The national conference on social entrepreneurship being held at XlRI has brought the young entrepreneurs to share the knowledge and experiences of socially conscious enthusiasts.
The theme for this year is ‘Young Change makers: Youth as Social Entrepreneurs’. This conference is being organised under the aegis of Fr Arrupe Centre for Ecology and Sustainability and SIGMA (Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance).
Fr Abraham, Director XlRI inaugurated the conference while citing the Mahatma Gandhi’s golden words “Be the change you wish to see in this world”. Prof Madhukar Shukla took this initiative to remind all the participants of the rationale of social entrepreneurship.
He compared the social incubation ecology to that of weakly developed environment with high mortality rate, where most of the initiatives die before reaching maturity. The highlight of the inauguration was the sharing of experience between grassroots change makers and youth leaders.
Ajay Murmu, a local youth leader works relentlessly for the betterment of the students in schools and computer education delivered a lecture on the various problems of the local community. Jagdish, a student from XIMB, shared his experience of starting his own venture while in college that helped villagers understand Internet and mobile technology.
Shruti Parija, a TISS Graduate, who works with Gram Vikas and is associated with Odisha livelihood Mission and Yasmin Sharma, a student of XISS — both emphasised on the potential of youth and how their mindset has changed after getting a glimpse of the real problems of society.
The three speakers beautifully justified the theme of this event. Ashraf Patel, co-founder and director of Pravah advocated for 5th Space, a platform where youngsters come together and perform grassroots activities. Rahul Nainwal, co-founder, iVolunteer and India Fellowship, talked about a unique initiative in which 14 Indian fellows are selected for one and a half year leadership programme.
Finally Anshu Gupta, founder director of Goonj put forth a strong case for the need of ground level implementation of youth driven projects. He opined that currently it is one’s compulsion rather than a choice to give back to the society. The war of changing the society starts with winning the battle of improving the society first.