Social entrepreneurship lab established at SPPU

PUNE: An entrepreneurial lab for social innovation has been set up on Sunday at the International Centre of Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU). It has received funding of Rs10 lakh from the European Union (EU) to start operations and is only the country's fourth such lab to receive financial benefits from the EU.
Vijay Khare, director of the International Centre at SPPU, said, "The lab has been established for budding entrepreneurs from the university. Innovative ideas that will give solutions to problems related to the daily needs of people in society would be encouraged through it."

The two objectives of the lab are boosting social innovation and entrepreneurship.

The international project, which has been approved by the EU, will be called Social Innovation for Local Indian and Israeli Communities and Graduate Entrepreneurs (SILICE).

Among foreign universities, the Tel-Hai Academic College in Israel, University of Edinburgh in Britain, the Technical University of Berlin in Germany, the University of Applied Science from Croatia and the University of Lisbon in Portugal have received funding from the EU to set up start-up labs.

This project is a partnership between institutions of higher education located in Israel, Europe, and India. The project aims to establish Centres for Social Innovation that will give students and workers tools for initiating, planning and implementing innovative and creative social business projects.

Khare said, "We will concentrate on solar energy and alternative energy sources, the clean India campaign and manual scavenging to bring out solutions from this lab. An alternative technology to eradicate manual scavenging will be our priority."


Source: The Time of India dated 16 April, 2018
Link: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/pune/social-entrepreneurship-lab-established-at-sppu/articleshow/63775828.cms (accessed on April 18, 2018)