India is often characterized as an emerging economic superpower with economists predicting that by 2020 the country will be among the leading economies of the world. Since the economic liberalization in 1990’s, which put an end to a post-independence regime characterized by extensive regulation, protectionism and public ownership,  India has grown at an unprecedented pace of  6-7% to become the world’s second fastest growing major economy. One of the direct outcomes of this liberalization was the surge of innovations and emergence of pronounced number of entrepreneurial ventures. However empirical evidence suggests that despite the substantial economic growth as reflected in increasing GDP and Per-capita Income, the country still is impaired by acute economic and social disparities. Estimates show that the country is home to the largest number of poor, illiterate and unemployed in the world. The recent acceptance of Tendulkar committee’s report by the Planning Commission makes it official that a staggering 37.2% of people in India leave below poverty line, an increase of 10% over the earlier estimate.

It is this economic and social disparity that necessitates a more broad-based and inclusive growth to benefit all sections of the society. There is a critical and urgent need for finding gainful employment for millions, and helping many others transition from encumbered agricultural sector to manufacturing and service sectors. Unless this need is attended to within next few years, there could be adverse implications for the Indian economy and society at large. At WCED we believe that entrepreneurship has a key role to play in addressing these socio-economic challenges by creating sustainable and scalable businesses, new jobs, innovative products and services, and increased wealth for the larger community. Entrepreneurship development with appropriate scale, scope and focus can catapult India into higher orbits of socio-economic prosperity.

The centre aims to enable enterprise creation and enterprise growth across the country by fostering the necessary context and framework conditions that not only create opportunities for, but also builds the capacity for entrepreneurship. The strategic focus of our work includes facilitating enhanced access to finance, enhanced access to innovation, self-sustaining knowledge networks, conducive policy frameworks, innovative metrics, new models of value co-creation and effective self-governance. In the pursuit of this mission, the centre has taken a three pronged integrated approach: Research- creating a body of knowledge covering all aspects of an entrepreneurial journey, Outreach-  initiatives tailored to disseminating relevant knowledge to all stakeholders in the entrepreneurial ecosystem, and finally, Action- initiatives designed to achieve tangible and sustainable results both in enterprise creation and enterprise growth.

It is in this collaborative effort and journey of the centre to help reshape the socio-economic landscape of India through entrepreneurship that I welcome your active participation.