Reaching Social Entrepreneurs in India’s Hinterland

Recent years have seen the growth of many ‘ecosystem platforms’ for social entrepreneurs, which enable the entrepreneurs to access financial, technical and network support – thus accelerating the growth of entrepreneurship in the country. While these initiatives have helped mainstreaming entrepreneurship, they still reach to largely urban – or to well-established – entrepreneurial ventures. The challenge to expand the entrepreneurial ecosystem is: how does one reach countless small and fledgling entrepreneurial ventures in India’s small towns and rural hinterland?

The following are some stray thoughts on this:

·         Go Vernacular, Become “Unprofessional”: Language, and the professionally designed templates and formats (ppts, xls sheets, etc.) to access the ecosystem resources, remain one of the major entry barriers to the existing ecosystem platforms for many grassroot entrepreneurs. Large number of grassroot entrepreneurs are neither conversant with English, nor have the capabilities of showcasing their work through the templates, which are required to be used to seek entry/support into the ecosystem. Reaching them would require building-in vernacular languages, and more intuitive interfaces, into the ecosystem platforms.

·         Search, Identify and Showcase: A critical challenge in reaching the grassroot entrepreneurs is how to identify them. By their very nature and location, they remain “invisible” on the radar of existing ecosystem platforms. If the ecosystem platforms have to reach them, then it will be necessary to initiate processes (e.g., contests, citizen journalists’ forums, etc.) which help identifying them – and showcasing them on existing media channels (e.g., The Better India, Weekend Leader, Your Story, or even FB pages, etc.).

·         Connect – Create Partnerships: Grassroot entrepreneurs mostly operate in isolation, concerned mainly with the community/segment they serve. As a result, not only they lack access to sources of funding and technical advice, their own innovations are lost to the rest of entrepreneurial community. The challenge of developing a vibrant ecosystem would be to create platforms which allow entrepreneurs to connect with others, and find complementary partners.

·         Converge ‘Ecosystem Platforms’: One very positive development in the entrepreneurial space during last couple of years has been the emergence of many robust ecosystem platforms (e.g., Mahindra’s Spark the Rise, Intellecap’s Sankalp Forum, Villgro’s Unconvention, etc.). Similarly initiatives such as Be! Fund, BYST, etc., provide funding mentoring and technical support to entrepreneurs from the marginalized segments. These initiatives to build the entrepreneurial ecosystems, however, still operate as independent silos. A convergence and coordination among these can bring out the synergy and increase the reach to the grassroot entrepreneurs.

[ps: I had written this about a couple of months back for "Spark the Rise Meet-up" in Delhi (Sept 1, 2012. Since then one convergence has happened: Intellecap's Sankalp and Villgro's Unconvention have formed a strategic partnership to do on main conference in Mumbai in April, and to do many mini-meets in smaller towns.]

Grassroutes: Developing Villages through Rural Tourism

When OutlookBusiness covered Grassroutes - a rural tourism venture founded by an XIM, Bhubneshwar graduate, Inir Pinheiro - it desicribed it as:

"The venture, named Grassroutes, hopes to transform nondescript villages, near the metros, into viable tourist destinations; viable for him and beneficial to the villagers with increased livelihood opportunities."

from small beginnings... what makes a social entrepreneur?

Ever since, I got interested in the field of Social Entrepreneurship (which is quite recent in life), I was fascinated by the small beginnings from where some of the life/world-changing social ventures started.

Describing the beginning of SEWA, Ela Bhatt once wrote:

"In 1971, migrant women working as cart-pullers in the city’s cloth market came to me in TLA, where I had started my work life working for textile mill workers of Ahmedabad. The women who lived on the footpath, were seeking help for better living conditions. Next month came the head loader women of the same cloth market, feeling agitated about very low rates of payment (30 paise per trip carrying the bale of cloth from a wholesaler to a retailer). They felt exploited by the traders. Then followed the used garment dealer women in search of credit facility... That was 1971. Some of these urban, poor, self- employed women workers came to the meeting that I called in a public garden where we formed our trade union (1972). We called it the Self Employed Women’s Association, SEWA."

Similarly, David Bornstein described how Grameen Bank was born out of Mohammad Yunus’s chance meeting with Sufiya Khatun who would work hard to make bamboo-stools throughout the day, and yet earn just about 2 cents:

"… When Yunus asked why her profit was so low, she explained that the only person who would lend her money to buy bamboo was the trader who bought her final product - and the price he set barely covered her costs.

