Inauguration of 'Samriddhi 2009' by Mr. Digambar Kamat Chief Minister, Goa.

Speakers

Saloni Malhotra : CEO of DesiCrew Solutions Pvt. Ltd

After the 1960s Vietnam War, there was a programme of 3 days of peace and music. Ms. Saloni got highly inspired by that and decided to start her own venture to do something good. She  always  had  three  things  in  her  mind-  Rural,  Technology  and  Business. She  felt  that Technology had a huge impact on the minds of the youth today. Business is what supports the economy today and rural areas are that which have to be targeted for a better empowered India. The main ideology behind her venture was to think of people at the bottom of the pyramid as the producers rather than the consumers. Ms.  Saloni  wanted  to  give the  people  living  in  the  village  the  same  kind  of  work opportunities  that they would get in a city .So she along with a small group of people started Desi Crew which is a rural BPO. The idea was to provide the same kind of work opportunities without the overhead of staying away from the family in a city. Ms. Saloni also mentioned that she had been getting guidance from one of her professors who gave her the basic idea about setting u a rural BPO. The idea of employing the educated yet unemployed workforce i n the rural areas struck her. The main characteristic of offering a workplace near the employees’ homes made sure that they didn’t have to travel much from their houses and also amounted to very less attrition rates. Living in metropolitan cities where the cost of living would be high was the same as a lesser paying job available near their homes for the rural people. The idea also ensured that there was money flowing into the community ensuring a better standard of living for them. Ms. Saloni also mentioned that they had a clear marketing strategy while targeting any particular  customer  base.  Since  the  Rural  BPOs  were  not  too  confident  of  giving  direct competition to the metropolitan ones, they decided to target clients who mainly wanted back office handling. She urged us to look at innovative ways to approach a problem and think out of the box during problem solving. She also mentioned that the initial days of any business are full of hardships and thus, the entrepreneurs or the teams should not give up because of some initial failures. The problems always persist and what matters is whether every failure is being looked at as an opportunity towards  better  learning  or  not.  She  also  stressed  on  a  team  work  approach  whereby  the members of the team can rely on each other’s strength and strive for the ultimate goal. After the failure of 2 business models DesiCrew is now progressing ahead with its third business model. It boasts of clients from all fields and has even managed to get one of America’s leading portals as their client. She also mentioned that be it success or failure, the organization has to get the first preference. Ms.  Saloni  concluded  her  speech  by  encouraging  everyone  to  set  up  something innovative and not get disheartened by setbacks.

Vipin Thekkekalathil: Assistant Director, Ashoka Youth Venture

Mr. Vipin a young dynamic personality, assistant director of Ashoka youth venture, started the session with a question to all-“Why people are afraid of being an entrepreneur?” A number of reasons came out, which included risk, expertise, lack of a sound business model, fear of failure, capital requirements etc. And out of these main factors he emphasised on fear of failure and he cited it as the biggest reason why people hesitate to be an entrepreneur. With an example of a professor from IIM of how he tried to influence his students towards entrepreneurship and tried to find out different reasons as to why people try to stay away from entrepreneur in young age, he presented a small video showing different people standing up against social ill practices. His whole presentation revolved around three main points Why people are afraid of being entrepreneurs ? What social entrepreneurship is and why to go for it ? Why   youth   and   why   should   society   should   invest   in   youth   to   bring   up   social entrepreneurs ? He presented few famous and innovative ideas that gained popularity around the world like the concept of heroRATS (www.herorat.org), which uses rats to detect landmines in Africa; the Oscar programme of using football to make dropouts join school back and encouraging people to send their girl kids to school etc. He then introduced the Ashoka youth venture to the audience and explained how it works and what are the reasons behind the venture. With the help of a video he gave a summary of 5-10 projects  financed  by  the  venture.  He  concluded  by  terming  social  entrepreneurs  as  change makers and handed the stage to Mr Jerry, an alumnus from 1998 batch who started his own venture after passing out from GIM to share his success story.

Vikas Sharma, Co-Founder, Parichay

"I am a simple man. I have no rocket science." said Mr. Vikas Sharma of Parichay at Samriddhi ’09. A student of XLRI, Jamshedpur, he looks at social entrepreneurship as  a “profit oriented social model”. According to him, we all need to pitch in to carry out this sustainable venture. He insisted on standing up and doing something for what one believes in. Parichay works with four tribal families who make handicrafts with grassmat, bamboo , terracotta,  stonework  etc.  Parichay  has  close  affiliation  with  Samekit  Jan  Vikas  Kendra.  He showed the young MBA students various ways to start social entrepreneurship like deferred placements and side by jobs along with entrepreneurship. He enlightened us on how to market one’s  ideas,  how  to  act  strategically  and  how  to  optimally  use  the  resources  available.  He stressed the importance of establishing contacts like alumni, college professors etc. He gave an example of a GIM alumni who asked the professors to contribute for the starting capital to start his business and used the college library as his initial office. He also maintains contacts with his juniors of  XLRI and inspires the young students who are afraid of taking social entrepreneurship as their career due to “fear of failure” . He shared information on various policies and strategies adopted by him in Parichay and how to build your brand free of cost using social networking sites like  Orkut, Facebook and Linkedin. Since  press  coverage  is  useful  advertising,  he  stresses  on  the  importance  of maintaining good relations with the media. One lesson he taught was “Never commit” when you are not too sure about your plan. Marketing your business plan well is a very important factor while starting this venture. He used grassmat for his handicrafts which is available in abundance in Jamshedpur and is absolutely free. He got the building where his labourers work absolutely free by using his contacts. He himself used to design for Parichay to avoid paying expensive designers. Later he went for hiring interns from fashion designing colleges. This would help him in getting high quality products at minimal costs. He joked that his return on investment is infinite as his cost was almost zero (due to his strategic intelligent moves). Vikas Sharma’s speech went a long way in inspiring a lot of the students since he himself was a recent B-school graduate who listened to his heart and went on to make a difference with his initiative.

