Immediately after an MBA from Oxford University’s Said Business School, Dhruv Lakra started a courier company that only employs deaf boys and girls. In a passionate column, he argues that social entrepreneurship has been undersold to Indian MBA students and b-schools need to do more in order to produce leaders in the social and nonprofit sectors. (Special column written for the PaGaLGuY B-school Rankings, 2010)

Recently, I have been interacting with many b-school students in India and two issues have been popping up on my mind on the subject of the wider space of social entrepreneurship and careers in the nonprofit sector.

The first one is related to the branding and perception of the social entrepreneurship space among MBA students. Unfortunately in India, leaders in the nonprofit space have done a pretty miserable job of branding and creating awareness of how the space functions and as a result, many MBA students perceive the nonprofit space as one populated by sadhus or jholawallas. They view it as a sector that they would want to get into after 30 years of working, when they have amassed enough money from consultancy or banking jobs.

The second is about financing MBA education. The students are all very worried about how they would pay back their loans. B-schools have been increasing their fees in the last few years and it now costs Rs 10 lakhs to get an MBA from a decent b-school.

The ones among MBA students who are interested in becoming social entrepreneurs or working in big or small social ventures, are concerned about how they would pay back their loans.

Indian business schools need to fix these issues because they are supposed to produce leaders across all segments of society and not only for corporate business

The topmost Indian b-schools should introduce loan-forgiveness programs and scholarships specifically for students who wish to pursue a career in the social entrepreneurship space.

As a student of Oxford University’s Said Business School, I had a Skoll Scholarship that helped me take some time off to figure out what I wanted to fix in the social entrepreneurship space worldwide, or in India or Latin America. Even if I were to be paid less, I didn’t worry because I did not have a debt burden on me.

In the USA, b-schools such as Wharton, Stanford or Harvard too have full or partial loan-forgiveness programs for strong candidates who wish to work in the nonprofit/public sector. The IIMs, ISBs and XLRIs of India need to look at these models.

B-schools should think about how good a job they are doing of branding the social and nonprofit space to their students. There needs to be more interaction with social entrepreneurs and b-school students than what exists. These days, many b-schools have one-day events or seminars where a social entrepreneur is invited for a two-hour talk but there is little beyond that, and that is a cause of concern.

Some Indian b-schools have introduced electives on social entrepreneurship. However, they need to be made more rock-solid by covering the wider space of social entrepreneurship and not just Microfinance. MBA institutes need to have entire centers on social ventures on the lines of Stanford’s Center for Social Innovation.

It is sad that the output of case studies on social entrepreneurship is abysmally low in Indian business schools. Ironically, many of the social entrepreneurship case studies in American b-schools are often on Indian companies, such as ICICI Bank’s microfinance venture or Hindustan Unilever’s success in rural or even CK Prahlad’s book ‘Fortune at the bottom of the pyramid’. Indian b-schools are yet to tap this source of knowledge in a substantial way. As of today, the only social entrepreneurship area covered well at Indian b-schools is Microfinance, which is a bandwagon that they all jumped on to after the widespread media coverage of rural finance. Apart from that, there is little knowledge about the much wider space of social entrepreneurship among students of topmost Indian b-schools.

At Oxford, we had business plan or essay competitions on the social sector almost every month, helping students win good prize money that later could be used to start a social entrepreneurship venture. Indian b-schools have very few such events and the ones that exist have negligible prize money. Not a good enough incentive for MBA students to think about social entrepreneurship.

Top b-schools usually have the odd student or two who would wholeheartedly pursue a career in the social space if made aware of the opportunities that exist, and at the cost of a modest salary (but huge emotional fulfilment). Even though I should mention here that salaries are gradually beginning to get competitive in the social space. Placement cells in b-schools rarely invite social organizations to participate in the placements.

One advantage with Indian b-schools is that they are mostly two-year programs, which gives students a phenomenal opportunity to intern for two months with a nonprofit organization or with a social entrepreneur. However, the problem here is that due to the lack of a point of interaction between b-school students and social entrepreneurs, assumptions that social entrepreneurs will not pay a stipend or that an IIM student will not even consider a nonprofit internships are never addressed.

As a social entrepreneur, I wish that Indian b-schools took the initiative for building leaders in the social entrepreneurship and nonprofit sectors with loan-forgiveness, better curriculum and substantial investment on research centers on social entrepreneurship.

(Editor’s note: The Business Standard of March 4, 2010 reports that IIM Bangalore has decided to refund the fees of students opting for nonprofit jobs.)

Dhruv Lakra is the Founder of Mirakle Couriers, a Mumbai-based courier company that runs completely on the shoulders of deaf people. While deaf boys do deliveries and pick-ups, the sorting is done by deaf girls. Dhruv is an MBA from Said Business School, Oxford University, class of 2009 and a Skoll Scholar.