Impact On Social Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs with confidence and belief in their ideas are willing to make a difference to society through social impact businesses, but there are times such as these, when even such entrepreneurs are impacted. At the ‘BW Dialogue on Entrepreneurship – Need of the hour’, chaired by Annurag Batra, Chairman & Editor-in-Chief, BW Businessworld, and exchange4Media Group, two such entrepreneurs shared their experiences. Lt. Gen S. M. Mehta, CEO, The Hans Foundation, recounted how “anxiety and uncertainty” had hit him hard “personally and professionally”. Ketto India Co-founder, Kunal Kapoor said, “I got a chance to spend time with my family, to learn to play the guitar, to watch and read, also managed to do a course in artificial intelligence, and a lot of work at Ketto.”
“There are people who are passionate about and care for causes and want to make a difference, but they definitely look for ‘clean intent’ while stepping towards donations and NGOs”
Democratisation of Philanthropy
Covid-19 created a situation that the world has not seen before, when the normal pace of life and work came to a halt and millions of people needed help and access to food and shelter. It was a time when social entrepreneurs could and did make a difference.
Well-known actor Kunal Kapoor and Lt. General Mehta spoke of how thousands of workers were at state borders, trying to get back home when the lockdown happened and how the kind of organisation needed then was missing. Lt. Gen Mehta, said he was shocked by the images of migrant labourers struggling. “We at Hans Foundation managed to arrange the logistics and create one of the biggest isolation camps within seven days even when everything was under lockdown”, he said.
Multifaceted Kunal Kapoor
Kunal Kapoor was already working with many NGOs in the social space, when he joined hands with Varun Seth to start a new journey as the Co-founder of Ketto India eight years ago. Kapoor demystified the name of the venture. “Ketto is an abbreviation for Key To Tomorrow” he said because the founders believe that “Crowd-funding is the key to tomorrow”. Ketto aims to be a bridge using technology between people who can help and people who are in need of help.
Kapoor pointed out that social entrepreneurship had its challenges too. Ketto had to grapple with:
“Being an entrepreneur and an actor seems to be poles apart but they are really similar. As an actor one needs to be creative, but as an entrepreneur it is important to be creative to create disruption and to make a difference,” said Kapoor.
He listed three major things one needs to keep in mind:
If we go by what Elon Musk says, education comes in the way of being an entrepreneur. Speaking of entrepreneurship, Kapoor said, “I don’t know if it is really necessary to be trained for starting a business. A number of successful people just had a great idea, good intent, confidence, and self-belief, they went with it.”
‘We aim to Transform Lives’
Discussing Indian foundations and global organisations Lt. Gen. S. M. Mehta shared his experience of working on a global level. There are people who are passionate about and care for causes and want to make a difference, but they definitely look for a ‘clean intent’ while stepping towards donations and NGOs, he said.
Describing The Hans Foundation as “one of the finest organisations in the country,” Lt. Gen. Mehta said the foundation aimed to create an equitable society and transform lives for the better. “At The Hans Foundation we are helping transform lives and are running a national level programme with the government for setting up homes for people in need,” he said.
“We are helping people who are suffering from mental health issues, have integrated village development programmes, programmes for corneal blindness and many other programmes for creating an equitable society,” he went on to say.
In conclusion, Lt. Gen. Mehta said he was still learning from his grown-up daughters. Kunal Kapoor said he believed Covid-19 had been a blessing in a way, since he had had the time to learn to play the guitar.
