 Outline of what I'm going to do is I'm just first going to run through a couple of definitions and examples in the social sector, so that we'll try and understand the social entrepreneurship space better. I'll quickly move to a specific example of a social enterprise called Rural Innovations Network. It was a social enterprise that I was associated with. It's an incubator that I've worked with for two years. I realize it's the last session of the day, so I've included a short movie clip so that you guys don't get too bored. We could end the presentation with questions that you might have. So who is this social entrepreneur? The definition that I've provided is given by an organization called Ashoka. It's a pioneer in identifying social entrepreneurs across the world. This organization has been in existence for more than two and a half decades. Now if you go through the definition, I think it's pretty much what an entrepreneur would be defined as. The only difference is these entrepreneurs, these social entrepreneurs, are trying to create some kind of positive change in society. So instead of the business world, they could be using business as a mechanism, as a tool to create this, but they're really social change agents. Now moving ahead from what a social entrepreneur is, I'd like to see what is a social enterprise. Within the social sector, the definition of a social enterprise is still very much debated. The closest definition that we can come to that tries to include all possible social enterprises that are in functioning today could be an organization that actually ranks social impact on par or above profits. So that would define a social enterprise. It could be in the form of a NGO, a non-governmental organization, it could be a non-profit organization, it could be even a for-profit organization. We have social enterprises that run in such a mode too. A couple of examples of social entrepreneurs and social enterprises in India. There's a phenomenon that is occurring around the world. It's supposed to be the largest growing sector presently. First is someone, Mr. Ilango Rangaswamy. He was a CSIR scientist and he left his job and he's gone back to his village in Kudambakkam which is about 40 kilometers from Chennai. He firmly believes in the development model through village development. And he's a true Gandhian and what he's done is he's gone back, he became the Panchayat president and he's brought a lot of initiatives into this village, sanitation, organic farming, et cetera, et cetera. And one of his most prominent achievements is he set up a Panchayat academy because it was the kind of best practices and governance that he brought to his village. Now he's spreading it around the villages in and around Kudambakkam, where he's getting Panchayat leaders, educating them, talking about government initiatives, how they could be implemented, et cetera. He's a true Gandhian, so one of the other principles he believes that he follows is he says that in India, development can't happen by mass production. It has to happen by production by the masses. And he's even set up small factories or manufacturing units or production units where they are actually outsourced jobs from companies in Chennai. They're using more of labor rather than machinery and delivering high quality goods at a lower price. That's why he's able to do it. That's one example. Hari Shande is another example. He's a graduate from IIT Kharagpur. He's done his master's in the states. And he's a voice for solar, solar power. So he's come back to India and he set up this company called Solar Electric Lighting Company, which provides solar-based solutions in rural areas. He's been highly successful. His company has provided more than 80,000 installations in rural areas in and around Karnataka. They're spreading to Kerala and have a presence in Gujarat also. And this is a technology that most people had written off. Most people believed that the poor can't afford it. Most people said that solar is too difficult for the poor to maintain and to buy and he's proved them wrong. And a lot of areas in rural Karnataka where the government has not been able to reach electricity. He has given them lighting and other facilities. I've picked up the example of Sunil Avram and Mahiti. Mahiti is actually a software solution provider. You might say, why is a software solution provider a social entrepreneur? But what he does is he provides software based on the open source, especially to the NPO, the non-profit and the non-governmental sector. So you might see because of his intervention, a lot of NGOs, which were basically just relying on paper, pencils. They didn't have processes in place. They were having technology in their organization to improve efficiencies. He's gone ahead and provided them with solutions at a very low cost and improved efficiencies in different organizations. Sunil Avram is also an example. He has his office out of Bangalore, but a great example of social entrepreneurship. Last but not the least, Paul Basil and Rural Innovations Network. I'll be talking more about Rural Innovations Network in just a while, but Paul Basil is another social entrepreneur who saw the need to actually go and there are so many of these rural grass roots innovators or people who come up with grass roots innovations that actually need to be nurtured, commercialized and could have a much greater impact across India. And to do all of this, he set up Rural Innovations Network. In just a moment, we'll talk more about Rural Innovations Network, but I'd