Urban entrepreneurship is generally considered as the venturing of a daring, talented individual to create a high impact venture that solves a persistent problem and results in wealth creation. Social entrepreneurship varies in that the expected end result is creation of a permanent solution for the persistent problem. We could define rural entrepreneurship more broadly as the enthusiastic willingness of a villager to organize his or her economic activity, whatever it may be (a business, a job, an investment etc) with the help of appropriate technology and practices conceived for a sustainable living.

So what is remarkable about a villager simply organizing his or her economic activity? According to a survey done in year 2000, out of the total workforce of 397 million in India, only 28 million workers are employed in the organized sector. The remaining 369 million are part of the unorganized sector. The same survey indicates that the contribution of the unorganized sector to the net domestic product has been over 60%.

In this context, it is remarkable that the majority of this vital workforce, because it is unorganized, goes without social security, job training, market data, insurance, health care, easy access to credit, efficient processes for production, marketing, accounting etc… the list is endless. While the government and a large number of NGOs are trying to address the various needs of the unorganized sector, any contribution, however small it is, made by anyone is a breath of fresh air for the people in this sector.

What we have done so far:

So far, we have not done anything specific in the domain of rural economic activity. We hope that with our experience in past jobs (in software engineering and marketing) and volunteering with smartly organized non-profit organizations have given us some grounding and knowledge in the fundamentals of organizing various types of activities including economic activities. We also studied the history, practices and services of the Small Business Administration (SBA) in the US. And a meeting with its Director for Entrepreneurial Development in San Francisco has given us some initial ideas.

What we intend to do:

We intend to create a service center for individuals and small businesses modeled after the SBA and customize it for the local language, culture and prevailing challenges and opportunities. We might begin with offering a couple of courses in IT and process management and later invite specialists to volunteer to teach an array of courses and services. We are also looking at partnering with organizations like the Honeybee Network that documents, patents and productizes local innovations that are referred to in social development literature as Appropriate Technology. Our largely capitalist experience, some gift-economy experience and our readings of gandhian economists like J.C.Kumarappa has given us a comprehensive view of different kinds of organizing economics. Hopefully we will find a balanced approach that helps practice economics as if people and planet mattered (to paraphrase Schumacher).

As with everything else, we'd love to hear from you.