 Good evening. Good morning. Good afternoon, wherever you are. Thank you very much for joining us today. My name is Abhijit Bhaduri and I have an incredible guest who represents an even more incredible organization. So today we have with us Rupa Kodwa, who is the managing director of Omidyar Networks India. And Omidyar is a unique organization and the method of investing that they do is actually aimed at, sort of if you think about India in various slices, there is the top 7% people who are earning a certain kind of money. Then there is 400 million, which is the next layer. And then there is 500 million, which is the next half billion. And this is the chunk. So we are going to get into some of the numbers, but broadly these are people who together as a household make about $300 a year per month. That's the kind of money that they are talking about. And this is the segment that Rupa's business is all about impacting that. How do we sort of improve their lives? So without further ado, I'm going to invite Rupa. Hey, welcome. We are such a delight to have you here with us. Thank you very much for agreeing to join. And I was just telling the people what a terrific opportunity it is to have somebody talk to you about the kind of impact investing. Well, how do you guys define impact investing? What is your definition? Well, I think even before the definition of impact investing, it is about the purpose of the organization. And we are an interesting organization. We define our purpose as investing in bold entrepreneurs who help create a meaningful life for every Indian. So we are essentially a social impact investing firm. We make both equity investments in early stage startups and we make grants to nonprofits. And these are across a range of sectors. Some of the ones you're much more familiar with like education or financial inclusion. But they are also many more white space kind of areas, whether it's the property rights or governance, citizen engagement, the whole digital society, which we are all a part of, which is creating many more opportunities, but many more risks as well. So these are the areas in which we work. And for us, I would say there are four things that really characterize our business. What are these four things? Number one, I think is the fact that we make both equity investments and grants. And that is pretty rare to find the combination of an organization which is think of us as a blend of a venture capital firm and a foundation which makes grants. So that is number one. So if I were to just, you know, just for my understanding, what that means is you give money in terms of a grant outright. And there is another situation where you may take a kind of a ownership in a startup. When we give a grant, you give out the money and you do not expect anything back. When you make an equity investment, it is like exactly what a venture capital fund would do. You would invest in an early state startup in an initial round and then you would invest in a few rounds after that. You would support the company in scaling up with strategic inputs, which access to networks with governance roles on the boards and things like that. So that would be the model on the equity side. So you said there are three or four things that you do. One was you said you make this combination. What are some of the other unique things about the way you operate? The next unique thing I would say is that we take a very broad view of entrepreneurs. So if you're an entrepreneur, you could be from the private sector, which is an early state startup. You could be from the nonprofit sector or you could be from the public sector. You could be a government employee, for example, or a government bureaucrat who is very entrepreneurial. And the reason we feel it is important to define entrepreneurship in such a broad way is because remember we are working with some of the most difficult and chronic problems that we face as a country. And the solutions to these can come from anywhere. Why do we assume that they will come from one area or the other? And therefore having that dual checkbook of equity investments and grants allows us to support entrepreneurs across the board. So we are agnostic to which sector you come from. So that's the second unique feature. The third unique feature is what you opened with Abhijit, which is a very sharp focus on who we serve. The moment you are very clear about who you are working for or who you are seeking to serve, your entire approach to your business model becomes very clear. So we are very clear that we are focused on India's next half billion. These are the 500 million people who are going to come online via their mobile phones by the year 2022. And this would have happened beginning the last three or four years, right? And this population represents a population that traditionally has been underserved or excluded or even disempowered. And they are the population that you outlined about 25,000 rupees a month. So who are they? They are your drivers, your vegetable vendors, your Kirana shop owners and your factory workers and the like. So they are the bottom 60% of India's income distribution. And we love to talk more and dig in more into this profile when we get into the conversation. But let me quickly mention the last one and then we can take it in whichever direction you want to. And the last distinguishing feature is that we are very technology focused. We believe that tech can be a force for good. So we are very tech led in our work. It can tech basically enables inclusion of the many instead of exclusivity of the few. And so it's a powerful force for change. But tech also comes with its risks. We have been all reading there's been a huge raging debate about privacy in this country over the last couple of months in particular. So we work with both parts of tech. We work with good tech and we also are very concerned about using tech responsibly. So these are the four elements. Let me just summarize. Number one is the dual checkbook equity investments and grants. Number two is the fact that we define entrepreneurship very broadly