Three like-minded friends emerged as one of the six winning teams in the Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSE) Programme 2017 for pitching their social enterprise concept at Singapore recently.
Hosted by Singapore International Foundation, a non-profit organisation that aims to harness relationships between Singaporeans and world communities for a societal change, the YSE programme had 16 teams from eight countries present their business ideas that would bring about change in community. Of the six international teams chosen as winners and receive 20,000 Singapore dollars as seed funding, two teams were from India.
Winning ideas
For one of the teams, it all started with a casual conversation about a tribal community collecting honey from the Western Ghats of Kolhapur, Maharashtra, risking their lives only to fetch low returns.
“A friend introduced me to honey collected by a tribal community in 2013 and sought my help. I found that they risked their lives while collecting honey and the quality quickly deteriorated due to inefficient extraction method. Two friends, Abhishek Sharma and Harikrishnan Santhosh joined me to work with tribes to collect, process, and sell natural honey from the forests,” said Chaitanya Powar, managing director of Auctorem Solutions.
Aptly named ‘Auctorem Solutions’ — meaning pathfinder in Latin — the social enterprise by the alumni of Institute of Rural Management Anand, Gujarat, has managed to earn double the price for the 190 tribal families in seven villages. “We plan to use the 20,000 Singapore dollars to set up a processing unit and launch their own brand,” he said.
For Lakshya Jeevan Jagriti based in New Delhi, a sample survey on what contributes to children’s quality education led to their enterprise that aims to enhance the literacy level and IT skills of women. Minakshi Thakur of Lakshya Jeevan Jagriti, which was the other winner, said “Our venture aimed at changing the mindset of women in the age group of 25-35 years and boost their education and IT skills. We have managed to reach out to 1,800 women through leadership workshops conducted with a nominal fee. While 63% of them have taken up jobs, 15 % are pursuing higher studies.”
After an eight-month journey that included mentorship and overseas study visit, 16 teams comprising 37 young social entrepreneurs were shortlisted for ‘Pitching for Change 2017’ of YSE Programme. They were from a pool of 138 participants from countries including Australia, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand.
Two other Indian teams — Dhaan, which aims to open grain banks and ensure food security, and Wow Foundation that plans to provide eco-friendly solid waste management services — also pitched their ideas.
SIF sieved through 600 applications last year from which 63 teams were chosen for the YSE programme.
Martin Ng, Head, Good Business, SIF, said, “Since its inception in 2010, the programme has trained about 750 YSE alumni and tapped their potential to bring social change. We look at the sustainability of the business model too. Nearly 60% of the winning teams are running th
The correspondent was on a Social Enterprise Journalist Visit Programme to Singapore hosted by Singapore International Foundation.
