The Goan: What’s the ‘I Create India’ concept and the motivebehind the exercise of training entrepreneurs?
Ulhas Kamat: ‘Creating Job Creators’ is the motto of ‘ICreate India’ which speaks for itself. It is the brain child of the founders “Harsh Bhargava, an alumnus of Harvard Business School and his wife Dr ArunaBhargava. They founded ‘I Create Inc’ in New York in 1999 with the objective ofproviding a practical grass root entrepreneurship programme for the rural andurban youth and women in India, as a solution to the widespread unemployment.The Bhargava couple wanted to give young India something she really needed sothe programme was modified to a franchisee model with NRIs sponsoring differentcentres in India. Currently we have 15 centres to facilitate the Indian youthto become a young entrepreneur so that he/she can create job opportunities forothers. Targeting the youth, especially, the unemployed, drop outs andeconomically deprived young boys and girls, ‘I Create India’ provides them aplatform where they interact and share innovative ideas and business plans.
TG: What exactly is done at the ground level?
UK: We follow two programmes “ changing the mind sets andcreating job creators. Till date 36,000 youth have gone through these programmesin 13 years and 8,800 people have been trained with over 2000 people havingstarted new enterprises or improved existing ones. These entrepreneurs havecreated thousands of jobs. A book titled 101 representative success stories of ‘I Create entrepreneurs’ details this.
In 2012 ‘Change the Mind Sets’ (CMS) programme in differenteducational institutions in India witnessed 1000 plus young participants whosubmitted a business plan each. Out of these 11 were selected and three youthfrom Goa made it to the final list. All those selected get award money and seedmoney to start their business.
‘Creating Job Creators’ is a certification programme aimedat rural women, deprived section of the society and economically disempoweredpeople. In Goa we trained 100 women.
TG: Is this the Goan connection to ‘I Create India’?
UK: There is more to it. In Goa, a MoU between 15 colleges,GCCI, GCA and ‘I Create India’ was signed and 350 persons from 10 collegesparticipated in the CMS programme. We held two programmes of five-dayinteraction and 100 per cent attendance. We now have two TOTs and 70 mastertrainers who have taken three workshops. The three selected youth from Goa areYogesh Goswami, Yuga Vengurlekar and Rafuishaan D’sa. The selected youth willbe provided micro-finance to carry out their business plans.
TG: What is the visible impact of the CMS programme?
UK: CMS is targeted at youth (age 17-23) in educationalinstitutions and we impart practical entrepreneurship skills and motivation tohelp them start their business as a viable and honourable alternative toseeking employment. They become job creators.
After CMS, the entrepreneurship knowledge quotient hasimproved by 18 per cent, the attitude and confidence level has gone up by 40per cent, likelihood of starting a business in three years increased by 59 percent and confidence in ability to analyse markets for business opportunity wasup by 43 per cent.
