Dr Sriparna B Baruah is a Development Professional with 35 years of work experience in Management Education and in Small and Medium Enterprise Development. Dr. Baruah worked with Indian Institute of Entrepreneurship (IIR) for 23 years and retired in the year 2022. She held the position of Head (CIE) and was also Director I/C of IIE. She is currently associated with NEHHDC as an Advisor (Livelihood & Entrepreneurship)
During her career span of more than 35 years, apart from playing a pioneering role in promoting Management Education in N.E India during her initial ten years of working with the Assam Institute of Management, her involvement in the last two decades has been on Entrepreneurship and Livelihood Promotion. Dr Baruah has extensive experience in action research and projects relating to development of livelihood clusters specifically in all the eight states of North Eastern Region of India. She took up cluster development on a mission mode and the impact created through various need-based interventions resulted in development of sustainable development models for the region.
Dr Baruah has also been working towards developing the eco-system for promoting women entrepreneurs and start-ups in the social sector. For the last three years, she has been actively involved in facilitating creation of a start-up ecosystem in North East India And has been regularly mentoring and handholding existing and potential start-ups in opportunity guidance and scaling up. Her strong academic experience and background has helped in contributing towards documenting case studies of various successful livelihood initiatives.She has also presented papers and shared Indian experiences of small enterprise promotion in both national and international forums.
Dr Baruah has represented NE India in various international forums and led Business Delegations globally. She has also represented the country as a speaker in international conferences in countries like Latin America and Malaysia. She regularly provides academic and consultancy support to MBA departments of all major universities of North East India ,institutions like TISS, NIRD,AASC etc. Dr Baruah has been a member of the Board of Management of the School of Vocational Education (SOVET) IGNOU , the North East Network(NEN), the Cancer Research Foundation (CRF),BRTC A BIRAC-KIIT-TBI initiative, India Women Network, Council for Social and Digital Development (CSDD),Margdarshak Advisory and is actively involved with various industry associations like CII,FICCI and FINER. Dr. Baruah is also an independent director in the board of IIT Guwahati Innovation & Development Foundation..
Dr Sriparna B Baruah received the ‘BHARAT VIKAS AWARD’ for her contribution to the Livelihood Sector from the Institute of Self Reliance on 19th November 2017. She is also a recipient of an award from JUNIOR CHAMBERS INTERNATIONAL for her contribution to the education sector. She also received the lifetime achievement award for her contribution to the field of entrepreneurship & livelihoods from NFED (National Foundation for Entrepreneurship Development) on 8th March 2022.
As an enabler for facilitating the development of entrepreneurial ecosystem Dr Baruah’s specific contribution is visible in the areas of
- Scaling up of micro enterprises
- Connecting social entrepreneurs with livelihood projects to ensure sustainability and
- Helping in Industry-Academia interface.
Details of professional experience
Period 1989-1999
Played a pioneering role in introducing Management Education in N.E India. Keeping the needs of the youth in North East India, introduced a paper on Executive Effectiveness in the Management curriculum and the key thrust of the paper was on developing communication, confidence and entrepreneurial qualities amongst students. This paper has greatly contributed towards confidence building, amongst students and in the process helped in their placement .
As a Management educator presented a number of academic papers in national and regional conferences and workshops.
Period 1999-present
Professional journey since 1999 can be divided into three parts
- Pioneering work on Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Sector in North East
- Cluster development and implementation of Livelihood projects.
- Building a start-up ecosystem in NE India.
- Pioneering work on Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) Sector in North East:
The focus since the year 1999 has been more in the field of entrepreneurship promotion. On Entrepreneurship promotion, my involvement has been in the following areas:
- Entrepreneurship Education: Designed and developed programmes both for Teachers as well as students for facilitating in taking up entrepreneurship as a career option. Reached out to 50 colleges/universities from the North Eastern Region and trained around 500 teachers on entrepreneurship promotion.
