Dear Reader,
This month, we bring to you once again a mosaic of the activities related to social entrepreneurship that we have been involved with at IIM Calcutta.
Some of our students have been working with Tomorrow’s Foundation and Australia-based entrepreneur Kayoko Govindasamy to explore the market for reusable sanitary napkins in India. They record some insights from their project. Another team which won the Best Research Paper award on Women Empowerment from the Government of Bihar (August 2015), share their stories from the field.
In the last month, we conducted a Thinking Social Roundtable in Delhi on “Enhancing Quality and Affordability of Education through Technology“ as well as a Thinking Social Seminar at the Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (PG), Pune which brought together various stakeholders in the social enterprise ecosystem.
Read on to learn more about our activities and we welcome you to join our conversations.
Best Wishes,
Devi
By Arpit Srivastava and Arpita Yadav
Periods are a taboo in India. Lack of education and poverty add to this and only 12%1 of India’s menstruating women use sanitary napkins today. 68%1 of rural women say their families cannot afford napkins. Inadequate menstrual protection makes adolescent girls miss 5 days of school, every month. With the products that are available in the market, the chances of infections and skin reactions are significantly higher. India produces about 9,0001 tons of menstrual waste every month with a decomposition time of about 650 years. While the countries in the west have started moving towards more sustainable solutions, we still have a long way in moving away from rags.
A team of students at IIM Calcutta in association with Tomorrow’s Foundation (Kolkata) and Kayoko Govindaswamy (an entrepreneur based out of Australia) made an attempt to explore this problem further in Indian context. As a part of their work, the team got to interact with Arunachalam Muruganantham, a noted inventor and social entrepreneur (click here to watch his TED talk). His low-cost sanitary pad making machine and grass-root mechanisms for manufacturing, distribution and generating awareness are widely recognized. Speaking of his business model, he says, “the key to success of my innovation is open design – anyone across the world is free to take my design and setup his own factory and sell products under his own brand”. Other than open design, he believes frugality and self-evident usability are other aspects around which acceptability of any grassroots product hinges. It is noteworthy that his model and practices will be used in Jordan’s Syrian refugee camps as he plans to expand to 106 other countries across the globe after penetrating in 26 out of 29 states of India.
In recent past, organizations like Aakar Innovation and Goonj have innovated low-cost solution to this problem with a convincing distribution and awareness model. However, the focus of IIMC student team was more towards reusable (washable) sanitary hygiene napkins. With expert advice from Bombay Hemp Company and Indian Industrial Hemp Association, possibilities of low-cost but robust hemp-based napkin insert materials were explored as a durable alternative. The team developed some sample napkins and got trials done on women and girls. Although initial stages of consumer research have been encouraging, apprehensions for large-scale adoptability of reusable sanitary napkins remain extremely strong among various stakeholders. In this debate for sustainability, one must not forget to appreciate that reusable napkins are far more economical as compared to use and throw ones as proven by studies.
However, as Arunchalam Muruganantham says, “In rural areas, retailing is all about detailing”. Sanitary napkins have so far been a fast-moving consumer good but a shift to choice of reusable design demands shift in behaviour which is only possible through concerted efforts on awareness and education. This space has seen multiple successful designs and business models in recent past. Hopefully, some of them will scale-up and will improve menstrual health of remaining 88% of women in India.
Authors can be contacted at {arpits2016, arpitay2016}@email.iimcal.ac.in for more information.
Reference:
By Ankit Garg, Arpita Yadav, Manjari Sharma, Sujeet Kumar Singh (IIM Calcutta) ; Anjali Sharma (JNU)
While much is being commented on Bihar on social media nowadays, we bring to you a report from the villages of Bihar. A student team from IIM Calcutta participated in a competition launched in the run-up to the Bihar elections. The participants had to send a proposal to document Bihar’s development for a week-long field research. The team from IIMC chose women empowerment as the focal theme and set out on their journey to record developments in Bihar.
