I’m an industrial engineer by training, i.e. an imaginary engineer. At Georgia Tech, industrial engineering was the black sheep of engineering. Industrial engineering is basically a misnomer – I’ve never soldered anything, I can’t tell you the difference between C++ and C, and I’ve never worked with “machinery” or anything “industrial”. According to Georgia Tech’s website, industrial engineering is the “[analysis] of complex systems with the intention of improving system performance” keeping in mind “the role of the human decision-maker as key contributor to the inherent complexity of systems.” Being in India, I’m seeing a veritable treasure trove of both systems desperately needing improvement as well as systems working unbelievably smoothly given the complexity.

One system that has piqued my interest is the business of the dabbawallahs (literally: “box people”) in Mumbai, whose primary business is, according to Wikipedia, “collecting the freshly cooked food in lunch boxes from the residences of the office workers (mostly in the suburbs), delivering it to their respective workplaces, and returning the empty boxes back to the customer’s residence by using various modes of transport.”

The Nutan Mumbai Tiffin Box Suppliers’ Charity Trust was founded in 1890 and employs about 5000 dabbawallahs who deliver about 2,00,000 home cooked meals daily to about 80,000 offices for lunch time. Tiffin boxes are collected from the homes, organized at the train station based on final destination, and delivered to the offices by 12:30 pm consistently. After lunch, at around 1:15 pm, tiffin boxes are picked up and returned in the same fashion to the homes before 5:00 pm. Among other ways, the dabbawallahs ensure quality through an innovative coding system that provides all of the relevant information for accurate delivery in a simple and easily understandable manner. The dedication to quality has earned these dabbawallahs six sigma (the error rate being less than 1 in 16 million transactions) from the Forbes Group and resulted in about a 10% growth rate annually.

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Last week, the Internet & Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) hosted the India Digital Summit, where more than 700 delegates from business, government, NGOs and academia gathered to exchange knowledge, explore solutions, and celebrate achievements. The conference is one of the most prestigious events in the digital space, highlighting expertise and innovation on topics such as broadband for the masses, Mobile VAS, digital marketing, e-commerce, and much more.

The conference wasn’t meant to be ‘social,’ per say. But when you listed to the speakers, you can’t help but realize that the mobile phone has been the most powerful tool in India for inclusive development. One major discussion, for example, was “The Connected Home: Device and Service Revolution.” During this discussion, R. Sivakumar, Managing Director of Intel South Asia, spoke about the transition of peoples’ relationship to digital technology over time. He noted that: “Today the times has changed. It has evolved from connected homes to connected life.…In today’s era our devices are no longer wired and one can easily move outside the periphery of the house… This truly supports the idea of connected life.”

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Climbing

Acumen Fund’s Blaire Miller recently wrote an interesting blog post about how opportunities in the field of social entrepreneurship have begun to become more mainstream—in comparison to 10 years ago when social entrepreneurship was almost exclusively comprised of entrepreneurs, now we are beginning to witness a “typical” career trajectory in this field. She reflected:

“…The field of social entrepreneurship is becoming more professionalized. We have people prescribing their careers. First consulting out of undergrad, then a one year stint at an NGO or social enterprise abroad, then B-school, then they land a “job” at an organization in this field. It is so interesting that people are pursing “jobs” in this space, and it is also exciting to see as it is demonstrating that the industry is growing and becoming more institutionalized.”

As Villgro Fellows—young professionals exploring ways to craft fulfilling careers for ourselves—our next steps after September are always on our minds. What’s valuable about the Villgro Fellowship is that allows us to experience social enterprise work early in our careers, when our passion is fresh and we have the ability to travel with no (or few) strings attached. Currently, there are significant opportunities in this sector for those with industry/consulting experience or an MBA to bring to the table. However, it’s vital that we create more opportunities like the Villgro Fellowship for the hundreds of thousands of interested 20-somethings who have graduated from college, but who may not have a master’s degree or years of consulting experience. That’s when the creativity is fresh and social enterprise organizations can tap into their potential before, in most cases, these young professionals fall into mainstream career tracks, get married, and fall out of touch with their passions.

