Resources – Page 5 – Enterprisers.in

Networking Opportunities – Centrallia

14/04/201014/04/2010 yazdi

Centrallia event is based on the internationally recognized business to business match-making forum called Futurallia, which has successfully brought thousands of businesses together since its founding in 1990.
Core of the concept are a series of 30 minute, pre-programmed, one-on-one meetings that allow businesses to quickly connect and find ground for common opportunity. It is an intense, yet friendly and cooperative environment, that allows delegates to meet with up to 12 potential trade partners over two days. Pre fixed meetings are organised based on the profile of the participant.
Further opportunities to meet and network are abundant through Centrallia’s tradeshow and social events. It is simply one of the fastest, most efficient ways to expose your business to new markets and opportunities worldwide.

More than 500 small to medium sized businesses from around the world will gather in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, during Centrallia to form new business relationships of mutual benefit. This global business to business forum gives the opportunity to forge profitable alliances with companies located in the Americas and across the world. Participation from more than 20 world economic regions are expected.

Click Here for the Brochure

Click Here for the Presentation

Click Here for the website

Resources, Social Entrepreneurship

How to enable credit to the poor?

12/04/2010 Support

Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series 2010

We would like to kick-off the first of the “Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series“, that is a continuing set of of discussions on Corporate Social Responsibility in India.

The discussions will be based on the learnings and results from the Karmayog CSR Study and Ratings of the 500 largest Indian companies, that has been undertaken since 2007. (See www.karmayog. org/csr2009 for more details)

Our objective is to both broaden and deepen the understanding and implementation of CSR in India, by including more people from different areas of work and experience in the dialogue on CSR. So far, Corporate Social Responsibility is discussed and debated largely by corporates, industry associations and some departments of government that have a direct connect. But because what corporates do (through their products and processes) affects all citizens, it is important that all types of stakeholders from citizens to NGOs, media to academia, and corporates and government, together interact and engage on Corporate Social Responsibility.

Solutions to the issues and problems that confront society today need the contribution and involvement of all stakeholders, especially corporates, that form a large, influential and resource-rich group, but also the contributions of all other stakeholders. Karmayog, through the CSR Dialogue Series and through the networking platform that it provides, aims to bring together inputs, contributions and suggestions from all, enabling these to be used in finding and implementing solutions.

We welcome suggestions from you for topics to be covered in the “Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series”.

Karmayog CSR Dialogue Series 2010 – 1

How to enable credit to the poor?

Mohammed Yunus, the pioneer in microfinance and Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2006, says that “Microcredit should be about helping the poor to get out of poverty by protecting them from the moneylenders, not creating new ones. A true microcredit organization must keep its interest rate as close to the cost-of-funds as possible. My own experience has convinced me that microcredit interest rates can be comfortably under the cost of funds plus ten percent, or plus fifteen percent at the most.” (See http://www.grameen- info.org/ for details)

Several Indian micro-finance companies are shortly seeking listing on the stock exchange, and once listed, will be seeking and working towards huge and increasing profits for their investors. This means that they will be lending money to the poor at higher and higher interest rates, and justifying the same as there is currently no other way of reaching credit to the poor. This method of maximizing profit without any other social objective is a way of cashing in on poverty, and is contrary to the objective with which micro-finance insititutions were started, which was to provide credit to marginalised sections of society at the lowest possible rate of interest, with the objective of bringing them out of poverty, and not with the objective of earning profits for the lender.

Some questions:

– Should companies with no social objective be permitted to lend money to the poor?

– Should only government organisations and non-profits be permitted to lend to the poor?

– Should there be a limit set to the profits that can be made from micro-finance activites?

– Should the rate of interest be fixed by government, as is done for banks?

The Government of India has framed the Draft Document on Regulation and Development of Microfinance Sector. Please send your suggestions and ideas on ‘how to reach credit to the poor?’ . All responses received will be displayed on Karmayog as well as forwarded to the Ministry of Finance and NABARD.

Please respond via www.karmayog. org/messages/ message.aspx? id=2554

Regards,

Vinay

www.karmayog. org — creating collective conversations

Finance, Motivations, News, Resources

Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP)

22/03/201022/03/2010 yazdi

The “Technopreneur Promotion Programme” (TePP) was launched in 1998-99 by the Ministry of Science and Technology. TePP is operated by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) to tap the vast innovative potential of the citizen of India. TePP is a mechanism to promote indivudual innovators to become technology-based entrepreneurs (Technopreneurs).

