This story originally appeared in our October 22, 2010 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.
With more than 500 million people under the age of 25, India is in great need of growing enterprises that will educate and employ its population. These five enterprises are focusing on educating and employing the masses, and could be great investments for companies that want to support the growth of sustainable, impactful enterprise on the subcontinent.
There is no dearth of hyper-intelligent youth in India. The IITs and IIMs make sure to churn out the best and the brightest year after year. However, many of India’s young graduates, while equipped with plenty of book smarts, lack “real world” skills that will help them hit the ground running in new jobs. Elements Akademia is a national chain of Training and Development institutes aimed at bridging the gap between academic teaching and industry requirements, thereby giving youth the soft skills that will make employable. The company aims to make 10,000 youth employable by the end of this year.
This community-development company helps women in the India’s “tribal” areas (Jharkand, Bihar, and Chhatisgarh) buy silk cocoons to spin silk yarn. The model takes the risk out of the equation for the women by offering the women credit for the purchase of the cocoons, and also serving as a buyer for the finished product. Over the next five years, the company hopes to provide sustainable livelihoods for 10,000 women.
With urban India in a constant state of development, there is a steady need for skilled construction workers. Pipal Tree was started to meet that demand. A winner of the 2010 Sankalp Award, Pipal Tree is a pioneer in providing vocational training for construction jobs in India. Their target market is unemployed youth in rural areas, and with two training hubs and twelve spokes across India, Pipal plans to train 50,000 students in the next five years.
It used to be that in India if you wanted to find a maid, cook, driver or plumber, you could only depend on the tight network of the people you knew. But, LabourNet has changed that. The company serves as a convenient, easy to use online platform for connecting customers with informal laborers, providing a bit of formality to an informal relationship. The system increases worker rights, as it enables them to get a LabourNet Identity Card, establish a work record, and set up a bank account. At last count, the organization had established a database of over 30,000 workers.
A vocational training and education center focused on rural areas in northeast India, Technable Solutions is employing India. What started as just one or two centers, is now an operation with more than 20 centers across West Bengal and the North East. Founder Sunny Bhattacharjee hopes to employ more than 40,000 young Indians within the next few years. It’s a great deal for young people, who are almost guaranteed a job after completing a six-month training course for INR11,000 (the fee is INR11,000 (~US$230). Most students come from families with a monthly income of INR10,000-15,000.
Photo Credits
Elements Akademia: go-jamaica.com; Masuta: 3.bp.blogspot.com; Technable: centreflow.ca; Pipal Tree: Shutterstock; Labour Net: Shutterstock
