Daily Post 1562
ENTREPRENEURIAL SOLUTIONS TO OUR INTRACTABLE PROBLEMS
Purely commercial entrepreneurial ventures have made tremendous difference to our existence, more so when it comes to IT technology. The accentuated impact in COVID-19 is for all see across the globe. Tech entrepreneurs turned IT behemoths seems to have saved us from COVID-19, which could have been much worse without the IT infrastructure which got created in last two decades. This period can be called the golden age of entrepreneurship ever. Unfortunately, the intractable problems of world remain as difficult and as intriguing as it was a few decades back. Why has that not been dented, is the billion dollar question.
There are agencies and agencies and governments after governments the world over in the task of providing relief and succour to the masses. There are also millions of NGOs who are eager to make a difference. The social sector funding by the governments runs into hundreds of billions of dollars. Providing education, health and sources of livelihood has been the main task of governance and world’s all top agencies. But it has still not happened. We see some pathbreaking individual contributions for the underprivileged and the differently challenged, but the regular ones gives a feeling that too little has been achieved at too heavy a cost and that too substandard.
Social enterprises were to be created for this particular task. Without taking a critical view of these enterprises, suffice to say that the way to finding solutions to intractable social issues can happen only the entrepreneurial way. The solution should come out of the social, economic and cultural backdrop and should grow in an organic manner till the time, it becomes completely robust. The recent story of Akshaya Patra, the mid day meal program for the poor and needy going to schools, is something we can all boast of. Wholesome food of right quality and hot too, delivered at the school can be treated as good as magic, day after day across states.
The ten months gestation period of COVID-19 vaccine is the best example of commitment to find a solution to an intractable health and human problem. It can be called a super entrepreneurial solution. Even start-ups cannot think of creating small products in this manner. Amul has been a long story of transforming that part of Gujarat through a cooperative human enterprise, globally competitive. Our incapability to replicate is our biggest shortcoming. Arvind Eye Care has brought light to the lives of millions of people at very affordable rates. The intractable problems are wide and varied and present day interventions are superficial, its time the entrepreneurs train the guns to make a mark, where it is desired the most.
ENTREPRENEURIAL SOLUTIONS CAN BE THE ONLY SAVIOUR TO OUR DEGRADED EXISTENCE.
Sanjay Sahay