like to point you out to a website called Ashoka.org, which is again the website of Ashoka, which is an organization that actually goes and identifies social entrepreneurs across the world. You visit the website, it's a great resource on social entrepreneurship and also to come to know about lots of other social entrepreneurs in around the world. So the next slide on let's try and see what kind of people is Paul Basil and Rural Innovations Network meet with. Meet Manoharan. He runs a small machine tool shop in Dindigal in Tamil Nadu. He came up with this innovation called the banana stem injector. Now in Dindigal in and around the area, the banana crop is a huge crop and there's a lot of pest problem. The stem borer especially in banana. Present methods included spraying of pesticides, which is a lot of wastage because they fall on the leaves, they fall to the ground. If they're not sprayed on the proper time, if the sunlight can evaporate the effect of the pesticides. So what he came up with a small injecting device where he actually injects the pesticide or the insecticide directly to the stem, much more effective, but again a crude innovation. Joy John, an innovator from Kerala, he's come up with a low cost manual milking machine. Now milking machines available in the market today are very expensive. The cheapest ones are around 40,000 rupees. Again, electrical in nature, out of reach of dairy farmers who have three to four cows. Now I'm sure, I don't know if many of you have actually gone and seen a small dairy farmer with four or five cows. Milking is quite a painful operation and this is a useful innovation because they can't afford to pay 40,000 for a milking machine. This is a very low cost intervention. This presently retails at 8,500. Venus burner, another simple innovation that's a much more efficient kerosene burner. Unlike what many of you might think and believe, kerosene is still a major fuel across India. Anna Saheb Udgave, a farmer in Sadalgam. It's a village in the borders of Karnataka and Maharashtra. His village faced a drought and he innovated and came up with the rain gun. Again, an irrigation device that uses groundwater to irrigate fields. It saves water by almost 50% if this device is used. Another guy, I forget his name right now but he's based out of Coimbatore. He's come up with a coconut de-asker. There's a huge labor problem. Coconuts are widely available but nobody to de-ask them. He's come up with a machine for that. Dr. Mohan, this is a very simple mechanical contraption called the insect trap. What it does is post harvest grains that are stored normally to avoid insect infestation. Most people, if it's not, most farmers at least, if it's not for their own consumption, what they do is they add poison, melatheon, empul. These are even poisons that are banned by the Indian government, but they still use it because that's the safest way to keep insects away. This is a simple device. It's got perforations on, if you can notice, it has perforations all around them. You just insert it where you have stored grains. It plays on the nature of these insects and because they want air, they come, they enter these devices, they fall right down and once they fall down, they can't come up. And so it actually controls the exponential growth of insects in stored grains. Another interesting innovation. It's really, I've met Anand in person and it's really inspiring to know that he's hardly, I think, studied till his fifth standard and his inspiration to innovate or if he knows for sure that he can come up with ideas because he's watched James Bond movies as a kid and when you watch them as a child, as in the kind of gadgets they show it, that has, you know, he has this idea in his head that if he can think of anything, it can actually be done. So even with this particular problem, he actually goes back, sits and thinks that divides the problem, says he needs a sensor to sense something in the path when you're traveling ahead. How does that happen? So he goes to the local electronics shop and he eats the head of the shopkeeper. They're saying that this is what I want until that guy can come up with a solution and tell him, okay, in electronics, this particular, what you want to get done happens with this device and it costs so much. And Anand is actually a daily wage laborer in a bakery in some village. It's, I forget the name, it's close to Tutikorin, Tamil Nadu. And he then starts saving because he still starts saving till he makes the money to get by that particular device, gets it, builds. So every prototype he goes through, there is a huge cycle until which he saves his money, ensures that a prototype is ready, things go wrong, he starts from scratch all over again. Really inspiring to meet people like that. Pretty much sure that majority of the engineers and engineering colleges today can't come up with half the things he does. Going here talking about what Rin does again, we believe that there are a lot of these innovators out there who come up with innovations that could solve problems that rural India faces on a day-to-day basis. But the way forward, because many of these innovations are actually very local, the way to do it is commercialize them and actually take them to places across rural India wherever they might find an application. So you commercialize it, the benefit goes through rural users. This impact actually calls rural prosperity and inspires further innovation. So it's this vicious cycle that rural innovation network tries to kickstart. And this actually is