private sector NGOs government. Number three is who we serve the next half billion. And number four is the focus on tech. Okay, perfect. So beautiful. I just like the way that you sort of summarize it because so helpful for me to understand you know how the conversation is going. I want to sort of step do a little bit of a backtrack and say. You were prior to this you had a very long stint. Now you've been with Omidia now for about what five years now. That's right. That you had a long stint with with Crystal. And you know when you look at that stint when you decided to give it there was a you know it was a publicly listed company. You were the CEO for a while at that. What was that transition like? I mean how did you go about doing that? You know how did you move into this role and how did that happen? So that's a really interesting question and a bit of a long story. So I spent 23 years in Crystal and I was the CEO of the company for the last eight years of my stint there. As you rightly pointed out, Crystal is a publicly listed company. We began life as India's first credit rating agency and over the years diversified to become a global analytical company. And so it was a it was a company which played a pioneering role in India's capital markets and bringing transparency to the markets and Omidia Network India as I just described to you is an investment firm focused on social impact. And the two are very different. So how did the change happen and how are the two different? I think the change happened because I love my job in Crystal. I think it was you know it was Crystal was a child of the liberalization era. It was a very heady time for the country. We saw an expansion massive expansion in economic growth and capital markets. The company grew really rapidly, made a big impact, built a credible brand and all of that. And it was great to be a part of that journey. When I turned 50, I realized that I'd already done this role for seven years. I had 10 more years to go and I felt that being a CEO of a company for 17 years is not good for the company and not good for me. And this was a good age for me to move on if I wanted to try something completely new and completely different. So when we made a public announcement because we were a listed company, I had no idea what I wanted to do next. In fact, I stayed on for almost a year after that to manage the succession and the transition to the next CEO. And during that period because it was public, my intentions to leave were public, a lot of people started contacting me. And most of the folks who contacted me were things I had heard about before. And I all felt that, you know, if I had to do any of these things, I'd rather stay on in Crissel. And then when Ometeer Network called me, I had no idea what impact investing is. I didn't have much exposure to the NGO sector. All I saw was an outstanding team across the world. And I said that if these bright people have chosen to work here, there must be something really special about this place. And I kind of jumped in with two feet, with both feet and a sense of adventure without knowing what it was. And what a contrast. And let me just describe the contrast to you, right? So moving from a corporate world to a world focused on social impact. Moving from the so-called CEO corner office with all the trappings to coming and working in an open office. Moving from an organization where you were leading 5,000 people to an organization where there are 30 people. Moving from an organization where every quarter you had a report card, you know, you had to publish your results. You knew whether you were successful or not. You had earnings, you had market share, you had all those metrics. To move into a space where success can take decades and very hard to measure, which is social change. And finally, I think moving from corporates who had kind of arrived or entrepreneurs who had arrived to entrepreneurs who were just starting on their journey. And that, of course, is the opportunity to work with many, many really young people, the millennials, and now even the post-millennials. So it has been a kind of real invention. These people, you know, entrepreneurship is attracting the best minds in the country today. People are hungry. They have very high ambitions. There's no fear of failure. And they are working on the issues that will shape and decide the future of India for the next several decades. And I think it's a really exciting space to be in. Absolutely. You know, there's a very interesting question that Azitya Mishra has asked. He says that did the union budget, you know, did that have any favorable provision for social impact businesses? So is there something that made things easier? And there's another related question which I want to blend into this, which is, you know, where someone has asked that, you know, what is the most important part of your previous experience that impacts the way that you manage your current role? You know, because in some senses, you almost voluntarily reinvented yourself, right? Yeah. Which one do you want me to take? Which one should I take first? The tougher one. Well, let me take the second one first, which is that, you know, what helped in the transition, really. I think number one, a realisation that it's okay to say, I don't know, and okay to therefore ask for help, not be afraid or shy of asking questions. Number two, I think what a job, spending whatever 30 years in the corporate world, rising the corporate ladder makes you quite versatile. You know, I'm equally comfortable thinking about, thinking about strategy as I am editing a document, as I am deciding a lunch menu if there's a board meeting, right? So I think just the flexibility to do a whole range of things and be equally comfortable doing them, I think is important when you're making transitions. And the realisation also that probably one doesn't realise how transferable skills are. I think Crystal offered me the breadth of looking at almost any kind of sector, any kind of industry in India, although they were latest stage and well-established companies and