Pradeep Ghosh, Pioneer, Social Security Number Drive

Mr. Pradeep Ghosh, is one of the initiative takers in the implementation of the concept of Social Security Number assignment in the villages of India, much before the Government of India even  thought  of  implementing  it  nationwide.  He  in  his  speech  gave  many  insights  into  the implementation of the concepts and the rationale behind it. He mentioned that in the earlier times, a village was self sufficient. Right from a Pun dit to a school master and from a barber to a cobbler, every business used to reside in the village itself. Thus, the villagers hardly left the village on any work. This self sufficiency had in some way or the other contributed to the prosperity of India in history. Soon, as the cities started developing, the villagers moved out of the villages in search of better opportunities leading to villages being dependent  on  some  other  villages  for  certain  basic  services.  This  led  to  some  marketplace monopolies, leading to villagers becoming poorer. Mr. Pradeep is a founder member of the Organization for Awareness of Integrated Social Security (OASIS) which has been able to implement various initiatives at the grass root level one of which is backed by Government of India and three by other NGOs. OASIS stresses upon the concept of social security which deals with securing the financial status to meet unforeseen demands. The concept also talks about the safety net required by individuals for their well being. In the below poverty line population, the expenditure is more as compared to the  income.  This  predicament causes them to borrow money from the  money lenders. The money lenders levy high interest rates making it almost impossible for the villagers to pay back their debts. OASIS tried to find a way out of this vicious circle by making the villagers self sufficient. They provided basic capital to start some general stores in the villages. They also taught them the basic business processes. They taught the villagers how  to go about producing certain basic products. This saved them the commission to be paid to district level shopkeepers for buying these products. The local shops also ensured the best quality without any adulteration. As the shops progressed in the businesses, the people earned more money and villagers were able to get the employment from the village itself. This served to stop the exodus to cities. The   profits   from  the   shops   so  established  were   being  used  as  salaries  for  the shopkeepers, with some of it being ploughed back into the business again. The remaining was used for the social security purposes where the money was invested into an insurance scheme selected by the villagers themselves for their own benefit. The villagers were then given cards based on the ration cards provided by the Government of India, thus making it possible for a villager to avail the services if he changed his place from one village to other. Mr. Pradeep concluded his speech by stressing upon the youth to take up such initiative s. He mentioned that there has always been enough scope for the entrepreneurs in India and there have been ample opportunities too.   The only thing needed was to have the mindset to break free from the existing systems and start something new.

Dr. Ashwin Nayak, Founder, Vaatsalya Healthcare Pvt. Ltd.

Dr. Ashwin Nayak is the founder of Vaatsalya Healthcare Pvt. Ltd. He began his speech by revealing that while 70% of India is living in semi-urban and rural areas, 80% of India’s healthcare facilities  are  located  in  urban/metro  areas.  This  is  why  Vaatsalya  came  into  existence.  The Vaatsalya  hospitals  are  located  in  remote  locations  in  Karnataka.  These  hospitals  focus  on primary   and   secondary   healthcare.   Basic   specialties   at   each   hospital   include   pediatrics, gynecology, medicine, surgery and physiotherapy. According to Dr. Nayak, while starting a venture, the most important thing to be noticed is  the  pain  point  which  can  be  addressed.  Then  small  experiments  are  carried  on  and  it  is observed as to which plan works. The next challenging step is to keep the plan working. Vaatsalya, whose original model came about in 2004, is no longer a startup company. It is now in its growth stage. Now that it has stabilized, the organization is focusing on how to put their team, systems and processes in place and to recruit enthusiastic MBA graduates. It intends to have clear 3-year and 5-year plans. So there has been a fundamental shift from the planning stage to the execution stage. Addressing the challenge of how they recruit competent, qualified doctors to move into small towns and villages, Dr. Nayak said that their strategy was to attract doctors with the help of guilt, greed and fear. They make a pitch to only candidates who they think would be a fit for the job. Thus they approach young doctors who are from these locations and are working in bigger cities. Dr.  Nayak  also  said  that  when  one  starts  out  with  an  idea,  there  are  bound  to  be challenges, but one has to find a way around them. Over 4 years Vaatsalya has figured out for itself what works for it and what doesn’t. It plans to expand to 25 locations over the next 3 years and provide affordable services in an efficient and friendly environment.

Samriddhi-2009 website

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Goans should contribute to achieve superpower status: CM, HERALD, Sep 1st 2009, Pg 4. CM inaugurates GIM's 'Samriddhi' national conference, GOMANTAK TIMES, Aug 30th 2009 Pg 4. Every state can play pivotal role in India's progress, says Kamat, THE NAVHIND TIMES, Aug 30th 2009, Pg 3. Protect land to safeguard identity : Kamat, TOI, Aug 30th 2009 Pg 3. Kamat demands funds in proportion to development, Herald, Aug 30th 2009, Pg 3. Gomantak, Aug 30th 2009, Pg 9. Lokmat, Aug 30th 2009, Pg 9. Sunaparant, Aug 30th 2009, Pg 3. Tarun Bharat, Aug 30th 2009, Pg 3. Finding Solutions for Industrial Growth, The Navhind Times, Aug 28th 2009, Pg 8.

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