Moving to Wordpress

To ease complications in following my writings, I centralized all my blogs - SocietyForward, ScorpioSaga and Harisays... at one place - Harisays... 

Do continue to be my patron and visit my Blog. 

Going forward, if you are providing a link to my writing, do point it to the new blog/my HomePage.

Independence Day

India, today is celebrating 60 years of independence. Is that old or young? If we look at the average life god has given a human being, then we need to say that the country has just attained Senior Citizenship status. But, as the country is made when mother earth is born, I don't think we can even say our country is even an infant :)

What has been good?
- Liberalization
- Globalization
- Quality of Life

What needs to improve?
- Education
- HealthCare
- Sense of Ownership

I will write more in detail on the points above in my following posts, but for today, I would stop here, praying to God to give peace and prosperity to each and every one living on this planet :)

Conversations - Part 1

Recently, I was having discussion with Dr B.V.Parameswara Rao, founder of Bhagavatula Charitable Trust. We were discussing on Social Entrepreneurship and tried to address two areas - Micro Financing, involvement of Technology in Rural Development.

Micro-Financing
Dr. Rao feels that this has changed the life of a farmer. This is just not helping him to come out of his miseries, however adding to them. Why? Micro-Financing is providing loans to the poor to help enable them to spend more. What is happening here is, instead of providing avenues for the farmer to add more money to his savings, we are drastically increasing his financial burden. Until recently, if he earns Rs. 10 / Day, his expenses were nearly Rs. 8 and at least on an average, he would save Rs. 2. But, with micro-financing coming in, now he need not run behind banks for a loan. Loans from these institutions come a bit conveniently and add up to his burden. As his loans are increasing, his savings are coming down (Micro-financing institutions also have their eligibility criteria which take care of over-burdening too)

Moving away from Farming
Today, there are many farmers who are selling their land and moving to towns nearby for more money. If on an average, a farmer earns Rs. 40 per day from the crop he has brought up, today, he is working as a daily wage laborer for around Rs. 60. He is looking at the Rs. 20 which he earns more than his usual earning which comes only after he sells the crop, but he is not looking at what he is loosing. If this continues to grow, then one day we will definitely be short of food grains to eat and this would impact one and all.

So, what can be done different to help?
We would need to educate and help rural citizens to realize what they can do and provide a helping hand for the work they would do. We need to tune them to help themselves instead of showing them the colours of easy money. This would have a deep impact on them as an individual and also help strengthen the economy.

Government should only do Governance!
An interesting and very simple thought. We have Government to streamline various activities and provide support to public needs. However, today, Government is getting into various activities and diluting the main cause of its existence. If the Government can concentrate on streamlining funds, providing support to its public by strategic investments, it would help benefit the society.

Education
When China decided to concentrate on providing education for all, it had a very good foresight. During that time, they ensured that every citizen of their country is educated which would over a period of time ensure 100% employment which would strengthen their economy.

Today, in India we have a good education system in place - Right from the Government Primary Education centers to pursuing high degrees. However, there are challenges which are obstructing the quality of education. As an example, today, for 4 teachers appointed in schools at the Primary Education Centers, only 2 are available.


Spend Time in Villages
Today, we have quite-a-few people who live in towns/cities who are showing interest in contributing to provide support to the rural poor. The best way to solve or address rural problems is to understand the actual life of people in villages. We need to spend time with them in person to understand the problem and provide required support.

Note: Thoughts and views mentioned above are purely of my choice. There is no correlation to any activities which happen today or any organizations which participate in any of the above mentioned activities.

Social Entrepreneurship...

1. What is Social Entrepreneurship?

• Entrepreneurship for a cause, contributing to uplifting standard of living.
  It is your regular business model with Profits and Losses - You can be rich and well established too!!!
• Aim is to create a product/service which is 'purely' for social benefit.
  

2. What are the various areas? (In broad terms, to begin with)

• HealthCare
• Education

These two are primary requirements of any society. If these are available, then many other aspects can be addressed - Poverty, Quality of life etc.

3. How can individuals come together?

• People with common thoughts and chosen area to establish an organization.
• Commitment to enhance Quality of Life.

