Alright, the job for a social entrepreneur is to solve problems. In my previous chat, I also identified that an entrepreneur creates wealth. Even before, we said only jobs for an entrepreneur are innovation and marketing.
We need to identify what problems do we need solve, what are the innovative ways with which we can come up with solutions and how do we market these to create wealth in the society.
One of the fundamental problems that we have is the way we utilze our natural resources. Be it Monsoon or be it Himalayas. Be it our population potential or be it our heritage. We have not enabled people to utilize these effectively to create wealth.
Water conservation could be our first and foremost problem that needs to be solved! Whatever the project is, we must approach the problem with 3 things in mind - the project must be profitable, it should be affordable to the people at the bottom of the pyramid (however, it is not free) and create jobs locally.
Let us chat more soon.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Friday, June 09, 2006
Social Entrepreneurship
I think social entrepreneurship is the need of the hour in India today. I think it is a process of enabling those who want to get on to the progress boat. It is process where the people involved will profit from the ventures and enterprises.
We need to liberate those who are at the bottom of the pyramid. We need to make everybody educated so that they are not exploited. India still has the world’s largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas.
Nobody says this is an easy task. This is certainly a daunting task which involves political, economical, cultural, technological strings attached.
Microfinancing is certainly a small and good start where this could begin. When you enable people with finance, there are a lot of possibilities. This in turn opens up many buying opportunities. We all know the buying potential of 300MM people in the USA.
Social entrepreneurship is in no way a charity. Well, it is work to improve the society, but while doing so, we must create wealth, number of small businesses and entrepreneurs. It is a challenge.
Let us see what are the different ideas of social entrepreneurships come out in the near future. One of the websites that I keep watching is http://www.ashoka.org/fellows/social_entrepreneur.cfm
We need to liberate those who are at the bottom of the pyramid. We need to make everybody educated so that they are not exploited. India still has the world’s largest number of poor people in a single country. Of its nearly 1 billion inhabitants, an estimated 350-400 million are below the poverty line, 75 per cent of them in the rural areas.
Nobody says this is an easy task. This is certainly a daunting task which involves political, economical, cultural, technological strings attached.
Microfinancing is certainly a small and good start where this could begin. When you enable people with finance, there are a lot of possibilities. This in turn opens up many buying opportunities. We all know the buying potential of 300MM people in the USA.
Social entrepreneurship is in no way a charity. Well, it is work to improve the society, but while doing so, we must create wealth, number of small businesses and entrepreneurs. It is a challenge.
Let us see what are the different ideas of social entrepreneurships come out in the near future. One of the websites that I keep watching is http://www.ashoka.org/fellows/social_entrepreneur.cfm
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