WEF Tech Pioneers 2007

Recently, i was going through the World Economic Forum's Technology Pioneers 2007 list which has been published. This list is published every year recognizing the most innovative enterprises around the world. The list is very interesting and gives us an overview of the organization selected and the reason as to why the organization is listed. 

I am very happy, impressed and also sad to see only 1 organization from India made it to the list - Drishtee. Now, what does Drishtee do and why are they different? 

Dristee is a rural network for delivering information services to Villages, using an electronic information kiosk, known as Drishtee Soochnalaya. These kiosks are run by local entrepreneurs who charge residents for access. 

Changing lives in rural India is no small Vision and it needs loads of dedication to be able to achieve it. Drishtee is very strong in its Vision and has gone past various milestones in the last Seven Years of inception. 

What Does Drishtee do?

The organization has categorized itself into various aspects, but the punch-line is that it is concentrating in providing self-employment to rural entrepreneurs and also providing opportunity for the rural population to have access to the latest information. 

Drishtee's initiation spreads into Education, HealthCare, Employment Generation, Women Empowerment and Micro-Finance. 

KickStart.In

Off-late, "Entrepreneurship" has received a lot of attention. Not that this was non-existent earlier, it is just getting the correct momentum in countries like India. 

Recently, a young and self-motivated team has stepped up to create a platform for showcasing entrepreneurial ideas and promoting Entrepreneurship - KickStart.In

KickStart is a not-for-profit organization aimed at promoting Entrepreneurship. The team is young, energetic and comprised of Entrepreneurs, Professionals, Academicians and Entrepreneur-wannabe's. 

What does KickStart do?

Interesting question - we search for ways and avenues to show-case entrepreneurship and provide as much support as we can, to help people with Entrepreneurial spirit show-case themselves to the world. 

In this regard, KickStart is organizing HeadStart, a mega event on the 18th, 19th and 20th January 2008 at Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore in association with Association for Computing Machinery, (ACM) a world renowned organization. 

HeadStart

Imagine this - you have a great idea and have been working on it for quite some time. You went around trying to get the best of the feedback before you put in your life time into it. Getting a genuine feedback and commendable recognition is the most difficult part. You have questions on the integrity of people whom you approach and also the knowledge they might have in understanding what you would want to do. You also would like to share your idea with people just incase if anyone would want to fund you in anyway to get your idea rolling. 

All the above are thoughts of a entrepreneur in making and wishing for a miracle to happen. We went through all these in our lives (if not all, most of the team members) and do understand that there needs to be a honest platform which needs to be created. KickStart was born with this thought in mind. With our experiences, we wanted to at least help people around us and want to ensure that you do not go through the same pain again and again, instead work on refining your idea. 

HeadStart is a three day conference where we are inviting Entrepreneurs, Academicians, Industry Leaders, Venture Capitalists and Students. 

During the conference, you will have opportunity to showcase your "working model" and share your idea with people around. 

How do you show-case your "working model"?

The process is easy - Visit our website - www.HeadStart.in, and Nominate Your Product; It's that simple. We have an eminent panel who are ready to share their valuable time to go through your nomination. The panel is the ultimate authority to short list nominations which will be allowed to show case during the event. 

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead and be part of HeadStart. 

Corporates addressing Social Concerns

Reliance Industries now wants to enter into HealthCare working on developing 1500 Primary HealthCare Centers (PHC) in-line with the Government Health System in India.

Reliance would want to Invest Rs.25,000 Crores into this venture. In the article, there is a questions which has been put across whether this would fit into the Corporate responsibility or is there a business angle to it?

I feel that there is corporate touch to each aspect of service anywhere in this world. Probably, the NGO segment does not fall into this, but even NGO's work towards creating a model for self-sustainence and longitivity of the organization. So, will this work?

My opnion is that these kind of initiatives will definitely work, and especially, when corporates this big would want to venture into social problem related areas, there would be a huge impact on people. However, corporates venturing into Social problems need to have a different strategy while working on solutions. Traditionally, corporate thinking is different from a common man's thought process. Here are few pro's and con's of corporate involvement in social aspects:

Positives

1. Initiatives are well marketed - People know about big organization and tend to look at what they are trying to do and play a role in it.
2. Financial Strength - Organizations have good money and they are ready to take the risk of investing and taking risks.
3. Management ability - Experienced people have good understanding of basic problems and hence they can manage solutions effectively.

Need Attention

1. Organizations need to involve well-known and respected personalities who have worked/have been working in solving social problems. Having respective background knowledge would be a huge advantage.
2. Corporates should not give/create their own direction to solutions of these problems, instead work in association with Government and people who are experienced in the respective fields.

This is a good change in thinking of corporates, I hope this goes in a good and meaningful direction.

Online Grievances in India

Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances which falls under the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions has initiated the Online Public Grievance Lodging and Monitoring System which you could use to record any of your grievances to the Government.

India is truly developing and these are small steps to reach there. So, next time when you have a concern, try this. You don't know, it might just work.

Ashoka

www.ashoka.org - an organization dedicated to encourage and support Social Entrepreneurship around the Globe.

Ashoka supports Social Entrepreneurship in three ways - Supporting Social Entrepreneurs, Promoting Group Entrepreneurship and Building infrastructure for the Sector.

It is a very interesting site and any one who think on these lines should visit.

Social Entrepreneurship Competition

'Genesis' is a Social Entrepreneurship Competition collectively brought in by TCS, IIT Madras and MIT to come up with innovative ideas which are socially relevent and feasible.

http://www.genesis.iitm.ac.in/ - Go check it out....