Traditional Entrepreneurship: Focus on (Monetary) Value, Success, and Economic Growth

A brief investigation into how mainstream entities define entrepreneurship yields varied results.

In the brochure describing its Entrepreneurship Certificate, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania in the United States defines “entrepreneurship as value creation through innovation,” with “entrepreneurial habits [] including curiosity, resilience, and adaptability [] that help [to] navigate uncertainty and sustain momentum over time.”¹

Wharton’s definition appears to be broad and untied to any particular ideology; although it is unclear what ‘value creation’ means.

Stanford University, also in the United States, posits that “[a]t its most basic level, entrepreneurship refers to an individual or a small group of partners who strike out on an original path to create a new business,” that “[a]n aspiring entrepreneur actively seeks a particular business venture and it is the entrepreneur who assumes the greatest amount of risk associated with the project,” and that “this person also stands to benefit most if the project is a success.”²

“‘Business’ can mean an activity of exchange. One entity (e.g., a person, a firm) “does business” with another when it exchanges a good or service for valuable consideration, i.e., a benefit such as money. ‘Business’ can also mean an entity that offers goods and services for exchange, i.e., that sells things.”³

Stanford’s definition of entrepreneurship appears to be tied to trade (business), risk, and benefit/success accruing to the entrepreneur, namely an individual or legal/financial entity.

The Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Calcutta in India, in introducing its Entrepreneurship Programme, states: 

“India has seen a surge of entrepreneurial ventures and start-ups over the last decade. The opportunities that present themselves in technology, technology-enabled services, and in traditional businesses is enormous for the growing economy that is India. The Indian Government has understood this reality and given precedence to the start-up ecosystem by creating a platform called Startup India. India’s talented and educated youth have taken to this opportunity to create new ventures and organizations to ride the wave of success in the new growing India.”⁴

Recognition of a startup by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) of the Indian government includes meeting an ‘innovative & scalable’ criterion, notably “[t]he entity should work towards the development or improvement of a product, process, or service and/or have a scalable business model with high potential for wealth and employment generation.”⁵

Thus, entrepreneurship, as defined by IIM Calcutta and the DPIIT, appears to be tied to ‘technology,’ economic growth, wealth, and employment generation.

Regenpreneurship: A New Type of Entrepreneurship Necessary to Mitigate Inequity and Ecocide

In mainstream circles, entrepreneurship — despite being defined as a vehicle of innovation — is not linked to improving human-ecological wellbeing overall, even though, globally, inequity is growing and ecocide is worsening, a fact that leads many companies and other organizational entities — in India and around the world — to consider Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and/or Environmental, Social, & Governance (ESG).⁶ 

A new type of entrepreneurship is thus necessary, namely one that not only positions itself as a solution to the myriad ecosocial challenges the majority of humans and ecologies face today but also solves these complex challenges in ways that are regenerative (that which restores, revitalizes, generates, and/or nurtures in a way that leads to human-ecological wellbeing), instead of being extractivist (depleting and exploiting resources, leading to human-ecological illbeing).

Regenpreneurship (Regenerative Entrepreneurship) is a new type of entrepreneurship that is based on the action principle of collaborative regeneration⁷ that, instead of depleting and destroying, nurtures the autonomous intelligence and creativity of humans and ecological webs (ecowebs), in particular, through strengthening their EcoResilience⁷.

A regenpreneurship fulfills at least the following criteria:

• has the goal of strengthening the EcoResilience of a particular human-ecological system
• is rooted in a particular local ecology and community identity/culture, meaning that the regenpreneurs are human members of the local community and the regenpreneurship sustainably utilizes local ecological (and human) resources
• develops and implements innovations that are regenovations (regenerative innovations), i.e., score above a certain threshold on an index measuring how regenerative an innovation is
• is collaborative, i.e., involves at least three human individuals from the local community, and localized, i.e., is physically situated in and sustainably utilizes the resources of the local ecology
• may have the goal of adaptive replication, which encompasses general principles being replicated alongside implementation being adapted to a specific human-ecological system, but not of scalability, which is often predicated on extractivism, homogenization, and jīvacide⁸
• endeavors to incorporate as much relevant ancient Knowledge-Technologies-Practices (Ādi-Knowtep⁹) into its activities and regenovations as possible, wherein such Ādi-Knowtep are attributed to the community of which the regenpreneurs are a part
• equitably distributes the tangible benefits ensuing from the regenpreneurship among the local community members and the regenpreneurs
• focuses on promoting interconnected (ecosymbiotic) human-ecological wellbeing, not material wealth accumulation

FiveBecomings (Pañchabhūmi) Projects Promote Regenpreneurship

FiveBecomings (Pañchabhūmi)¹⁰, a regenovation of the Śramani Institute, aims to reduce/ eliminate inequity and ecocide by strengthening the EcoResilience of rural communities by working with them to (re-)establish their ecosymbiotic self-reliance through their own intelligent and creative efforts and Ādi-Knowtep.¹¹ In other words, FiveBecomings not only enables rural communities to locally and regeneratively produce the Commodities/Services (C/S) required to fulfill their own basic needs but also supports them in developing C/S innovations to satisfy wants sustainably through promoting local regenpreneurship.

[1] Entrepreneurship Certificate, Wharton online (last accessed 5.7.2026) (https://executiveeducation.wharton.upenn.edu/for-individuals/all-programs/entrepreneurship-certificate).

[2] What is entrepreneurship?, Stanford online (last accessed 5.7.2026) (https://online.stanford.edu/what-is-entrepreneurship).

[3] Moriarty, J., Business Ethics, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2021 Ed., Edward N. Zalta (ed.)), (https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2021/entries/ethics-business/).

[4] Start-Up Readiness, Growth and Execution (SURGE): An Entrepreneurship Programme, IIM-Calcutta (last accessed 5.7.2026) (https://www.iimcal.ac.in/ldp/start-readiness-growth-and-execution-surge-entrepreneurship-programme).

[5] Is Your Company A Startup?, Government of India (last accessed 5.7.2026) (https://www.startupindia.gov.in/content/sih/en/startup-scheme.html).

[6] K. Mitra, Reframing Organizational Strategies: From CSR/ESG Reporting to Promoting Collaborative Regeneration, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh042026-003 (27 Apr., 2026).

[7] K. Mitra, EcoResilience: Strengthening Economic and Ecosymbiotic Resilience to Ensure Survival, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh032026-001 (31 Mar., 2026).

[8] K. Mitra, FiveBecomings: Countering Ecocide and Jīvacide Through a Non-Human-Centric Approach, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-001 (1 Sep., 2025).

[9] K. Mitra, Ādi-Knowtep and Their Importance in Ecosymbiotic Resilience of Human Communities, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh092025-008 (4 Sep., 2025).

[10] K. Mitra, Restoring the Interconnected Wellbeing of Humans and Ecologies Through FiveBecomings, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh082025-010 (26 Aug., 2025).

[11] K. Mitra, Ecosymbiotic Self-Reliance: Implementing FiveBecomings through Knowtep and Women’s Councils, Ecosymbionts all Regenerate Together (EaRTh): DOI-EaRTh052025-002 (6 May, 2025).