Bringing to fruition a practical idea
SWATHI.V
Asia Finals of the Global Social Venture Competition organised at Indian School of Business
Team work: Student teams from business schools across the world registering for the Asia Finals of the Global Social Venture competition at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad.
Just as any other populous country with huge spread of unorganised working force, China is facing acute shortage of low-end labour in her different enterprises. Even where workers are available, their fluidity increases the time cost of labour for employers.
On the other hand, the enormous labour base in rural areas is rotting with the scourge of unemployment and low pay. The endeavour of the government is towards carving out a win-win situation by shifting the low-end labourers from rural to urban areas.
However, bureaucratic delays mar the process in the Labour Bureaus (as the employment offices in China are called) set up for this purpose while private agencies in the business focus mainly on fleecing the hapless labourers. Such is the context for the LaborEx project devised by the students from China Europe International Business School who were in the city to participate in the Asia Finals of the Global Social Venture Competition at Indian School of Business on Saturday and Sunday.
The ingenious model developed by the student team comprising Tiger Yu from China, Kairaz Contractor from India, John Chen from U.S.A., and Adam Lo from Taiwan uses technology to find a solution to the acute problem.
" We aim to prepare a database of labourers across the rural China by collecting their mobile phone numbers. All that they have to do to find work is simply SMS to the call centre for employment information. The project will be sustained through fee charged from the employers and the revenue sharing deals with the Telecom companies," they explain.
Teams participating
And this is not an idle thought mind you! The group has answers for every poser and holds good promise. So do the other teams from India, Indonesia, Korea, Taiwan and Thailand which participated in the competition conducted worldwide to gauge the entrepreneurial abilities with a quantifiable social and environmental bottom-line.
Chandan Panda, another participant representing the host school explains his project MyNGO which envisages generating funds for small time NGOs by putting together a database of responders for market research agencies.
The 12 plans to compete in the finals were filtered from 125 entries from the Asian region and the best three will be sent for the global finals to be conducted at Berkeley, California by the Haas School of Business in April. There they will compete with similar groups from Europe, Latin America and United States to be one among the three ultimate winners.
"The winners stand good chances of getting venture capital funding for their proposed projects from consultancies which act as judges in the competition. All the previous teams did get them," says V.Chandrasekar, the Executive Director of Wadhwani Centre of Entrepreneurship Development at the ISB.
Supporting creation
The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) brings together the academic and financial worlds to support the creation of sustainable social ventures.
It awards prizes to the business plans that show the highest and most integrated financial and social returns. Since its inception in 1999, GSVC has awarded more than US $ 300,000 to emerging social ventures and has introduced early-stage social entrepreneurs to the investment community.
In addition to mentoring the participants, the GSVC provides an opportunity for B-School students to meet with venture capitalists, potential investors and academicians who support social ventures.
ISB, which is one among the five schools supporting the competition, has been conducting the Asia Finals for the past three years. The other institutions are Haas School of Business, Columbia Business School, London Business School and Yale School of Business.
The speakers at the current year's GSVC included Minister of State for Commerce Jairam Ramesh, Director of Helior& Matheson Rabin.K.Dhoble, and the Founder of Narayana Hrudayalaya Devi Shetty.
Emerging economies
Speaking on the occasion, M. Rammohan Rao, Dean, ISB said, " The ISB is committed to promoting entrepreneurship, especially in the emerging economies. The GSVC provides the right opportunity to support and groom entrepreneurs in this region to build global competitiveness."
The ISB has invited business plans from B School students/ alumni from across the Asian region. In addition to mentoring the participants, the GSVC provides an opportunity for B School students to meet with venture capitalists, potential investors and academicians who support social ventures.
"There are under invested sectors and businesses, which have the potential to meet financial, social and environmental objectives. Our focus at the Base of the Pyramid Lab at the ISB is to encourage entrepreneurship, especially with a social cause", said Reuben Abraham, Professor of Entrepreneurship at the ISB and Cornell University.
The GSVC awards prizes to the business plans that show the highest and most integrated financial and social returns.
Since its inception in 1999, GSVC has awarded more than US $ 300,000 to emerging social ventures and has introduced early-stage social entrepreneurs to the investment community
