The Tata Group has announced the commencement of the Tata Social Enterprise Challenge (TSEC) 2014-15, a joint initiative with the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIM-C) to find India's most promising early-stage social enterprises.

The endeavour 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, 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 proposal (business plan) online is 15 November 2014. The Challenge also invites the general public to nominate social enterprises they know who fit the eligibility criteria.

The event will culminate in January 2015 with a summit on social entrepreneurship at IIM Calcutta. The winners will be offered mentorship support, funding opportunities and a chance to be incubated at IIM Calcutta's Incubation Centre. In addition to mentorship, investment opportunities, incubation opportunities and cash awards, during the course of the initiative, the finalists of TSEC will receive continued support from IIM Calcutta, post the event, through cells on campus including Entrepreneurship-cell (Mentorship Support) and INCA (Pro-bono Consulting).

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