Bengaluru: Starting a business enterprise is almost an insurmountable dream even for the middle-class, leave alone for those from lower economic and other unfortunate sections. But I Create, an NGO, is nurturing a revolution at the bottom of the pyramid by creating micro-enterprises and changing the mindset of the disadvantaged population that setting a business is a slow and tiresome ordeal.
“The regional centre was set up in 2001 and the academy manages the entire state,” said Ms Chitra Jagannath, Regional Director who is also the director of strategic relations.
Ms Jagannath, who manages all the programmes in four centres of Bengaluru, Hubballi, Kolar and Shivamogga, said that the NGO’s programmes and training have already helped create over 700 entrepreneurs in the state.
“Our mission is economic empowerment of underprivileged and disadvantaged people of our society through integrated grassroots entrepreneurship development, access to capital and mentoring,” she said.
The NGO supports its centres through a National Academy and creates a network of mentors and angel investors at each centre to help other entrepreneurs. She said, “We tie up with an NGO that has already established itself and they help us with the mobilisation process and brings in people who are aspiring to be entrepreneurs. We enroll them in our aspiring entrepreneurship workshop.” Each centre is sponsored by an individual or an organisation (Grand Sponsor), whose mission in line with I Create. All necessary technical support, quality control and coordination for programme implementation are provided by I Create. “We call this the Modified Business Format Franchising,” she said.
The workshop focuses on the basic principle of KISS (Keep It Short and Simple) and starts with ideas presented to them. “After ideation, we give them homework and then show them whether it is successful or not. They are shown whether their product has a market. After this, planning and execution processes start,” she said.
“Surprisingly, for every 10 participants, five want to start a business and do have really good business plans. Our team helps them with marketing, pricing of products etc. The entire process takes less than three months,” she said. The participants are then linked with national institutions, including banks, and a majority of them do get funds or loans to start their business.
Many women become so confident after the workshop and training that they come out with really market-friendly business models. “You should see their confidence,” she said with a smile. The target group is mainly women (widows, deserted destitute, devadasis, slum dwellers, rag pickers, tribals and unemployed women), street kids and orphans, disadvantaged and physically challenged.
The two main programmes that are initiated by I Create are Creating Job Creators and Changing the Mindset: Entrepreneurship as a career option. Creating Job Creators helps members of different disadvantaged groups and others at the bottom of the pyramid to learn about starting the business and motivates them to become entrepreneurs. The ‘Changing the Mindset: Entrepreneurship as a career option’ provides the youth in educational institutions with basic understanding of entrepreneurship and encourages them to consider entrepreneurship as a viable career option.
“In the Change the mindset programme, we reach out to training institutes, colleges, vocational skill providers. Students present business plans to colleges or institutes, from where the best business plan is selected and then the best plan from each region is screened at the National Best Plan competition where finalists present their plans to judges from across the country and abroad. The winner not only gets cash rewards, but also help and confidence for execution,” she says.
Her team also trains retired Army jawans from Southern Command on entrepreneurship. Of over 200 participants, 13 have already started businesses, while 72 are being mentored.
I Create India has also created a revolving seed capital assistance fund – known as MAGIC (Mentor and Angel Group of I Create) – to assist budding entrepreneurs at grassroots level with returnable financial assistance. This has been possible through the contributions made by many angel investors. “We hope to attract more of them and keep the fund growing,” she signs off.
