14 March, 2017
IIM Calcutta Innovation Park in association with the TATA group hosted the Thinking Social Seminar at Shiv Nadar University on April 8th, 2017. The primary objective of this event was to build awareness on social entrepreneurship, generate interest and inspire the young generation to come up with innovative solutions to social challenges. The speakers of the seminar comprised of eminent and social entrepreneurs, investors and academicians who have already established their own outstanding ventures and have impacted the lives of thousands of people.
The seminar commenced with the welcome address by Prof. Partha Roy, Professor at School of Management and Entrepreneurship (SME), Shiv Nadar University. He was very happy with this initiative which they have conducting for the last three years.
Prof. C D Mitra, IIM Calcutta spoke about who is a social entrepreneur and how to identify gaps and create a business opportunity out of it. He said, “The world is full of social problems which need to be solved. An entrepreneur who tries to solve these problems through his venture is a social entrepreneur.” He also conducted a small session with the students where he asked them to identify some problems in the country and think of a solution to overcome the problems. The students were very enthusiastic and came up with problems like – Pollution, Illiteracy, Mental Health, Poor conditions of the farmers, infant mortality etc.
Neha Arora, Founder – Plantet Abled spoke about her venture and how she is helping the community with people having disabilities. She gave an insight to the audience about the lives and challenges of people with disabilities and hoped that they would now be empathetic and observant about how simple things can be path breaking for someone.
Anuroop and Ashish Agarwal, Founder: Talento Consulting, shared with the audience about their startup journey. Their company Talento Consulting is a Skill Development Company providing end to end solutions to improve productivity for businesses and enhance employability. They concluded by saying, “A skilled India is the medium to reap the benefits of our demographic dividend and to become a developed country”
Kapil Mandawewala, Founder – Edible Routes, shared with the audience about how he started his venture after returning from the U.S as a consultant. Kapil had a keen interest in the agri-business sector which helped him to start Edible Routes. He mentioned that, “We don’t know where the food we eat is grown or what chemicals are used to grow it.” His organization – Edible Routes – conducts kitchen gardening workshops for adults and school children and they also set up kitchen gardens to help people grow their own vegetables and reconnect with nature.
Dr Avijit Chakrabarthi, Founder – Bindubot, started by giving a simple definition of a social enterprise. He said, “To combine a social objective with a business formula is a social enterprise.” He also mentioned that. “Unless there is passion in the entrepreneur, the venture will not work.” Dr Chakrabarthi also spoke about how Bollywood is the biggest social enterprise in our country as it highlights (though it’s movies) some of the most prevalent social issues like – Poverty, unemployment, homelessness and other social issues.
The seminar ended with an interactive Q & A session, where questions were posed by not only the students but faculty as well.
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