School!

Govt. School, Kurivundi, Nanjangud Taluk, Mysore District.

On a trip into the Cotton farming belt around Mysore, came by this charming school. The students were having a science exhibition.

Turbines, water harvesting systems, water storage & sprinkling systems for dry rain-fed areas.....wonderful little experiments that reflected keen minds, a science teacher's involvement in his students... and the fact that most experiments were looking to solve local contextual problems. More on that in a separate blog post ...but what really caught my attention was the beautiful charming faces of the happy children...

Everyone wanted to get into the picture - and getting so many excited faces together into the frame made these images come alive!

Perseverance and a 'Thick Skin': India's Next Wave of Entrepreneurs - India Knowledge@Wharton

Continuing from the last post - on the need for social entrepreneurs. While this article is not directly about social entrepreneurship - the principles apply....Perseverance and a 'Thick Skin': India's Next Wave of Entrepreneurs - India Knowledge@Wharton

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Social enterprise - the much needed catalyst..

On a continuum, social purpose - and business for profit have been separated and positioned at two extreme ends. Never to be brought together, as it would be impossible to serve a human need and make profit at the same time - even if it was possible, it would be exploitative.

Entrepreneurs of course respect no such perceptions. Bold new models, hybrid collaborations, breakthrough products and services designed for the 'bottom of the pyramid' have signified a new breed of social purpose enterprises that blend social impact with business - under the phenomenon of social entrepreneurship!

If you step back and look at development and growth of people and economy - The government initiated development in the early years of independence across agriculture and infrastructure. Large enterprises in conjunction with liberal policies of trade brought in the next wave of development and economic prosperity into India. I firmly believe that it will be Social Entrepreneurs who, with their bold vision and enterprise, will lead the next wave of socio-economic development in our country.

Some really interesting and inspiring models like Vatsalya Hospitals, Selco Solar Solutions, Vision Entrepreneurs at Vision Spring - give an indication of whats possible once entrepreneurs find the link between a real need - and the capacity to convert it into a set of viable solutions.

Are these exploitative? Are micro-lending institutions charging too much interest? Should poor people have to pay for services? These are interesting questions - depending on who is asking them.

For a poor family, with no access to potable drinking water - spending Rs. 5.00 every day to purchase water from a local entrepreneur (who is funded by an MFI and equipped with innovative low cost equipment) - is an economic activity. Clean water keeps his family healthy - more people can earn and be productive. Rs. 5.00 is payable.

Should the government be providing it? Yes. But can this family wait till the government reaches them - or is he better of finding more enterprising solutions that help him increase the productivity of his family? He cannot wait. He must not.


I know that this is probably an over simplification of the challenges. But Exploitation, I find, is becoming an inclusion-phobic term. It stays as an excuse for allowing a lot of people to continue having debates on what is good and what is not, and what should be done..and should not be allowed. Arm chair dialogue in true democratic style, leading nowhere.

Aid is on its way out - as many non-profits realize the sustained viability of having independent revenue models. More non-profits are investing time in becoming self-sustaining. Beyond Good Intentions follows 10 interesting cases across the world that are demonstrating this trend. Bill Gates calls it creative capitalism. And the jury is still out on whether this form of enterprise is healthy for the larger good.

Not withstanding, social enterprise is becoming the much needed catalyst for bold new initiatives, new breakthrough models, rapid innovations that can bridge sustained impact - and economic viability. More power to them.

What do you think? Would be interested to hear a different point of view on this. And also hear of examples where you believe social enterprise has been the change agent...

Opportunity models via Mobility inclusion

It’s pretty clear that the mobile device is no longer just a talking device for personal use, designed for urban users – but it’s instead a computing device, an economic device, an opportunity gateway.. that has the power to transform lives through inclusion.

