Annual Yale Global Social Entrepreneurship held on January 8

The annual Yale Global Social Entrepreneurship conference was held at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore on January 8 and 9.

Launched in 2008 at the Yale School of Management, the Global Social Entrepreneurship (GSE) program links teams of Yale students with social enterprises based in India. GSE is committed to channeling the skills of Yale students and faculty to assist Indian organizations to expand their reach and impact on “bottom of the pyramid” communities. Yale students partner with mission-driven social entrepreneurs (SEs) to focus on a specific management challenge that the student/SE teams work together to address during the semester. In five years, GSE has worked with 25 leading and emerging Indian social enterprises engaged in economic development, sustainable energy, women’s empowerment, education, environmental conservation, and housing.

The program is structured to maximize the value to both the students and the partner social entrepreneurs. Through a competitive process, five social enterprises are selected each year, and five students are selected for each team, matching the project requirements with students’ skills and interests.

Between October and December, each student team conducted relevant research, and engaged with their SE colleagues through weekly emails and conference calls. In January, the students traveled to India for a week of intensive work and field visits with their SE partners. Then all GSE participants convened for a conference at which all five projects were presented and discussed, interspersed with panels exploring broader issues related to social enterprise in India.

This year’s five partners and projects in GSE/India are:

Babajob.com (Bangalore) www.babajob.com

Field of work: Livelihoods – job creation / mobile technology

Mission: To create a scalable, profitable solution to fight poverty by creating radical job market efficiency.

Project: In-depth feasibility study to identify key geographies beyond India for Babjob to expand into.

Frontier Markets (Jaipur) www.frontiermkts.com

Field of work: Sustainable energy / Distribution of goods and services to “bottom of the pyramid” populations

Mission: To provide 10 million BOP households with access to clean energy solutions that positively affect health, wealth and the well-being of peri- urban and rural households.

Project: To analyze the results of a pilot on providing financing to energy entrepreneurs in order to inform underlying decisions on business model design.

Room To Read (New Delhi) www.roomtoread.org/Page.aspx?pid=284

Field of work: Education

Mission: To transform the lives of millions of children in developing countries by focusing on literacy and gender equality in education.

Project: To evaluate the signature Girls’ Education Program from organizational and operational perspectives to assess how best to scale it, with a view to creating a revenue base, better outreach and enhanced impact.

TARAlife Sustainability Solutions (a subsidiary of Development Alternatives (New Delhi) www.devalt.org

Field of work: Health & Sanitation (Water)

Mission: To provide affordable and reliable basic need fulfillment solutions to the BOP population.

Project: Identification of distribution strategies for its Aqua+ water filter to reach the BoP market.

ZMQ Software Systems (New Delhi) www.zmqsoft.com

Field of work: Mobile technology / Health

Mission: To harness mobile technology to connect communities and enable social and economic development.

Project: Collaborate in designing a sustainable business model for the “Women Mobile Lifeline Channel.”