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Social Entrepreneurship, Start-up and Swami Vivekananda

I had learnt to love and have a lot of pride about India from reading Swami Vivekananda in my youth days. I got introduced to his works through service activities and subsequently through him discovered his guru and my own spiritual pathway.badpic

So, it was with a pleasant surprise that I accepted to be a speaker and give a TED talk on Social Entrepreneurship in the workshop titled Swami Vivekananda & Start-ups in the RKM residential college in Narendrapur, Kolkata on 18th Jan 2025. 

The visit itself turned out to be quite wonderful and filled with productive meetings and finest Bengali hospitality that I got to enjoy. The talk was very well received by the participants and many of them signed up for the Samanvaya Mentorship programme right away. 

Herewith enclosed is the presentation that was made during the programme, will try and share the talk video once the same is available. An interesting episode from the panel discussion I had posted on the social media as well (link).

The social media post on the day of the programme here -- 

I spoke about Indian leadership in the Social Entrepreneurship today while being the last speaker in a startup forum on entrepreneurship after a lot of tech entrepreneurs giving ideas to young aspirants. 


In the panel discussion that follows, almost all Entrepreneurs speak about integrity and values they prescribe to in personal life. The moderator uses their statements to pose a question to me -- "they all follow such values and emphasis on integrity, don't you think they are also doing social enterprise?" 

My response below -- 
"Someone could be a very honest person, perfectly loyal to his organisation, not corrupt, high integrity, etc., in personal life. But if that person is a manager in a private sector seed company, that sells GM seeds for a cost that's 200 times higher than what the farmers were buying till that time, for which the farmers have to borrow to purchase seeds, and after the crop fails, farmers out of debt distress commit suicide, and that's not one but 4 lakh farmers, the manager of the seeds company can still claim to be practicing all these values. But that doesn't make it a social entrepreneurship, but murder enterprise".

 

Ram

20/01/2025

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