Archive for the ‘BoP’ Category
Women in power
[125]
I was not a great fan of Self Help Groups (SHG) when I first heard about it. I thought the ultimate result of their borrowings without collateral just put them deeper in to debt. I was wrong. The women in these groups knew what they were doing. I came to accept the fact that they needed to spend for their child’s wedding or for other rituals. A lot of the expenditure they made seemed unproductive to me. But I learnt that everyone must hold their head up in the community they live in and therefore some of these expenses were necessary.
More than that the biggest thing to change my mind was when Rosie, my assistant in field work at Melur, Madurai, pointed out to me during a particularly noisy SHG meeting that the women were talking. I could see that and hear it very well. Then she went on to explain, that these women were talking and expressing themselves not just in the SHG meetings but also during the panchayat meetings and their voice was getting more strident as their economic power in the household increased. If our country has to regain its former greatness it will be by the strength of our women.
Health- ECG for the poor
[13]
I worked for the Byrraju Foundation, Hyderabad between 2007 and 2008. During that time I met with many professionals in the Satyam Group of companies. B Swaminathan was one such professional whose dream was to bring complex medical diagnostics to the village in an affordable way.
Swami and I sat and thought about this and looked at all the resources available to us. This included 30 internet kiosks set up by the Foundation in 30 villages of East and West Godavari districts of Andhra Pradesh, Electro Cardio Gram (ECG) kits provided along with ISRO Village Knowledge Centre programme and a good enthusiastic team of medical professionals. Swami told me that he could get a tie up done with Narayana Hrudayalaya at Bangalore. Narayana Hrudayalaya would be able to look at an ECG output, make a diagnosis, suggest over the counter medication if required and what further action the patient should take. All of this within 15 minutes of receiving the ECG and for free.
We had to convince the management at Byrraju that we could make this happen at an extremely low cost to the patient and they agreed to let us do a pilot. The pilot was successful and we had pegged the cost of the test at Rs. 25/-.
Swami and I were delighted. Using the connectivity available in the internet kiosk, the low cost ECG kit supplied by ISRO, medical technicians available at the Foundation health clinics we were able to take the ECG readings of patients and send them to Narayana Hrudayalaya. Within 15 minutes we would get the response from Narayana Hrudayalaya. Rural people were at that point of time getting an expert opinion on their heart at a cost cheaper than any urban person.
The programme got Byrraju Foundation the Computer World Honors Program Award.
http://www.cwhonors.org/viewCaseStudy2008.asp?NominationID=741
The newspaper article is at:
http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/byrraju-emri-win-computerworld-awards/325595/
Renewable Energy for India
[11]
I wrote this piece for Wake Up India – It was printed in the July- September 2011 edition and that has not come online as of yet.
(http://www.ts-adyar.org/content/magazines#Wake_Up_India)
Renewable Energy. Can it work for India?
Most people will confuse energy with electricity. This confusion has spread throughout media and can even be found in government planning. This may have to do with the way electricity is delivered to us through a hole in the wall. Electricity does not have an origin in plain sight as with any other fuel and yet we will equate it to primary energy.
The requirement for energy and electricity depends on where you live in India. We all know that there is an availability problem for electricity in rural areas and that urban area become paralysed without electricity. The primary fuels (energy sources) that are used to create electricity in India are coal, natural gas and oil. These fuels are commonly called ‘fossil fuels’ since they are mined from the earth and represent dead plant life from millennia before and us and are finite in availability.
Fossil fuels are also responsible for the phenomenon known as global warming since it is believed that the carbon dioxide they produce after combustion cannot be absorbed by the plant life of the earth at the same rate that they enter the atmosphere. This build up of carbon dioxide and other combustion products create a green house effect since they absorb and retain heat that should otherwise be rejected to outer space. This is how global warming happens and the end result is violent and unpredictable changes in rainfall, hurricanes and prolonged heating of certain parts of the world.
When you live in rural India your biggest energy consumption is for cooking and then for lighting. Cooking uses biomass in various forms like firewood, agriculture residue, twigs, and dung cake. This biomass for cooking is a sizable chunk (more than 2/3rd ) of rural energy consumption. However very rarely will this very important source of energy find its way into any planning document. The focus is always on electricity
If you live in urban India and depending whether you are poor or rich your energy consumption will be different. The rich will use electricity and Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) and in some cases kerosene, primarily for cooking. If you are poor in urban India there are good chances of using firewood as the primary cooking fuel. This will explain the numerous firewood depots that can be found near the slums of any metropolis. Firewood is also the fuel of choice for rural eateries.