Following is the journey of Bihar in the team’s own words –
We were briefed by Mr. Nitish Kumar – Chief Minister of Bihar- on the first day. Based on an understanding that girls were leaving school after completing education till 4th standard. To address this, they started a school-dress scheme. However, despite these efforts, the number of girl-students were found to be dwindling after 8th standard. The reason this time was schools being far-flung from their homes. The government then started a cycle-scheme for school girls, where they started giving an amount of 2000 INR to every girl who enrolled in 9th standard. Mr. Nitish claimed that this was one of their most successful schemes. In the coming days, we were to realize the power of something as rudimentary as a cycle scheme. Not only did this increase the number of female school-goers, but it also appeared to usher a cultural change in the society. Where people used to condemn and consider women on cycles as rebellious, they now became more open to the idea of women travelling to other villages for work or education.
A specific scheme ‘Jeevika’ by the government helps extremely poor women form self-help groups, and lend loans to them. These groups also co-loan or loan among themselves. So women who had not even stepped out of their houses earlier, were doing their book-keeping, running small businesses and earning as much as up to 18,000 INR per month. The ripples of these schemes had touched the lives of these women not only on economic aspects but also on social and psychological fronts. We couldn’t believe ourselves when we saw the confidence exuberating from these women. These supposedly ‘meek’ women now had opinions – about the government, about their say in family decisions, about their right to education and employment
In the words of one of these women, “purse taangne ka mauka, sabse baat karne ka tareeka, hastakshar karna – sab sikhaya Jeevika ne”
[Translation: Jeevika has taught us so much – from improved lifestyles, knowing how to talk to people, and doing signatures]
The team covered 3 districts (Patna, Begusarai, Khagaria) in their week-long stay, interviewing over 200 women, seeing their work, understanding their experiences. Other places covered were the phenomenal work being done by women helpline, rehabilitation departments. The team’s report was chosen to be the best and it was published as a paper in Bihar’s development journal. We say, this was the best project IIM Calcutta could have given us. The team went to Bihar with an opinion of Bihar that most of us have, but came back with an experience to share. A Bihar that so many of us don’t know about.
Team: Ankit Garg, Arpita Yadav, Manjari Sharma, Sujeet Kumar Singh (IIM Calcutta) ; Anjali Sharma (JNU)
Tata Social Enterprise Challenge (TSEC) – a joint initiative of the Tata Group and the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta (IIMC) held the second seminar series, ‘Thinking Social’, at Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communication (PG), Pune on 3rd October 2015. The day-long seminar sought to introduce students from top professional colleges in India to the spirit of social entrepreneurship in a rapidly evolving global economy and addressed the concerns of young, budding entrepreneurs belonging to reputed B-Schools such as Symbiosis Institute of Media and Communications (SIMC), Symbiosis Institute of Business Management (SIMB) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). The speakers for the day comprised eminent social entrepreneurs, academicians and senior corporate executives working extensively in the Indian social entrepreneurship space.
The event kick-started with Prof. Chandan Chatterjee, Director, SIMC Pune, delivering the inaugural address and welcoming all the dignitaries. Highlighting the institute’s keenness towards inculcating a spirit of social sensitivity and proactivity amongst its students, he spoke of the student-initiated and driven Social Responsibility Cell called SIMCare, the acronym CARE standing for Compassion, Appreciation, Respect and Empathy.
Subhrangshu Sanyal, CEO – IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP) shared with the audience IIMC’s journey on entrepreneurship, IIMCIP’s vision & activities and how TSEC emerged as one of the biggest platform for the social entrepreneurs in India. He stressed on the importance of involving fresh minds in solving some of the social challenges faced by India. He motivated the students by saying, “Young minds like you can provide innovative solutions to our current problems”.
Sudipta Marjit, Deputy Vice President, Tata Capital linked the concept of TSEC with the Tata Group’s Vision 2025 which states that ‘25% of the world population will experience the Tata commitment to improving the quality of life of customers and communities’.
