In virtually every sphere of human endeavor, from industry to agriculture to healthcare to education, opportunities abound not only for profit seeking entrepreneurs but also for social enterprises focused on productivity improvement and transformation in the capabilities of people entering and already engaged in these sectors
It’s always heartening to read a response peppered with data from the leader of our country which seeks to demonstrate that while all may not be well in the country, many fears may be largely unfounded. One such is that of job creation and it was glad to read the assertion by PM Modi that over forty-five lakh new jobs have been created in six months in the formal sector and he expects that a larger number of informal jobs are being created at a rapid clip. Be that as it may, for all of us who are in the business as well as the social centers of skilling Indians for new jobs, the fact remains that to create 1.2 crore capable job seekers and entrepreneurs every year, a lot more has to be done in economic growth and skills than is currently visible on the ground.
An exemplar in this area is our entity called Pune City Connect (PCC) which has demonstrated what successful Public Private Partnerships in the social sector can accomplish. The brainchild of leading CEOs in the city drawn from the Manufacturing, Foods, Energy and Software sectors and led by a 1995 batch IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus, Ruchi Mathur. Pune City Connect has set out to make two lakh underprivileged families in the slum communities of Pune Municipal Corporate feel part of the larger city family. It has done this through better quality of education in the municipal Marathi and Urdu medium schools. It has also addressed, digital literacy for all and access to personal agency and aspiration development. This has led to better citizenship and jobs and entrepreneurship opportunities for all who care to substantially transform their own lives as well as those of their families and communities.
PCC today has the support of scores of other NGOs and Skilling partners, many top city corporates and a benevolent political and bureaucracy support group. They have committed to match every rupee of operating expense with all the capital expenditure needed to make fifteen skills centres, seventy plus digital literacy centres and buses and dozens of municipal skills truly top class.
There are opportunities emerging across all sectors as the economy needle moves up. Lets educate our youth to find them and succeed
Access to mentors and funds has made this entity a role model for social transformation for all cities in the country. And this country has the potential to make thousands of skills, digital literacy and education entrepreneurs scale and transform the mindsets and fortunes of crores of beneficiaries in the next few years.
Another example of stellar social effort to build entrepreneurs and sustainable livelihoods in our country has been that of Social Venture Partners. SVP India has already set up seven chapters with over 200 engaged partners and has been able to sift through the massive candidate group of well-meaning social enterprises and identify forty plus NGOs and social enterprises with passionate founders that hold the potential to transform cities, states and the country at scale. Entities that have demonstrated visible local impact like Jagruti in Pune and Udayan Care in Delhi, aggregators like Youth4Jobs and PCC inspired NES and rural entrepreneurship models like Vrutti and SEWA are all seeing the benefit of engaged local partners working with them to accelerate and accentuate their impact.
What is the opportunity we can exploit? In virtually every sphere of human centers, from industry to agriculture to healthcare to education, opportunities abound not only for profit seeking entrepreneurs but also for social enterprises focused on productivity improvement and transformation in the capabilities of people entering and already engaged in these sectors. And the opportunity is huge. In the month of August, I had the privilege to deliver the Dewang Mehta Anniversary lecture in Ahmedabad to a group of five hundred plus students and administrators as well as faculty. It was an exhilarating experience and the aspirations and awareness levels of the students renewed my sense of optimism in the future of our country.
Another extraordinary experience was the inauguration of a livelihood development center at Umreth, the birthplace of Dewang Mehta. This center funded jointly by the local corporation and the Dewang Mehta Foundation Trust and implemented by our family foundation the Natarajan Education Society seeks to replicate the Pune Skills Lighthouse model with more doses of technology to make hundreds of students from this little town employed or employment creators. The real success will be if many of these bright young folks become social entrepreneurs.
When there are over three million enthusiastic non-profits in the country all struggling to scale while addressing real social issues of the day, surely, we as enlightened and well-meaning mentors and funders of scalable entrepreneurs in the country can find a lot more success and indeed returns on our time and money investment by focusing on these rather than just copycat ideas seeking to become unicorns in the over-crowded e-commerce space. There are opportunities emerging across all sectors as the economy needle moves up. Lets educate our youth to find them and succeed.
Ganesh Natarajan
