Speech given at Udaan, 9th September 2007, IRMA, Anand
Dear competitors, faculty member and friends,
It’s nice to be back at this auditorium as a speaker, because last time I was playing the role of Ravan on this stage. It’s also a great privilege to be in the midst of such a large group of young people from across India competing on ideas to solve some of the biggest challenges the world is facing today.
Let me start by telling you about myself. I was born and brought up in Assam in an environment where there is a lot of pressure from family and friends either to become a engineer or doctor. But fortunately I didn’t get admission to any one of them and went to Assam Agricultural University to do a course in Agriculture and my life changed for ever. Although I didn’t learn any thing about agriculture, those four years sowed the seed of entrepreneurship in me. Since you had all the time to do everything except study, some of us got together and started ‘Friends of the Environment’- a club of students and academics to create awareness about the environment. You can say that this was the first social venture for me.
Then there was this long journey of 3 years to Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) where I landed in 1998 to purse a management course with a difference. As you know IRMA was set up by Dr Varghese Kurien, the milk man of India to develop professionals to manage rural enterprises. In the year that we graduated, it was the dotcom boom and also the bust. Every issue of a business magazines have these smart looking young people from IIT and IIM’s smiling at you from the cover-another start up was born. Me and my friend Rahul Nainwal thought that why not us. At that time we didn’t knew any thing about social entrepreneurship. The challenge was- can we use our knowledge about management and development to come up with an idea to bring large scale impact. Thus was born MITRA Technology Foundation.
The idea behind MITRA was to use technology to bridge information asymmetry in the development sector so that by creating a sense of trust and transparency we can connect individuals who would like to donate, with NGO’s who are the beneficiaries. As some of you might be aware, today MITRA owns and manages iVolunteer, the largest volunteer placement initiative in India. It manages around 2500 volunteers every year both in India and other developing countries.
In 2005, I took a sabbatical from MITRA to look at other opportunities and founded CFM, an initiative to create wealth for artisan communities in India by creating employment opportunities. Today CFM works with around 1200 artisans across India and we target to become a million dollar initiative by 2009.
But starting MITRA and CFM was not that easy. The first challenge was to get someone excited to put money into you. At that time as mentioned above we didn’t have too many social venture funds. But still we were able to overcome millions of obstacles to create two organizations with the objective of creating large scale impact.
What I would like to convey through these stories is that, if your idea is innovative and can create maximum social impact with minimum investment you can be sure that it will succeed. And be passionate. Entrepreneurship is all about an idea and passion.
I will describe a social entrepreneur as one who identifies and solves social problems on a large scale.
Before I end my speech, I would like to summarize in a few points what I think are the sure points to succeed as a social entrepreneur based on my experiences. You can call these the 10 commandments of a social entrepreneur.
Clear Mission: You should know your mission and what you want to achieve. Its makes live so simpler. Let others see it in you.
What is your value proposition? Look at your entire value chain and look at the value proposition that you are offering to the players in the chain. Is it better than the value that they are already getting? If it is not, then it’s not worth the effort.
Scale, Scale, Scale, Scale: A social entrepreneur doesn’t just think of setting up a school, but look at way how s/he can bring systemic changes to the way education is being imparted. Every morning when you wake up think of how I can create maximum impact.
Mentors: Get some mentors who have domain expertise and can guide you and also criticize you. They are like your sounding boards. But of course at the end of the day you as entrepreneurs should decide what is good for you.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys: Hire people who are smarter than you. And if you have to pay them more than what you get.
Be yourself, not what people think you are. Every one is unique with own talent. We should recognize our strength and weaknesses and don’t feel ashamed to recognize them.
Continuous learning and be flexible. We are living in a world where things are changing very fast. As entrepreneurs we should keep abreast with the happenings around us and be flexible to change our business model if the situation demands it.
First with the head and then with the heart. To be successful, your dream should be driven not from your heart but from your head. If you are able to make a life plan for yourself and work towards that plan with heartfelt passion, you will accomplish amazing things. The best example is to visualize what you want to be written when you die, and then work backwards.
Never give up before you try. To change this world, you need to take risks. In your lives you will in many occasions be frustrated. Because the work you are doing is just not creating a product or services to benefit a few people, but looking at bringing systemic changes to some of the most difficult problems that the world is facing. And it needs tremendous courage and self-conviction to reach that goal. The other day I was watching Shrek 3. And one dialogue summarises this point when Shrek tells Artie ‘There is only someone standing between you and your goal. And that’s you’.
Give Back: All of us sitting here are very privileged ones. And with great privileges comes great responsibility. In whatever position you are, always give back. Give back to your community, to your school, to the world. You will never regret.
At present I am reading a very inspiring book called ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ written by a social entrepreneur called John Wood who started Room to Read. If you are able to lay your hands on it, please read it.
Today the whole world is standing up and recognizing the power of social entrepreneurs to change the world. This year some of the best students from Harvard Business School opted out of their placement to become social entrepreneurs. People like Jeff Skoll, Peirre Omidyar and the Google guys have committed a large chunk of their wealth to create funds to help social entrepreneurs to scale up.
Believe me at the end of the day it’s a very worthwhile journey. The world needs more smart and intelligent people like you than ICICI Bank, McKinsey or Microsoft needs.
One of my realizations in the last six years is that there are no great people in this world, only great challenges. Ordinary people rise to meet them.
