their credentials. The 30 shortlisted teams were then provided a half-day competency-building workshop in collaboration with CIIE. The 15 finalists will eventually take part in ‘Ankurit’. TNS