true. If economic history is also studied, economic development, 75% of economic development is actually pushed forward through technologies, new technologies. And Jeffrey Sacks, a famed economist in his book End of Poverty, says that a lot of countries actually are still trapped in poverty is because the lack of local innovation. Because in the cycle of local innovation which finds markets in local areas, that is what actually puts countries on the way of economic development. Rin has a simple mission to enable innovations to reach markets. Now the journey for a person like Anand is very tough as in he comes up with a product which is very crude, still very inspiring, great work from where he's from but what we need to realize is by the time it reaches the other end of this spectrum, the other customer that we're trying to reach, he's not happy with such a crude product. He needs a proper finished product. So there is a huge journey that still remains to be traversed. Rural innovation network enables innovators and entrepreneurs across this journey. The first thing is just a prior art search and something you've thought of has it been done already? Filing for IP required, design input. I talked about the JS Milka, the low cost milking machine. The innovator had not thought about making the plastic and the rubber involved was not even food grid. So something as simple as that, just making sure that happens. Prototyping it, fabrication of plants, test centers, devices like the Venus burner to actually prove that it is 33% more efficient in kerosene burning. Take them to find out test centers where this can be actually proven and you can get certificates for it. Field trials, like the insect traps that was proven in labs and in agricultural colleges, but taking it to the fields and to the houses across India, rural India. We've piloted this in Andhra Pradesh, rural Uttar Pradesh, to see whether it actually works. Market studies to find out where markets are. Test marketing again as when you come up with a plan for these rural products, how do you reach the rural customer? Do we have the correct mechanisms? Where do we promote them? In the real way in which any new product would be launched in the market. Second, the last part is once we do all this, do these innovators actually become successful entrepreneurs too, which is a rare case? In that case, we find them entrepreneurs who will buy the technology of them. For example, in the case of the rain gun that we saw, we actually initiated a partnership with a company in Chennai called Servals Automation, which actually took up what the technology from Anasai Bhutgaway gives them, pays them a royalty for every piece manufactured, and this company actually went ahead and manufactured the rain guns for him. The same company, Servals Automation, actually also manufactures the Venus burner that we talked about. And it's surprising the way they work now. Venus burners also manufactured in Ilango Ramaswamy's village. They have come up with a production unit. So there are a lot of synergies that happen. Scale and impact, how we spread them. We have partnerships with a variety of organizations through which we actually disseminate these products that rain identifies. We're just quickly running through the offer that rain has for these innovators and entrepreneurs to give them recognition, credibility, which itself is huge. For example, in Anand's case, he's literally almost called a madman in his village. And that was his name until he actually got an award and he came on television, came in the local newspaper because people never understood what he was striving to achieve. Networks, mentoring, and even some kind of seed funding for them to actually take their idea or product from a prototype stage to a final stage. Interestingly, how does rain actually go ahead and meet these innovators? We have this very famous innovation award program. The last year it was held, former president, Mr. AP J. Abdul Karam actually presided on the award ceremony. We have my idea programs where we get college students involved now saying that there are a lot of these social problems. You guys can come up with solutions. That is another way of looking at them. Business plan competitions. We have reference networks, web-based, patent search, some of the methods used. The most important thing I think is the selection criteria because we come across a lot of innovators. For an innovation, since we are very conscious about the fact that we're gonna serve rural India or want an innovation with a social impact, that's the primary criteria. Innovativeness, what is innovative about it? Is it something that's already being done probably better in a different manner? That's something we verify. Business viability, it has to be self-sustainable. Initially, we realized there might be grants or we might have to push it through to get into that vicious cycle of where it propels itself, but it has to be a viable business. And I think last, we were also very, Rin is critical about the fact that if market funding is otherwise available, we would want to keep the funding that Rin has to actually serve other grass-root innovators who wouldn't have access to such funds. Again, a particular innovator, we're very concerned that while the innovation comes to us, we have the required networks or the knowledge at Rin to actually help them out. Clarity and plan, as many times the innovator have some vague ideas but don't know how to go ahead with it. Compatibility is again subjective but very important