Most planning documents prepared by governmental or international agencies will talk about electricity and developing means to increase power generation. Though biomass is one of the biggest contributors to the energy consumption of the majority of our population, attempts made for the sustainable supply of biomass is limited.
When we talk about renewable energy what pops into the mind are windmills, solar devices, hydropower and for some strange reason nuclear power. Rarely does the renewable energy sector talk about biomass. Again this is due to the concentration on providing electricity rather than energy. India is also very rich in electricity generated by hydro power which as mentioned is a renewable resource.
The way to understand renewable energy is to think about it as the result of what is available in nature right now, rather than as a finite remnant from a distant past. Thus if we can convert or capture all the sunlight that falls on the world on a daily basis there would be sufficient energy available for everybody’s needs across the globe.
To quote from wikipedia: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_energy)
“The total solar energy absorbed by Earth’s atmosphere, oceans and land masses is approximately 3,850,000 exajoules (EJ) per year.” (The solar energy that falls on the world in one hour is equivalent to the world energy consumption in 2002).
“Photosynthesis captures approximately 3,000 EJ per year in biomass. The amount of solar energy reaching the surface of the planet is so vast that in one year it is about twice as much as will ever be obtained from all of the Earth’s non-renewable resources of coal, oil, natural gas, and mined uranium combined.”
There are various problems associated with renewable energy that have prevented its widespread use. One of the biggest challenges is to create technologies that will allow the energy captured to be stored for use at a later time. The other challenges are with the variable nature of the input.
Take for instance wind energy, all of us know that wind speeds are highly variable and can change both speed and direction minute to minute. This gives designers of windmills many challenges. They have to account for the wide variation in speeds and the changes in direction. If you drive past any wind farm where there are multiple windmills installed, there are good chances that you will see rotor blades broken and therefore windmills not working. These catastrophic failures are an indication of how difficult it is to design across a highly variable speed and direction regime. Extremely modern designs make use of advances in material technology that help them build lighter and stronger wind mills that overcome the earlier flaws and perform better.
In the case of solar energy too there are variations in the input due to cloud cover or overcast days where the amount of sunlight reaching the earth is not sufficient for meaningful use. Sunlight can be captured and used for heating or otherwise through photovoltaic cells converted to electricity. However the storage problem is there for both conversions. Some of these conversion devices also tend to be very expensive and have poor efficiencies. Much of the research work around converting sunlight to electricity is around making high efficiency low cost photo voltaic cells. If you think about it all plants are using sunlight and fixing carbon dioxide thus increasing their mass (referred to as biomass). So a plant by its photosynthetic process overcomes the problem of conversion of sunlight, build up of carbon dioxide and storage of energy.
The answer to the question posed in the title is that Renewable Energy is already working in a big way for India. Biomass energy is providing a very large part of the energy requirement of the rural population and for the poor in urban areas. Hydro power provides around 14% of the electricity produced in the country according to the International Energy Agency1 and 25% according to Asian Development Bank2. The potential identified and not exploited could contribute over 60% of electricity requirement but the investment requirements will keep this sector contributing between 20 to 30% of current requirement. In a report by the Global Energy Network Institute3 states “the technical potential of these renewables exceeds the present installed generation capacity.”
The potential of biomass has again been missed in many of these reports. The cooking energy requirement if met by anaerobic digestion of all household waste can free biomass that can potentially create small power generating units of 25kW to 50 kW in each village of India. This means that these villages after meeting their internal requirements could sell power to the national grid.
Mistaking electricity for energy has led to this situation whereby planners have missed on how simple biogas technology at a household level can free up sufficient biomass to create as much energy as the country needs for current and future demand. In simpler terms renewable energy can work for India.
