Sociopreneurs – Heralding a New Era of Entrepreneurship Date:   Thursday , October 01, 2009 ‘Entrepreneurs worship Dollars and Ideas’ is a common saying and the entrepreneurs in India are tagging the social aspect on to it. The profit-making paradigm holds tight, while they delve in ideas to serve a social cause; in short they are sociopreneurs. ‘Societal acts’ of entrepreneurs normally paint a picture of the philanthropic donations made by the leaders of the IT bellwethers like Wipro, Infosys, and TCS. The new entrepreneurs are no philanthropists, yet their entrepreneurial exploits are framed to benefit some sections of the society. Empowering the blind to get their foothold in the IT industry or penetrating to the rural segments for employment generation, the CXOs have accessed all segments to keep the revenues flowing, while achieving their objectives. “The visually impaired people have a very high typing speed and Sarthak will nurture their skill through adequate training and will expose them to the IT sector,” says Ranjan Chopra, an engineer from IIT-Kanpur who is currently the Chairman and Managing Director of Team Computers. The company has launched Sarthak, a career centric computer-training project for the visually impaired. The healthcare segment has also unveiled varied opportunities for these sociopreneurs. People in the remote pockets of India can access their health reports on the Web, while for health checks the service comes to the doorstep, all at some cost. “The current focus for the new venture should be the healthcare and education segments. The lifestyle of the people forces them to minimize their health improvement efforts, which provides a better opportunity to bet on and also help in solving the major unemployment issue,” says Vikram Suri, a budding entrepreneur. Suri plans for his own healthcare-focused firm within the next three months. In the science and technology base, it’s the nano-technology, which has aroused interest among research groups and entrepreneurs to tweak the chemical reactions that would bring about a revolution in households, work stations, and even in agriculture. “The nano concept has been explored in electronics; however, the same concept with some R&D spending could have nullified the destruction of crops in times of drought or flood,” says Puneet Mehrotra, Founder and Director, Nano Science & Technology Consortium (NSTC). Ideas Abound, Takers Few The socio-entrepreneurial trend is yet to find acceptance among the investors and the industry big wigs, as experimental ideas are few and rarely encouraged in proven sectors. There are various government allocations towards sectors like nano-technology. However, these allocations mostly remain in policy documents rather than in actual implementation. Explaining the VC scenario, Bala Deshpande, Senior Managing Director, NEA says, “The venture capital (VC) industry in India is still in a very nascent stage, and any unexplored idea takes more than five years to come live.” This also explains why India has had no Google yet. The industry biggies do not see social entrepreneurship as an option for budding entrepreneurs. They see it more relevant for people who have already successfully established their ventures. Amidst the reluctance, it’s the serial entrepreneurs who stand a chance to be successful sociopreneurs. As a new beginner, the knowledge of the market and the scalable opportunities is limited. A few successful ventures stand testimony to the largely unexplored opportunities as investors too gain confidence on the entrepreneurs and start delving into societal ideas. Budding Entrepreneurs: the All-time Enthusiasts The VCs censure the ideas for their lack of interest in the novel vision of entrepreneurs; yet the bunch of budding industry leaders are keen to blossom as sociopreneurs. MBAs and IITians, who attended the TiEcon 2009 conference in Delhi cribbed about the limited funding interest of the VCs. However, they are hell-bent on building the economy through their share of social ideas. The Finance Minister P. Chidambaram rightly prodded the entrepreneurs when he said, “Entrepreneurs translate ideas into practical form, through creating and sharing wealth.”