Eco-preneurial approaches can transform social imagination

The Indian society is becoming aspirational, entrepreneurial, and also more accommodative of new social and economic experiments for changing everyday life experience of the masses. When socio-economic transition takes place, a lot of values come in conflict, some for good, some for bad. The social inclusion is one such issue, which is receiving heightened attention from many entrepreneurs. Disadvantaged people are not willing to remain neglected any further. Their restiveness is a challenge to all those who want to design inclusive business models. The social conflicts among those who wish to maintain the old semi-feudal order and others from oppressed classes who want to aspire, compete and be treated at par with the rest is a signal that can be ignored at our own peril.

Widening the entrepreneurial space can transform the arena of conflicts from socio-cultural space to competition in economic and market space. Dalit Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry led by Milind Kamble has tried to achieve that. Telangana Municipal Administration and Urban Development ministry provided 70 jetti machines costing Rs 20 crore to safai karmacharis, with State Bank of India providing Rs 20 lakh loan and Dalit manual scavengers putting Rs 6 lakh from their side. The state government intends to put numerous deaths in the last few years behind with often no compensation to family of victims or arrest of contractors. Ten thousand scavengers are being converted into entrepreneurs. I hope Gujarat and other state governments are listening.

While talking to the passing out batch of EDI students at their 19th convocation, I reminded them of how some of their seniors had demonstrated that when one hires disadvantaged, specially-abled people in one's enterprise, one can improve productivity and customer satisfaction. Reaching the unreached through finance, education, employment, new skills etc, is the need of the hour. But can innovations by common people, grassroots communities, students and others be used to create a new India?

When SRISTI had set up GIAN (Gujarat Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network) in collaboration with the Gujarat government in 1997, such was the hope. It was realised that transaction costs of bringing innovators, investors and entrepreneurs together has to be minimised by an intermediary organisation. That's how GIAN became the country's first incubator for the purpose and in fact shared the best incubator award with IIT-Madras at the hands of the former President, Bharat Ratna, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam, 2002.

How do we build upon this model to achieve what my esteemed friend, prof Mohd Yunus calls as three ZEROS: zero poverty, zero unemployment and zero pollution. Let me share a six point strategy for transcending the frontiers of frugal innovation through inclusive development.

The first step is to spread the belief: that change is possible, it cannot wait, it has to begin now, and with me. Unless we give way to cynical cribbing culture (so rampant on social media) with attempts to engage with the wicked problems of our society through action-research mode, we will not be able to get out of the self-defeating discourse. We need to generate new models of social, cultural, economic and ecological enterprises with an impatient attitude and agile support system.

Step two is for young people to exercise a choice between two roads of inertia and innovations, first is safe, will take you somewhere you know; second, is risky and difficult but will take you where nobody might have gone.

The third step is that innovations don't have legs and hands; they need to be coupled with investment and an enterprise by an empathetic and inclusive support system. Ganga ben had shown a new way back in 1898 when she published a book, Hunnar Mahasagar-2080 Recipes for Relf-Rmployment. She was few years ahead of Gandhiji in this regard. SRISTI Innovations has reprinted this book in Hindi and Gujarati.

In step four, we need to ensure that the four vectors of a healthy ecosystem of social entrepreneurship are brought together: improving access of entrepreneurs/start-ups to resources, institutions, technology and culturally inclusive platforms. Assurances must be provided that supportive policy and institutional system will prevail. Good ethical practices will be rewarded to foster collective action in support of a compliant and cooperative industrial clusters. Historical advantage to those who cut corners will not happen anymore. The ability or skills will be upgraded so that new technologies are used and state/industry associations provide common facilities, acquire IP-protected solutions and make them open source. The training and educational institutions equip the workers and leaders of new enterprises with skills to use them.

In step five, the five virtues of creativity, compassion, collaboration/co-creation, circularity and convergence must become the operating mantra of a new socio-ecological and economic industrial order.

Step six should be the overcoming six sources of exclusion over space, season/time, sector, skills, social and structural or in governance. Next week, I will explain how we can operationalise the six step strategy for inclusive entrepreneurial/start-up revolution to overcome rising social inequity and imbalance among the aspirations of the haves and have nots.

The author is founder of Honey Bee Network & visiting faculty at IIM-A
anilgb@gmail.com