Micro Entrepreneurs say go beyond News, Facilitate Market Access...

Bagmari, Ultodanga, Bhaghajatin are slum areas in North & South Kolkata - populated with several thousand enterprising, independent micro-entrepreneurs.

Vegetable vendors who buy Rs.1500 worth of vegetables every day from wholesalers and sell it at a net profit of Rs. 150-200 per day.

Egg vendors who procure 1000 chicken eggs per day at approximately Rs. 2500 and sell for a net profit of Rs. 160 per day.

A family of potters who procures the clay for Rs. 6000 per truck - that lasts them 15 days, making 1000 small Diya's (earthen lamps) per day. The family earns a net profit of around Rs. 200 per day for the sale of these Diya's. Everyone in the family works on this.

Small stitching units that produce hosiery vests, children's clothes for the local markets - producing up to 50 dozen sets with a 2-3 member stitching team. Net profit per day for the business owner approx Rs. 350 per day

These are micro- entrepreneurs. Each running simple, very relevant local businesses - providing for their families through the business and in some cases also providing jobs to a few more.

In studying this ecosystem, we found some interesting initiatives that are keen to formalize this section of entrepreneurs - and create more economic and capability impact.

For example an enterprising News Service has been initiated in this area of Kolkata for the last 2 years to build a flow of news that can enable these micro entrepreneurs to share knowledge and build capacity - and therefore increase incomes. Supported by an international News Agency, that is keen to further the impact of News in disadvantaged communities - this project publishes a local newsletter distributed to the micro entrepreneurs.

Printed twice a month, Amar Khabar is populated with stories of success, little tips on new business ideas, info on loans - all collated by 'young citizen journalists' from within the same micro-entrepreneur communities.

In its 24th edition when I met the team in March 2010 - this newsletter now reaches 102000 entrepreneurs within north and south Kolkata, free. With a validated database of 5000 readers, the team is now putting all efforts behind building a strong repository of reader data - such that more specific inputs and info can be provided - and the black box of 'who are the micro-entrepreneurs' can be opened.

Its a valiant effort at somehow formalizing the information, learning and knowledge flow for entrepreneurship - within a highly fragmented, disorganized and dynamic community.

Impact?

Meet Gopa Bhattacharya, a middle aged serial entrepreneur who runs a small eatery, makes Bindi's for local women, and makes and sells an odd assortment of simple products.

She read an article in Amar Khabar that provided tips on how to make and sell solar lamps. She went to Barabazaar, got all the key parts needed, made her first solar lamp 2 months ago. She now makes and sell 5 such lamps each week. For a profit of Rs. 200 per lamp. In the last 8 weeks she has augmented her income by Rs. 6000 by building a completely new product line! This reiterates the power of knowledge. Make it accessible. And the enterprising person will find a way to use it and flourish.

But for Gopa to grow beyond this, she says she needs the obvious - market access. As a woman she cannot travel beyond her community - but she knows that at her price point she can produce a lot more by hiring a couple more people - but where can she sell it?

More income would mean more 'poonji' that can be generated (working capital), which would mean lesser loans from money lenders and MFIs. But how does she get access to markets?

So at Version 1.0 - This News project has succeeded in demonstrating the immediate potential of this idea. But for large scale impact the 'Gopa effect' has to be wide spread and critical mass of real financial impact created in the micro entrepreneurs business. Either top line - or savings in costs or new product lines...and several of these.. Repeatedly you hear the request for a MARKET for the products. "Find us a market, connect us to the markets....we will find a way to produce more..."

The fact is that the producer will need to find his/ her own market. But what or who can facilitate that? What's the capability needed for that?

Should version 2.0 of such a Newsletter go beyond 'Knowledge & Capability' and become more of a bridge between the sellers and the buyers maybe? The reader base needs to include both sellers and buyers, producers, aggregators and consumers. Clearly the newsletter would need to shift its paradigm - from providing access to News to becoming a platform and interface for business impact - powered by relevant knowledge and strong database of active readers.

