Social innovation largely results from the work of passionate individuals who establish or use diverse platforms for addressing social issues that bother them. The Jasani Center believes that social innovations are largely incubated in the voluntary sector and to scale it up the students must learn to embrace state or market institutions. To promote student interest in social innovations and facilitate their skills for scaling up, various Social B-Plan competitions are organized. The Center provides unstinted support to students to participate in the inter college and inter university social venture and social entrepreneurship B-Plan competitions. Efforts are made to introduce the students to the funding agencies network to provide seed capital to students who wish to incubate their innovative ideas.
The Center’s efforts have proved to be rewarding. The 2009 Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition organized by the Foster School of Business, Washington University was won by the students of NMIMS. The team designed a B- Plan on ‘Ahaar: Meal for Poor at Ten Cents. In 2011, the Pilot Project developed by a team of Social Entrepreneurship Students on -‘Cycle Chalao’ (Bicycle as first choice of transport) which aimed at addressing the issue of transportation, reducing carbon emissions and traffic congestion received the Global Responsible Leadership Award (GRLI).
Similarly in 2011, a group of students developed their pilot project Srjna to engage trafficked women to earn dignified living through jewelry making. This project received won the Rotary Seattle Impact Prize at the Global Social Entrepreneurship competition.
Mr. Gaurav Arora and Ms Anjali Saigal, students of PTMBA (SE) won the Western Region ‘Power to Empower’ competition which was co-organized by India@75 and National Skills Development Corporation. The competition aimed to encourage young students and entrepreneurs to be part of the mammoth business opportunity that exits in Skills Development arena.
Project ‘Animal Angels – Animals for Human Wellness’ initiated by First year PTMBA (SE) student Mr. Akash Lonkar has been selected as one of the top 8 best projects in the Mahindra – Spark the Rise competition.
