Social entrepreneurship has gained cultural acceptance as a career path, established social entrepreneurs told a gathering of students at an ‘unconvention’ organised at IIT-Madras on Saturday.

Speakers at the event organised by Villgro, a city-based rural enterprise incubation centre, noted there was a never-like-before culture of embracing entrepreneurship and a growing number of investors willing to invest in such ventures.

Villgro’s CEO and founder Paul Basil laid out a simple mantra for students to follow: “India is the world’s lab; solve it here, then globalise it.”

Social entrepreneurs at the unconvention — a networking meeting that does not rigidly follow the rules of traditional conventions —included P. Srinivasan, co-founder and chairman of Jeevan Stem Cell and Blood Bank, K. Thiruvengada Krishnan, chief consultant of cornea and refractive services, Aravind Eye Care System, and Ravi Sarogi, co-founder of Uniphore Software Systems.

Dr. Thiruvengada Krishnan, in his presentation about Aravind Eye Hospital, outlined the founder Govindapa Venkatasamy’s vision of taking affordable eye care to the masses.

He pointed out that although the hospital ran several charitable projects such as provision of free spectacles and conducting of free surgeries in rural areas, they still made considerable profits because of their non-subsidised healthcare. He added that social enterprise could adopt a hybrid model that combined ‘not-for-profit’ and ‘for-profit’ operations.

Villgro welcomes social entrepreneurs to pitch their ideas for programmes. For more details, interested persons can visit www.villgro.org

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai> Events / by Special Correspondent / Chennai – March 16th, 2014