DBS Bank Partners Tata Institute of Social Sciences to Champion Social Entrepreneurship in India

Aug. 17, 2012 - PRLog -- Hyderabad, 17 August – DBS, the leading financial services group in Asia and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), India’s premier institute for social sciences and HR, today signed a strategic partnership agreement to launch the ‘DBS–TISS Social Entrepreneurship Programme’ to comprehensively promote the cause and purpose of social entrepreneurship and social enterprises.

DBS and TISS will closely work together to provide start-up funding, growth capital for capacity building/expanding, business guidance and mentoring support through staff volunteers. TISS and DBS will also initiate research and related programmes to measure social impact and created by such ventures and organise events to propagate the cause and purpose of social entrepreneurship in the public domain through conferences, awards, whitepapers, case studies etc.  

Social enterprises are organizations that apply business strategies to achieve social goals. They are businesses with heart - set up with a social mission with profits channelled towards fulfilling social needs. These ventures are designed to deliver to social welfare by generating employment, improving quality of life, creating assets and wealth for the deserving, facilitating environmental sustainability and enabling inclusive growth. They typically follow a dual bottom line approach reporting their financial and social impact.

Speaking about new age developmental initiatives, Prof. S. Parasuraman, Director, TISS, said, “There is a fundamental shift in the way development strategies are presently being approached. Developmental funding is now viewed as a social investment with financial sustainability being as important as social impact. Building capabilities of marginalized and excluded communities with initiatives such as facilitation through market linkage; timely funding and appropriate information is the new way for development. Social entrepreneurship thus emerges unique, as it deploys technological, managerial and social knowledge and skills to create desired social change.”

Announcing the partnership and the launch of the programme, Sanjiv Bhasin, CEO, DBS Bank India, said, “We are committed to building a better future by supporting social enterprises in India and across Asia.  Social enterprises offer innovative and sustainable solutions to meet societal needs. As a strong advocate of entrepreneurship and innovation, DBS is committed to help social enterprises maximise their social impact and improve their commercial viability at the same time. We are delighted to partner with TISS to execute this programme as their expertise in social sciences perfectly complements our ability to provide capital and entrepreneurial focus to social ventures.”

TISS with its rich history in the field of social sciences is a pioneer in the domain of social entrepreneurship in India. It established the Center for Social Entrepreneurship in 2007 and offers a two-year post graduate programme – Masters of Arts in Social Entrepreneurship. Students graduating from this programme start their own social enterprises to address challenges faced by communities through innovative, sustainable and scalable solutions.

Elaborating on the partnership between DBS and TISS, Prof. Satyajit Majumdar, Chairman, Center for Social Entrepreneurship, TISS said, “In addition to developing a qualified stream of social entrepreneurs trained with the right blend of classroom teaching and fieldwork, we will provide financial, networking, mentoring and other support so that they can start or scale-up their ventures and play a more impactful role in tackling the social issues facing the communities they are working with. We will also create and disseminate knowledge on social entrepreneurship with the help of academicians and researchers. This adds to develop newer knowledge base and also helps social entrepreneurs to improvise their solutions for addressing social problems more effectively.”