A lot has been discussed lately on opportunities in bottom of the pyramid. Recent announcement from "Tata Nano" on Rs 1 Lakh car has put the 100 year old Tata group on the world map, building an affordable car for the masses. Similarly, microfinance companies are spawning new opportunities to serve the poor and the underserved. In a recent announcement at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Bill Gates highlights the notion of "creative capitalism" to address the needs of the underserved. I guess, we now know, what Bill Gates is upto, now that he is officially off his day-to-day duties at Microsoft.

In this article, I wish to discuss opportunities for budding entrepreneurs to target social entrepreneurial causes, with hybrid models of for-profit and non-profit, creating a double profit line of social good and economic profits. Immense opportunities exist for the bold and the brave to look under the hood, looking beyond the obvious high growth, high paying consumers or enterprises to discover new markets and needs which can be sustainably addressed through entrepreneurial energy in the long-tail of the human population, living under $2/day incomes. Microfinance (lending capital) for accelerating rural entrepreneurship has now opened up a range of new entrepreneurial ideas..Some of which are obvious and merits deeper investigation. For example, in India, micro insurance might be ripe for the taking, or helping improve the "food supplies" for the road-side "dhabas" and turning them into "subway" style branded cooperative might be worth studying..or if you are looking for bolder thoughts, how to leverage village internet kiosks into a game changing economic growth engine for the rural economy. At this time of the evolution of India, and other such developing nations, we need far more entrepreneurs and students of rural economy to help us unearth these hidden gems of creative capitalism. A number of promising internet ventures like Kiva.org are leading the path to transform the lives of the poor. Skoll foundation, and Omidyaar foundation (founders of eBay) are also doing great work in this area. Organizations like Unitus (http://www.unitus.com) are also supporting many social ventures with hybrid models of profits and social good.

Last 2-3 years we have seen number of talented technology entrepreneurs, who otherwise would have focused on classic for-profit businesses have embarked on the road to social ventures, and in many cases, even as their very first venture. The economic climate for such social ventures is ripe, India is riding a high, and a lot of global capital is available for bold entrepreneurs who have the belief in their social vision of change. As with every thing in life, these social ventures are not easy to pull off. They take much longer and are typically harder to scale. However, if you are successful, the paybacks both financially and socially are significant. Can you imagine, Mohd Yunus, starting with under $100 of capital 25 years back to turn grameen bank into a multi billion dollar micro finance power house, which has touched millions of lives? To get these kind of rewards, one would have to venture off the beaten track and find those sustainable business ideas which address a deeper need for the poor, while providing for a sustainable and scalable business model. Any one for a “Ad supported” text books for the rural villages, which can be distributed free? Or, creating “food parks” in the rural farm lands? Ideas are galore, we need more entrepreneurs to take up the challenge.

We at the SiliconIndia.com community are also committed to starting our own, SiliconIndia.org, a 5013c corp, in 2008 to become the agent of change; hopefully, we will find many more of you embark on your journey to rural and social entrepreneurship.

Please do share your ideas and thoughts at my blog at http://blogs.siliconindia.com.

Thanks

Gunjan