Mr.Chandradeep Mitra, of IIM Calcutta, had an interactive Q&A session with the audience, while also sharing his insights on the theme ‘Creating a Social Entrepreneurship Ecosystem’. He opined that India is a fertile ground for social entrepreneurship today and urged students to start looking at problems around them and work a business model for solving them. He concluded by saying “As a society we are finding social entrepreneurship more acceptable and there are ecosystems which support it”.
Speaking on the theme ‘Translating the Vision’, Ashish Gawade, CEO and Co-Founder, Bottom of the Pyramid Energy and Environmental Innovations (BoPEEI), remarked, “Don’t discard what you learn at your B school, (and) apply it for a good cause.” Citing the analogy of the equality of processes before and after the creation of the universe, he said that the purpose of human life must also be equality, emphasizing on the need to integrate technology for the fulfilment of this purpose.
Sudhir Deshpande, Co-founder of Ecoad, presented his perspective on ‘A Social Entrepreneur’s start-up by reminiscing his entrepreneurship journey. He lauded SIMC for establishing SIMCare, as it will help students think out-of-the-box and avail opportunities for social change. He also reiterated the objectives of Ecoad, which are to reduce plastic and to generate livelihood. Concluding his session, he put forward his vision for India, stating “one day there will be no plastic bags in India.”
Prof. Prasanna Hulikavi, Deputy Director, SIMC, Prof. Anupam Barve, Adjunct Faculty, SIMC and Ms.Maitrayee Kulkarni from Prayas discussed about ‘Transitioning Positively’. Anupam Barve narrated the story of ‘Prayas’ and its endeavour to aid the process of self-empowerment in children affected by HIV. Maitrayee Kulkarni further highlighted the various workshops conducted by Prayas that offer to address children’s concerns about their future course, provide knowledge training about several factors affecting sexual behaviour and the science behind it. As the discussion between the speakers continued, there was emphasis on the social stigmas that persist around HIV despite witnessing various success stories in the recent past. Therefore, Prof. Hulikavi added, “There is a lot of misinformation about sexual practices and contraception (which will continue) as long as sex education is not introduced in the education curriculum. The moment you have knowledge, you are empowered and the fear is likely to go.”
The thought-provoking session was followed by another interesting talk on ‘The Journey of a Social Entrepreneur’ by Jayanth Nataraju, Co-Founder of ‘Sampurn(e)arth’. He motivated students to confidently advance in the right direction in order to achieve their goals. He then shared with the audience, the story of his waste management organisation called ‘Sampurn(e)arth’. He defined the essence of the initiative to be “an ecologically and economically positive one, with numerous social benefits to it”. Concluding the address he quoted, “Social entrepreneurs just need to bring in the positive change so that it becomes common sense. One needs to be able to find the reason and the drive to bring the change.”
The last speaker of the seminar, Dr.Madhav Sathe of ‘The Bombay Mothers and Children Welfare Society’ shared a practitioner’s perspective on Social Entrepreneurship. He recounted the time when he left medical school to set up this organisation, which then had its fair share of struggles and challenges. Stressing the importance of Information and Communication Technology (ICT), he said, “ICT is the solution to make education attractive and accessible.” He concluded by explaining the two types models- first, the Public Philanthropy model and now, the Public Personal Partnership, both having one common thread of principal – giving back to the society.
Concluding on a positive note, the seminar left the audience inspired by the various stories of change and impact shared enthusiastically by the speakers for the day. Surabhi Udas, a second year MBA student of SIMC, Pune shared her experience saying, “It has been a truly inspirational experience for me. The speakers and their motivational stories have left a positive impact on me. I do hope to do my bit for societal change by working for a social enterprise someday.”
