2000 entrepreneurs spawn under Lakshmi Venkatesan
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 17 November 2009, 20:11 IST   |    5 Comments
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2000 entrepreneurs spawn under Lakshmi Venkatesan
Chennai: Bharatiya Yuva Shakti Trust (BYST), a non-profit organization, aims to support 5,000 entrepreneurial ventures in the next five years. The organization was formed in 1992 by Lakshmi Venkatesan, who is its Founding Trustee and Executive Vice-President. In the past 17 years the trust has helped some 2,000 entrepreneurs - 25 percent of them women - who have created 25,000 jobs. It is not money alone that will solve entrepreneurs' problems, also guidance and hand-holding are the key elements, said Lakshmi. Her goal is to support 5,000 entrepreneurs in the next five years. The trust has over 3,000 volunteers (called mentors), mainly from small and medium enterprises (SMEs), who have come together to help their colleagues, reports Business Standard. The trust has roped in Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as a strategic partner and several industry leaders on its board. It was mainly created to empower young and micro-entrepreneurs, who are disadvantaged, and integrate them into the economic mainstream, said Lakshmi. The inspiration to start the trust came to Lakshmi after she met Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, when she accompanied her father, then President of India R. Venkatraman, to London. "I was inspired by the foundation run by the Prince of Wales, which was mentoring school drop-outs to equip them with skills and work experience," she added. After returning to India, she set up a similar organization, and the first person to back her was JRD Tata, who joined the founding board. BYST works with people in the 18-35 age group, who are either unemployed or underemployed, but have sound and imaginative business ideas, along with the will to succeed. The trust has adopted two models of mentoring - one-to-one mentoring and mobile mentor clinics. BYST also provides loans through its growth fund. The size of the fund is currently $2.5 million, with the International Finance Corporation (IFC) providing seed funding of $0.50 million. The Small Industries Development Bank of India and high net worth individuals contributed $1 million each. Another $2.5 million is likely to be injected, said Lakshmi. The fund will invest equity in the business ventures of 10 young entrepreneurs. Two public sector banks - Indian Bank and Bank of Baroda - have also come forward to fund these entrepreneurs up to 50 lakh.

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