Objectives

The TePP has the following objectives:

To promote and support untapped creativity of individual innovators
To assist the individual innovators to become technology based enterpreneurs
To assist the technopreneur in networking and forge linkages with other constituents of the innovation chain for commercialization of their developments.

Activities

The activities under TePP include providing financial support to selected and screened individual innovators having original ideas for converting them into working models , prototypes and so on. TePP assistance is provided to the innovator to meet expenditure on the following:

R&D/Engineering consultancy
Procure small equipment,tools etc. required
Raw Material/ Accessories (for prototype/process trials),
Fabrication cost (for prototypes)
Patent guidance and support
Manpower
Testing & Trials
Any other relevant costs

TePP support to the innovators is limited to 90% of the total cost of the project & remaining 10% is to be borne by the innovator/inventor.

Click Here for more information on this unique program

Click Here for Technology Development and Innovation Programme (TDIP)

News, Resources, Startups

Online Resources for Entrepreneurs

05/02/201005/02/2010 yazdi

Gone are the days when you had to run from pillar to post to figure out the most efficient ways to fire up your business. While starting a venture is still far from being “just a click away” the internet has certainly ensured that you literally do have enough information at your fingertips and that once you’ve sorted regulatory issues out, you can tap into several online resources to get yourself up an running. DARE takes a look at some of the best online resources, including some India-specific ones, that budding entrepreneurs can tap into.

Click Here for the full Article

News, Resources, Startups

Clusters for SME growth

31/01/2010 yazdi

“A cluster is a geographically proximate group of companies and associated
institutions in a particular field, linked by commonalities and complementarities ”

Cluster Pulse , an ISO certified economic development agency is a professionally managed, self-sustaining, autonomous institution with excellence in implementation of Cluster Development initiatives as its main objective through the twin approach of market intervention & technology upgradation in SME’s.It has worked in 82 clusters in partnership with GTZ, UNIDO, USAID, IFC, World Bank, The commonwealth secretariat, Govt. of Canada, Govt. of Brunei, Government of India – Ministry Of Textiles, Ministry of MSME, Ministry of IT & communications & State Govt. all over India & in 10 other countries including USA, Canada, Brazil, Sweden, UK, Croatia, South Africa, Oman, Brunei, Turkey & Afghanistan. We have worked in 80 industry vertical like Textiles, agro, engineering, pharma, consumer goods, ICT etc.

Click Here for more information for SME training, marketing and growth

Marketing, Resources

Tenders Information System

31/01/201031/01/2010 yazdi

This Indian Government Tenders Information System is the Central Source for Government and Public Sector Procurement / Tenders/ Notifications issued by the Central and State Governments and other public bodies across India for goods, services and works.

Tenders based on specific Product/Service category to which your business can respond

Civil Works, Equipment, Machineries, Support Services…

View all Tenders floated by a certain Government of India entity

Central Govt. Min. / Dept.

Tender notifications by the Tender Category, namely

Click Here for this storehouse of the latest Tenders by the Government of India

News, Resources

Renewable and Clean Energy Technology Manufacturing get a boost

17/01/2010 yazdi

Recovery Act Tax Credits to Enable More Than $7 Billion in New Manufacturing Projects and Create Tens of Thousands of Jobs Washington, 8 January 2010- Today at the White House, President Obama announced the award of $2.3 billion in Recovery Act Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credits for clean energy manufacturing projects across the United States. One hundred eighty three projects in 43 states will create tens of thousands of high quality clean energy jobs and the domestic manufacturing of advanced clean energy technologies including solar, wind and efficiency and energy management technologies. (…) This effort, along with other Recovery Act investments, will drive significant growth in the renewable energy and clean technology manufacturing sectors and give the United States the ability to lead globally in these markets. The investment tax credits, worth up to thirty percent of each planned project, will leverage private capital for a total investment of nearly $7.7 billion in high-tech manufacturing in the United States. The projects announced today address the broad spectrum of manufacturing capabilities needed to support a robust clean energy economy. The projects were competitively selected through a rigorous merit review process and the companies chosen say they will create more than 17,000 jobs in some of the fastest growing parts of our economy. (…) http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8501.htm

Business Ideas, Resources

Open Innovation

23/12/200923/12/2009 yazdi

“Open innovation is the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively. [This paradigm] assumes that firms can and should use external ideas as well as internal ideas, and internal and external paths to market, as they look to advance their technology.”

Henry Chesbrough, Open Innovation: Researching a New Paradigm

OpenInnovation.net is a portal for the latest research and practice regarding the open innovation. The open innovation paradigm originated in the 2003 book of the same name by Dr. Henry Chesbrough of U.C. Berkeley.