By Abhinav Girdhar and Shrutika Girdhar – Founders, Bodhi Health Education
Fulfilling the gap in Medical Education for developing countries
Bodhi Health Education was founded in 2013 with the mission of providing quality medical education. The company has trained over 2000 health-workers including ASHAs (Accredited Social Health Activist) and Nurse Midwives. Bodhi strongly believes that critical health indicators in developing countries such as the maternal and infant mortality rates can be significantly improved with better skills and knowledge among health professionals including nurses, paramedics and frontline community health workers. A large number of organisations across have been working in this area; however Bodhi uses technology to magnify the impact of interventions significantly.
Bodhi’s key customers include primary, secondary and tertiary health care facilities employing a large number of paramedics, nurses and health workers. It becomes critical for these healthcare facilities to have a well-trained health workforce as they have to cater to a large population which puts a strain on the doctor patient ratio and keep the costs of care with reach for the community.
Bodhi’s eLearning solution is being piloted by All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi to provide on job training to nurses and paramedics. Approximately 5,000 nurses are accessing the system currently. This engagement started with the rollout of training modules in the important subject of Infection Control in August 2015. The uniqueness of Bodhi’s solution lies in the manner in which the learning management system (LMS) has been developed. The key differentiator of the solution is its ability to work in low resource IT setting. The LMS gives the ability to the nurses in nursing stations to access training modules over “thin client machines”- simply put, computers having no processing capabilities. Responsive design of the system has given them the ability to access the system on their smart phones as well. The streaming feature in-built in the solution allows uniform access to video-based content from any device irrespective of its network bandwidth. This has allowed the hospital administration to now have training modules in topics including nursing procedures such as Glasgow Coma Scale, Central Venous Pressure monitoring. A detailed training module in electronic health record is being rolled out in line with AIIMS vision of creating a paperless hospital. As per Shrutika, CTO and Co-founder at Bodhi Health Education large public hospitals are in great need of IT solutions which can firstly work in resources constrained environments and secondly have the ability to leverage the bring your own device (BYOD) concept. Bodhi follows this product development strategy and differentiates itself form other companies in the segment.
The second interesting project Bodhi has completed in the month of September 2015 is a 4 day technology based training of Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) in Leh and Kharu Blocks under Ladakh Autonomous Hill Council. Bodhi partnered with National Health Mission (NHM), Jammu & Kashmir and Health Department Leh for this training. In this intervention training was imparted in Maternal & Child Health which is the thrust under NHM’s current capacity building initiative. Bodhi provided ASHAs with android tablets during the training period with Bodhi android application comprising of video based module (in Ladakhi). This enabled them to undergo the modules multiple number of times without internet connectivity. This was supplemented with an illustrated flipbook in Ladakhi. A local team comprising of illustrators, script writers and voice over artists was recruited in Leh. As a continuation of supporting the public health system Bodhi is working on a larger rollout in Ladakh to train health workers and nurses. It is also in discussions with a leading non-profit to support their capacity building interventions in Bihar.
Bodhi was a Tata Social Enterprise Challenge first runner up in 2014 and received incubation support from IIM Calcutta Innovation Park. The venture was ranked first at the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship, IIM Ahmedabad – Village Capital’s The Last Mile Accelerator where it received seed funding from a consortium of funds and angel investors. Bodhi was amongst the 8 companies selected for the 2014 cohort at the Social Entrepreneurship Accelerator at Duke University and also became a part of the Innovations of Healthcare (formerly known as International Partnership for Innovative Healthcare Delivery) network.
The incubation support from IIMCIP and the seed funding has not only accelerated the growth of the venture in terms of the pilots and reaching out to clients it has also helped Bodhi developed a robust product development road map. The company is now working on exciting gamification-based products. Abhinav, CEO and Co-founder at Bodhi feel’s that while speciality medical education has seen global majors develop innovative products; education of junior doctors, nurses and paramedics is yet to get its due share of attention. The penetration of smart phones gives the company an opportunity to make medical education highly interactive for this segment. Bodhi is working to roll out solutions to support the National Skill Development Corporation’s (NSDC) healthcare skilling initiatives.
