We were invited to talk to students of entrepreneurship at Christ College, Bangalore on Social Entrepreneurship. Vartika Jaini, Founder Vriddhi and our farmer partner Pramod Mahanta, Founder of Pramod hi tech nursery and farm, shared their insights with students. The interactive session was a dialogue with students on what is the space for social enterprise? With different examples we discussed what is and what is not a social enterprise. A question could not be covered- is Gulabi gang a social enterprise! The space for social enterprises as between market and civil society, where the state plays a promotional role at best.
We then shared the journeys of Vriddhi and Pramod nursery. Vartika shared how the first two years were invested in listening and understanding the needs, but also possibly unlearning and letting go of some assumptions. Today farmer users check for market prices for reference before deciding to sell, when earlier they just compared between available offers. Pramod shared his personal story of getting into agriculture and then setting up of the nursery. His work has brought about a change in behaviour where almost 80% of farmers around his nursery now buy vegetable seedlings, reducing their losses and increasing their chances of success. We agreed that social entrepreneurship was a process of social change. It was slow, deliberate and needed perseverance to continue.
The need for focus on client centricity for success, quality of service that builds trust and relationship with one’s clients came out in both journeys. We closed with good wishes being exchanged! We also offered to run panels of community leaders with students for future courses!
It was a bi-lingual session and Webex was a challenge to install and work via Pramod’s computer. Finally his phone worked! We struggled with the technology, a reminder that all is not equal. Students who didn’t follow Hindi, followed the translation on chat. Students participated mostly on chat and speaking up, sharing their opinions and questions.
Vartika wrote about her experience on her personal blog. Pramod said he got to think more about social entrepreneurship and it has stirred some ideas in him on how to see his own initiative and work.