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In an unsuspecting building on the outskirts of Pune, the finishing touches are being put on an innovative system that has the potential to transform the Indian dairy industry as we know it. As Promethean prepares to launch its first village-level milk chiller, there is an obvious interest in measuring the social impact of the system. While most everyone in the social enterprise space can agree on the value of measuring social impact, given the plethora of existing methodologies, there is little consensus on how to quantify it. Standardizing this task seems like quite a daunting task when you consider the diversity of the organizations interested in the measurements.

With that said, I would like to take this blog post in a different direction, fully aware that this could become an epic failure. In the comments sections below, I would like to start a discussion on the topic of measuring social impact. Continue Reading

I have developed an infatuation with honey. Every morning, I have a spoonful of dark, tangy Wild Forest honey in my coffee, a dollop of thick, rich Sweet Clover to flavor my oatmeal, and soothing Eucalyptus in my evening tea. Maybe next month I will switch to Litchi for my tea. And perhaps spicy Curry Patta honey for my oatmeal? That is bound to set the stage for an exciting day! Yes, you can call me Cheerio (because I am officially a honey nut… *groan*).

My enthusiasm for honey, shockingly, began soon after I started working with Under The Mango Tree. Prior to joining UTMT, I was selling highly specialized, complex portfolio management and research solutions to the largest financial companies in the world. Now, I sell honey to the discerning Indian consumer – and I love every minute of it. Who doesn’t smile at the thought of honey, as it conjures up childhood images or Winnie the Pooh. Since working with UTMT, however, I have learned more than I ever imagined about just how valuable the little creatures that produce our sweet treats are.

Vijaya Pastala (CEO and founder of Under The Mango Tree) had a vision to use the power of bees to improve productivity among rural farmers, thereby raising their incomes primarily through increased crop yields. Honey, as a byproduct, could then be branded and brought to urban markets as a high quality, organic, fair trade product – thus providing market access to marginal farmers and an additional source of income. Continue Reading

A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider of our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so.

-M.K. Gandhi

Village woman in colorful sari

The “poor” are often described in generalities. Sometimes they are portrayed as lazy because they are poor; other times, they are shown as suffering villagers wearing brightly colored clothes. Regardless of these stereotypes, the “poor” don’t seem all that different from you and me. Like anyone else, they seem to be a diverse group working to ensure they have enough resources to meet their basic needs and wants.

The development and social sectors have traditionally been sensitive about how they portray the “poor”. However, I think the sector can optimize the way in which they view and engage with their clients and beneficiaries by incorporating more business principles into their operations.

More recently, social enterprises are focusing quite a lot on getting to know their customers. By refusing to conform to predetermined views, these organizations are more equipped to succeed in their operations because they have an understanding of their target customers based on business/market analysis and scientific proof.

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Uniphore recently received some very exciting news: VoiceNet, our innovative platform that enables people to exchange information and conduct transactions through speech on their mobile phones, was recognized by the mHealth Alliance and Rockefeller Foundation. Long-time champion and collaborator Ashok Jhunjhunwala, professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras and Chair of the Rural Technology and Business Incubator (RTBI) at IIT, was selected as a winner of mHealth Alliance’s 2011 Innovators Challenge for his application of Uniphore’s VoiceNet platform. This challenge recognizes pioneering mobile health (mHealth) professionals who have used mobile technology in innovative ways to improve health systems and outcomes around the world.

Two years ago, Professor Jhunjhunwala was approach by NRDC (an enterprise of the Government of India) for guidance on how to enhance one of their most important rural outreach programs, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS). This initiative combats malnutrition and improves maternal and child health through a variety of activities, including a supplementary feeding scheme. In addition to providing children with supplementary nutrition packets, the scheme monitors their weight to detect faltering growth and assess nutritional status.

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Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared on the Acumen Fund Blog, and has been posted as a follow-up to our previous coverage of Unconvention 2011 on the Villgro Fellows Blog.

