Tata Social Enterprise Challenge 'Thinking Social' Student Seminar Series
"The community is not merely a stakeholder in the business. It is the very reason for its existence" -J.N. Tata
Lavale, Pune - 29th November, 2014: Tata Social Enterprise Challenge (TSEC) - a joint initiative of the Tata Group and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) held the student seminar series 'Thinking Social' at Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, PG, Pune. Theday-long seminarsought to introduce students from top professional colleges in India to the concept of social entrepreneurship in a rapidly evolving global economy.The speakers for the day comprised eminent entrepreneurs, who have established their own outstanding ventures in the Indian social entrepreneurship spaceand sought to address the concerns of young, budding entrepreneurs.
Mr. Chandradeep Mitra, Advisor, IIM-Calcutta Innovation Park, outlined the structure of the apparatus for the Innovation Park's knowledge dissemination centres across India. Describing the positive activities that the venture undertakes, he discussed how its functions span across social issues bordering on healthcare, livelihood, education and green energy. On social entrepreneurship, he said, "It is a large-scale transformational benefit for significant segments of society, which targets the underserved, who lack financial means and political clout to achieve this movement on their own." He also stressed on the importance of combining people and processes in new and unconventional mixes to produce innovative solutions to underlying social issues.
Re-emphasizing the viability of social entrepreneurship as a pursuit towards empowerment of business functions across industries, Mr Chandan Chatterjee, Director, SIMC, suggested that registering quarterly profits as key performance indicators for the business reflects a short term orientation for an otherwise 'going concern' business construction.
Discussing the objectives, structure and activities of Lend-A-Hand India, Ms. Sunanda Mane, co-founder & President, helped project a practitioner's view point on the concept of social entrepreneurship. She introduced the students to Lend-A- Hand's IBT(Introduction to Basic Technology) program which reaches out to around 10,000 students across India and seeks to empower students by helping them acquire practical skills to meet the basic professional needs of their regions. The model functions on individual empowerment and skill building while crafting avenues for self-employment generation.
Presenting a macro level view on Social Entrepreneurship, Dr Shubhro Sen, Director, Tata Management Training Centre said, "The world has moved from the cultural age of 'me' to 'we'. " He suggested that there is a need to move from capitalism towards an orientation to "serve". The outline reflected his alignment towards purpose maximization as opposed to mere profit maximization. He asserted that a great business generates emotional, financial and spiritual wealth on a sustained basis and distribution that values and equitable attribution of resources.
Mr Vimlendhu Jha, Founder and Executive Director, Swechha We For Change, demonstrated the passion he shares for his field of work by encouraging the youth of today to participate in the social entrepreneurship movement. For the young people seeking to make a valuable change in society, he had to say, "Social entrepreneurship should not be an accidental choice. We want you to make the choice now and not five years later. Organizations like IIM-Calcutta and SIMC should come together and be a hub for this energy".
Detailing his journey and foray into social entrepreneurship, Mr Swapnil Chaturvedi, Founder, Samagra, encouraged students to learn from his mistakes, cautioning them that social entrepreneurship is not as simple as it sounds. "If you have a vision, how do you translate it into something useful? There are so many stakeholders, so many moving parts", he said.
Dr. Suneeta Kulkarni, Research Director, School in the Cloud and Ms Prasanna Hulikavi, Deputy Director, SIMC, Pune highlighted social experiments like 'The Hole in The Wall' and 'The Granny Cloud', initiatives that helped reach out to children in slums and provide them with quality education through the means of technology.
Concluding on a high note, the seminar left an audience inspired by the various stories of change and impact, created in society by the speakers for the day. "It was an eye-opening experience and is a definite source of inspiration and call for action to the youth of today," said Anuradha Goulay, a student of SIMC, Pune about her experience at 'Thinking Social'.
Tata Social Enterprise Challenge (TSEC)
Tata Social Enterprise Challenge (TSEC) - a joint initiative of the Tata Group and Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) was started in 2012. The Challenge aims to establish itself as a major event in the Indian social entrepreneurship space by bringing together social entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and members from the academia, industry and business to identify and promote sustainable ideas that have a measurable social impact in our society.TSEC has successfully completed two rounds of this Challenge during 2012 and 2013 where the Challenge witnessed submission of more than 320 impact proposals over the last two years. The finalists of TSEC get mentored, undergo training, win awards, cash prizes, recognition and opportunity to pitch to VCs and become eligible to be considered for incubational support from CEI & IIMC ecosystem.
About 'Thinking Social'
"Thinking Social", initiated in 2014, aims to expand the reach of the Tata Social Enterprise Challenge, an annual innovation competition that is held by the Tata Group and IIM-C. The purpose of this seminar series is to create thought leadersin the social entrepreneurship domain, through a series of student seminars, industry round tables and IIMC lecture series across India so as to create wider interest in Social Enterprises and support the development of their ecosystem. Through these student-industry-academia interfaces, Tata and IIM-C hope to expose more students from India's best institutes to the concept of Social Entrepreneurship.
About Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication, PG, Pune
Symbiosis Institute of Media & Communication has evolved from being a journalism college at the inception to a mass communication college in some years. What has remained constant is its ability to attract talent across all faculties- students, academicians and industry professionals.
This is the premier pure-play Media & Communication School, nurturing and developing future leaders in the fields of creative content generation (M.A. in Audiovisual and Journalism) and managing creative businesses- MBA (Communication Management).
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