TiE Sustainability Summit concludes with the presentation of the TSS Social Enterprises Awards

The three-day TiE Sustainability Summit (TSS) 2021 concluded on Wednesday night. It concluded with the presentation of the TSS Social Enterprise Awards. 115 social enterprises were recognized and felicitated. 22% of the award winners were women entrepreneurs. 

The award winners include Jayashree Industries founded by Padman of India, Arunachalam Muruganantham, who has built world’s first low-cost machine to produce sanitary pads, Dharavi Market, iKure, Gen Robotics, Marut Drones, Drona Maps, Aunt Flow (USA), Naandi, NICE, Civics Unplugged (USA), Carbonlites, Bharat Rohan, Bamboo House, Sukarma, Vise Organics, etc.

The TSS Social Enterprise awards were aimed at recognizing social enterprises worldwide that are focusing on creating a tangible impact on society, communities, as well as setting an example by leading from the front. The social entrepreneurs who use their business processes, innovation, technology to solve problems defined in sustainable development goals (SDGs) defined by the United Nations including affordable and clean energy, agriculture, clean water and sanitation, climate change, education, healthcare, life on land, life underwater, livelihoods, poverty among others.

The criteria for selecting the award winners, according to Kali Prasad Gadiraju, Past President of TiE Hyderabad was Current and Future Social Impact; Demonstration of Leadership, Alignment with SDG, Leadership Potential; Fundability, current funding; Vision and Growth so far; Revenue model and its long term sustainability; Value proposition, Differentiation and Intellectual Property etc. 

These 115 were selected out of 30,000 social enterprises registered for the Summit. They were shortlisted in five different phases. Awards were announced in five categories: TSS Social Enterprise of the year; TSS Transformational Social Enterprise of the year; TSS Innovative Social Enterprise of the Year; Emerging Social Enterprise of the year and TSS Women Social Entrepreneur of the year.  

A certificate and a trophy will be door delivered to all award winners. 

TiE Hyderabad is also planning to publish a small coffee table book highlighting the award-winning social enterprises and their journey. These coffee table books will be distributed to aligned partners, thus we will put them in front of the right partners, announced Manohar Reddy at the concluding function. 

The summit was included on a positive note. It was the world's largest event in the Sustainability space has saw 40,000 social enterprises, startups and entrepreneurs attending from 64 countries. 30,000 out of 40,000 registered were social enterprises. It was a record and distinction, no one can boast of anywhere in the world. 

In the words of Gautam Adani, in his keynote address, "it is the largest entrepreneurship conference, and the largest ever gathering of social enterprises in the world. This is indeed the greatest platform for entrepreneurs"

The theme was aptly coined, ....where entrepreneurship meets sustainability. It had six tracks, 65 sessions, 225 speakers. 200 investors participated.  It was organised by TiE Hyderabad. The theme of the Summit is "where entrepreneurs meet sustainability.  

HE Dr. Claudio Ansorena, Ambassador, Republic of Costa Rica; RonyYedidiaClein, Deputy Chief of Mission of Israel; Vered Mivtzari, EM Director, Startup Nation Central (SNC), Israel; Jayesh Ranjan, IAS, Principal Secretary of Industries & Commerce (I&C) and IT, Govt of TS graced the summit. Shri Gautam Adani, Chairman, Adani Group addressed virtually. Ms Nikki Haley, Former US Ambassador to the UN give a video address 

TiE Hyderabad and TiE Israel and Start-up National Central from Israel have entered an MoU for cooperation, collaboration and exchange on Agriculture, Water and other related sectors. 

TiE, Hyderabad will be rolling out a $200 Mn to $300 Mn Social Impact Fund

TiE announced a rural innovators initiative. It is an initiative to nurture and to give a fillip to Rural Innovators and their Innovations. They have also announced Rs. 15crore grant money to support the initiative. A significant amount of this fund is already tied up, Suresh Raju and Kaliprasad announced. These funds will be deployed in rural areas, they added.  

The TiE is always ahead of its time. We always work at a gross root level to make that much-desired impact. Towards this direction, the Rural Innovators program will go a long way, said Manohar Reddy, President of TiE Hyderabad.

Suresh Raju, Vice President of TiE Hyderabad announced that TiE Hyderabad will be hosting the "TiE Global Summit" next year in December.