CSR Conclave brainstorms Inclusive Growth
The CSR Conclave is a platform to take forward the vision of ‘New India 2022’, by collaborating to co-create higher-order social impact through investment in scalable and sustainable socio-economic development models. The Conclave brought together exponents and seasoned practitioners of CSR and Sustainability in a power-packed and focused deliberation, for collective contribution to the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Inclusive Growth – Equitable Development and Sustainability. The forum attempted to highlight the importance of dismantling invisible barriers to the flow of capital in rural areas.
Mr. Sunil K Chakrapani, Vice President and Head, CSR & Relationships, welcomed the gatherings.
Mr. Vivek Pawar, CEO, Deshpande Foundation gave an introductory note about the Deshpande Foundation and the objectives of the Conclave. While he also explained the decade-long achievements of four Impact Units – Agriculture, Edu-Skilling, Entrepreneurship and Micro-Entrepreneurship to the gatherings.
“India’s problems’ being huge needs scalability of successful initiatives through collaborations of like-minded CSR companies and NGOs. Thus the conclave was intended towards the objective of collaboration to deal with poverty, unemployment and agricultural crisis” stated Vivek Pawar.
He also mentioned the existence of 3.2 Million NGOs in India (more than per capita hospital beds), of which only around 1.5 Lakh is active. This gained the attention of an NGO rating in the future, to identify the transparent, effective, competent and scalable NGOs to solve the country’s problems through CSR funding.
In his keynote address, Dr. Gururaj Desh Deshpande highlighted the importance of uplifting and impacting the bottom of the pyramid – essentially those who don’t have disposable income. For this, the execution excellence of corporates and empathy of NGOs must marry – to identify promising opportunities in social business models. The social collaboration among corporates must aim to encourage people at the bottom of the pyramid to take ownership of their lives, create vibrancy in the community and drive them through entrepreneurial mindsets.
The first-panel session on ‘Equitable Development’ was moderated by Nikhil Pant, Chief Development Officer, REACHA. The panelists were Dr. Ram Turaga, Chief Development Officer, Office of Development and Alumni Affairs, IISC; Abhijit Ray, Co-Founder & MD, Unitus Capital; Santhosh Abraham, VP, NASSCOM Foundation; Sanu Mathews, CSR Head, GMRVF.
The panel discussed how India can hope to play a crucial supplementing a role for sustainable and equitable development with a new stable majority government at the center for the next 5 years.
The second-panel session on ‘Sustainability’ was moderated by Mr. Manoj Chakravarti, COO, Centre for Corporate Governance and Citizenship, IIM – B and the panel was represented by Sangeeta Robinson, Head Sustainability & Inclusion, PVR Limited; Abhishek Kumar, Co-Founder, Ripples Learning; Abhishek Ranjan, Associate Director, CSR, Brilio.
The panel discussed how corporates can continue to function with a balanced stakeholder scenario. The importance of digital technology transformation was felt like an important aspect of sustainability.
Mr. Vivek introduced the new rental model project of farm ponds – its unique value proposition being an asset-light model compared to the earlier model which was asset-heavy. He welcomed the gathering to participate in the Social Immersion Program, which is a one-day exposure visit to Hubballi Social Innovation Sandbox’s entrepreneurial and innovative initiatives.