because it's a long journey and we need to be co-working together. And last but not the least, the commitment of the innovator is very important. Now Rin, as an incubator, has a couple of interventions that we talk about. The first is the L ramp. It's the Lemelson Recognition and Mentoring Program. It's in collaboration with IIT Madras, Rural Innovations Network, and it's funded by the Lemelson Foundation in the United States. So they again have this entire chain of, they mentor a particular, identify an innovator, a product, a company also, which has products that can create large-scale social impact, mentor them and actually take them till the pilot marketing stage. In terms of scale and impact, last year Rural Innovations Network started a intervention called SAMRIDI, which is actually a rural retail chain because in previous years, Rural Innovations Network had tried to piggyback on business models, already existing business models to reach out to the rural customer. We were working with commercial organizations like data chemicals, development-oriented organizations like BASICS, BIF stands for Bharati Agro Industries Foundation, who had business models that reached the rural customer and we were finding it difficult or there were challenges with each organization because they had separate business, different business models and intervention seemed to vary. So we came up with our own chain, a rural retail chain, which is actually being piloted in the villages around Gobi Chatipali, I mean, Euro District of Tamil Nadu. These are a couple of new programs that have just started in the last couple of months, the InnoCenter programs, the UCID is a user-centered innovation development. A lot of the innovations that we saw were actually developed by innovators and we found that many a times they had to be pushed onto the market because sometimes they don't, they don't capture customer requirements very clearly. So we also wanted to try out a program where we see that, okay, we find out what a user needs and try and build innovations around it. Last is a TDP, it's called the Talent Development Program. This is to develop talent in the social sector and fuel, RINs, HR needs. Again, these three programs are started off late and they're funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. Some more details about LRAM. LRAM can provide up to 25 lakhs for a particular idea or a project to develop it from the innovation or the idea stage to a final product stage. Other important activities, most important is the pre-incubation program. If you see there's been a slow shift in the way RIN functions in terms of, RIN actually earlier talked about grassroots innovators and grassroots innovations. We're slowly finding out that, where we still maintain that we need to find grassroots innovations, grassroots innovators may not be ready to walk this journey. So we have this highly intense program called the pre-incubation program where we take them through simple things like how do you write a proposal, how do you apply it for an award, how do you do some kind of basic research before you come up with the product thing, that you identify the market, where you're gonna sell them, customer needs, some kind of inputs on how do you come up with product design, et cetera. We take them through an intensive process so they're better suited for incubation. My idea program is to again, involve students into the whole process of finding solutions that a lot of rural India faces. And we also support a lot of student projects against some ongoing projects, yet, which you'll find on the website also. And if you see if there's an infant one or the second project that's actually being done by a doctor who we're incubating, because she's not found support in any of the place to take up this project, but an infant warmer is a device that is required all across rural India as in primary healthcare centers actually don't have an infant warmer available or they're not affordable enough. So that's a device we're working on, water lifting devices, et cetera, et cetera. But I just wanted to bring out the shift in, from a grassroots innovator to, we're talking about people who can come up with grassroots innovations. Little more on the Samrudhi, which is a rural retail chain. We have such shops in and around, the villages of Gobi Chhattipal, and the small shops, stocked with a variety of products in the sectors of agriculture, dairy, water, and energy. We're four stores, strong. There are about 19 VLEs. VLE stands for Village Level Entrepreneurs. Actually, the business model we are trying to follow. Each store does about 40,000 per month. Cross margins are around 20, 25 to 40%. Till now, we've, till now, we're not as benefited by 1,000 farmers. Couple of the products, we have a biomass pellet based off the Venus burner. This is a fuel plus or a gas plus. Basically improves efficiency of gas, gas stoves. So if you have a gas stove that lasts you 30 days, you use this particular device called the gas plus. Your same gas would last you over 40 days. That's a paddy cedar. That's an innovative device. Paddy is usually sewn by the transplantation method. And now again, labor being a huge issue. We're talking about direct sowing, and that's a machine that's a direct paddy cedar for that. This is again, just to share the business model. I won't go into details of it, but Samrudhi is right in the center, manufacturing of, we interface with manufacturers who come up with products for rural India. Donors fund them, we work along with