I studied four examples specifically to cull out some learning on how 'opportunity models' have been crafted using mobility as the route:

1. Space Data Corp - Wireless Network Coverage

Jerry Knoblach wanted to bring wireless service to millions of rural Americans. His plan: Beam it down from balloons hovering at the edge of space. His company, Space Data Corp., already launches 10 balloons a day across the Southern U.S., providing specialized telecom services to truckers and oil companies. The balloons soar 20 miles into the stratosphere, each carrying a shoebox-size payload of electronics that acts like a mini cell phone "tower" covering thousands of square miles below. To make this effective, an operational and economical model has been put into place that pays farmers to release hot air balloons with transmitters every 24 hours.


2. M-Pesa (Vodafone – Safaricom)

In a country like Kenya, where there are less than 2 million bank accounts serving a population of 32 million, the lack of an efficient, affordable banking infrastructure is a contributing factor in the persistence of poverty. Prohibitively high cost of banking and the fact that a majority of Kenyans earn less than $1 a day added to the problem and left a big gap in the development potential.

Vodafone came up with a single but powerful approach to tackle poverty in the developing countries where they operated, based on the insight that access to finance facilitates entrepreneurial activity. And thus was born M-Pesa.

Essentially account holders can have virtual accounts at Safaricom and operate it using SMS – thus transacting business between individuals and individual to businesses, without really needing a 'traditional' bank account.


3. Cell Bazaar

A rudimentary e-bay like service that leverages the simple, widespread power of SMS to bring the market to the phone. By sending simple text messages to 3838, users post items for sale, look for items to buy, and obtain current market prices of products or services.

This is essentially a craigslist over mobile phones! Any Grameenphone user can dial 3838 and listen to the latest items on the market in Bengali. After dialing 3838, users choose from 8 categories: Jobs, Mobile Phones, Agriculture, Motorcycle, Car, Electronics, Computers, and To-Let. Every few hours, users will hear new information through this service.

Although 75% of Bangladesh’s population has no access to electricity and Internet penetration is only 0.03%, Cell Bazaar has more than one million users.



4. Voxiva - Alerta

A health and disease surveillance system that enables health workers to use existing modes of communication, without any Internet access. This system challenges old paradigms related to monitoring diseases in remote rural contexts by enabling:

• Real-time collection of critical information from a distributed network of people;
• Rapid analysis of data to drive decision-making and allocation of resources;
• Communication back to the field to coordinate response.

Effectively transforming the village pay phone into a communications device on par with that of a computer – and putting the power of technology and communication within easy access for remote rural users.


These four diverse examples from very different corners of the world had insightful patterns:


1. The economics of phone usage currently assumes that the consumer of services pays for it. Instead we see here that service providers need to view the consumers as the producers. Producers of real time data, knowledge, information and insights that can be exchanged for services. The business model is not based on usage – but on contribution. Cell Bazaar applies the principle of user-generated content becoming the currency for mobile usage.

2. Access to mobile solutions is largely based on network coverage, which involves high investments and slow movements into remote areas. Space Data Corp experiments demonstrate that Network coverage can potentially break free from the assumptions of location, physical infrastructure and huge investments – to a method where it can reach everyone. With an effective economic model that pays for itself.

3. Paradoxically high-tech solutions need not mean more devices, or more complex applications for users. Alerta combines existing modes of communication inside villages and overlays it with a robust application to capture and interpret voice inputs from all kinds of devices…the backend of this solution is fairly sophisticated. But for the user it just involves talking into a phone. A simple act that now has the power to save lives, control disease and enable prosperity.

4. Urban users have followed a sequence in reaching today’s advanced technology state. From simple phones and computers to high tech converged gadgets using cloud computing. There is no reason that rural users need to follow this sequence. Business model innovations that compel users to adapt to voice or video or any other complex technology have demonstrated this already.


Its very interesting to note that Prosperity (and inclusive growth) is a combination of economics, opportunity and accessibility. Examples like M-Pesa, Cell Bazaar and Alerta have created opportunity models and powered them with mobile technology – thus driving prosperity in developing economies.

When Samsung says 'Next is What?' - its time to look away from the product paradigm and dig deeper into user lives and regional contexts. Nokia's Life Tools has some interesting initial experiments in that direction for rural users...