The Global Social Entrepreneurship in India course (taught by Tony Sheldon and Asha Ghosh) takes place in the second half of Fall and first half of Spring semesters. Students spend two weeks in India in January working with their social enterprise partners, culminating in a conference in Bangalore where each team presents a project update.
Launched in 2008 at the Yale School of Management, the Global Social Entrepreneurship (GSE) course links teams of Yale students with social enterprises based in India. GSE is committed to channeling the skills of Yale students to assist Indian organizations to expand their reach and impact on “base of the pyramid” communities. Yale students partner with mission-driven social entrepreneurs (SEs) to focus on a specific management challenge that the student/SE teams work together to address during the semester. GSE has worked with more than 50 leading and emerging Indian social enterprises engaged in economic development, sustainable energy, women’s empowerment, education, environmental conservation, and affordable housing. The course covers both theoretical and practical issues, including case studies and discussions on social enterprise, developing a theory of change and related social metrics, financing social businesses, the role of civil society in India, framing a consulting engagement, managing team dynamics, etc.
Previous Years' Teams
Team AlphaMD, Based in Mumbai
AlphaMD LifeSciences is an organization active in life sciences and analytics primarily focused on the pharmaceutical industry, is seeking to address the shortage of accessible primary health care facilities in rural India through introducing mobile healthcare facilities. The Yale team helped a life-sciences startup develop a sustainable business model to enter the space of non-urban mobile diagnostic healthcare services.
Team Sadhna, Based in Udaipur
Sadhna is a handicraft enterprise that trains and employs women in southern Rajasthan with the aim of empowering them both economically and socially. It sells the women’s products through its retail showrooms and also caters to B2B orders and makes products for both domestic and export markets. Sadhna would like to grow their organization to expand their mission and scope. In order to meet growing demand, the GSE team undertook a project to provide recommendations that will help increase the productivity of the artisans.
Team CSE, Based in New Delhi
Mann Deshi Foundation is a women’s cooperative bank and foundation in rural India that is looking to generate rural economic empowerment by providing capital and financial services to women. They partnered with GSE to evaluate and model out the introduction of Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) as a new way of investing in India outside of banking regulations.
Team Neurosynaptic, Based in Bangalore
Neurosynaptic Communications supports access to quality and affordable healthcare in rural India by providing hardware and software for telemedicine. The GSE team's project provided insight into how Neurosynaptic can restructure its business model to ensure steady revenues, primarily by increasing the financial, operational, and social impact performance of Neurosynaptic and its partners.
Team BASIX, Based in Kolkata
The Institute of Livelihood Research and Training, an affiliate of the BASIX group, works with small-scale, often geographically-isolated farmers' associations. The GSE project focused on how BASIX could improve farmers’ access to markets and how to assess launching their own value-added processing facilities.
Team CSE, Based in New Delhi
Center for Science and Environment is a public interest research and advocacy organization focused on promoting development that is sustainable, equitable and participatory. They seek to achieve improved planetary and individual health outcomes by promoting the consumption of organic produce in Northern India. Our GSE team partnered with them to develop organic farmers markets and sales platform extensions to achieve this aim.
Team BASIX, Based in Hyderabad
BASIX Sub-K iTransactions Limited, a micro-payments subsidiary of BASIX Social Enterprise Group, seeks to use technology to provide diverse financial services to low-income households so every Indian can participate in the mainstream economy. Yale’s GSE team partnered with them to conduct a landscape study in order to recommend applicable technological trends and business models that can effectively address identified pain points in their business model.
Team TARA, Based in New Delhi
TARAurja, is an organization focused on providing “the last mile” solar energy to rural India through the operation of solar power plants and micro-grids and the development of grid management technology. They partnered with the GSE team to explore ways to strengthen their financial viability in efforts to expand their impact to more areas of India.
Team TARA, Based in Delhi
TARA Livelihood Academy, a livelihood training organization focused on women and youth, has ambitious growth plans over the next 5 years. The GSE team worked with their client to identify objective measures of success for each of its regional and local training centers; create a transparent decision-making tool to identify their most successful growth opportunities; and strive towards long-term financial sustainability.
Team mHS, Based in Delhi
mHS (Micro Home Solutions) City Lab is a social venture that aims to improve the quality and safety of housing for low-income communities and to design solutions for smart, resilient and inclusive cities. The GSE team worked on a distribution strategy and financial model for mHS’s new mobile app aimed at homeowners and masons to improve construction.
Team ONganic, Based in Kolkata
ONganic is a social business that connects farmers growing organic foods to Indian consumers in an effort to increase farmers' livelihoods and decrease their exposure to dangerous pesticides. The group was asked to look at and optimize ONganic’s supply chain and operations.
Teams TARA and mHS at the British High
Commission, New Delhi, hosted by Jessica Modrall (SOM ‘10) and her husband, Alexander Evans, Acting British High Commissioner to India and Yale World Fellow 2009.