Pankaj Jain presenting at Villgro's Unconvention 2011. Source: http://www.unconvention.co.in

It’s Saturday just before lunch at Villgro’s Unconvention, held last month in Chennai , India. Pankaj Jain, Founder of Impact Law Ventures and Acumen Fund Alumnus, is running a ‘legal clinic’ focused on social enterprise, one of the many structured sessions that make up the 2 day discussions of failure, shared learnings and best practices, as well as peer and entrepreneur-investor networking. Unconvention 2011 takes place in the IIT Madras Research Park. Ravi Krishna, promoter and co-founder of Ziqitza Healthcare LTD (also known as Dial 1298 for Ambulance) is sharing Ziqitza’s corporate structure with the room. They have the for-profit company which purchases, manages and maintains the ambulance service, and a not-for-profit which trains the medical staff, doctors and technicians to work the ambulances. The room is silent, listening as he shares learnings of how the leadership at Ziqitza have structured their social enterprise which has grown from 10 ambulances to over 635 in four  years, and now has government contracts to operate emergency services in four states across India.

As moderator, Pankaj takes engages the room with a slide that aims to ‘demystify the hybrid.’  Multiple people get up from their seats and take photos of this slide on their phones, smirks growing across their faces and mine. The truth is that despite this being a legal workshop on social enterprise, “hybrid structures” is  not a legal term in India. According to the Indian government they don’t exist. So what are hybrids and why is the room so spell bound that it’s capturing seemingly illicit information on iPhones? Hybrid is the term given to enterprises that have established both for-profit and non-profit entities to better serve their customers. For example, Needlam Chibber’s Industree works with local artisans and retails their products across India. The non-profit arm trains the artisans, protecting their craft and worker’s rights, while the for-profit is the sales, distribution and marketing arm driving revenue growth for the company. This structure makes sense for many similar producer companies. The irony behind this deep fascination with hybrids is that there is an apparent black hole when it comes to getting information about how and why to structure your business this way. Jain reminds us that how the business works should be the determinate of what structure bests fits your company – not the other way around. Continue Reading

There is a reason that I chose to close my life back in Michigan, USA, and move to India indefinitely. Though this entailed suddenly quitting my job, packing up a small suitcase with all of the belongings I needed to survive, and leaving everyone that I knew behind, this reason was strong enough to pull me to the diametric opposite side of the globe, into the crowds of India. Not surprisingly, I’m reminded of this driving force frequently, even as I slip into an almost normal, mundane routine in Chennai.

It’s simple—I’m excited by the small challenges of social enterprise, which when met, lead to big solutions for the world’s disenfranchised people. It was clear to me in my research work in Michigan that India was where social innovation was exploding. I had to be there. Now that I’m here, I’m repeatedly awed at how true my assessment was—my life here is rife not only with social innovation, but also with the everyday, simple insights that facilitate innovation. More frequently however, these are not insights, but unanswerable questions.

In India, the most mundane of daily tasks either end up being much more difficult than you ever dreamed, or they lead you into some inexplicable mystery. Usually it’s a combination of the two. It can be maddening, but I’ve found that if I follow two rules, interesting things can happen: 1. Stay calm. 2. Keep your eyes open. Very open. Continue Reading

During the past few months of being a Villgro Fellow, I have gained some valuable insights into the lives of farmers – the core of rural India. Well, the most obvious truth is that farmers have been largely left out of the great Indian growth story. I don’t have eye catching numbers to throw in here, but one thing is for sure- a decade into the 21st century, the average Indian farmer is still largely left to vagaries of nature and the greed of local money lenders. It’s undeserved in more than one way; we all get our food irrespective of the floods or drought. I worked in the financial services earlier, and when I look at agriculture from a business industry point of view, I would say it has to be the most recession-proof industry; people would not compromise on food – the food grains are always consumed. But sadly for the small farmers, they are totally unorganized and hence their best years are those when they can make ends meet. A sorry state of affairs where voice of the principal stakeholder is left to meander aimlessly in the hinterlands.

Villgro’s emphasis on “innovations for rural India” makes so much more sense now. They strike at the core of the problem – to invigorate the rural economy. They nurture bottom up innovations and enable scalable and sustainable solutions for rural poor. What they also do is encourage cutting edge technological innovations that have the scope for bringing large scale impact on the farming community. This is where Skymet (the incubatee company I am working with currently) comes into picture. Continue Reading