Ref 1. (http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2010/key_stats_2010.pdf pg21)
Ref 2. (http://www.adb.org/Documents/Reports/Hydropower-Devt-India/Hydropower-Devt-India.pdf pg 15)
Water Under the Ground
There have been several important regulations on ground water usage in India. The Chennai Metropolitan Area Groundwater (Regulation) Act of 1987 is one such. (see http://www.chennaimetrowater.tn.nic.in/admin/rainwater_rn.htm). The Government of India is now contemplating a cap on ground water usage and a tax to discourage its indiscriminate use for irrigation. These steps may be on the cards as the government looks to preserve this precious resource that is depleting at an alarming rate. This kind of regulation will have a direct impact on farm livelihoods and food security. Are there other mechanism that can serve the purpose is the question being raised here.
There have been many experiments, studies and enterprises that have attempted to resolve issues around ground water usage in a democratic way. Farmers in Andhra Pradesh have found interesting solutions to this issue. An interesting case study is presented in the handbook “Piloting Knowledge Swaraj: A Handbook on Indian Science and Technology,” edited by XIMB Professor Shambu Prasad. The case study can be found on pages 120 to 125 of the handbook. Click this link to access the Handbook: http://kicsforum.net/index.php?option=com_sectionex&view=category&id=16&Itemid=83.
Intellecap Response to Malegam Committee Report on Indian Microfinance
The recent legislation regulating the work of the microfinance sector has thrown open the debate on the sector’s usefulness in acting as a poverty-alleviation tool.
The Malegam Committee was constituted by the Reserve Bank of India as a Sub-Committee of its Board of Directors to review the definition and practice of microfinance in India, delineate a regulatory framework, and make related recommendations.
Intellecap, the microfinance and social business consultancy based in India, examines the recommendations of the committee, the questions it raises, and its impact of the recommendations on the industry.
A broad overview of the Committee’s Recommendations are:
- Limits individual borrowings to Rs. 25,000 annually
- Annual family income to be less than Rs. 50,000
- Not less than 75% of the loan given should be for income-generating activities
- Restrictions on other services provided by MFIs
- No more than two MFIs can lend to a single borrower
- A minimum period between granting of loan and commencement of recovery
- A credit information bureau has to be established
Some of Intellecap’s recommendations are:
- Consider increasing the limit on annual household income to Rs. 1,50,000
- Provide flexibility to MFIs to design their products around appropriate tenure, loan amounts, and interest rates, while retaining measures to protect borrowers
- Revisit the minimum capital requirement for an NBFC-MFI
- Recognize that there will be significant practical implementation and reporting difficulties, in the first 12 to 18 months of the new regime, and support MFIs in making the transitions
Read the entire White Paper, here.
iuMap: The World’s Largest Directory of Market Solutions to Poverty
This post is contributed by Robert Moore, Villgro Fellow 2010
Ayllu (pronounced ‘i-you’) started out with the idea of “spreading social enterprise through franchising” but as the Founder Melissa Richer was doing the research to start the organization she noticed that everyone she was interviewing was more interested in the data she collected than the concept she was researching. Based on this experience she decided to shift her focus toward the company’s current mission which is to “provide updated, centralized information to help social enterprises, investors, and supporters learn from each other so that decisions can be made and scale achieved more easily, quickly, and cheaply”.
The choice Ayllu made to switch missions has proven to be extremely beneficial to the social enterprise industry as they have garnered support from NextBillion, OpenAction, IRIS, GIIRS, Acumen Fund, the William Davidson Institute, Santa Clara University, and Artemisia International to develop iuMap – the “public face” of Ayllu’s internal database. It is currently the world’s largest directory of market solutions to poverty listing the majority of the world’s social enterprises (450 enterprises in 65+ developing countries), and has been visited by users in 133 countries! Ayllu envisions it as a valuable resource for practitioners, social entrepreneurs, funders (investors and donors), students, academics and generally those interested in social enterprise.
Two of the latest iuMap features include an ability to filter the map based on location, issue, legal structure, and supporters and ten sector pages with reports, case studies, commonly used metrics for the sector, twitter feeds from the sector, all the businesses they have listed, and links to other online resources. In the next few months Ayllu will release an Energy Map focused on social enterprises delivering energy solutions to the poor by surveying 60+ enterprises and an India Map focused on social enterprises in India facing enormous growth challenges by surveying 50+ enterprises.
Ayllu has been utilizing the help from any volunteers who want to submit enterprises missing from their database. This has been fairly successful allowing them to grow by 50% in the last few months. They are still encouraging submissions which you can do here. Feel free to contribute because Ayllu says “the more we map, the more we’ll share.” They have hopes that iuMap will one day by be a tool for accessing data and analysis like best practices, trends, connections, and benchmarks. The growth of this company and tool has been remarkable to witness and it has come just at the right time.