- Mentoring and handholding of existing and potential start-ups in opportunity guidance and scaling up. Involvement with youth through incubation support.
- Involvement with school and College dropouts: Successfully experimented and implemented incubation support to youths at two craft based incubation centres. One was on Jewelry Making and the other on Textiles and Readymade garments. Both these incubation centres have facilitated self employment amongst a number of youths from the North Eastern Region. Case studies of such success stories belonging to youths from Assam, Sikkim, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh have been documented.The model of skill based incubation centres developed has a great scope of replication.The youth who have taken support from these incubation centres have started their enterprises either on group mode or on individual. In total provided handholding support to 300 youths. 60% of the participants are self employed or have started their micro enterprises
- Organised the first ever Women Entrepreneurs Conclave in Assam. Post event, a platform for women entrepreneurs of this region has been created.The platform helps in sharing best practices, ideation ,networking and mentoring amongst existing and aspiring women entrepreneurs.
- Cluster development and implementation of Livelihood projects.
Implemented livelihood projects through a holistic approach of providing both backward and forward linkage. Work area has been in all eight states of the North East. So far, through projects implemented under my leadership, I have covered around 8000 beneficiaries. Successful sustainable models for replication have been developed under my leadership.
Impact of various initiatives:
- Rural Development and Entrepreneurship: The impact of rural development has been through Livelihood clusters implemented in all the eight states of NE India. interventions have been made in the following broad areas:
- Capacity Development(skill building)
- Credit Linkage
- Product development and market linkage
- Facilitation in adoption of appropriate technology
The impact of intervention is visible in terms of
- Better quality of life through income enhancement (minimum 30% income enhancement visible in all projects implemented).
- Increase in production and value added products.
- Direct market access
- Convergence with related departments
- Evolving of a ecosystem connecting various stakeholders
Few successful sustainable livelihood interventions include
- Pyranga Eri Silk Cluster involving 250 women in Assam.
- Imphal Handloom Cluster involving 3000 women weavers in Manipur.
- Baktwang/Wood carpentry Cluster involving 180 beneficiaries in Mizoram
- Impact in the Surrounding areas: Impact in surrounding areas created through livelihood projects
- A group of Business Development Service Providers (BDS) have emerged.
- Micro Enterprises have evolved in attempting to provide backward linkage.
- Impact on Individuals:Household units in the clusters have graduated to micro enterprises
- Building a start-up ecosystem in NE India.
Through various initiatives across the value chain starting from household enterprises to micro and small to the start-ups, contributed towards eco-system for enterprise promotion and acceleration
Worked with various target groups and facilitated incubation support by mentoring youths from North East India including school/college dropouts at one end and professionals with start-up ideas at the other end.
Other Professional Achievements:
- Received the ‘Bharat Vikas Award’for contribution to the Livelihood sector from the Institute of Self Reliance.
- Invited as a representative from India by the Indian Embassy in Colombia to speak on Indian experience on SME development at the Annual Entrepreneurial fair in Medellin (Colombia) in May 2011
- Represented the country in an international conference on SME in Malaysia organised by Asian Council for Small Business (ACSB) in 2015
- Led Business Delegations for Entrepreneurs from North East India to countries including .These delegations have not only provided exposure to the entrepreneurs from the region but also helped in technology transfer and provided market linkages. Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, China and Hongkong, Israel and Egypt
- Involved with all major industry associations of North East India like FINER,CII,FICCI ,India Women network etc.
- Board member of the following Institutes/ organisations:
a. BRTC A BIRAC-KIIT-TBI Initiative, Advisory Board Member
b. Council for Social and Digital (CSDD), Member Of The Board Of Advisors
c. India Women Network (IWN), Vice Chairperson
d. Margdarshak Advisory, Chief Advisor
e. North East Network, Board Member
f. School of Vocational Education (SOVET), IGNOU, Board Member
g. Cancer Research Foundation, Assam, Board Member
h. Independent Director, IIT Guwahati Technology, Innovation & Development Foundation.