(Yunus) wanted to see if there were other villagers in similar circumstances… and compiled a list of forty-two people whose capital requirements, in order to buy materials and work freely, added up to about $26.00.

Through the years he would recount that story hundreds of times… "I felt extremely ashamed of myself being part of a society that could not provide twenty-six dollars to forty-two able, skilled human beings who were trying to make a living."

Likewise...

Delhi-based GOONJ, which collects about 40,000 k.g. of garments every month, and reaches them to the needy across 20 states, started in 1998 when its founder Anshu Gupta was struck by the bundle of garments lying unused in his almarah: “Here we are, a young family of two adults, new home-makers for just three years, not wealthy by any means and we have 67 pieces of good, usable garments we don't want any more. Yet, but for the disaster we wouldn't be giving them away."

AID (Association for India’s Development), which has 36 chapters in USA and operates more than 100 projects in 18 Indian states, started with a modest proposal by its founder K Ravi to his friends to contribute $10 to start a school in some Indian village.

The idea of providing affordable solar electricity to rural poor came to Harish Hande, the Ashden Award winner founder of Selco India, when he visited the Dominican Republic as a part of his Master’s thesis. Today, Selco has more than 30,000 installations and 25 service centers.

The Rickshaw Bank was conceived when veterinarian Dr Pradip Kumar Sarmah asked his rickshaw puller how much money he makes, and found that even after 16 years, he did not own the rickshaw, earned a paltry Rs. 25/day, and had to pay half his earning as rent.

Child Rights and You (CRY) started when 25-years old Rippan Kapur and 6 of his friends, sitting around his mother’s dining table, contributed Rs.50/- each to create a fund that could “do something for the underprivileged Indian child”. Today, it has grown into one of the largest child rights movement in the country.

…the list goes on.

What also puzzled me was that people who started these ventures were ordinary individuals. They had limited means and modest backgrounds. What stimulated them to create/do something significant was also just a commonplace occurrence, similar to myriad situations which we all encounter in our lives.

And yet, there was “something” they had, which allowed them to transform an everyday experience or act into sustainable ventures which could create major social impact.

So, what was that “something”?

As I learned more about such social entrepreneurs (be meeting them and reading), even their field of work may have been different (e.g., tribal and rural development, primary education, women empowerment, micro-credit lending, etc.), five qualities seemed to be common across them:

a. Belief in possibility of change and human potential
Underlying their efforts was the optimism that despite adversities and lack of resources/support, it is possible to create large transformations in a social system. This optimism is supported by a belief in the human potential – their own and of those others who are focus of their efforts - to make such changes happen. Ela Bhatt, for instance, was driven by the firm belief that even the poor illiterate women have a vision of personal change, and the capacity to make it happen.

Similarly, Harish Hande’s vision of reaching solar power to poor communities was based on the conviction that poor can afford, pay for and maintain technology.

It was this optimism and certainty that allowed them to envision futures that can be created by leveraging on this human potential for self-empowerment.

b. Inspired Pragmatism
While the underpinnings of their motivation was an internal need to create ‘social value’, to ‘do something for the marginalised’ or to ‘contribute back to the society’, etc., they did not adopt any charitable model to address the social issues. Their effort was to develop a model of “business” which was sustainable, and therefore, scalable. As Prof Yunus once explained his approach to eradicate poverty:

‘…I wanted to give money to people… so that they would be free from the moneylenders to sell their product at the price which the markets gave them …. (I charged interest because) I thought if you do things in a businesslike way, then the project can become as big as you want it to because you are… not dependent on anybody.… This is not charity. This is business: business with a social objective, which is to help people get out of poverty.’

c. Capacity to Reframe Problems as Opportunities
Perhaps, what distinguished them from most of us was their opportunity-orientation. Their actions do not start from the decision about how best they can deploy the resources that they have; rather, they start from the issues need to be addressed, and then work backward to identify the resources that are needed to solve those problems, and innovate opportunities for generating those resources.

Consider, for instance, the Delhi-based Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT), which provides education, meals, boarding facilities, information on basic hygiene, counseling and medical help, and rehabilitation to around 3500 street- and platform- children each year. To partly finance its activities, SBT innovated the “guided street walks”, which are conducted by the street children. Not only this helps in humanizing the interface between the street kids and the social elites, it also provides a source of income to them and SBT.

d. Heightened Sense of Accountability to Those Served
The ventures they created were, of course, based on a deeply felt sense of obligation and accountability to the constituencies they served. There was an ethical impetus which guides their actions. But there is another, more important rationale for this sense of accountability.