not startups. But those skills I think stood me in good stead, really. And I would say in terms of anyone looking to make a change, there's never going to be an ideal time. So whenever you decide to do it, just jump in with both feet, realise that your skills are transferable, realise that people will help you if you ask for help. And there's no shame in asking for help, right? And I think that, you know, I find that people at Omidya Network India for years on end the beginning has to ask very basic questions starting with what is daily active users and monthly active users and explain to me how the nonprofit sector works and things like that. So I just feel that some of these skills of versatility, taking the big picture view, the ability to move between the big picture and the detail, those are some of the skills that stood me in good stead when I made this transition. And then if you were to sort of look at, if someone were to leave Omidya and go into the corporate, what skills would they carry? Somebody who started with Omidya and goes into the corporate, how does that transition? I think the ability to take risks, the ability to look at the future with a lot of optimism and visualise the possibilities of what could happen. I think we have a phenomenal team in Omidya Network India which is constantly working at the cutting edge of what's next. So I think in a corporate world it would be quite refreshing for the perspective that someone would bring if they make that transition would be very refreshing. Now whether they would want to make that transition is a different question altogether. And there is another question which I think is a very interesting question that in India there is a retirement age at 58 and now all human beings are living much longer etc. Is that something that we should be revisiting? Is there an age at which people should retire if you will? Or is it that if their skills are usable, if they are valuable to people, they should just continue? What is your view? Because it's an interesting scenario because as I said that today is also a day when you've had the transition at Amazon with Jeff Bezos quitting and you have a successor being announced, Amy Jassy is taking over. It's a question that most organisations grapple with. Is it just as hard in the social sector of the foundation? Because you've done one when you chose and let me just put one little sub bullet on that which is when you have hired someone today you're really looking to have a view of the organisation that you can see in the next 24 months. But this person is going to be needed much longer, whoever has stepped into your shoes. How do you sort of make that assessment that the person will be the right person into that future which could be very different from where things have to be? Right, so there are a lot of questions in there and let me take a stab at it. You tell me if I'm going off course. So the first one is should there be a retirement age? I think no as long as I think your right human beings are living much longer there's the whole issue of social security. We pride ourselves in India as having a really young population which we do by 2050 our population over the age of 60 will be 300 to 350 million. So that's massive. So there's also the whole cost of social security for an aging population and so I do think that people should work for as long as they are able to. However, there is also today a big change that is happening which is the future of work is going to look very different. So the question is will you have the skills and capabilities which are relevant for the next 10 years? And I think skills and capabilities are becoming redundant very quickly. So it means you have to constantly reinvent yourself. Younger and younger people are being able to accomplish far greater success. I mean you look at the entrepreneurs today. I mean people at 25, 30 are accomplishing much more than someone in my generation did at that age. So I do feel that the key really will be yes, it's great if you can work. The key question is how do you keep yourself relevant? And for that it's all about upskilling. It's all about keeping abreast of what's going on. It's always looking ahead. That is not always easy. It makes people uncomfortable. It's not easy to keep acquiring new skills. So I think the answer is yes. And should you want to continue working for a long time, better make sure you're relevant. And therefore I think a variety of experiences is critical to building that longevity of a career. Initially, this may resonate with you. In the early part of my career, if I looked at a CV and I saw people had worked in six, seven jobs, it was actually considered a negative. Today I think a variety of experiences is considered a positive. And I do think there's a reason for that because the world is rapidly changing and you have to constantly reinvent yourself to stay relevant. Your question about, was it about identifying, how do you identify a leader for the future? Was that your question? Because the organization will go through a very different canvas, two years, five years, ten years from now. So can you really make that kind of a bet on an individual? I think there are, the good thing is that the leader while competencies, technical competencies and other skills are evolving very rapidly. I think leadership teams are kind of timeless, aren't they? It is about able to work with people. It is about being able to look beyond at the next horizon. It is about being able to inspire people. It is about being able to set an agenda. It is about being, holding yourself accountable and holding others accountable as well. It is increasingly about being able to lead with humility. And I think a lot of these traits, you can actually groom in people, you can coach people, you can develop people because technical skills, everyone can build up. But what makes a leader, I think the attitude and the passion that goes into building a leader requires investment, mentoring of a different kind. And I do think therefore you can identify bright sparks at different stages in