Meghalaya State Investment Promotion Board in collaboration with PRIME Meghalaya organized the Chief Minister’s Startup & CSR Week at the State Convention Centre, Shillong from 14th to 16th November 2022. The event included the following key sessions:

Session I: A Workshop on “CSR Guidelines and Proposal Writing” was organized on 14th Nov 2022.The key speaker at the workshop, Mr. Nikhil Pant, Chief Executive Officer and Founder of REACHA trained the entrepreneurs and corporates on how to get familiar with submitting business proposals using CSR funds.

Session II: A Panel discussion was organized on “Role of CSR and Entrepreneurship in achieving Sustainable Development”.  The panel discussion was moderated by Mr. Harsh Srivastava (Senior Advisor, Meghalaya State Investment Promotion Board) while the panelists included:  

• Mr. Precious Tmung , Co-Founder, Zong Hi Traditional Handloom
• Prof. Prabhat Pani, Executive Director, Centre for Innovation in Sustainable Development, S.P. Jain Institute of Management and Research, Mumbai
• Dr. Subhash Ashutosh, IFS , Co-chairman & Director Centre of Excellence Natural Resource Management & Sustainable Livelihoods MBDA, Meghalaya
• Mr. Pradeep Purohit, Chief Strategy Officer, Star Cement Ltd.

Session III: A panel discussion on “Entrepreneurship Scenario and Challenges Faced by Entrepreneurs in Meghalaya”. The panel discussion was moderated by Mr Flo Oberhofer, Program Head, PRIME Meghalaya while the panelists were:

• Mr. Augustus Suting, Deputy Director, M-LAMP & General Manager, MBMA.
• Dr. Benjamin F. Lyngdoh, Associate Professor, Dept. of Tourism and Hotel Management.
• Mrs. Dasumarlin Majaw , Founder, Smokey Falls Tribe Coffee.
• Mr. Gopal Purkayastha, Deputy Vice President, HDFC Bank

Session IV: A pitching round took place on entrepreneurship development with a focus on CSR investable projects, where project ideas were presented.

Outcomes

Interactions with Companies: Received collaboration interests from IBM, SBI Foundation, Reliance Foundation, CricHQ, SPJIMR Mumbai, Azim Premji Foundation and TCS. Facilitations are ongoing for the same.

Outcomes from the CSR Workshop: Entrepreneurs, academia, and government officials received training on comprehending CSR laws and formulating business proposals for availing CSR funds The workshop was appreciated by all the attendees for being informative and enriching. On the sidelines of this conference, we organized meetings amongst State Government Officials and the corporates, Foundations, CSR Organisations and representatives from the academia to explore synergies for collaboration and CSR investments in the state.

Key Takeaways from Panel Discussion on "Entrepreneurship Scenario and Challenges faced by Entrepreneurs in Meghalaya ": The Panel Discussion included in-depth conversations with veteran entrepreneurs of the state who highlighted the long history of the enterprising traits and the challenges to the current entrepreneurial ecosystem in terms of mindset and funding as well as possible solutions for the same. The discussion concluded with a concurrence of the idea that entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial discipline should be inculcated as a proper module, beginning at the grassroot level in schools.

Key Takeaways from Panel Discussion on “The role of CSR and entrepreneurship in achieving Sustainability“:  The panelists laid emphasis on the importance of ecological sustainability to achieve economic sustainability.