Taking a sabbatical from his role as Head of the Department of Management Studies in IIT, Madras, L.S. Ganesh is currently doing what he loves the most – social enterprising.
Away from the institution he is associated with for the last three decades, he is contributing his academic expertise to the management of a rural college located at Pollachi. “It’s an arts and commerce college with strength of 3,000 students. Majority of the students here are first generation learners,” he says, informing that he is scheduled to return to IIT-Madras this May.
Known to be an educator who likes to do things differently to make classroom teaching interesting for students, Prof. Ganesh is ambitious and persistent, eager to tackle major social issues by offering new ideas for wide-range change.
Academic Mentoring
“We need intellectuals to develop multiple perspectives. The Government should think of establishing a National Academic Mentoring Network to identify best academicians from best institutions to produce good intellectuals,” he says.
At Pollachi, Prof. Ganesh helped the management upgrade, forge network with professional bodies and other factors. “It’s an absolutely thrilling experience; coming face-to-face with challenges. I can see that youngsters have a sense of strength but they do not have proper direction to channelize that strength. It’s a huge opportunity we are failing to tap into. It’s time we upped the ante,” he says with a sense of immediacy.
Technology, poverty co-exist
“Today we have technology making rapid strides and yet we see co-existence of extreme poverty. I don’t think a nation like ours should suffer from poverty,” he mumbles.
Prof. Ganesh has strong reservations about Governments doling out freebies to create vote banks. “When we give something free, it is violative of one’s dignity.
Listing out the several disturbing problems, he points to the dismal agriculture scenario. “The whole system of producing, storing and processing the farm produce needs to be strengthened. Desperation is driving farmers to suicides. We are staring at a very serious water crisis. Intellectualism is the need of the hour,” he maintains.
Youth Entrepreneurship
Youth of the country, he says, has the key. Promoting student-led entrepreneurship, perhaps, would help. Start-up culture is gaining momentum and there’s a shift in the way people now view them. There is a clear sense of hope. Along with youth participation, one must make sure that venture capital and equity must also rise. The policy-making bodies are also supportive, he says.
As a whole, the eco system has begun to flourish and India has a large internal market, he points out, adding: “Many of these youngsters can look at the prospects of leading a comfortable life. Perhaps, if we work very consciously, we can create a very robust eco system of youth entrepreneurship.”