Nudging students to social innovation

What would a premier technical institution have to do with social innovation and entrepreneurship? Quite a lot, if you were at the Indian Institute of Technology – Madras, which has set up and runs a Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, on its sylvan campus.

The Centre has been set up with funds raised by alumni of the 1984 batch, when they had a reunion in 2009 on the occasion of the silver jubilee of their graduation.

The Centre for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CSIE) itself follows the more popular Centre for Innovation at the IIT, set up with funds raised by the 1981 batch to mark their silver jubilee reunion.

The Centre for Innovation, though immensely popular among students as it is more or less run by them, it was felt does not do too much of work that is socially oriented. Besides, how many of the ideas generated at the Centre for Innovation have commercial potential. “We felt that there was a need for a centre that dealt with entrepreneurship,” says R. Nagarajan, Project Coordinator, CSIE.

“At the same time, we wanted to nudge the students towards social entrepreneurship,” says Nagarajan, who is a Professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering and Dean, International & Alumni Relations, IIT-M.

“If you are a social entrepreneur, to me what it means is you are doing good for society, but at the same time you are turning in a decent profit,” he says.

Nudging students

That is basically what the centre is intended to do – kind of nudge the students towards social entrepreneurship and give them education and training on what is social entrepreneurship.

The CSIE, says Nagarajan, is reasonably well funded and has about Rs 60-80 lakh. It came into being in mid-2010 with some initial funding from the Lemelson Foundation, with which IIT-M had been collaborating even earlier.

According to Nagarajan, the CSIE conducts a minor course – a course that all the B.Tech students need to take and that is listed in their graduation certificate, for which they have to obtain a minimum of nine credits – on social innovation and entrepreneurship. “This minor course has been successful in providing training to students on how to become social entrepreneurs,” says Nagarajan.

The CSIE is also trying to establish partnerships with similar agencies and centres at other universities and research institutions. It is more of a coordinating body right now, but hopes to get more students interested in taking up innovative projects with a social focus

Says Nagarajan: “We are still trying to find traction with students. The Centre for Innovation is extremely popular among the student community. CSIE does not have the same kind of name recognition. We have to create a buzz about CSIE to get things to happen.”

While the students had a sense of ownership about the Centre for Innovation, Nagarajan says this is lacking as far as the CSIE is concerned. For the students to get that feeling, the centre has to demonstrate that they gain by engaging with the CSIE.

According to Joseph Thomas, Project Consultant, CSIE, the centre has links and works with institutes such as the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, CIIE of IIM-Ahmedabad, Centre for Innovation in Public Systems, Hyderabad, the UN Global Compact and the Ateneo School of Government, the Philippines.

Nishant Goyal, Project Consultant, says the Centre asked the students to come up with project ideas. Some of the ideas that came up included emergency care for road accidents, how to deal with health hazard in tea plantations and how to handle frost bite in north India during winter.

Nagarajan says a proposal that is being considered is to have a dual degree programme, where B.Tech students will be encouraged to take up an MS programme in entrepreneurship.

He says there are a lot of activities associated with innovation and entrepreneurship taking place at the IIT-M. It has several incubators on campus and recently received funding for a biotech incubator. IIT-M, he says, is in the process of forming an incubation society, which will enable it to start taking equity positions in companies that are incubated in its facilities. There will also be external investors on the board of this incubation society. “Even outsiders can incubate companies here,” he adds.

“There are a lot of things going around entrepreneurship in general and CSIE is a critical link as this is the only centre that has a clear focus on social entrepreneurship,” says Nagarajan.

Innovation ecosystem

According to him, IIT-M is working on building an entrepreneurial ecosystem. “We have been successful in building up an innovation ecosystem.

The second thing is an entrepreneurship ecosystem, which we are working on. The third is social entrepreneurship; it is like a subset where CSIE will play a key role,” says Nagarajan. Even though entrepreneurship is hot, social entrepreneurship is not, he says, which is what he hopes to change with the CSIE becoming more active.

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