Program Consultant – Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME)

Global Alliance for Mass Entrepreneurship (GAME) envisions a thriving environment for mass entrepreneurship in India resulting in large-scale job creation. We aim to galvanize the ecosystem for youth-led mass entrepreneurship at the local level, helping create 10M entrepreneurs, 50% women, who create 50M jobs by 2030. ME is the ‘missing middle’ between compulsive self-employment and fast-growing startups. It is the bedrock of stable economies as it meets the needs of communities, while providing employment at the local level. ME is at a nascent stage in India and needs a national-level organization that brings all the actors together. GAME aims to be that enabling platform that establishes a common understanding of what works and catalyzes change in the ecosystem to speed up the time to maturity. At GAME we believe that the youth, especially those between 14 and 29, and women will help deepen the roots of ME in India.

The ‘Jobs’ Challange

Traditional methods of job creation in India (e.g. white collar jobs, high-growth start-ups, and self-employment) are unable to keep pace with the number of youth entering the workforce. Mass enterprises (MEs), firms with 5 to 20 employees, a common lever of job creation in many countries such as USA, China, Bangladesh, is significantly underutilised in India.

In Aug 2018, influencers and prominent organisations in entrepreneurship development identified the need for a national-level organisation to mainstream and build a thriving ecosystem around mass entrepreneurship and therefore, GAME.

Our approach

Our mission is to catalyze an India-wide movement of entrepreneurship and favorable conditions for the growth of both existing and new enterprises, resulting in 50 million new jobs by 2030. We aim to ensure that at least a quarter of new businesses are women-owned. We hope to inspire and support similar movements in other parts of the world facing similar challenges.

Through action driven coalitions (‘taskforces’) around key themes such as ease of doing ‘small’ business, access to finance, MSME acceleration and more, we hope to develop an ecosystem that encourages and enables entrepreneurship. We have 80+ partners across government, civil society, corporates, and donors as part of the GAME Alliance.

GAME is a non-profit (a Section 8 company) supported by a number of institutions including Social Alpha (Tata Trusts), Ikea Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Omidyar Networks and Microsoft.

For more information please visit our website.

Game’s Work In Supporting
Women Entrepreneurs

The Urgency

By 2030, the working-age population of India will surpass 1 billion and will be the highest in the world. Labour Force Participation Rate metrics will further decline as 110 million more people, of which approximately 54 million are women, will enter the workforce. Coupled with the present numbers, it is indicative that up to 400 million jobs are going to be needed for women alone, and without urgent action, the economic and employment gap between men and women will continue to widen.

Delhi has over 10,700 anganwadis i.e. Government run centres that are used exclusively by women for availing healthcare and childcare support. A survey undertaken by the Delhi Government last year concluded that pre
pandemic unemployment among women who use anganwadis was at 26%, but rose to 40% by February 2021.
Further, on account of COVID, these anganwadis are being underutilized.

The Opportunity And Objectives

GAME, has partnered with the Delhi Government, to examine how existing infrastructure and social structure mechanisms such as anganwadis can be used to enable the creation of entrepreneurial capacity among women.
Together through a joint project we aim to, among other things:

• Provide supplementary income to women in 120 anganwadis in Delhi via entrepreneurship/employment through self help groups (SHGs) potentially reaching out to 50,000+ women.
• Make women entrepreneurial and start their own microbusinesses supported by hyper-local linkages including market (backward and forward), financial and tech linkages (such as social e-commerce, UPI, etc)
• Grow business of existing women entrepreneurs.
• Create employment for women within the local economy.

In this regard, we are setting up the first of its kind female fellowship in India, where 1 fellow is assigned to head 3 – 4 anganwadi hubs. The fellows will help women in each anganwadis set up/grow their own micro-business. The fellow will be responsible for, among other things, helping coordinate workshops on starting/growing a business, enabling market linkages, financial linkages and tech linkages for each hub.

Position Overview

The consultant will be based in Delhi and help the Delhi AAP Government oversee the implementation of the fellowship. At a minimum, we are looking for self-motivated women based in Delhi with at least 3 years of experience and a bachelor’s degree from a top tier university. Prior work experience with government functionaries will be strongly preferred.

The Consultant should possess superior stakeholder management skills, an ability to connect the dots, excellent problem solving and written and verbal communication skills.They should be able to adopt a ‘do what it takes’ approach to deliver on GAME’s impact goals. They should be inspired by and thrive in a collaborative, fast-paced, and continuously evolving environment, & function independently when needed.

Responsibilities

• Work directly with and within the government machinery to ensure strategic alignment, program execution and operational excellence.
• Manage and own relationships with mid-level government officials in the Delhi Government
• Support important stakeholder meetings, both internal and external
• ·Continuously engage local entrepreneurs to understand their challenges and seek feedback on GAME’s initiatives to help GAME make robust decisions
• Support other program managers overseeing the fellowship program and troubleshoot problems that the fellows have
• Support with creating a program blueprint that can enable replication in other geographies
• Ensure timely and high quality execution by the on-ground implementation team
• Share periodic reports of the progress of the program

Game’s Promise To You

Working with a ‘mission-driven’ and ‘problem focused’ Alliance will help you:

• Build terrific networks: the Alliance will include the best and brightest in private sector, social sector, and bring entrepreneurship thinking and experience to the table
• Wear many hats, become a reliable generalist: Play the role of a strategist, advisor, convenor, facilitator, match maker etc., for on-ground entrepreneurs and other stakeholders in Delhi
• Double down on your passion: as an entity engaging with entrepreneurship through many different pathways (e.g. finance, school curriculum, gender etc.) you will have opportunities to focus on things you care about (while maintaining other responsibilities)
• Become a systems thinker: Break down complex problems and identify how different levers and actors can add up to collective impact to support and grow mass entrepreneurs in Punjab
• Develop an entrepreneurial mindset: while this is a key theme for GAME, your colleagues will rely on you to constantly come up with new ideas and drive execution; ownership will always remain high

Compensation: Rs 1.5 lakhs per month + variable bonus subject to performance

If this opportunity excites you, send your CV to deepthi@massentrepreneurship.org with the subject ‘GAME Consultant – Delhi Anganwadi application’.