You can see this link for a rundown of the new iuMap features as well as links to their partners and a video explaining how everything works. Check it out today!
Is India a Hotbed for Social Enterprise?
If you’ve lived in India for any length of time you have had to wonder about the inate entrepreneurial spirit that abounds. There are also several successful social enterprises that have their origin in India. But is India really a hotbed for social enterprise? What makes India home to so many enterprises and an attractive investment avenenue for international investors?
Lindsay Clinton of Beyond Profit magazine offers her thoughts in her recent article on the GOOD Business website. To find out what makes India tick, click here.
2000-2010: A Decade of Social Entrepreneurship
Here is an interesting post from the Social Edge Blog by Rod Schwartz of CEO of ClearlySo. In it Schwartz suggests that the single-most important event for the sector in the past decade was the financial crash during 2007-2009. Why does he think so? Well because the “house of cards” (the banking system) came crashing down. This he says revealed the ‘economic and moral bankruptcy of “casino capitalism” as it had been practiced.’
This was a good thing, because it recongized that ‘a system focused on profit maximization’ to the exclusion of all else was destined to explode.’ The crisis lead to several positive results for the social entrepreneurship sector: it opened up the way for impact investing, social entrepreneurs challenge singular goals and advocated balanced scorecards, governments and large corporations are now setting out to learn from the sector, and help build it, and lastly there is increased interest in working in the sector, in addition to interest from business schools and universities.
Tell us what you think of Rob Schwartz’s take on this. What do you think was the most important thing to happen to the sector this decade?
Simply Fly: Chapter 3
Devyani Srinivasan continues her analysis of the book “Simply Fly” by Air Deccan founder, Captain Gopinath. Over a series of blog posts Srinivasan has been exploring the lessons Gopinath’s story holds for social enterprises looking to work with the BOP.
In my blog post on Chapter 2, I mentioned that Gopinath attributes his decision to leave the army to a spiritual-emotional crisis, but gives few details on what this crisis is. In this chapter, what spirituality means for Gopinath becomes clearer.
Throughout the book so far, the reader is aware of Gopinath’s love of nature. In Chapter 2, he narrates being awestruck at the mountains of the Indo-Tibetan border, that he saw on his long range patrols when in the army. He says that, “I saw the most spectacular scenes, of gushing waterfalls, snow-capped mountain peaks, and winding rivers. I was immersed in Tagore’s poetry at the time and the entire experience was deeply spiritual.” In Chapter 1 Gopinath describes the Western Ghats, and his village, with love, including the agriculture (coconut groves, areca plantations, betel-leaf creepers, paddy fields, mango orchards and coffee estates), and the dense, pristine rainforests. Yet, the bulk of his descriptions are reserved for the Hemavathy and Yagachi rivers, and in Chapter 3 he confirms that for him, rivers are sacred.
While by Chapter 2 the reader already suspects that there is a close tie between spirituality and nature for Gopinath, this is elaborated upon in Chapter 3. He states:
…My struggle with farming lent my life a spiritual dimension. I sensed within me a sense of oneness with the environment. In one breath I took in the mystic aura of the early morning sunrise; the sweet fragrance rising from freshly churned earth as I walked across the fields. I was in search of a natural method of understanding the crops, the seasons, and the soil.
For example, coconuts are central to Gopinath’s farm. Again drawing from a religious reference, he says that, “in the scriptures, the coconut tree is called kalpavriksha, the tree that lives a long, long time and grants all wishes.” Gopinath believes that if he nurses the saplings for seven or eight years they will keep him going for a hundred years, and therefore the success or failure of his farm will be decided in the time that it takes the coconut palms to grow.
Initially, when termites attack the coconut trees, he uses benzene hexachloride to get rid of them. When it rains this spray washes down into the soil and nearby stream, carrying the residual chemicals with it, and polluting the soil, the stream, the ponds, and the groundwater. Gopinath quickly realizes that by removing all the twigs, branches and dead organisms from the soil, the termites are left with no nourishment, and therefore attack the coconut trees. Once Gopinath instructs the workers not to remove anything from the coconut grove, the termites stop attacking the trees.