NGOs, franchisees, Samrudhi retail outlets. The VLE is the last mile connect between our rural customer and the Samrudhi shops. They're basically these village level entrepreneurs who identify in villages. So that they have, they talk to customers directly. They have sample products with them and they become a marketing and sales force as well. Again, couple of products that are not being exactly incubated, but being sold through the retail network. On the top right, another milking machine called the Johnny's milking machine. Even more lower cost than the one you saw, the JS Milka. This retails about 3,500 rupees. Some images about the kind of work RIN does through Samrudhi. Before we launch any product, we ensure that these actually stand the local atmosphere, the local climate. The devices actually work, live up to their promises. So field trials of an innovative back sprayer. It's a battery operated sprayer. We do a lot of demos in rural areas in these villages. Then last but not the least of campaigns, exhibitions and meetings where we talk about our products and actually illicit farmer interest. A case study of how impact can be generated taking the case of a mini sanity and marketing manufacturing machine. Murugan and the innovator and entrepreneur was identified through a business plan competition that RIN held. He's come up with this device that has a very simple production method of sanity napkins, which are actually a major health problem in and across rural India. Business model is very simple. He wants to disseminate the machine to SAGs, self-help groups or groups of ladies who can take up local manufacturing. They can manufacturing the product at a very low cost. And if they can come up with a sales force to sell the same product in the local areas, it's a win-win situation for all. So even it's been done in quite a few places in and around Tamil Nadu, including Coimbatore where the entrepreneur is based from, Madurai. And there are lots of these self-help groups that they manufacture for the first 15 days of the month and then go out and sell the sanity napkins and thereby earning an income for themselves also. So by already after LRAM's intervention, there are seven more of these devices have been sold, a demo center was set up. He's actually got access to a variety of networks, the entrepreneur, to actually go and sell his products, showcase his products. And he's started getting orders, not only from Tamil Nadu, but far-flung places like Orissa, Himachal Pradesh. So his networks have grown. And if you see the societal impact is on the 14,000 women that have been directly benefited. The targets are pretty high for 2008. And I'm sure they well on the way to achieve them. Is it broadly impact and outcomes created from RIN? RIN has been in existence since 2001. So these are figures of past seven years. Again, these are including all the companies that RIN has worked with or products, RIN has incubated. That's huge number of consumer surplus that you see about 1950 lakhs, but that's been calculated for all products. And something as simple as, if you look, take a Venus burner, there have been studies done that these tea vendors on the road, they actually save close to two liters of kerosene a day while they use this burner. So the calculation would be something like two liters of kerosene saved a day multiplied by the life of the burner, which is about three to four months, multiplied by the number of burners sold till date. And that's the kind of calculation that's been used to arrive at those numbers. Huge number of innovators, grassroots innovators and innovations identified. Most students that have become involved in this entire process of coming up with innovations and products which will have an impact on rural India. And last but not the least, there's a huge network that has been built that can be dipped into to get help innovators, entrepreneurs with their innovations while they make the journey from an idea stage till it can be scaled. We have network in terms of business experts, technology experts, retail chains, agricultural colleges, engineering colleges, et cetera, et cetera. I'd like to acknowledge Paul Beschel and Rural Innovations Network because a lot of the presentation slides and material that I actually showcased is the great work that they've achieved done. More information, I don't think it's visible, but I've listed the websites of Rural Innovations Network and LRAM. I'm sure they'll be sharing the presentation with them. So they'll get these links on that. In case you have any further queries, please feel free to reach out to infoetrenovations.org. They are also in the process of actually networking with all other incubators saying that if you come across these great rural air innovations, that could have a rural or a social impact and you find that for whatever reason, you can't take it up for incubation. Please put them in touch with Rural Innovations Network and vice versa too. If they come up with some innovation or a product or a company that they can't service. So many times it does happen as in companies approach rain from far-flung places like Delhi or Northern India. Rural Innovations Network has a geographical focus of South India at the moment at least so that they can be close to the companies that they're incubating. So in that case, they would be only too happy to pass on such information to incubators that you. So if there are any questions, you'll be only free to take them. Pardon? What's your role in rain? I used to be with rain, actually. I forgot