REGIONAL SOCIAL ENTERPRISE ECOSYSTEMS IN INDIA

Villgro and Ananta Center organized “Regional Social Enterprise Ecosystems in India” at WWF India Auditorium, Lodhi Estate, New Delhi on 18th September 2014. Mr. Amar Saraswat, Assistant Professor, CSE Department represented Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon.

Regional Social Enterprise Ecosystems in India is a research project by VILLGRO & OKAPI Research. The event was sponsored by Villgro Possible, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), OKAPI, CRDI, Ananta Centre and Citi Foundation. Over six months, Villgro worked with Okapi to research nine cities in India such as Pune, Patna, Jaipur, Chandigarh, Bhopal, Guwahati, Bhubaneswar, Thiruvananthapuram, Lucknow in parallel with Villgro’s unconventional social enterprise events conducted in these cities, incorporating both conventional research methods such as observation and surveys, and also a focus on understanding local entrepreneurs’ perspective through dialogue and discussion.

In the beginning of the session, Introduction about the event was given by Mr. PR Ganapathy, who is the present President of VILLGRO. After that, Ms. Jessica Seddon, Founder, Okapi Research gave a brief overview about the various ways by which the social entrepreneurship can be accelerated.

Then, overview of the report “Regional Social Enterprise Ecosystems in India: Reports on Nine Regions” which was to be launched, was given by Ms. Lina Sonne, Lead Researcher, Okapi Research. The various insights of her presentation included Emerging Startup scenes across India, Financial and Non- Financial Support limited outside India’s mentors, Higher Education: plenty of entrepreneurship courses, but limited social enterprise activity or research, various ideas of motivating and teaching entrepreneurship by faculties, Focusing on local networks and startups, Limited Government policies but increasingly enabling startups.

Ms. Lina Sonne also discussed about various policy considerations such as lack of seasoned entrepreneurship to mentor, Improving higher education and industry collaboration (skillset, entrepreneurs, and incubation), to decentralize ecosystems, and the knowledge of how to build them. She also told that to build an ecosystem, the points which need to be focused are complement and build on existing strengths, fill in gaps, translate lessons from one’s region experience to another and a big integrated push.

After this, the report entitled “Regional Social Enterprise Ecosystems in India: Reports on Nine Regions” was launched officially by Mr. PR Ganapathy followed by the panel discussion on Accelerating and Networking India's Emerging Ecosystems by various speakers such as Phanindra Sama, Founder Red Bus & Kakatiya Sandbox Initiative, Chintan Bakshi, Startup Oasis Incubator, Maneesha Chaddha, Head- Corpotare Citizenship, Citi Foundation, Balasubramanian Munuswamy, Private Sector Development Advisor, DFID, British High Commission. The panel discussion was moderated by P R Ganapathy, President Villgro, followed by answering the questions put up by audience.

Some Glimpses: