Tata social enterprise challenge to promote entrepreneurship in India

The Tata Social Enterprise Challenge is a unique initiative, undertaken jointly by an educational institution and a business group, to promote the spirit of social entrepreneurship in India.

The winners of the second edition of Tata Social Enterprise Challenge, hosted by the Tata group in partnership with the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C), were announced today at IIM Calcutta. The top 3 winners were MicroXlabs, Bodhi Health Care and Green Agrevolution Pvt. Ltd. winning prize money of Rs 1.75 lakh,Rs 1.25 lakh and 1 lakh, respectively.

The first prize winner, MicroXlabs, developed a technology to count blood cells based on the upcoming technology of lab on chip and micro electro mechanical systems, which miniaturises the instrument with all the reagents pre-loaded in the cartridge, providing ease of use, portability and low cost, making it useful for rural health care and also usable at point of care.

Prabhat Kumar and Prakhar Jain from MicroXlabs said, “We are very happy that our idea has won the first prize. This is very encouraging for students like us, both in terms of getting recognised and winning patronisation of big names like the Tata group and the Indian Institute of Management.”

On their future plans for their social venture, the second prize winners, Abhinav Girdhar and Shrutika Girdhar from Gurgaon said, “We have started Bodhi Health Care taking into account the low literacy levels of health workers. Complex medical topics have been explained using simple, illustrative videos, which connect to the bottom of the pyramid segment and their issues. The concepts are explained in regional languages and with minimum content to be read. We would like to continue working towards creating resources which are helpful for them as we believe that learned and confident health workers will make the society better.”

The third prize winner, Shashank Kumar is from Patna. Commenting on his project, he said, “Green Agrevolution’s entire business model is based on the gap between growers and consumers of food and the agriculture sector. On one side they provide support to growers during the production cycle and by doing so they also assure quality production as per the market demand. On the other side, they supply quality products directly to the end users without any intermediaries. Hence buyers get competitive prices and high quality as well.” 

The ventures were judged on three parameters - Business model, social Impact and sustainability. This year's edition attracted over 160 entries from across India, including Assam, Odisha, Mumbai, New Delhi and Kolkata, among others, and an entry from Bulgaria, showing wide interest in the area of social entrepreneurship.

The Tata Social Enterprise Challenge 2013-14 kicked off in October 2013, and invited social entrepreneurs who either had an early stage venture (not older than three years) or a promising idea with a plan that could create sustainable social impact in India.