While the farm is the focus of Gopinath’s activities in this chapter, he also begins a silkworm business, stock-brokerage, a hotel business, a motor-cycle dealership, and an agricultural consultancy. The silkworm business is particularly worth mentioning, as Gopinath replaces bamboo stems and branches with paddy straw as the cocooning sites for silk worms. He does this to, “save millions of bamboos from felling, and simultaneously eliminate the repeated use of disinfectant on the generally reused bamboo montages.” In addition, he experiments with integrating rain-water harvesting and impounding in ponds, managing weeds, moisture retention in the soil, discreet ploughing, and selective biological pest control. Gopinath’s silkworm business wins the Rolex Award for Enterprise, which he sees as helping to spread environmental awareness and eco-friendly ways of farming.
However, in this chapter Gopinath also seems to be developing an interest in entrepreneurship for its own sake, regardless of the social benefits it does or does not bring. Some examples serve to illustrate this. In the first, Gopinath says that from farming he learnt that:
…If something is not ecologically sound, it is not economically viable. This is a simple law that I think applies to every aspect of life. For a business to be viable, entrepreneurs need to create the right ecology for business and for the interactions it entails. That seed of my future low-cost airline and other businesses was sowed here.
However, in this quote, Gopinath is modifying the meaning of the world “ecology” drastically from its environmental context. In fact there is a contradiction between Gopinath’s love of nature and the environment, and his decision to start an airline business. Another example is of his future helicopter business that Gopinath also refers to in this chapter. While Gopinath refuses to accept dowry at his own wedding, again in a seeming contradiction, he acknowledges that it is dowry that enables his customers to hire helicopters for wedding celebrations.
At his motor-cycle dealership Gopinath decides to hire children, but here the issue is more complicated. He reasons that by hiring boys as young as 8-10 years old, he can train them to become mechanics and open their own garages. Gopinath also displays sensitivity in trying to ensure that the boys are not ill-treated.
One lesson from this chapter for entrepreneurs is that help can often come from unexpected sources, and therefore it is important not to alienate anyone, as far as possible. Even when his farm is ransacked by the previous farmers of the land allotted by the government to Gopinath, he offers to help them to receive title to the land remaining. It is perhaps due to this attitude that Manje Gowda, a neighboring farmer and friend, offers to guarantee Gopinath’s bank loan when none of his other friends and relatives would. Of course, Gopinath is at an advantage over other farmers in the first place because he was previously an army officer, and this seems to interest one bank manager, after several failed attempts, in his loan application.
Chapter 3 begins with the quote, “All that matters is Love and Work”, and ends with Gopinath lamenting that, “People do not love what they do, but do it nonetheless for the money it brings.” While it is clear that Gopinath has a love for agriculture, and perhaps a budding love for his other business interests, the reader hears little of his personal life in this autobiography so far. In this chapter he gets married, and some sections describe the marriage and his subsequent life with his wife. Gopinath’s wife evokes interest because she insists on marrying him although at the time he is a farmer in debt. However, in other respects the marriage seems quite traditional. Gopinath is attracted to her because she can sing, is pretty, and will cook for him, and after marriage she seems to unequivocally support him without voicing any opinions of her own. Gopinath also has two daughters, but they receive only passing mention in this chapter.
Unconvention 2010: Where Path Breakers Meet Path Makers
On December 3rd and 4th, Villgro held the second edition of its 4-in-1 conference, Unconvention 2010. The event brough together over 250 practioners, innovators, investors and entrepreneurs in Chennai for four distinct events – a social entrepreneurship summit, a business plan competition, an innovation fair and an investor forum. Bharath Varshney, a Villgro Fellow presents an overview of the two-day event here.
In an effort to create a viable eco-system for fostering innovation in the social sector, Villgro Innovations Foundation held our second edition of Unconvention in Chennai, India from the 2nd to 4th Dec, 2010. Over 200 delegates gathered for three days of experience-sharing, panels, break-out consultancy sessions, and networking.
The annual platform that celebrates social entrepreneurship had five distinct parts – Wantrapreneur (a business plan competition for startups), Innohub (a showcase of innovators and their product and service innovation), The Summit (a knowledge sharing platform with panel discussions and workshops), for the first time an Investor Forum (medium to directly connect entrepreneurs with investors) and Villgro Awards, which identifies and felicitates the entrepreneurs and enterprises that have made significant contributions to society and the sector.
