Business + Humanities Entrepreneurship
Jan 15, 2019 • 100 views
Social entrepreneurship at the most elementary level is business for a good cause. It is an all-encompassing glossary used to unfold the processes of working for the eradication and solution of a social predicament for the betterment of the society. It may not exactly include the eradication of the issue on a whole in one go but generally depicts the lifelong inputs from their side for the improvement of the status quo. Social entrepreneurship basically is commerce juxtaposed with social development. It is a increasingly proliferating and crucial development in association with voluntary, non-profit and not-for-profit organizations. The performance and success rate of such a venture is not based on the amount of profit but on the desired change brought about by employing entrepreneurial skills, principles and operations. In today's world this phenomenon is no longer a catalyst in the society but more of a change agent in the social sector which brings about and works for sustainable social values and elimination of social evils and problems from the society. It will turn out to be the dutiful deus ex machina of this generation.
Scope:
India is a very populus country and no less behind are it's problems and pitiful conditions. They need a realistic and sympathetic solution over the extravaganza of promises by the government. This itself opens up new gates for the social entrepreneurs. The scope has multiplied by leaps and bounds in the recent years due to many a reasons like:
Digital India initiative-
This movements by the Modi government is focused on providing a leverage to the social entrepreneurs. It aims on making India a digitally empowered society. It plans on providing internet connectivity to remote areas, bank accounts for all the villagers and universal digital literacy in these areas. This has laid down a foundation for the social entrepreneurs by joining the urban areas in the mainstream economic and human development for social innovation.
Favorable investment ecosystem-
Government of India in it's twelfth five year development program labelled the period between 2010 and 2020 as the 'Decade of Innovation’. It has accorded priority to the social enterprises by bringing up a new fund termed as 'India Inclusive Innovation Fund’ which is committed to help social good ventures in fields of water, heath care, urban development and infrastructure, energy and transportation. Also parallel to the government intervention, the private investment is also growing flattering for the social entrepreneurs. According to a report Indian social ventures received money to the tune of USD 1.6 billion in the last ten years.
Thus there are reasons for the ever-growing scope of social entrepreneurship. Also, there are a myriad of opportunities and a plethora of problems to be dealt with for the betterment of the society. India is a one of the largest constituency striken so powerfully with poverty wherein around 230 million people suffer from hunger and about 21 million children are malnutritioned.This necessitates the extensive application of multidisciplinary approach and entrepreneurship energy in social and economic development. Areas which can create ample difference for the social entrepreneurs are:
Urban and rural development-
It requires social entrepreneurs to implore ways to improve the quality of life for individuals for the areas and provide sustainable development by improvising small scale agriculture, technology and innovation and supportive social institution.
Providing healthcare-
It requires making healthcare facilities affordable. The primary reason of excessive expenditure by the poor is due to health issues. This is solely due to lack of development infrastructure and lack of existing amenities of the health sector.
Women empowerment-
Thousands of women of our country fall victim to violence in this belligerent society. Social entrepreneurs can help such women in not getting disturbed or distracted by their past and achieving their goal along with creating an impact in lives of others. This can be done by furnishing women with personal development services, access to computer labs and equipping them with knowledge ,life and employment skills.
Services for the uniques-
To create a platform for the differently abled people to express their needs and exhibit their potential is a duty of any social entrepreneur. These people experience discrimination and face barriers in all fields and equipping them with residential institutions, education, employment skills and overall development services can help reduce poverty of the country at a steep rate.
Examples of some successful social ventures are as follows-:
Rang-De: An online donation platform in charity space that facilitates low-cost loans. It serves as a bridge between social investors and people who are in need of small amount of money for improving their business or financial position.
Amul: It is a social development meant to bring about white revolution in India. Also, it aims to help in alleviating poverty and allowing feminine gender the larger say in business.
SELCO India: It's objectives are to uplift the quality of life among the underserved and deprived, unfortunate and the poor by providing safe electricity using solar energy.
Digital Green: It is committed to improve the livelihood of small farmers and to make them socially, economically and environmentally sustainable.
CRY: It was established to restore children's rights in India. They conserve the right of children defined as basic rights under United Nation's Convention on the Rights of the child that are survival, development, protection and participation.
DARE: It is initiative by the Indian government to disseminate information about various government scheme's and policies in the field of agriculture.
SEWA: Started by Ela Bhatt, winner of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award, it is an organization of poor self-employed women who aim to bring social and economic reforms as well as influence and touch lives of people in need.
The George Foundation: It works for the protection of health and environment for the poor and the unfortunate and to help the government relieve our country of poverty.
eJeevika: It provides a substitute to agriculture by furnishing youth with employments in all fields available to mitigate the hold of poverty on our country.
SKS Foundation: It is a non-banking finance company run by Reserve Bank of India to provide financial services to the needy and the poor to take the edge off poverty in India.
Difference between entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship:
Both approaches fulfill a need in the market.Entrepreneurship without the word 'social’ only signifies profit aimed businesses not aimed at altering the status quo whereas the social entrepreneurship is a business venture which focuses beyond creating a profit. It's primary aim is bring about a change in society. Social entrepreneurship is a non-profit organization against entrepreneurship whose primary aim is all about earning profits. Social entrepreneurs aim at serving the unserved 'markets’ which basically mean the social sector. Another basis of difference between a social and the business entrepreneur lies within the actual meaning of wealth aim. For the business entrepreneur, 'wealth' is same as profits. However for a person in social entrepreneurship, true wealth means and equals to the creation of the social and environmental capital.
For a conclusion, Social entrepreneurship is the need of the hour. It is surely a sun rising for the social sector with a humongous potential to be showcased to the world in the coming years.
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