XLRI to host 4th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship

Updated on: Thursday, December 15, 2011

XLRI School of Business and Human Resources, Jamshedpur is organizing the 4th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship from 27th January to 29th January 2012 at the Campus.

The theme of this years National Conference is Entrepreneurship for Rural Revival and it seeks to create a platform to explore the opportunities and challenges for social entrepreneurship ventures in rural sector.

This is the 4th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship to be organized by Social Initiative Group for Managerial Assistance (SIGMA), under the aegis of Fr Arrupe Centre for Ecology and Sustainability, XLRI.

This year the conference will comprise of the following panel sessions: Rural Revival: Opportunities & Challenges, Technology, Development & Inclusion, Models of Sustainable Farming, Solutions for Rural Healthcare, Innovations in Rural Revitalization, Emerging Rural Ventures A Showcase, Creating Markets for Rural Producers and Building Self-Reliant Rural Communities, where social entrepreneurs/ development sector professionals will share their experiences, issues and challenges. Also, the conference will boast of about 25 eminent speaker panel with likes of: Mr. Amit Jain, CEO/Co Founder, eHealth Point, Mr. Anshu Gupta, Founder & Director, GOONJ, Mr. Dhirendra Kumar, MD, Jharkraft, Mr. Gijs Spoor, Founder & CEO, Zameen Organic, Dr. Joe Madiath, ED, Gram Vikas, Mr Paul Basil, CEO, Villgro Innovation Foundation, Mr. Pravesh Sharma, MD, Small Farmers Agribusiness Consortium, & others.

The theme of this years conference underscores the role of social entrepreneurship in creating a more robust ecosystem to kick start growth across rural India. It is a matter of serious concern that in spite of the relatively high GDP growth rate in India during 1998-2008, over 25 crore rural population i.e.; over 45 million households in rural India are below poverty line. The Planning Commission of India estimated that rural poverty ratio is about 38%. Whilst the number of rural people living on less than Rs.50/ a day decreased by 2.9 crores between 1981 and 2005, the number of rural people living on less than Rs.62.5 a day grew by 3.5 crore during the same period. Therefore, the key challenge before the Indian economy today is to ensure that economic growth becomes inclusive and sustainable whilst generating greater employment and higher income in rural India.

The rural poor lack adequate access to organized financial services, commodity and goods markets. This lack of connectivity forces them to be dependent on unorganized/informal commodity, goods and financial markets, resulting in a sub-optimal utilization of their investments and efforts. To fill this gap, during last few years, rural sector has not only opened up immense possibilities for entrepreneurship, but has also sprouted many innovative social entrepreneurial models. Moreover, rejuvenation of the rural ecosystem and livelihoods is also emerging as a significant national priority.

XLRI to host 4th National Conference on Social Entrepreneurship

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