Social entrepreneurs find answers for people’s problems

Summary/Excerpts

Globalisation and the concept of free market economy are here to stay. Already, the market forces that benefit from them and developing countries like India—where the enthusiastic embrace of the concepts have accelerated economic growth and contributed a great deal to wealth creation—are pursuing it more aggressively.

Yet, reality checks have revealed problems like a growing chasm between the rich and the poor as a result of globalisation. The poor are also made more vulnerable by the rapid disappearance of social welfare systems. While pessimists speak of a doomsday scenario for the world’s poor, optimists, especially those with an innovative bent of mind, see the solution in the problem itself; they point to the growing breed of social entrepreneurs who are solving livelihood problems of communities with their entrepreneurial zeal. As Deccan Herald’s L Subramani learnt from Parag Gupta of Switzerland-based Schwab Foundation For Social Entrepreneurship, social entrepreneurs use incentives as the means to find answers for people’s problems.