The Sixth Annual “Forum for Social Entrepreneurs (FORSE)†co-hosted by the TIE Special Interest group and the MIT Society for Asian Scientists and Engineers was held at MIT Stata Center on Oct. 27 2012. The forum brought together a diverse group of social innovators, students, professionals and leading proponents to focus on the key issues and challenges in the social entrepreneurship area. Titled “21st Century Challenges: New Ideas, New Approaches, and New Solutions†the conference focused on presenting a range of ideas to solve pressing issues around the world.
MIT SASE President Arun Saigal, Christina Chase from the Martin Trust Center for MIT Entrepreneurship welcomed the participants to MIT. TIE–Boston president Prat Moghe gave an overview of TIE and of the efforts of the social entrepreneurship special interest group.
Ramon Magsaysay Award winner Dr. Alip Aristotle from the Philippines delivered the opening keynote. He talked about his work with CARD MRI, which is the largest tax paying institution in the Philippines. The organization works to provide loans and other services to lift people out of poverty delivered the opening keynote. As of July 2012, CARD MRI has a total outreach of more than 1.7 million poor families with a total outstanding loan of more than P6.3 Billion (USD150.7 million).
Three thematic tracks focused on Livlihoods and Microfinance, Health and Sanitation, Education presented a range of issues that need to be addressed in these individual spaces and featured social entrepreneurs working to provide creative solutions. A fourth track called the “How to†track featured addressed the nitty-gritty of creating and growing a social business. Several TIE Boston Charter members Ramji Raghavan , Raj Sisodia, Dinesh Patel, Sushil Bhatia and Pravin Chaturvedi served as moderators for the different panels. Sonjui Kumar, a board member from TIE-Atlanta actively participated and moderated a panel.
The afternoon keynote was presented by Dr. Amos Winter, a faculty member at MIT who is the Director of the Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Lab. He spoke about his engineering innovations that include an all terrain wheelchair, artificial limbs and products to support drip irrigation. The closing keynote was presented by Dr. Kamal Bawa, Professor at University of Massachusetts at Boston, winner of the Gunnerus Sustainability award, which is considered equivalent to the Nobel Prize for sustainability. He talked about the challenges of providing economic development to the underprivileged in a sustainable manner.
The greatest excitement of the evening came with the pitch contest when seven finalists presented their social enterprise idea for a chance to win cash prizes. The cash prizes were endowed by TIE Charter Member Subu Kota, Geeta Aiyer , Salonia Fadia and by the law offices of Davis Malm. 25 applicants sent in proposals to the "Pitching Social Entrepreneurship 2012: How Good Leaders Can Sell Smart Ideas" vying for a top prize of $1000, second prize of $750 and third prize of $500. Pitch proposals covered a wide variety of areas including innovative ways to leverage local natural resources to provide training and employment to creative initiatives provisioning specific technologies for efficiency in agriculture to unique new ways to deliver resources to people that need them.
Five finalists and two wild cards were chosen from these applicants to pitch to a live audience and a very experienced judging panel made up by Anu Chitrapu (SVP - BankOfAmerica), Laura Sampath (International Development - MIT), Pravin Chaturvedi (CEO - IndUS Pharmaceuticals) and Subu Kota (Chairman - The Boston Group). After a lively pitch contest conducted at the conference by Pradeep Aradhya the following results were announced:
First place was won by Seed Arika led by Norikazu Ogawa. Seed Afrika is a "Rental Tractor Business in East Africa to Lower Barriers to Farming Technology". (
youtube.com/watch?v=nbeVkWL3j08)
Second place went to SoundFest led by David Duehren. SoundFest "Better Hearing When & Where You Need It" is a mobile phone solution for the hearing impaired. (
soundfestinc.com)
Third place was awarded to DripGrow led by Ira Renfew. DripGrow helps small farmers earn more by providing irrigation supplies and knowledge in the developing world via commercial partners. (
dripgrow.com)
The organizing committee included members of the TIE-Social Enterprise special interest group Vithal Deshpande, Ranjani Saigal, Anuradha Yadav, Puneetha Palakurthi, Rakesh Pandey, Pradeep Aradhya and Raj Melville along with members of MIT SASE Arun Saigal, Kristin Kagetsu Kristin , Arthi Vezhavendan, Tanya Phung, Aaron Thomas Keertan Kini, Phil Kamtue, Secretary, Rohan-Kabir Amin, Francis Chen and Daniel Li.
The event was inspiring and gave much hope that with work of great social entrepreneurs perhaps the 21st century will be marked as one where great ideas were born that created tremendous social impact.
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