Tata Group announces Tata Social Enterprise Challenge 2014-15

The endeavour of the challenge is to create an ecosystem for social entrepreneurship and encourage sustainable, scalable and measurable social impact.

Teams who either have an early stage venture (not older than 3 years) or a promising idea with a plan, that can create sustainable social impact in India, can submit their business plans online, by logging onto www.tatasechallenge.org.

Impact Proposals (detailed Business Plans) are invited in the areas of agriculture, food and dairy, healthcare, water and sanitation, technology and development, education & skills development, housing, handicrafts, energy and microfinance/financial inclusion.

The ventures will be judged on three parameters - Business Model, Social Impact and Sustainability.

The last day to submit the Impact Proposal (business plan) online is Nov 15.

The Challenge also invites the general public to nominate, through the initiative’s website, social enterprises they know who fit the eligibility criteria.

Atul Agrawal, Vice President, Corporate Affairs, Tata Services said, “We are truly delighted as Tata Social Enterprise Challenge enters its third year, taking forward the Tata group’s ethos of giving back to society, through acts of entrepreneurship and innovation. The third edition, has in fact been more comprehensively designed to engage and integrate a larger network of social entrepreneurs with the introduction of regional seminars, discussion forums and online resources. We urge enterprising minds to participate in this Challenge in their journey to be champions of social change.”

Prof. Ashok Banerjee, Dean (New Initiatives and External Relations), IIM Calcutta says, “The Tata Social Entrepreneurship Challenge is designed to draw the attention of social entrepreneurs across the world to participate in this contest and share their business model, experiences and thereby help us achieve the common cause of ensuring social equality. The challenge will identify the most promising social ventures that would have the opportunity of availing incubation facility at IIM Calcutta.”