Unlike the business entrepreneurs, markets do not work well for social entrepreneurs in providing a feedback on their actions. When one is in the “business” of creating social/environmental value, it is difficult to evaluate – and monitor - the intangibles such as social improvements, public good (or harm), or benefits for the marginalized, etc.

To offset this inefficiency in the environment in which they operate, they developed mechanisms to assess the needs of the communities which they aim to serve – and the extent to which their efforts and actions make an impact in meeting those needs. Wherever possible, they design market-like feedback mechanisms that reinforce their accountability to their constituencies. SEWA, for instance, developed a unique methodology to monitor its impact by asking 10 questions related to its twin goals of providing ‘full employment’ (including income and social security) and ‘self-reliance’ to its members.

e. Ability to Work Across Boundaries
They built not just the organizations, but also a collaborative network across different stakeholders in the issue (e.g., local population, state machinery, technology partners, micro-financial institutions, donors, etc.). Selco India, for instance, tied up with micro-finance agencies to provide credit to their customers/ beneficiaries; Goonj works through more than 100 grass-root organizations across the states to deliver need-based garments; and, CRY works with more hundreds of NGOs to reach the resources to those who need them, etc.

What perhaps made their ideas and actions sustainable was their ability to collaborate, to create networks, to share ideas, resources and credit with others to increase the sense of ownership in that network.

After all, as Harry Truman had said long time back:
“It is amazing what you can achieve if you don’t care who gets the credit”

*****

One Person's Trash is Another Person's Treasure

Waste Ventures transforms the way municipal garbage is handled in developing countries into a more environmentally and socially friendly process based on market mechanisms. Uncollected garbage is mostly collected by wastepickers who make a pittance from recyclables and face many health issues. Waste Ventures provides technical assistance to social organizations that work with waste pickers to transform them into waste picker corporations. It provides them with a triple bottom line blueprint (fee-for-service collection, recycling, composting, monetizing carbon credits, and creating biogas) and then assist the transition of the organization’s capital to the waste pickers themselves.

Sun King Solar Lanterns in Rural India

Mayank Sekhsaria is a young man who returned from the US with a dream: "honest, high-qualilty solar lights could change lives" in rural India. Today, GreenLight Planet's small and relatively inexpensive solar lamps, Sun King, are used by over 100,000 villagers.
More info at: http://www.greenlightplanet.com/

The Rags-to-Riches Story of Sarathbabu

When 27-year old Sarathbabu graduated from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedaba, he created quite a stir by refusing a job that offered him a huge salary. He preferred to start his own enterprise -- Foodking Catering Service -- in Ahmedabad....

some excerpts from his story...

"I was born and brought up in a slum in Madipakkam in Chennai. I have two elder sisters and two younger brothers and my mother was the sole breadwinner of the family. It was really tough for her to bring up five kids on her meagre salary.

As she had studied till the tenth standard, she got a job under the mid-day meal scheme of the Tamil Nadu government in a school at a salary of Rs 30 a month. She made just one rupee a day for six people.

So, she sold idlis in the mornings. She would then work for the mid-day meal at the school during daytime. In the evenings, she taught at the adult education programme of the Indian government.

...

By the end of the second year, there were many lucrative job offers coming our way, but in my mind I was determined to start something on my own. But back home, I didn't have a house. It was a difficult decision to say 'no' to offers that gave you Rs 800,000 a year. But I was clear in my mind even while I knew the hard realities back home.

Yes, my mother had been an entrepreneur, and subconsciously, she must have inspired me. My inspirations were also (Dhirubhai) Ambani and Narayana Murthy. I knew I was not aiming at something unachievable. I got the courage from them to start my own enterprise.

Nobody at my institute discouraged me. In fact, at least 30-40 students at the IIM wanted to be entrepreneurs. And we used to discuss about ideas all the time. My last option was to take up a job.

...

Reservation should be a mix of all criteria. If you take a caste that comes under reservation, 80 per cent of the people will be poor and 20 per cent rich, the creamy layer. For the general category, it will be the other way around.

...Take my case, I didn't have any system that would make me aware of the IITs and the IIMs. But I will be able to guide my children properly because I am well educated. I got the benefits of reservation but I will never avail of it for my children. I cannot even think of demanding reservation for the next generation."

***
Read the full story here

Room to Read

Another story of small beginnings and social innovation
(specially, if one thinks of the millions of books that people sell off or throw away, just because they don't need them any more... because they have read them over and over again, becauase kids have grown up, because exams are over...)