There are around 1.5 - 2 million such micro entrepreneurs in Kolkata. Even at a price of 0.50 paise per successful connection between seller and buyer, A Newsletter could find ways to be sustainable. At a low cost of Rs. 1 per edition that helps build the capability and provides learning to its readers...it could be more sustainable. Combine that with SMS coverage to a dedicated subscription base - and access for whole sellers...more sources for generating funds to stay alive.

The innovation challenges to building version 2.0 of such a News Service?

• How to institutionalize the 'Gopa process' of enterprise and risk taking across a larger community?
• Making content creation a far more collaborative effort - can mobile phones be leveraged to collect, write and collate news and content?
  
• How to build a knowledge chain that meaningfully links producers, consumers, buyers, sellers - in a manner that direct economic impact is possible to measure?
  
• Can this be a 'lifecycle' engagement for micro entrepreneurs - or should it be limited to providing connects and news
  
• How can available technology be integrated across the network - mobiles phones, field devices already used by large FMCGs in these markets, local phone booths.

Meeting the micro-entrepreneurs and seeing the impact of the News flowing through - led me again to the thought: There are great ideas out there, good prototypes being implemented. The initial ideas are often supported through philanthropic funds.

But to make them sustainable - what's needed is to build the next level of solutions if real impact has to be brought to economy and life in India...that's where innovation is needed. To go beyond the prototype.

If you know of some well scaled models that focus on increasing the economic success of micro-entrepreneurs and use technology and business models for this - do pls write in. Would be great to study and learn from them. Will help cut the curve immensely!

Another interesting news service I learnt of - HIBR.me in Lebanon.

Education...on a full stomach and nutritious meal!

Had an opportunity to explore and briefly immerse in the work of Akshaya Patra - a programme that provides food to over 1 million children in India. Now feeding 11,98,206 children everyday!

Millions of children in India don't get enough food for them to have any motivation or energy to really attend school or 'engage with learning'. Different studies put the number of children missing school because of lack of adequate food ranging from 7 million to 40 million across India.

Akshaya Patra focuses on this group of children. Through a range of public private partnerships, several schools now benefit from a very organized, nutritious mid-day meal.

What differentiates the Akshaya Patra effort from several other 'feeding children' initiatives is really how they have dealt with the size of the problem. By designing and engineering highly replicable, standardized processes. Spread across 8 states in India, accessible through centralized and decentralized kitchens, this non-profit organization is looking to reach 5 million children by 2020.

This mission is powered by some very large scale planning. A quick look at some numbers and the size of the operations, just in one kitchen!




The Kitchen on the Kanakpura road, Bangalore:

• Designed on the simple principles of gravity - this kitchen is a highly effective, eco-friendly operation that uses renewable fuel (husk based fuel) and recycles a large part of its waste
• Feeds around 100,000 children everyday. Plus Old people, expecting mothers and the local jail
  
• The kitchen cooks approx 6000 kgs of rice and 12,000-20,000 litres of sambhar/ dal (lentils) everyday
• Procures 5000 kgs of vegetables and 8000 litres of yogurt everyday
• Stores approximately 270 tonnes of rice for a month provided by the FCI for the mid day meal...apart from that procures rice for the BBMP scheme to feed old people in the communities
• Around 250 members work within this kitchen in 2-3 shifts starting at 3 am and going on till 6.30-7.00 pm
• People from local communities are employed in the kitchens - generating employment and building training and skills in cooking, hygiene, production, distribution..
  
• Over 3000 employed across all kitchens in India
  

Getting a hot nutritious meal to over a million children everyday is no mean feat! A brilliant example of achieving 'Scale' in social impact - comparable to any factory model for food production and distribution, Akshaya Patra has taken the job of cooking and distributing food to disadvantaged communities to another level of seriousness. Its engagement with the government at a regional level and ability to manage a diverse set of stakeholders in ensuring that healthy food reaches children and the needy is another aspect of its incredibly quiet but effective style of working.

Next level of innovation sensitive areas - community engagement, several million more children, scale out and scale up - get more education and nutrition based organizations to adopt the principles that are working here, building significantly enhanced nutrition in simple meals...so much more..