The first event of the “Thinking Social” series of roundtables, organized by IIM Calcutta Innovation Park (IIMCIP), was held on 16th October 2015 at the India International Center, Delhi under the aegis of Tata Social Enterprise Challenge (TSEC) 2015-16. The theme of the Roundtable was ‘”Enhancing Quality and Affordability of Education through Technology“. The discussion was centered on three broad themes – Quality, Access, and Affordability of education for the masses. The overarching focus was the use of technology in meeting these three objectives.
The thematic Roundtable included an overview on Thinking Social, an interactive Panel discussion followed by Q&A and presentations from two social entrepreneurs working in the education domain.
The speakers for the day comprised eminent entrepreneurs and academician who have rich experience in the Education sector in India. The audience (a strong presence of 40 participants) comprised of Professionals, entrepreneurs, Impact investors, innovators, NGOs and students mainly from the Education sector.
In the inaugural session, Subhrangshu Sanyal – CEO, IIM Calcutta Innovation Park introduced the theme and shared with the audience IIMC’s journey on entrepreneurship, IIMCIP’s vision & activities and how TSEC emerged as one of the biggest platform for the social entrepreneurs in India.
Prof Raghabendra Chattopadhyay, IIM Calcutta moderated the Panel discussion and requested all the Panelists to share their thoughts on the challenges and opportunities around the theme.
Mr. Anil Mammen, Chief – Learning Design & Social Impact, Tata ClassEdge said that technology is an enabler and cannot replace the teachers. He said that “Technology without adult guidance has no meaning” and hence what TATA ClassEdge does is that they invest more in bringing up teacher capabilities and then stage wise introduce technology in the classrooms.
Mr Vivek Agarwal – Chief Executive Officer at LIQVID, one of India’s fastest growing eLearning companies gave a practioners view on technology and education. He explained that there are three elements for technology solutions – Content, Technology and Services. He also said that “technology has existed for a long time but what is really missing is the willingness of the institutions to make this work.” To bring a change in this country there must be lots of experiments from the government’s side and it is through initiatives like this which can help to bring a change.
Ms Samina Bano – Chairperson of Bharat Abhyudaya Foundation, spoke about the right way of using the technology. She said that “I look at the education system as the classroom, school and the entire system.” She described the value chain of institutional change as a three tier step – Policy makers, system design and the service delivery. She insisted the use of technology in areas where there is a system in place and it can be made more robust with the use of Technology.
The Q&A round witnessed good participation from the audience. There were many significant issues discussed and addressed by the audience and the panelists.
Two entrepreneurs from the education domain, Abhinav Giridhar, founder of Bodhi Health Education and Ram Kumar, founder of Edwell Solutions presented their journey, current projects and the challenges faced. The roundtable ended with a valedictory and vote of thanks from IIMCIP.
Villgro and Headstart present The Social Enterprise Summit – Bengaluru, a unique social enterprise event where you can learn about the power of social enterprise.
You will have the chance to hear about the startup journeys of social entrepreneurs, meet investors and incubators, other like-minded entrepreneurs and more
For more details visit the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/898731270208768/
The second Roundtable on “Thinking Social” will take place in Chennai on 4th December 2015 at Hotel Residency Towers (Harmony Hall) . The theme for the roundtable is “Providing Affordable Healthcare”. The event will start at 2.00 PM and the discussions (including Q&A) will be for three hours. The discussion would centre around three broad themes – Quality, Access, and Affordability of healthcare for the masses. The overarching focus would be use of technology in meeting these three objectives. The event will be followed by High Tea.
To register write to tsec@iimcip.org. For more details visit www.tatasechallenge.org
Villgro and Tie Chennai present Unconvention|L Chennai and Impact-a-preneur Quest 2015, a national business plan pitch contest for for-profit social enterprises.
For more details visit the Facebook event page: https://www.facebook.com/events/1646135802309446/
To know more about the event write to Professor Samapti Guha: samapti@tiss.edu
Please support the study by filling the form here: https://ennovent.typeform.com/to/RMJElC