Nanda Kishor Mandal is from Janakpur and did his early schooling in Kathmandu. After graduating he went for further studies to Delhi University, where he received both a BCOMM- honors and an MBA. Nanda ended up spending 10 years in India, where he worked for Bank of America in their training department, Maruti Suzuki in HR and Ashok-Leyland in vendor development. He won three national awards in India as part of team for developing sustainable housing made out of bamboo. When he came back to Nepal in 2013 he established the Women Development Advocacy Centre (WDAC) in Janakpur and Kathmandu. WDAC is focused on co-creating sustainable solutions through knowledge based interventions.
Nanda is now in-charge of the King’s College Incubator which is the only college that runs a program to attain an MBA in entrepreneurship. “Our responsibility is to bring learnings into the classroom. This means that we need more understanding of what is happening in an entrepreneurial space.” Students come with ideas and King’s College helps them to grow these through a 15 week dedicated program of 10-15 students. At the end of the program the students make a pitch for seed funding. The program is 2.5 years old and in 2015 there were seven ventures launched and in 2016 ten. The incubator provides physical support with offices, mentoring, access to networks, seed funding, access to financial services, training services and help with networking, everything a small business needs to be successful.
But King’s College also “walks the talk” and from June 30-July 1, 2016 Nanda is working to organize the very first Conference on Social Entrepreneurship in Nepal, which has been almost two years in the making. Partnering in this effort are more than 30 organisations including the Government of Nepal Ministry of Industry. The Conference organizers include King’s College, Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurial Development (CINED), Biruwa Ventures and Change Fusion Nepal.
According to Nanda the Conference goals include starting a network for social entrepreneurs, developing a knowledge base and integrating this information into classroom learnings. There is also a need to further understand the challenges faced by social entrepreneurs and map organisations willing to invest in social entrepreneurs. The conference organizers are targeting 250 people and want to make this an annual event.
I met with Nanda and asked him about the differences in the environment for social entrepreneurs between India and Nepal. In India under the Companies Act, 2013, any company having a net worth of rupees 500 crore or more or a turnover of rupees 1,000 crore or more or a net profit of rupees 5 crore or more has to spend at least 2% of the last three years average net profits on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities. The rules came into effect from 1st April 2014. This is not about a donation but is about sustainable business activities. CSR in Nepal isn’t that much about impact and although some activities are picking up the environment needs to be more conducive through regulations and mind-set. Currently there isn’t much talk about sustainability. Nanda noted that social entrepreneurship is very important and that big corporates in India have more understanding and that Indians are exposed to world class education, extensive travel and that youth understand this. Exposure to youth of CSR is in the nascent stage in Nepal.
The Conference will feature global speakers and an entrepreneurial showcase. There will be speakers such as Professor Satyajit Majumdar, who is the Chairperson of the Center for Social Entrepreneurship of the School of Management and Labour Studies at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS) who is advising the Russian government on social entrepreneurship and advisor to the Indian government on bio-tech entrepreneurship. Siddhartha Rajhans who works for Apple and is an IT advisor to Prime Minister Modi.
If properly supported and understood social entrepreneurship is a modality for helping to resolve social issues with a business based human face. With focus this merging is a way for Building Back Better through the collaboration of various actors from all sectors in Nepal. This first Conference on Social Entrepreneurship is a step in the right direction.
Find out more about this conference at: http://conference.kingscollege.edu.np/
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