4. Is there a difference between Entrepreneurship Vs. Social Entrepreneurship?

• Desire to be an Entrepreneur with a difference while doing your regular work! - You need not give up your regular job, and still be an entrepreneur of your choice marking a difference...
• Changing the way we live...

Getting together

To bring people who are interested in innovating to change the way we live, I have created a new group - www.groups.yahoo.com/group/SocietyForward. Do come and join and let us work towards making this world a better place to live.

Entrepreneurship is Attitude

So, what does it take to be an Entrepreneur?

Is it so very simple? Ofcourse, Yes. But there are parameters for consideration.

E - Energetic
N - Neutral
T - Tough
R - Romantic
E - Elaborative
P - Passionate
R - Researcher
E - Empowered
N - Novice
E - Enterprising
U - Understanding
R - Rich

Energetic - Need to have energy to face failure.
Neutral - Never get carried away, you need to always be on ground to take off.
Tough - When the going gets tough, the tough gets going.
Romatic - Need to Romance with your Passion.
Elaborative - If you cant be straight forward, then the road ahead is bumpy.
Passionate - Eat, Sleep, Drink only your thoughts.
Researcher - Only when you explore, do you succeed.
Empowered - Empower yourself with Passion.
Novice - Because, every day is a new day.
Enterprising - Because, every day you need to be creative.
Understanding - If you cannot understand others, you can never solve their problem.
Rich - Attitude, Passion and Committment to Succeed.

Global Poverty

More than one billion people around the world live on less than one dollar a day. Poverty, however, means more than low income. Poverty results in child mortality, hungry people, and can lead to the oppression of women:

The poorest countries have infant mortality rates above 20%. Two million children die each year of dehydration from diarrhea. Another two million children die annually from pertussis, polio, diphtheria, tetanus, and measles. Three million more children die each year from bacterial pneumonia. Several hundred million children suffer annually from intestinal parasites. And according to the World Human Rights Guide, no country with a Gross Domestic Product in the bottom fifth globally has achieved social and economic equality for women.

Can we as a society do anything for this? I am quite sure, that we might not be able to do anything and everything for all people around the world, but my only thought is that if we could do anything for people around us? I only quoted this para because it matches with our objective taking this society forward.

Any ideas and suggestions as to how we can mark a difference????

A genuine beginning...?

Part 1
Since the time I started my career, I had one point clear in my mind - I want to do something different. What is 'Different' and how do I understand that this is different?
Day's passed by and a couple of years back, I have decided that I would want to do something different in area which touch's each one's life - HealthCare.
Now that I decided on the area, what to do next is the major question. I had loads of thoughts passing by, but nothing concreate or meaningful.
A year-and-half back, I was reading a book - Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, by Dr.C.K.Prahalad. I have heard about him earlier, but I have not read any of his papers/articles/books. I started reading and to my suprize, I finished the book in a month's time (I understand this is long, but its short for me!). This is quite a different book - a compilation of case studies (probably we can call them short-true stories). These case studies are different. How are they different and what are the case studies are best understood in the book rather than on this blog :)
One of the case studies has given me a pointer to start framing my idea. After about a years work on the key points, Manish (my friend who shares a similar passion) and myself came out with a Business Plan.
In Feb 2006, we registered our Organization.
We took part in in two Business Plan competitions and we did recieve a good rating for our plan, but our implementation model was not well appreciated.

Part 2
With our implementation model not being practical enough, we have dediced to take things a bit slow. We concentrated on our regular jobs and have been quite busy.
Recently, I came across http://BarCamp.org (Read about this in Oct 2 issue of Business World) and quite impressed. I have decided that we should take our idea to this forum. Am looking forward for the next BarCamp in/around Bangalore.

Before I Begin...

As I mentioned above, this blog is dedicated all people around the globe inspired to change the way we live through entrepreneruship (any kind, this is the broadest term I could find).
I will post here my ideas and all kinds of information I find and pointers to people and organizations which share the similar passion.
My sincere request for readers of this blog is - share your information and write to me if I can be of any help to your aspirations.
Probably, if we live near to each other, we can also meet...