Given the burgeoning unemployment crisis in the country, it is essential to create more jobs that are aspirational and allow more participation from the workforce. Mass entrepreneurship is the sureshot means of achieving this goal. Entrepreneurship is favorable only when it is based on innovation and enterprise which in turn leads to jobs and wealth creation. But entrepreneurship as a career choice is still not a natural choice for the youth of the country. Hence GAME conceptualized the idea of creating an entrepreneurial mindset amongst the youth as the first step towards achieving this goal.
In parallel, we also worked on drawing up a document articulating the need for a National Entrepreneurship Mission (NEM) and what the mission entails. NEM is a programme that needs to be launched nationally. The idea was to take a top down approach to enabling entrepreneurship in the country. The intention was to start by identifying a few states where there is already some level of activity present combined with the existence of an ecosystem. And once the first few states have been identified then the next logical step would be to draw up and create a State Entrepreneurship Mission (SEM).
We have a phased approach to implementing the Entrepreneurship Mission across the country and we are focusing our efforts in this direction. Over the next 12 months, we would like to consider 4 States for implementation. The second is to identify a few promising sectors and districts in the chosen state and collaborate with our partners to launch specific initiatives and interventions. One such initiative we feel is necessary for making entrepreneurship a mass movement is the Growtherator. It is an ideal fit for the SEM approach as it allows for excitement to be created organically in the ecosystem by telling the success stories of the local entrepreneurs which then can help motivate more players to take to this path.
But the beauty of the Growtherator model is that not only does it motivate entrepreneurs, it also creates interest and focused activity on the part of the district or local administration who then are more predisposed to helping support more breakthroughs on the ground.
The first state that we intend to roll out our State Entrepreneurship Mission is Maharashtra and we have on-ground partners who are critical in ensuring effective and efficient implementation across the State. Recently we concluded our partner meet with all players in the Maharashtra Mission. The endeavor of the meet was to understand how to create the organization and governance structure for collaborative working. Another aspect was how we can synergize with our partners to ensure all are working towards the same goal and bolstering one another. There were also conversations surrounding how to converge all our efforts at a district level and how we can scale our plans. e. Our efforts this year would be to explore launching a State Entrepreneurship Mission in at least 2 states in the Country.