Beyond “teaching a man how to fish…”

My first brush with business was at the age 11, when I started selling stickers/posters in school. It was a great experience, although short-lived, and I regard it a milestone as I realized what I wanted to be when I “grow up!”

At the age of 15, I started working on environmental projects in Kolkata. This was another great experience, the summary of which can be found here, where we had to come up with revenue-generating projects to support our numerous activities.

I realized that entrepreneurship was probably the best solution to address most of our social concerns. Personally, I am not attracted to NGOs as most of them are unsustainable (lack of funds, inefficient) in the long run and hence have a high mortality rate.

To understand the intricacies of setting up an enterprise and running it, I organized a 40-hr entrepreneurship workshop for students in my university. It was conducted by I Create Inc. – a non-profit entrepreneurship training institute and was sponsored by Merrill Lynch. This workshop helped me develop the business ideas that I had researched, into concrete business plans with a clear methodology, and short- and long-term goals among other aspects.

Accordingly to me, a business plan is truly sustainable only when it addresses both environmental and social issues, and is also profitable. Hence, we added this new component of “sustainable entrepreneurship,” in our course which was much appreciated by the participants.

My business plan was awarded the best business plan and model in the most prestigious national (India) competition in this field. I was also honoured as a Young Global Entrepreneur by Goldman Sachs at an event organized by NFTE (USA) in New York earlier this year.
In this part of the country, most youth prefer taking up jobs than starting a business. When surveyed, it was revealed that this trend is mostly due to a negative perception about the hardships involved in starting an enterprise. Hence, we put the students directly in touch with the government officials who are responsible for supporting small enterprises (these officials take a few classes too). They apprised them about the tax breaks, logistical support, office space and other such benefits that the government provides such enterprises, especially if it is located in backward areas, which was (as expected!) unknown to all.

Of course, we do not expect every participant to start an enterprise but we hope that at the end of the workshop, they will develop an ‘entrepreneurial’ attitude. This is beyond the cliché of “teaching a man how to fish…”. This is more important, as even employees need to discover opportunities and make the most of it for their employers, so that they remain employed!

Inspired by the workshop, last October we started a “campus-company” which is a for-profit social start-up called Climate Smart Entrepreneurs Alliance. It is a company for entrepreneurs only!