How digital technology is paving the way for a more socially responsible India
One of the superpowers of digital technology is that of amplification, which simply means that adopting digital can help an enterprise amplify its access to resources, its reach to customers and its voice as a brand. We often talk about how this has led to the surge in start-ups and small enterprises globally; the acceleration of social enterprises, spanning non-profit, for-profit, and private-public partnerships has been even more significant.
Today, India is considered to have one of the most vibrant social enterprise sectors in the world. A 2016 report by British Council estimated that around 2 million Indian enterprises are working towards creating social impact in the areas of skills development, education, non-farm livelihood and more. Through frugal innovation and peer-to-peer collaboration across academia, corporates, and existing financial and social infrastructures, social entrepreneurs are adding an important trajectory to the country’s growth. The eradication of social inequity is a common underlying cause with most social entrepreneurs, and they empower the communities they wish to impact by making them a part of the solution. As per the same British Council report, the business goals of these entrepreneurs are equally lofty: 78% of Indian social enterprises aim to expand into new areas; 73% aim to increase their customer base; while 56% seek new investments to expand.
With this scale of ambition, it is no surprise that digital technology is a critical tool for social entrepreneurs. Be it leveraging crowd-funding equity for their initiatives, setting up peer-to-peer lending platforms for their target beneficiaries, or even sending out a rallying cry for citizen support on important issues, the internet and social media help social entrepreneurs amplify their reach and impact on a global scale. At GoDaddy, we have had the good fortune of working with three unique and incredibly varied Indian social entrepreneurs, supporting their initiatives and helping them along their individual digital journeys.
Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev’s Isha Foundation is globally renowned for various social and environmental outreach programmes that focus on rebuilding depleted resources. Perhaps its current, most well-known initiative is ‘Rally for Rivers’, which was launched in 2017, and has since been included in the NITI Aayog policy advisory to all 29 states. Sadhguru recently campaigned to revitalise the Cauvery river and led a motorcycle rally across its entire length in September 2019. (You can read more about it by searching for #CauveryCalling)
Isha Foundation’s websites are a huge success online, and can, in fact, be a case study for creating a thriving digital domain for social enterprises. Recently, we spoke with the veteran himself to better understand his decision to take Isha Foundation digital, to which he explained that when we are fortunate enough to have a technology that allows us to communicate with an entire generation of people, it is up to us to make sure that we use it for good. Sadhguru said, “Many great beings have come before us and they did their best to transmit what they thought was valuable – but what was their reach? Today, we are fortunate to have technology with us that allows us to address four billion people straight away. It is our endeavour to use this ability to transform humanity in this generation.”