Hyderabad: Delivering the Key Note at Bala Vikasa CSRB’s Annual Social Entrepreneurship Summit Impulse 2025, Ramon Magsaysay Award Winner, and Founder and CEO of SELCO Foundation, Dr Harish Hande, spotlighted that empathy and community-led, participatory problem-solving are critical to social entrepreneurship. He said, “Social Entrepreneurship is whether you can feel the problem of others, not just about solving the problem. If a farmer does not have water and is growing millets, do you actually feel what will happen if the rains don’t come in? If you cannot be one with the farmer and there is a divide, you can never be a social entrepreneur.
Addressing over 500 social entrepreneurship stakeholders, he said that we are not helping the poor, and the poor don’t need our help. We are only partnering with the poor to create some solutions, where they are the critical solution providers. He emphasised that India is a microcosm of the world’s problems as well as the world’s solutions; what happens in upper Assam can be a solution for the Philippines. “We are so confused between intellectual poverty and financial poverty that we believe that the financially poor cannot come up with solutions. Social entrepreneurship needs to challenge that,” he said, asking the audience to imagine a scenario where five years down the road, a kid in Mali, Burkina Faso, is saying, “I went to India, I learnt what development is, what removal of poverty is most sustainable.”
Hon’ble Minister for Environment and Forests, Konda Surekha, who graced the event as the Chief Guest, said that the Telangana Government prioritises innovations and social startups because they create greater social impact with inclusiveness. “We are working to create more avenues where startups and departments collaborate to solve social and environmental challenges, and the Ministry of Environment will always support initiatives that promote sustainable usage and preservation of natural resources,” she said, assuring her support to social enterprises working for social impact and sustainable development.
Over 500+ participants comprising social entrepreneurs, investors, ecosystem enablers, students, NGOs from across the world convened for Impulse 2025, the fourth edition of the annual flagship Social Entrepreneurship Summit hosted by Bala Vikasa Centre for Social and Responsible Business (CSRB) in partnership with several ecosystem stakeholders. About 60 social enterprises showcased solutions across sectors such as healthcare, education, climate, agri-tech, and sustainability. The event served as a powerful platform for knowledge exchange, funding connections, and cross-sector collaboration.
Shoury Reddy Singareddy, Executive Director of Bala Vikasa, said social entrepreneurship is critical to solving problems that traditional development stakeholders are unable to solve at scale. He said, “We are incubating social startups because we believe we can impact thousands of people through one social enterprise, which would take much more effort if we were to take the traditional development route.” Rahul Bhardwaj, Senior Director and Head of Bala Vikasa CSRB, said that Impulse has been providing high transactional value to all ecosystem stakeholders and wished that everybody attending the event would have something new to share or take away from all their interactions during the day-long event. Ramana Gupta, Founder of Wealth First Finserv, led an insightful discussion on Impact Investments to develop a better understanding of fundraising for social ventures. Indra Reddy, President of Bala Vikasa, thanked all the partners for their support and the participants for their active participation.