Leadership through entrepreneurship

Having the leadership skills to transition between entrepreneurship and employment are important.

May 08, 2016 05:00 pm | Updated 05:00 pm IST

Dr. Pathik Pathak

Dr. Pathik Pathak

India has seen a rapid rise in social entrepreneurship. Dr. Pathik Pathak, Director of Social Enterprise at University of Southampton, U.K., and the founding director of its Social Impact Lab, visited IIT Madras recently to launch the UK-India Social Enterprise Education Network (UKISEEN). The network is a collaboration of best teaching methodologies and approaches in social entrepreneurship between the U.K. and Indian universities. In this interview, he speaks about the importance of social entrepreneurship education, employment opportunities in the sector and more. Excerpts…

What is social entrepreneurship? What is its relevance in today’s scenario?

Social entrepreneurship involves tackling social problems through business practices. It’s very different from entrepreneurship because its intentions and outcome are for social benefit. Fundamentally, it’s about using entrepreneurship and innovation to drive social change.

Social entrepreneurship is important because it gives students a unique skill-set. It teaches them about entrepreneurship, innovation, collaboration, working across different sectors and geographical areas, among other things. It is all about tackling global challenges, for which one has to understand them in their physical manifestations. We think that social entrepreneurship is a catalyst for producing the graduates that the world needs. This is why so many universities in India have embraced social entrepreneurship; not just IIT Madras, but universities from other States as well, such as the University of Kerala, OP Jindal University, Tata Institute of Social Sciences and IIM Ahmedabad.

Tell us about UKISEEN. What are its goals?

It is a project funded by the British Council and a collaboration between the University of Southampton and IIT Madras to work on social entrepreneurship education. It involves universities collaborating to understand the best practices in social entrepreneurship education and exchanging ideas. There are two levels to the collaboration — at the faculty level and student level. We have scheduled specific sessions for students to share their social entrepreneurship experiences at their universities.

How can universities cultivate leadership through social entrepreneurship?

Employability is all about leadership now. We are coming to realise that universities’ role includes more than merely educating students. Social entrepreneurship helps students inculcate innovation and creative skills. Fundamentally, it is about problem-solving, which is what leadership is all about as well. Besides, regardless of the profession you enter, you need to be entrepreneurial. And even if you are an entrepreneur, you may not be one for life. Companies go bust and start again; you may be an entrepreneur for a few years and then become an employee somewhere else.

What does the Social Impact Lab at the University of Southampton do?

Our lab is now four-years-old and our objective is to promote social entrepreneurship throughout our university. Social entrepreneurship is similar to the other things we do such as research in enterprises, so it crosses subjects. We have large suite of programmes, some within the curriculum. We have the U.K.’s first pan-university social entrepreneurship course, the first postgraduate pathway in social entrepreneurship and a very large suite of international programmes. We conduct the international social innovation challenge series, which we ran with OP Jindal University last year. We also conduct the Spark India programme, which we ran with IIM Ahmedabad in 2014 and are running this year with TISS.

What are the employment opportunities in this sector?

There is also a huge ecosystem; so you don’t necessarily have to become a social entrepreneur. One can go and work in the social investment space. Social investment, globally as well as in India, is a fast growing sector. There are a lot of hubs that support social entrepreneurship, such as the Sankalp Forum. Another indirect way is that it gives them the skills to go into the workforce and become leaders. Productivity, globally, is in a bit of a crisis, so it is always good to have new ideas and businesses and we also need people who can make ideas work.

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