The spirit of Unconvention was put forward by Paul Basil, CEO and Founder of Villgro: “Where path breakers meet path makers is a platform to foster dialogues for the social innovators to develop sustainable environment for strong partnership and networking,” he said. Further, the event had participation from socially relevant businesses and individual innovators showcasing and deliberating their plans for change in rural India.
The Summit
The first day of the Summit was designed with panel discussions while on the second day was a mix of workshops and entrepreneur sharing sessions. The discussions were focused on brainstorming ideas that have social impact. Moreover, three parallel workshops on different topics: Making yourself ready for investments, Law & Social Entrepreneurship and Applying new tools to Measuring Impact-were conducted as part of the summit on the second day.
Innohub
The other major attraction of the Unconvention was Innohub – an Innovation fair showcasing highly market-worthy innovations- both products and technologies handpicked by Villgro. Innohub also facilitated face-to-face meetings to forge partnerships between entrepreneurs and innovators. Exhibitors at Innohub included Villgro Stores, a Villgro initiative that provides last mile connectivity for agricultural products; Neurosynaptics, a weather monitoring system development unit; Skymet, a weather forecasting technology unit; Arogyam Foods, organic products developed by rural farmers; Network of Indian Agri-Business Incubators (NIABI), and Masuta, a tasar yarn producers company.
Wantrapreneur
Wantrapreneur, the Business Plan Competition, received an impressive 44 applications in the Agriculture, Dairy, Water and Energy categories, of which 10 were short-listed for the finals. While evaluations of the business plans happened on December 2nd, the winners were announced on Day 1. Beating all hurdles, Mr. Inir Pinheiro of Grassroutes, a network of village tourism destinations owned & run by local communities, was awarded the first prize under the start-up category. The award for Early Growth was given to Mr. Kaushalendra & Mr. Anuj Kumar of Samriddhii Green Carts which is working to reinvent the fresh vegetable supply chain.
Investor Forum
The newest addition to the event, based on feedback from last year’s event, was the Investor Forum. This platform provided an opportunity for investors looking for deals in the sector to interact with social entrepreneurs looking for investments. The forum not only opened up investment opportunities but also provided ample learning ground for investors and investees as they interacted directly during the pitches. In total ten investors talked to the entrepreneurs and discussed the best way of making investments in social businesses. Interestingly, more than 40 meetings were requested which will be facilitated by Villgro post-Unconvention. The Investor Forum also hosted a discussion around Community of Practice: Access to finance, was facilitated by Villgro & ABI – ICRISAT with support from Infodev, World Bank.
Villgro Awards
The 2010 Villgro Awards were given out in seven categories to celebrate and recognize individuals and organizations that have influenced society through their work. Mr. Mohammad Haque won the Grassroots Innovator Award for his Paddy Thresher, and SELCO, India won the Best Social Enterprise Award. The Jury included Dr. Ashok Jhunjunwhala, Head-RTBI, Ms. Bindu Ananth, President-IFMR Trust, Mr. Solomon Prakash, Country Director-ASHOKA & Ms. Valerie D’Costa, Program Manager-Infodev, World Bank.
Unconvention’10 ended with My Story session in which three social entrepreneurs shared with the audience their entrepreneur story. The first story was from Ms. Saloni Malhotra, Founder of Desicrew, who spoke of how she discussed how she sustained through the failures to build a rural BPO. Madhabananda Ray, Founder & Managing Director of Masuta Producers Company Ltd., inspired the audience with his story of how he turned tribal women into successful entrepreneurs by making them the owners of the enterprise that produces tasar silk. Finally, Svati Bhogle, Founder of Sustaintech, talked about her green energy enterprise, and how she made the jump into the for-profit businessworld, having always worked in a non-profit background. The sessions offered participants to hear some of the lesser-known struggles that went into establishing these enterprises. Would-be and fledgling entrepreneurs certainly had a lot of food for thought!
In short, Unconvention’10 was a fine example of bonding between those with a need and those with a solution. Further, it provided a common meeting ground for innovators, social entrepreneurs, investors, policy makers, researchers, and the media. Villgro has already announced the dates for Unconvention 2011. Keep your calendar free 2nd and 3rd December 2011!