their career and support them in their own leadership journey by exposing them to situations that allows them to flex the muscles that enables them to build some of these skills. Are you more partial towards women leaders or no, you don't really worry about women leaders or male leaders, you just focus on leaders. How do you view this? Yeah, that's a great question and I think my own views on this have evolved. And let me, let me speak about what my views are today, right? So I won't say I'm partial towards women leaders, but I'm very passionate about the whole issue of developing women leaders and the fact that we do need more women leaders. I think I have benefited from being in the workforce at a time when the economy grew very rapidly, as we said, and it gave many women an opportunity as well. So there has been a lot of change. There's a lot of support for working women today, particularly in urban India. So all good things, the representation of women at middle management levels is growing, but yet we have a very long way to go. I think and there I think women leaders can play a role. I think the responsibility on women leaders should feel or own the responsibility of pulling up other women leaders. It is important for organizations to set goals on diversity because if you actually set goals, this is what I want to do. You will actually go about achieving them. I used to be very skeptical at one point about this mandatory women on boards, etc. But today I've changed my mind because I believe that if you give women that platform, they actually rise to the occasion. One of my favorite stories which I like to tell is about a grand panchayat. They started reserving Sarpanch positions for women. Initially, of course, it's always the mothers and sisters and all who come into the roles, but there was the story of this woman who was the head of a panchayat. On Republic Day, when she landed up for the flag hoisting ceremony, she found there was no one there. People told her that the men came and they hoisted the flag and they've gone back now. She said, no, I'm the Sarpanch. It is my job to do this, my job to hoist the flag. Please call everyone again and I will do it. It's a small example, but it's a great example that shows that when you put women in the position, they rise to the occasion. So I do think setting goals is important. Women entrepreneurs, I would say the women entrepreneurs we work with, there's no difference as far as their capabilities. They're extraordinary women. They have extraordinary capabilities. There is no good time for a woman to become an entrepreneur. Jump in and ask for help is what I would say. And I would also say, Abhijeet, that as investors, we need to do some soul searching. We just don't have enough women in early stage investing. And globally, you will see that the investing profile often mirrors the investor profile. So you will invest in people from your networks, people who went to your business school, who went to your engineering school and things like that. And for us to have more women entrepreneurs, I think you also need to have more women investors. So I do believe my views on this have evolved. If you had spoken to me 10 years into my career, I would have said, oh no, it's all about merit and that's it. And of course, it's all about merit. But I do believe that we have to focus on making women leadership happen and making women leaders successful. Absolutely. In some sense, change gears. So we talked about what is specific to the Omidia philosophy in terms of investing. You know, the dual checkbook, et cetera, which you spoke about. You spoke about your own journey coming into the leadership role, the transitions that we are sort of looking at. And then you spoke about women in leadership. I'm going to sort of move to this whole thing of... When you look at... So I was reading two documents which are there on your website. One is the 2017 document which I did where I was really fabulously well put together and I recommend that all our viewers really go through that. I really enjoyed reading them. So just from the point of view of just outlining, I kind of made a note of a couple of things if you will bear with me. Some of the things that you are looking at, when you are looking at investing in products and services that are aimed at people making approximately 25,000 rupees per month as a family or $300 per month, if you are sort of looking at that. The whole question is when entrepreneurs come in, they want to monetize, they want to have exits, they want to monetize. Not everybody is necessarily motivated by the business of doing good. Is there a distinction you make in that? So first of all I would say that two things are important to understand. Number one, the way you design a business for the next half billion, the way you design a product or a service and the way you design a business model for this segment of the population needs attention. It is different from the way you would design a business for the more affluent population. And I will talk about that and give you some examples as well. The second thing I want to point out upfront is that our example at Omedia Network India shows that it is possible to build businesses which are which focus on the NHP population, which can scale up well and can be valuable companies. And we have enough companies in our portfolio to establish that. I think we have over 20 companies which reach over a million people each and which have a valuation of about 500 crores. And I think that is really important. These are good markers because bear in mind that sometimes we invest in a company when it's only an idea on paper. So reaching these bench milestones represents significant growth, particularly after the initial phase of starting a company is loaded with pitfalls and risks and hardships. So if you're able to reach this level and we have these 20 odd companies in our portfolio which are one or the other and some of them both, I think it's quite phenomenal. So let's go back to the first question of what does it take to design a business for the next half