Social Entrepreneurship

This is completely not written by me. Most of the content is from the sources mentioned at the end.

Social entrepreneurship is the use of businesses to solve social issues. These business models generate funds in the form of profit and use it to make people's lives better. Although there are many types of it, all of them have a common goal and commitment that is to develop a particular community or a specific region.

Let's first know how a social entrepreneur must think:
"Social Entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry."

- Bill Drayton, CEO and founder of Ashoka.

Scope for social entrepreneurship:

1. Making our students employable - many of our educational institutions provide education which unfortunately has not been designed to the needs of the industry that provides them jobs.

2. Making healthcare affordable.

3. Urban and rural sanitation.

4. Power in far-flung areas - opportunities for power sources such as solar power.

5. Nutrition and food for the underprivileged.

There are many benefits of being a social entrepreneur. Most importantly, the satisfaction which you get while seeing a poor child going to school rather than at a workplace, looking at the updation of downtrodden villages to the level of the modern world is unmatchable.

By the way, social entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs are not the same. There is a significant difference in how they work to the goal. The former earn money to solve a social cause while the latter does for his own benefits.

By now, there are innumerable people who have tried this way of giving back to society. Mentioned below are the social entrepreneurs of India.

1. Jeroo Billimoria
Founder of multiple award-winning NGO’s, she has distinguished herself on a global scale earning honorary fellowships. Presently she works as the founder and managing director of Child and Youth Finance International (CYFI).

2. Ajaita Shah
The founder/CEO of Frontier Markets and the President of Frontier Innovation, her company – Frontier Markets is a rural marketing, sales, and service distribution company providing access to affordable and quality consumer durables to low-income households. Ajaita has worked on numerous development projects in 7 states in India. Frontier Markets started operations in rural India and are working with clean energy products like solar lighting and smokeless stoves.

3. Harish Hande
The co-founder of SELCO and the recipient of the prestigious “Ramon Magsaysay Award” in 2011, Harish Hande’s social enterprise – SELCO has been working vigorously with the objective of putting the solar power technology within the reach of the poor.

4. Sushmita Ghosh
Formerly a journalist, she founded Changemakers in 1992, which is an online platform for open source problem-solving. It now provides instructions in change making for social change organizations and ordinary citizens, ultimately aspiring to form a self-energizing community of changemakers.

5. Trilochan Sastry
Professor Trilochan Shastry, formerly the Dean (Academics) at IIM Bangalore is presently the Cofounder of Centre for Collective Development (CCD), a Hyderabad based NGO. His NGO, working for the cause of the farmers, has successfully set up 50 cooperatives with 2500 members over two districts of Andhra Pradesh – Adilabad and Anantapur. In the wait of more funds, he says he will consider taking a 2-year sabbatical from IIM-B and engaging full time with CCD.

6. Hanumappa Sudarshan
One of the well renowned social entrepreneurs and tribal rights activists, Hanumappa’s pursuits towards helping the downtrodden section of the society has made him a prestigious recipient of the Padma Shri and the Right Livelihood Award. After graduating from Bangalore Medical College, he decided to work with tribal communities. In 1980, he started the Vivekananda Girijana Kalyana Kendra for the integrated development of the tribals in the Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka.

7. Akanksha Hazari
A Social Entrepreneur, Businesswoman and Peace negotiator, her pursuits in solving the problem of global water shortage in the form of m.Paani led her all the way to be honored by President Bill Clinton with 1 Million dollars. She is working towards empowering underserved families with the skills, knowledge, and tools necessary to achieve the life they aspire through a mobile-based rewards program that empowers underserved communities by connecting their spending and positive behaviors to valuable points that are redeemed for social impact rewards to transform their lives.

8.Shaheen Mistri
The Founder of the Akanksha Foundation, her objective is to educate the unprivileged, belonging to the downtrodden sections of the society. The Akanksha Foundation works primarily in education to impact the lives of such children. Over a period of 20 years, Akanksha Foundation, which started with just 15 children in one center, now teaches over 3,500 children in 58 centers and 6 schools. Her objective is to remove illiteracy at the grassroot level.

9. Aditya Baran Mallik
His Initiative- The Institute for Quality skill training works towards skill training to the youth belonging to the poor background in order to help them achieve a better life. He believes that providing skilled training to everyone, especially the downtrodden, is the key for them to achieve a better livelihood. Aditya and his team plan to set up training centers over 13 states in India to reach a training capacity of 50,000 students annually.

10. Chetna Gala Sinha
Founder and President of Mann Deshi Foundation and a great advocate of women empowerment, she aims to empower women in the rural areas by inculcating entrepreneurial skills. She aspires to create 1 Million women entrepreneurs in India by 2020. She helps in coordinating and managing three institutions that together help create alternate livelihoods and incomes for rural women: a women-owned rural cooperative bank that extends a range of financial services; a rural mobile MBA school that offers skill and entrepreneurship training; and a chamber of commerce that facilitates market and policy linkages.

Sources:
1. https://qr.ae/TUnDGt
2. https://in.thehackerstreet.com/social-entrepreneurs-2/