How India Is Innovating With Purpose And Impact

India is creating its own narrative in the landscape of social innovation as technology, entrepreneurship, and purpose conjoin to make significant advancements addressing India’s social challenges. It is not merely about apps or new business plans, and entrepreneurial development. It is about harnessing its demographic dividend, expansions in digital infrastructure, and enabling policies that spur local responses to local issues, and which are globally relevant addressing issues, such as, climate change and urbanisation.

With a population under 35 that is over two-thirds the population, rapidly moving digital, and the emergence of an impact ecosystem, India has an unheralded opportunity to advance the next generation of social innovation: locally conceived solutions with system change potential.

Shifts in Paradigm

Rather than attempt to replicate already existing global models, India has established four shifts which characterise its approach:

·         Policy as an enabler and implementer - Initiatives like Start-Up India, new education policy and infrastructure investment for transport and housing, and a general permissive environment for experimentation and public–private partnership, promotes testing and investment

·         The amalgamation of civil society and technology - Millions of civil society organisations across the country are partnering with civic-tech players to deepen democratic engagement and make their services more accessible and participatory

·         Funding that is available locally - Funders are willing to progress and to offer risk capital for early-stage impact ideas

·         Focus on the SDGs - Given India's scale and diversity, sustainable development is the need of the hour, and at the same time complex, yet an integral aspect for innovation

Innovation Across Key SDGs

Clean Water & Sanitation (SDG 6)

An estimated 163 million people still do not have access to safe drinking water. Solutions include low-cost purification systems, water-from-air technologies, and IoT-enabled water management solutions to improve access in under-connected areas.

Affordable & Clean Energy (SDG 7)

Approximately 750 million people are in energy poverty. There are promising results from Pay-As-You-Go solar systems, microgrids and new community financing models for clean energy access at the local level.

Sustainable Cities & Communities (SDG 11)

Urbanization forecast could add more than 400 million new residents to cities in the world by 2050 further burdening the already stressed infrastructure and services. The responses most likely to influence tomorrow will include affordable housing models, smart waste diversion and recovery and shared urban mobility solutions.

Policy Levers to Scale Impact

·         Updating CSR rules to mobilize corporate funds for early stage social enterprises and blended finance models

·         Regulatory sandboxes to enable social innovators to test solutions using live feedback in the real world within critical sectors and systems such as health, water, education and agriculture

Remaining Challenges - And What Might Help

Despite momentum, there are also still challenges, including: 

·         Funding gaps – There are a lot of entrepreneurs struggling to grow their social enterprises, particularly to build the bridge from early grants to commercial investment

·         Fragmented efforts - There is usually a lack of collaboration between innovators, funders and policy makers

 What might help even further
Creating common platforms for collaboration, providing long-term and not short-term funding, and building deeper ties between businesses and CSR champions. By blending financial, social and knowledge capital, promising solutions can be a gamechanger and achieve the desired goals.

India is turning social innovation possibilities to reality by embracing locally grounded, actionable solutions and supporting them with enabling policies and patient capital.

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