billion? Right. Now I think you have to recognize that the next half billion are very different in profile from you and me. They are different not just in terms of their income levels. They are different in terms of their educational backgrounds, their language skills, their social and cultural context and all of that has to be kept in mind while designing tech-led businesses for them. And just let me give you a simple example. Right. You know, if you take the shopping cart symbol at an e-commerce checkout, right? That's the trolley kind of a thing. That's the trolley where you go and then you complete your shopping and go to checkout and there's the trolley. Now the trolley or the shopping cart actually represents a very what was originally a very recent shopping experience where you walk into a supermarket, go to a shelf, take things off the shelf, put them into your trolley, wheel the trolley to the checkout and pay. Now that is not the shopping experience of the next half billion. The shopping experience of the next half billion is you walk up to a Kirana store, you stand behind a counter, the shopkeeper takes things off the shelves, he helps you make a decision and he's having a conversation with you, right, when you're buying. Now, does this mean that the next half billion cannot figure out what is a trolley? Of course not. Of course they'll figure it out. But think about it. If every little thing on the internet is so alien to their day-to-day lives and their context, the internet all of a sudden feels like a place like this is not for me. Add to the fact that everything on the internet is an English, right? A language which is not their first language. And so therefore when you're designing businesses for the NHB, we had identified seven barriers that people need to keep in mind when you're thinking and these are things like how do you make it easier for women to come online? How do you use more of local language? How do you have a UI UX which is tuned to their cultural and social context? How do you build greater confidence? I mean, people ask questions that, you know, will I lose my money if something goes wrong with my transaction? You know, how do you build confidence? How do you make internet a safe space for women? So you have to address all these cultural and social barriers in the way you build your business model. When you think about these kind of changes that you're trying to bring, and you gave an interesting example of investing in an idea when it is just an idea on paper and then it's grown to this huge size. Give me an actual example of a company which came to you as an idea on paper and has now sort of scaled to that kind of a place where it is making an impact on the next half billion. So what would that be? So a very early stage, two companies I can give you examples of. One is a very interesting company in your city, Abhijit Bangalore, which is Bounce. Bounce is the two-wheeler, self-driven, right-sharing, two-wheeler company. And today, just to give you a feel, if you ride a bounce bike on a twin-sharing basis, the cost per person is lower than that of a public bus in Bangalore. So that is how they are building an affordable model. Another very interesting example is a company called Pratilipi. Pratilipi is a self-publishing platform that allows you to publish short stories, long stories, novels in over a dozen Indian languages. Now it is again making the internet feel a lot more accessible for people who otherwise would have found language as a barrier. It is also very interesting to see that the majority of users who write and read on Pratilipi are women. And so again, they've managed to create that whole user experience for whether you're a writer or whether you're a reader, which makes the whole platform user-friendly for women. So these are a couple of examples of companies where we came in really early and which are building very unique businesses tailored to lower income populations which have a very different context from people at the top of the pyramid. How do you ever understand that life? Because you've not lived that life. I mean, have you lived in any of the smaller towns or what's been your own personal experience? Yeah, so that's a very great question. And I think it's a question for impact investors, the proximity to those who serve is very important. And all of us actually come from I think pretty elite backgrounds in that sense. We've been fortunate to have been educated in some of the best educational institutions this country and indeed the world has to offer. So how do you really, can you even relate? It's a big issue for us and therefore proximity, spending time on the field is important. As for myself, I grew up in the northeast part of the country. My entire life was in small towns of Assam and Meghalaya in a very different world, etc. But I do feel that today the good thing that is happening is that in the last five years ever since I came into the space there's been a big change. And the big change is earlier we saw entrepreneurs who came in basically from the IITs, etc. and from the big metros. Today we are so many of our entrepreneurs, Pratilipe for example, or Dautnath, another very interesting EdTech company in which we have invested where the entrepreneurs are coming from the small towns. And we do see that the entrepreneurs who come from the non-tier, non-metro cities, their ability to relate to the problem and their ability to come up with solutions to the problem with simple things like what kind of colours will you use? An example of how that is different? So if you speak to say Tanushri Nagori who is the CEO of Dautnath and there's a very interesting video that she's just published a couple of days ago so you can go and have a look at it as well. And she explained, she said you know 85% of the students are the kids that they work with are from outside the metros. Parents are in professions like farmers, labourers, etc. 60% of their customers go to skateboard schools which means their familiarity. So they use English for example, all their videos explaining are not in