Development Dialogue, Deshpande Foundations, Hubali

Date- January 28^th & 29^th, 2017

Venue– Deshpande Center for Social Entrepreneurship, Vidyanagar, Hubali, Karnataka

Attendees– Representatives of about 200 organizations across the country and 70+ international delegates, global visionaries, impact investors as well as local communities to share proven models, innovations, and transforming perspectives.

‘Development Dialogue’ is a concept that brings together numerous social entrepreneurs as well as those who believe in and are involved in creating ecosystems to nurture innovation and entrepreneurship. The Dialogue is held by Deshpande Foundation, a non-governmental organization founded in 1996 by Dr. Desh Deshpande and Jaishree Deshpande.

This year, 2017, was the 10^th Development dialogue with the theme ‘Scaling effectively’. Various panel discussions of leaders from non-profit and for-profit organizations, Government officials, grassroots practitioners, and impact investors took place highlighting points to deliver an outcome in a resource-efficient manner, in the least possible time to a maximum number of people. According to the speakers- four things come together to create an impact: innovations that are relevant and co-created with the people who need it; execution capacity- the ability to absorb innovation and have the human resources to roll out the solution; right infrastructure; government’s involvement, right policies and support. Also, current challenges faced by India’s innovation and ecosystem and entrepreneurship were discussed which includes- Fragmented policy and policy implementation, Inadequate funding of R&D, Difficult and lengthy funding procedures, Angel, venture capital, and seed funding, Weak linkages between stakeholder, non-conducive education system, Poor infrastructure facilities in villages, Risk aversion among entrepreneurs and Inadequate protection of intellectual property rights.

As a broad outcome of the event, we got to know about the functioning of Hubali Sandbox, a business incubator. It works to create an effective ecosystem where resources are put to use through local entrepreneurship, innovation, and sustainability. We also developed networks in industrial sectors and got to interact with eminent personalities (Notably- Dr. Subhash Chandra Khuntia (Chief Secretary, Govt. of Karnataka), Priyank M. Kharge (Minister of IT, BT & Tourism, Govt. of Karnataka), Dr. Robert Stoner (Deputy Director for Science and Technology, MIT Energy Initiative), Sri. Chanchalapathi Dasa -Senior Vice-President of ISKCON, Bangalore & Vice-Chairman of the Akshaya Patra Foundation), Himanshu Patel –Sarpanch, Punsari.