Go out and make a difference. I wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Rahul Barkataky
It’s nice to be back at this auditorium as a speaker, because last time I was playing the role of Ravan on this stage. It’s also a great privilege to be in the midst of such a large group of young people from across India competing on ideas to solve some of the biggest challenges the world is facing today.
Let me start by telling you about myself. I was born and brought up in Assam in an environment where there is a lot of pressure from family and friends either to become a engineer or doctor. But fortunately I didn’t get admission to any one of them and went to Assam Agricultural University to do a course in Agriculture and my life changed for ever. Although I didn’t learn any thing about agriculture, those four years sowed the seed of entrepreneurship in me. Since you had all the time to do everything except study, some of us got together and started ‘Friends of the Environment’- a club of students and academics to create awareness about the environment. You can say that this was the first social venture for me.
Then there was this long journey of 3 years to Institute of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) where I landed in 1998 to purse a management course with a difference. As you know IRMA was set up by Dr Varghese Kurien, the milk man of India to develop professionals to manage rural enterprises. In the year that we graduated, it was the dotcom boom and also the bust. Every issue of a business magazines have these smart looking young people from IIT and IIM’s smiling at you from the cover-another start up was born. Me and my friend Rahul Nainwal thought that why not us. At that time we didn’t knew any thing about social entrepreneurship. The challenge was- can we use our knowledge about management and development to come up with an idea to bring large scale impact. Thus was born MITRA Technology Foundation.
The idea behind MITRA was to use technology to bridge information asymmetry in the development sector so that by creating a sense of trust and transparency we can connect individuals who would like to donate, with NGO’s who are the beneficiaries. As some of you might be aware, today MITRA owns and manages iVolunteer, the largest volunteer placement initiative in India. It manages around 2500 volunteers every year both in India and other developing countries.
In 2005, I took a sabbatical from MITRA to look at other opportunities and founded CFM, an initiative to create wealth for artisan communities in India by creating employment opportunities. Today CFM works with around 1200 artisans across India and we target to become a million dollar initiative by 2009.
But starting MITRA and CFM was not that easy. The first challenge was to get someone excited to put money into you. At that time as mentioned above we didn’t have too many social venture funds. But still we were able to overcome millions of obstacles to create two organizations with the objective of creating large scale impact.
What I would like to convey through these stories is that, if your idea is innovative and can create maximum social impact with minimum investment you can be sure that it will succeed. And be passionate. Entrepreneurship is all about an idea and passion.
I will describe a social entrepreneur as one who identifies and solves social problems on a large scale.
Before I end my speech, I would like to summarize in a few points what I think are the sure points to succeed as a social entrepreneur based on my experiences. You can call these the 10 commandments of a social entrepreneur.
Clear Mission: You should know your mission and what you want to achieve. Its makes live so simpler. Let others see it in you.
What is your value proposition? Look at your entire value chain and look at the value proposition that you are offering to the players in the chain. Is it better than the value that they are already getting? If it is not, then it’s not worth the effort.
Scale, Scale, Scale, Scale: A social entrepreneur doesn’t just think of setting up a school, but look at way how s/he can bring systemic changes to the way education is being imparted. Every morning when you wake up think of how I can create maximum impact.
Mentors: Get some mentors who have domain expertise and can guide you and also criticize you. They are like your sounding boards. But of course at the end of the day you as entrepreneurs should decide what is good for you.
If you pay peanuts, you get monkeys: Hire people who are smarter than you. And if you have to pay them more than what you get.
Be yourself, not what people think you are. Every one is unique with own talent. We should recognize our strength and weaknesses and don’t feel ashamed to recognize them.
Continuous learning and be flexible. We are living in a world where things are changing very fast. As entrepreneurs we should keep abreast with the happenings around us and be flexible to change our business model if the situation demands it.
First with the head and then with the heart. To be successful, your dream should be driven not from your heart but from your head. If you are able to make a life plan for yourself and work towards that plan with heartfelt passion, you will accomplish amazing things. The best example is to visualize what you want to be written when you die, and then work backwards.
Never give up before you try. To change this world, you need to take risks. In your lives you will in many occasions be frustrated. Because the work you are doing is just not creating a product or services to benefit a few people, but looking at bringing systemic changes to some of the most difficult problems that the world is facing. And it needs tremendous courage and self-conviction to reach that goal. The other day I was watching Shrek 3. And one dialogue summarises this point when Shrek tells Artie ‘There is only someone standing between you and your goal. And that’s you’.
Give Back: All of us sitting here are very privileged ones. And with great privileges comes great responsibility. In whatever position you are, always give back. Give back to your community, to your school, to the world. You will never regret.
At present I am reading a very inspiring book called ‘Leaving Microsoft to Change the World’ written by a social entrepreneur called John Wood who started Room to Read. If you are able to lay your hands on it, please read it.
Today the whole world is standing up and recognizing the power of social entrepreneurs to change the world. This year some of the best students from Harvard Business School opted out of their placement to become social entrepreneurs. People like Jeff Skoll, Peirre Omidyar and the Google guys have committed a large chunk of their wealth to create funds to help social entrepreneurs to scale up.
Believe me at the end of the day it’s a very worthwhile journey. The world needs more smart and intelligent people like you than ICICI Bank, McKinsey or Microsoft needs.
One of my realizations in the last six years is that there are no great people in this world, only great challenges. Ordinary people rise to meet them.
Go out and make a difference. I wish you all the best.
Thank you.
Rahul Barkataky
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