English, they are in English. She says the colours we use are really bright colours, the kind of colours you will not use in an aesthetic, where the aesthetics of in a metro for a different audience would be more pastel colours maybe. So you use very bright colours, you use very large fonts. So it's a very different look and feel even to small elements of design. But it's very important because it makes the product and the service relatable to the audience and to the users. That's a fascinating insight. And why do you think the colours that are used up when it is for the next half billion, what is the reason? I understand the bigger font but why... Yeah I don't know, I don't know that's a great question and I should dig more into it. But you know I mean if you and I don't want to kind of presume that this is the answer, I think it maybe also happens to, has to do with regions etc. You see for example calendar art or you see things like the clothes that people wear in deserts which are very, which are very barren so you wear really bright colours and often a lot of populations here are lower income populations. Maybe it's because of cultural things like that but I should clarify, I'm just hypothesizing here. I don't know but that's a great question and we should check with Tanushree what is the whole psychology behind the colours. But you know I would agree with that observation that when you go to Rajasthan for example. I mean the very bright shades of blue, red, yellow, all of that which is put together potentially to stand out against that very barren backdrop. So maybe that's one of the things which they've gotten used to and therefore it just makes it look more human potentially that may be it but again I am speaking with the ignorance of a city bread person but this is what I have observed and I've travelled through it here in Rajasthan and some of the other states but I want to sort of really go back to this very fascinating example I've read about and I've been wanting to ask about that which is you work in some areas such as you know when you're talking about land records you know so there is this whole project which was done in Orissa if I remember right where you used a drone to sort of really identify land holdings and I've seen that video on the internet so it's really fascinating. Just tell me about how that came about. Yeah that was I think one of the most inspiring experiences for me at Omidyar Network India. So why are property rights important? Why is it important for you to have a piece of paper that tells you you own your home or you own your piece of land? Right because property rights we believe is a very important pathway out of poverty and sometimes it can be an even faster pathway out of poverty than even education. I dare say that and that is because the moment you have a formal title you're willing to invest more in that property and therefore it provides you a safe space to stay a better environment for your children. Even in a slum if you have a recognized slum and you have title to property eventually there is a greater probability that you will get access to government services like water supply, electricity, sanitation. If you own property you can rent it, you can take a loan against it, you can monetize it and so therefore the benefits of holding that title to property arguments. The government of Orissa made what we think was an amazing decision and they decided to give property titles to all urban slum dwellers in Orissa and this was 200,000 families covering over a million people. How do you do that in densely populated slums? And so we worked with the government and Tabatras and an investor of ours called Transurf which actually flew drones which mapped out the slums and you could see the map of the slums, the borders of each person's property people came together in communities after that identified the boundaries of their peace of land and something that would have taken this survey work would have taken decades could get done in a period of months because of the use of technology and so far about I don't have the latest numbers but I think 70,000 or 80,000 people have already been given titles to the land. I was there in Orissa a few years ago when the first person was given her title and it was I think an immensely moving experience and for me personally I think there's nothing as inspiring to see tech working for the most marginalized communities and people to improve their land. So I think that was quite a phenomenal experience. Oh gosh, how I envy you for that moment to see my God I'm getting goosebumps just hearing you talk about it. In a similar way you've talked about things like agritek, edutek these have been very restricted so far and you see that changing is there a change between let's say what you saw in 2017 versus 2021 when you look at that you see that having made some problems because one thing I can sort of look at is access to data certainly India's got the lowest cost of data all over the world so I think that has happened perhaps but what about agritek or edutek? Massive progress in both areas In fact I think last year 2020 was recognized as the year of edtech in a sense I think that you're right a greater penetration of smartphones and low data costs have really accelerated the digital journey of the next half billion people are becoming much more comfortable using the internet much more familiar using the internet businesses are being built for them and so therefore the adoption of the internet into purposes beyond the basic uses for videos or entertainment but using the internet actually to improve your life improve your access to aspirational and basic services to improve your opportunities for employment and productivity you know so whether it is health whether it is education whether it's getting a job whether it is transportation bounce for example we talked about all of that can now be enabled through a mobile phone access to government services via mobile phone and I think the fact that you have the enablers in terms of not just low data costs which happen because of geo