The concept of social entrepreneurship has stemmed from the idea of corporate social responsibility. However, its potential impact can be far greater once we consider the impact on society.
Corporate Social Responsibility is somewhat a laid back approach that urges business entities to undertake commercial ventures without harming society and its facets.
However, this conservative approach is just not enough once we consider the present-day challenges to society. To better cope with present societal challenges, Microsoft has launched this ambitious program.
Microsoft’s Global Social Entrepreneurship Program (GSEP) has been launched in collaboration with MIT Solve platform, which is already engaged in social initiatives in over 36 countries across the globe.
The primary goal of GSEP is to identify budding enterprises that want to drive some sort of social impact with their product, service or even an idea that improves the quality of life.
After careful scrutiny and evaluation of social entrepreneurship plan, GSEP will become an enabler by bridging the gap of IT resources, cloud architecture, human expertise and most importantly, financial resources.
The great aspect of this program is that it will collaborate with only those entities who want to improve societal conditions through a commercially viable solution.
MIT Solve already has a rich experience in this domain as it has three notable social improvement initiatives running successfully under its belt.
OmniVis uses a cellphone to evaluate water samples for traces of cholera. Seabin is a project that eliminates plastic from the world’s oceans. Zindi connects organizations with Artificial Intelligence (AI) to resolve issues.
Some of the available allowances that are available under GSEP are free to access to Microsoft cloud resources, Azure credits to the tune of $120,000 and technical support.
The potential buyers of these initiatives are expected to be large commercial organizations that have the requisite resources and outreach to take the project to its conclusive end.
Another key buyer of projects finalized under GSEP will be Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO) that have access to both state and public money to undertake viable social development initiatives.
We expect the collaboration between Microsoft and MIT Solve is well poised to deliver tangible results in bringing about a major improvement at the societal level, at that too in a commercially viable manner.
