Ashok Panikkar, Director, Meta-Culture – a human engagement studio. His efforts of the last 25 years have been focused on helping people improve their thinking capabilities and by so doing, helping them engage better with each other. His areas of expertise include – critical and creative thinking, conflict resolution, diversity management and participatory democracy. He is an avid reader and collector of books.

Ashok will paint the picture of the status quo and the social challenges that exist, go beyond what is commonly understood today as social entrepreneurship eg.micro-finance and sketch out the role entrepreneurship could play, at this point in history to solve the really big problems dogging our society.

“Driving Social Change Through Entrepreneurship” was an intense session that made the following key points:

1. Social entrepreneurs must evolve to the point where they understand themselves better in terms of their true motivations – that is when they can be responsible to the people whose lives they impact

2. Just good intentions are not enough, and “conscious risks” rather than “calculated risks” lead to more powerful solutions

3. Understanding deep context of the problem area is important in order to avoid solutions that create other or bigger problems

4. A mindset is required that tools, skills and expertise be acquired through collaboration and learning, rather than by relying on expertise gained earlier

5.Entrepreneurship could solve social problems faster than governments or organizations, and the time is right in India today.

In summary, find your “inner genius” and act, rather than just be another expert in the landscape..