I didn't introduce myself at the beginning of the talk. I used to be with rain and within rain, my role was more on the marketing side. So in my original years, we were working with different agencies, both commercial and development oriented to actually identify and establish viable distribution and marketing channels for these products. So for example, we try to sell the insect trap and the low-cost milking machine through networks created via Tata Chemicals, which have this unique agricultural initiative for farmers called Tata Kisan Sansas. They're actually one-stop shop for agricultural inputs in about five states in Northern India. So they have a business model in place. So we say that we have a device or a product that would be beneficial to your farmers. So how could we integrate through your supply chains, use your marketing methods and try and actually reach out to the rural customer? Similarly, we've also piloted with BASICS, which is a microfinance organization, where again, BASICS has someone called the livelihood service advisor, an LSA, who actually goes into villages and disperses loans. So how can we make use of an LSA who actually goes and talks to a rural customer and say that, okay, we have these products. Could you sell them and could you buy them, get feedback, et cetera? So that was the kind of work we did. And as I explained previously, it happened that different business models require different interventions. And that's when we said, okay, let's go a step back. And we've also become geographically pretty spread out. We were doing pilots in Uttar Pradesh, Gaurapur, we were doing it in Tiptoor in Karnataka, Northern Andhra Pradesh. We said, let's hold back, let's try and master the art of selling innovations or innovative products on our own. That's when we went ahead and started off this rural retail chain called Sambhudi in Gopichettipalip. So I was initially involved in setting up these relationships with Tata's. Then also worked with Basics. And then we were helping setting up Sambhudi in Gopichettipalip. And presently I'm in Bombay. I'm actually consulting with two firms. One is a social enterprise which is an ambulance service in Bombay called 1298. I'm doing some market research for them. And there is another organization that's being incubated in sign here called Polymeric Sensors. This particular company wants to use patented conducting polymer technology to create testing devices for water, soil, milk in the immediate future. And in the long run, they want to use this technology to come up with healthcare diagnostic kits that can be deployed in rural and marginalized populations in urban India too. So that's what I'm doing presently. Polymeric Sensors is the name of the company. But they have developed this technology on conducting polymers. Pardon? No, they're sensors conducting polymers based technology that they have. It's not MEMS. Sign, yes. I'm sure other than it's actually not in the sign building, but... If I mentioned, this is student project support. You invite applications, how the students can just... Yes, please do visit LRAMP.org, the website. They invite student projects. Sorry, what is it? LRAMP.org. L, R-A-M-P, .org. Yeah, right. L-R-A-M-P, L-RAMP, Lemelson. Okay. Yeah, .org. They do invite student projects. There is a two-step process to it actually, but it's all given in the website. So there is no physical incubator as such, is there? Yeah, good question. I see, yes, we don't have physical space. These companies or innovations that come to us, we enable them, we connect them with networks, provide them with services, but not in terms of space. So how does the incubator, incubating actually take place? You have people going to the innovators and... It could happen either way, but what happens, we have an application process. After once a particular company or an innovator or an entrepreneur is screened, we also actually get information from them in terms of what kind of support they would require from REN or LRAMP. Once that has been clarified, there is an MOU that the entrepreneur gets in to with REN with clear milestones defined. And we have clear budgets allocated to what kind of service or what kind of help would be done or what kind of work would be done. And then that is managed because there would be a program officer or a project officer associated with each particular entrepreneur that we work with and they ensure that things move around smoothly. And it could happen either ways. Either the program officer actually goes onsite and visits the entrepreneur or the innovator, or the innovator or the entrepreneur comes and reports that office. One thing wasn't clear. Does the entrepreneur contact REN or how does it happen? I mean... Could happen either ways. Could happen either ways. Because the level that you're talking about, it's not always possible that at that level, the entrepreneur knows about such... We're still reaching out, but there have been lots of cases where grass root level innovators and entrepreneurs come to know about us. But one important way in which we reach out is we have what is called the hub and spoke model. We have actually networked with a lot of these colleges, agricultural colleges and other colleges in around Tamil Nadu, which also help in spreading word about REN and its other initiatives like LRAM, Samrithi. So we do get in applications through these colleges to another, our network organizations. But yes, the mainstay of our applications has been the awards program. Any other questions? Thank you so much.