The Room to Read story begins in 1998 with Founder & CEO John Wood. In 1998, John was an overworked Microsoft executive looking for the quiet solitude of a trekking vacation. While backpacking in the Himalayas, John met a middle-aged Nepalese man who invited him to visit a school in a neighboring village. Hoping for a chance to see the real Nepal, rather than his tourist's trek, John agreed. Little did he know this short detour would change his life forever.

The man John met was a Nepalese "Education Resource Officer." However, John soon discovered that despite his huge heart and tremendous work-ethic (traveling mountain passes on foot to visit his schools), this man had very little resources to offer the schools in his charge. At the school John came face to face with the harsh reality confronting millions of Nepalese children - there were almost no books. John was stunned to discover that the few books they had - a Danielle Steele romance, the Lonely Planet Guide to Mongolia, and a few other backpacker castoffs - were so precious that they were kept under lock and key... to protect them from the children!

As John left the village that day, the school headmaster made a simple request: "Perhaps, Sir, you will some day come back with books." His request would not go unheard. After returning from his trek, John emailed friends to ask for their help in collecting children's books, and was overwhelmed with the response - over 3,000 books arrived within the next two months. The following year, John returned to Nepal, rented a yak, and returned to the village to deliver the books.

On that trip, John made a decision. He would leave the corporate world in order to devote himself to starting a new non-profit. In his memoir, Leaving Microsoft to Change the World, John explains, "Did it really matter how many copies of Windows we sold in Taiwan this month when there were millions of children without access to books?" In late 1999, John quit his executive position with Microsoft and started Room to Read.

With Room to Read, John sought to marry the corporate business practices he learned at Microsoft with an inspiring vision - to provide the lifelong gift of education to millions of children in the developing world. He contended that with 750 million illiterate adults worldwide and 100 million children without access to school, a non-profit "with the scalability of Starbucks and the compassion of Mother Theresa" was required.

To date, Room to Read operates in Nepal, Combodia, India, Laos, Sri Lanka, Vietnam and South Africa, has impacted lives of close to 1.5mn kids, has created over 4,100 schools and libraries, awards 3,400 scholarships to girls, has published 150 children's books in local languages...

"Hrudaya Post": An Example of "Social Innovation"

'Hrudaya Post' launched in Karnataka to help Heart Patients

Bangalore: Thursday, March 15 2007: (UNI) A unique rural healthcare facility ''Hrudaya post'' was launched in Karnataka today to enable heart patients in villages scan and send their medical reports to superspeciality hospital Narayana Hrudayalaya for consultation from a neighbourhood post office.

The Postal Department and Superspeciality Hospital Narayana Hrudayalaya have joined hands to offer ''Hrudaya Post'. Under the scheme, first of its kind in the history of health care, heart patients in small towns and villages can go to any of the Post office and send their entire medical reports by scanning and uploading to Narayana Hrudayalaya.

The Hospital in turn, within 24 hours, after studying the report, would send a detailed report back to the sender thus saving time to visit Heart Specialist for advice.

Narayana Hrudayalaya Chairman Dr Devi Shetty, talking to newsmen here, said that the service of studying and advice to patients, including medicine prescription, would be provided free of cost.

"Our aim is to link the post offices to our hospital, so that heart patients living in small town and villages can get medical advice at their door step." Replying to a question, he said that people living in villages were also equally vulnerable to heart disease as in urban areas.

Dr Shetty said that besides advising about the treatment, the hospital would also help in meeting financial requirement for the needy patients.

He said that 'Hrudaya Post' would be of great helpful for the heart patients in rural areas since about 99 per cent of heart patients does not need surgery and can be cured with medicine. More than 30 Surgeons and 200 personnel of Narayana Hrudayala would be working 24 hours to serve the people, he added.

Replying to a question, he said that more than 22,000 people were treated since last five years of introduction of Telemedicine introduced in association with Indian Satellite Research Organisation (ISRO).

Heart Specialist Dr Jairaj of Narayana Hrudayalaya said that under Karnataka government's unique health scheme 'Yashasvini' more than three million people were insured.

Karnataka Chief Post Master General Meera Datta, in her address, said that, to begin with the 'Hrudaya Post' would be introduced in 25 District Post offices and gradually it would be extended to all post offices in the State. It has been decided to charge Rs 100 for scanning and sending the report to the Hospital and additional Rs 25 would be charged if a person desires the report be delivered at his door step.

She said that there are 511 post offices in Karnataka with Computer facility and one of the computer may be devoted for the purpose.