Be! Fund

Be! Fund believes that young people, who have grown up experiencing poverty and the absence of key services have…

…the capacity to change their lives and the world around them through enterprise …the vision, energy and skill set to develop sustainable solutions to development gaps …the ability to pioneer a new definition of social enterprise

In the next 10 years, India will have 210 million unemployed people, 90% will be below the age of 30 and at present 50% of children enrolled in school are dropping out, which means the next generation workforce will be largely unskilled. Currently, 3-6% of the youth population has access to vocational training.

Without other options, the majority of young people will join the informal economy, which has limited job security and protection legislation and where incomes average less than $2 a day.

At the same time, the economy (even though it’s growing) and current infrastructure cannot accommodate the growing needs of over 1 billion people, 72% of whom are struggling to survive facing unemployment, inadequate healthcare, lack of basic infrastructure and a rapidly degrading environment.

One solution is entrepreneurship – young entrepreneurs pioneering businesses that generate income and solve social problems in the communities in which they live.

Today, even when young people from poor, marginalized groups are entrepreneurially motivated, they have limited access to appropriate capital to build long-term value creating endeavors.

Young people from low-income groups require enterprise building seed capital with a high tolerance for risk to be able to try new ideas and define new social enterprise models.

Be! Fund is the first fund of it’s kind in India to provide patient start-up capital of up to $10,000 for young entrepreneurs who are from low-income backgrounds and can envision an innovative enterprise that addresses a development gap in their community.

The fund is incubated by Going to School, a creative trust that makes mass media campaigns. Their current project, Be! an Entrepreneur comprises 13 epic movies, 15 radio shows and 50 books that tell stories of young hero entrepreneurs who pioneer a business that is not only economically viable but solves a larger community problem. The campaign will reach over 100 million people. And the mass media will ask young people to apply to the Be! Fund, creating a pipeline of entrepreneurs.