coming in but also the UPI the unified payment system and the India stack right from Aadhaar which has really enabled India to have the lowest cost of money transfer anywhere in the world I think you know so you have the digital infrastructure that has come up that has made it easier I think COVID has been a huge accelerant of people's digital journeys the trends that were anyway happening have got accelerated because whether you liked it or not if your child was at home and there was whatever fashion it was happening in if there were online classes going on you know almost overnight both students and teachers learned how to use tech and you learn how to kind of use online education and became familiar with it so we really think that COVID has been a big driver of digitization of India and adoption of digital and going forward I think the path to building digital businesses for the next half billion is actually accelerated you know so that I think is one of the big trends that we are seeing whatever we thought would take longer will actually happen much faster now because of COVID so you know if I were to summarize some of the things you talked about I mean A you talk about the fact that using technology in the case of let's say creating property rights for the lowest serving population is this you know something specific to India that we should be sort of finding more entrepreneurs coming in or so okay let me let me let me sort of ask a more coherent question the question in my head was if you had a choice where should development start from from the bottom of the pyramid the middle or at the top and does it tritle down or does it stay in that barrier I mean are the three markets what do you think I think there are you need different solutions for each and there is trickle down let me explain why so there are certain areas where markets just don't function right which is at the base of the pyramid for example or and that is where we need grant capital remember the microfinance industry I think a lot of people talk about the IPOs and the huge financial successes that many microfinance companies have seen however many many years initially the sector was funded with grant capital so I think in very nascent sectors you do commercial capital will not work in the initial phase you do need grant capital to support sectors like civic tech sectors like digital tech sectors like citizen centric legal system legal aid things like that right many sectors take time to develop because very often the problem itself is not understood so for example which is why we fund research now we all know Aadhaar is ubiquitous for example however there was we found that beyond the headline number of knowing that 1.3 billion people have Aadhaar there was very little next level of data and information about Aadhaar who is it working for who is it not working for what is working what is not working which is why we funded any number of research projects on Aadhaar including setting up a digital identity research institute at the Indian school of business right so you do need certain solutions different solutions for different segments and different sectors depending on the stage they are in however there is a trickle down effect almost each of the companies that we invest in don't exclusively serve the NHB they also have a proportion of their customers initially high to begin with who come from the upper income levels and over time the proportion of the next half billion in their customer mix increases because they tweak their business models to be more relevant for the NHB with scale they are able to bring down the cost of their product or service and make it more affordable and therefore get in more NHB people so we do see mixed income models and in almost every company that we that we've invested in you do see people who are not exclusively from the NHB in some cases you have a NHB population in the customer mix as high as 80% in others it could be 20% and on a blended basis for our portfolio I think about a third of the customers are from the NHB so there is that trickle down that you talked about and that's a great point actually thank you for bringing it up. When you look at hiring somebody for Omedia what is that element which you did talk about this whole thing of greater restaking which I thought was a brilliant observation because it is far less dramatic when you look at the organized corporate world is there a way that if today you were to become an advisor to a corporate setup how would you increase their restaking from based on what you've learned today Well I think the good thing really is that everyone realizes that digital is disrupting their world and so companies are forced to be very innovative they are forced to move faster and in fact I think some of the big innovations that you've seen in India have come from big companies as well so I think happily I think people are recognizing that you have to innovate to survive and to innovate you have to take risks so you can already see that shift happening in many of but I also think that there are ways to consciously build a culture of innovation and I think key in that is giving confidence to people that it's okay to fail I think our whole corporate structures etc so far haven't emphasized that enough so whether it is by forming SWAT teams whether it is by coming up with the higher risk projects which are directly working with leadership and therefore getting that quote unquote air cover so to speak there are many things that you can do to increase risk but above all I think it is for leadership to signal by behavior and tone that it's okay to fail because without that I think innovation and risk-taking becomes difficult. You know when you look at the way you spend your time today yeah if you were to just do a slice of your typical day how would you describe the way that you spend that time and contrast it with the way you spend your time say so I don't know whether I have an answer to the time but I think if I can tell you what I do I think that itself will give you a sense of where I think the stakeholders are very different so when you are the CEO of a public company who are your stakeholders there are internal stakeholders of course which is your employee right but the equation or the relationship with employees in a large company is very different you know you have 5000 people there's no way you're going to be able to meet everyone and our 5000 employees there were scattered all over the world we had a research centre in China we had a research centre in Poland we had a research centre in Argentina we had offices all over the world so it's not going to be possible and so the interaction internally on a more intense basis is with the immediate leadership team right and not so much with the although you have a lot of CEO interactions and all of that so there are internally a lot of effort and succession planning leadership development people development business reviews meeting customers you know I mean nice to make it a point to meet a hundred and eighty I don't know why we arrived at that hundred and eighty number how that happened CEOs or CFOs every year amongst our customers so a lot of time when there are other stakeholders like regulators shareholders as a public listed company you're all the time talking to your investors media was a very big stakeholder in a company like Crissel which has to go public with its opinion at least 20 times a day there are 20 press releases that are published every day so the range of stakeholders and then government was a very big stakeholder because we did a lot of policy advisory and infrastructure development work so I think and then outside India there was a whole set of stakeholders which were our global customers the investment banks so that was my world over there and you know you kind of divided time amongst all these stakeholders at media network India we are 35 people so all of a sudden it's a very different story I know everyone in the firm and you know it is we have a really high caliber team we are really proud of the team we have built at media network India each one of them is unique outstanding and so I think each one of our initiatives pretty much they run themselves my role in the firm is basically how do we bring our work together and how do we make the whole greater than the sum of the parts which is what the investment thesis that you've talked about for example how do we think about our work as I'm not if you don't think about our work like I'm an head investor or a FinTech investor but I am an investor who will make life better for the NHB that you're constantly thinking about what next for the NHB right so I think a little bit on the strategy bringing the entirety of our work and making the whole greater than the sum of the parts a lot of time in evaluating entrepreneurs and businesses for investment so there's a lot of time in investment related discussions internally and then time on the field I think we encourage everyone to spend time on the field for the exact reason that you said you know proximity and immersive experiences are really important to stay in touch with those who we serve so that's how that's how I spend my time today that's where I spend my time today and it looks completely different from what it used to in my past life you know when you think about building a team for oh my dear and sort of and building a team by that I mean that you know you're going to be investing in the company you're giving a grant perhaps so it's that community I'm talking about what is the rubric in your head which you sort of go through when you're trying to arrive at a go-no-go you know walk me through that process yeah that's pretty standard right it's about what's the problem you're trying to solve is the market big enough what is unique in your solution what is the moat that you have are you really serving the NHB are you mission focused and most importantly what kind of an entrepreneur are you right are you able to attract talent are you resilient are you mission aligned in terms of really care about the customer that you're trying to serve right so it's not rocket science in the sense of what the rubric is well known I think the challenge with early stage investing is really you know being able to imagine the possibilities of what the business could become and how it could get there and most importantly I think the ability to evaluate the entrepreneur because no business ultimate ever turns out the way you thought it would turn out right it almost ends up looking like a different animal from the time you invested in and sometimes it turns out to be a different business from the one you originally invested in the ability therefore to identify good entrepreneurs or a good entrepreneurial team is core to our work Rupa I could just ask you several more questions about you know how you go about keeping yourself updated and a bunch of other things but we are totally out of time and I must say that this is one of the first times when hearing some of the things that you invested in really made me feel good you know at a point of time when you're talking about the rights for property for the people in the slums I really had goosebumps and I just want to wish you and your dream team at Omidia the very best for making life better for the next half billion because you know at the end of the day if you can't build a more equitable society I mean what is the value that we do to give back for the education that we have received and the privileges we have received so I think to give that and who better than you to do that I'm so delighted. Thank you Abhijit very well said I couldn't agree with you more also very delighted that I finally had the opportunity to come and spend some time with you I must say I really enjoy your sketches so keep them going and all the very best thank you so much Rupa it's been such a delight I so appreciate your coming over thank you very much guys goodbye and if there are questions which I can answer I will go back and look at that likewise Rupa if you can just take time to respond to if there are any questions you think thank you once again see you soon