Jennifer Clessas

There is nothing I can write about India that hasn’t already been written.  The land of a thousand paradoxes.  What I can do, is write the truths that I have seen in my time here.  I think I have seen humanity at its ugliest and most beautiful.  The visions of families, hard-working with low wage jobs, sleeping on the concrete on the side of the road.  Making dinner over coals on the sidewalk.  There is no privacy in a country of 1 billion people.  All the bodily functions are seen, people defecating, vomiting, urinating, spitting, farting, burping; nothing is masked behind frivolities of manners.  Children seem to grow up too fast, working jobs washing dishes at roadside cafes, or begging in traffic, or just being left alone for hours to care for themselves or more often a younger sibling.  A four year old girl that is left to care for her toddler brother who is pants-less and covered in the pollution of the traffic rushing past.  The stench of chicken and fish being sold in noon day Indian heat out of the back of a miniature van with no refrigeration or even Styrofoam cooler.  The sewage that rises during the monsoons and floods the streets, until the sun evaporates the liquid, leaving just the traces of solid sewage pieces behind.  Honking, constant honking.  Loud, unruly fireworks and prayer calls and dog barking that occurs at all hours of the day and night.  This is the daily street scene.  This is what I glimpse as a passing foreigner.

But, as my time has continued on here, I have also seen beyond these shallow scenes.  I have seen the humanity of families that have very little giving and sharing amongst themselves.  I have been shown kindness in the simplest acts.  An old man in line at the post office, trying desperately to assist in his broken English.  A family sharing their chocolate biscuits with me while on a long, tired train ride.  The stares and curious glances melt away when school children run up to say “hello” and practice their English skills – giant smiles on their faces.  The aromas of delicacies pouring from homes and huts, recognizing the scent of now familiar spices, wondering if the family is making chapatti or paratha to eat alongside their paneer and subsi dishes.  The beautiful colors that are woven into every aspect of life here; fashion, home, scooter, art, religion.  Flowers decorate homes, offices and roadside altars.  The sight of so many species of birds.  I have never dreamed of so many different bird and lizard species that are present while walking from home to work.  Some are songbirds, some screech, some drive me crazy with their whiny pitch, but recognizing the birds with their calls is a first.  Being welcomed into home after home with such sweetness.  Seeing a classroom full of children that have never met a foreigner before, where the concept of a country (like India but different) is hard to imagine and seems funny.  The scenery so breathtaking… paddy fields, boulders, valleys, mountains, exotic forests with palms big and small.

The juxtaposition of old and new in every feature of life here is dizzying.  It seems beautiful and magical and at the same time disappointing.  It’s troubling to see so much development abutted to despair.  I read a novel while I was here that was set in an anonymous Indian city in the 1970s.  The descriptions of daily struggles in the character’s lives, the corruption, reliance on underworld financing, government bullying, can be seen today.  It’s hard to reconcile that in the 40 years that has seen the rise of Indian technologies eclipse that of the first world, that the social struggles of yesteryear remain.  Troubling still is the feeling of powerlessness to even act.

I had the pleasure to help organize and run the second installment of Tech4Impact, an accelerator program being run jointly by CIIE and Village Capital.  Entrepreneurs go through a 3 month accelerator and are taught how to evaluate one another’s businesses, and multiple times during the program entrepreneurs publicly rank one another according to the Village Capital investment criteria.  The accelerator focuses on technology ventures operating in the agribusiness, livelihoods, cleantech & sustainability, healthcare and sanitation, education and mobile/ICT.

Entrepreneurs had the opportunity to speak with business professionals, mentors, customers and peers to shape their business model and develop their ideas.  The ventures worked hard and had several 15 hour days using the time to meet with business professionals and refining their pitches.

Ranking the cohort pitches

Pitches were presented on the fourth day, where the ventures ranked their peers in regards to 6 categories: Team, Product/Service, Customer Validation, Profitability, Impact and Scale.  Each category is ranked from 0 – 5, with a maximum score of 30.  After the peer ranking, the top two enterprises from this round are:  Sanchayan and Aakar.  Sanchayan, delivers comprehensive financial planning, literacy & financial services like savings, banking, etc to low-income BOP populations.  Aakar is producing a biodegradable sanitary napkin product for the BoP woman consumer sold by women in a hub & spoke model across India.

Chatting with a co-founder of Sanchayan

Personal Reflection on Workshop #2

The workshop ran fairly smoothly, but I would make some major changes.  Firstly, it seems that the cohort doesn’t quite understand the criteria still which they are ranking each other on, which is an enormous problem.  For example, the ventures did not present on an exit strategy, even though this is 1/6 of the grading criteria.  I find this to be an enormous flaw.  Another major issue is that the ventures are not able to properly quantify their social impact.  In my opinion, too much time of the workshop has been spent on “MBA course-like” work – which can be supplemented by any incubator program.  CIIE and Village Capital needs to do a better job at distinguishing their accelerator program by preparing the cohort better to pitch to impact investors.  Lastly, I believe that this cohort needs to learn brevity when speaking about their enterprises.  A diatribe about poverty in India is NOT the way to begin a pitch to investors and the cohort needs to learn perspective on audience.

Areas of focus for final workshop:

• EXIT STRATEGY!
• Social impact measurement
• Brevity in presenting
• More storytelling to convey mission and impact of business

While doing research for my MIIS capstone project, I have come across readings referring to the birth of the social enterprise sector. Many of the readings refer to the growth of the third sector leading to social business. The third sector is what falls between public, government run, and private, pure profit business. First, non-profits formed to bridge the gap that the market left behind; educating and providing health care for those left out of the traditional market. Then, large non-governmental bodies began to take over projects that sovereign governments failed to produce, namely infrastructure in developing countries. Social business has been a relatively new construct – becoming more popular in the 1980s with the widespread popularity of Dr. Yunus and others. The mission of a social enterprise is to solve social issues with traditional commercial business practices. Just as the NGOs and nonprofits fill a market gap, so does social business.

However, the more I see social businesses operating in developing countries, the more I wonder just how much impact the businesses will make, and how different the challenges are from traditional nonprofits. One of the greatest challenges nonprofits face in the developmental world is implementing programs that reach the root of the problem they hope to address or rather trying to solve for issues that are really effects of a greater problem (For example, mobile health clinics, which get short-term relief to otherwise unmet health needs, but fail to address the larger issues as to why certain populations are not receiving the health care needed regularly – poverty, rural underdevelopment, etc.). Here, I see similar social enterprises entering into a space that hopes to make an impact on short-term alleviation, but I have seen few that are working on interventions that cause long-term behavior change.

The next biggest issue is revenue stream. Although some nonprofits rely on multiple revenue streams, the majority rely on receiving grants in order to maintain their projects. Social businesses, in theory, differ greatly in this aspect as they rely on customers buying their product or service in order to stay open. However, from the businesses I have encountered, there have been few that have not started with a grant, convertible debt (with generous interest rates) and/or alternative revenue from partner organizations. If we in fact believe that consumer behavior can lead to social change, we would allow these businesses to struggle to survive, rather than continue to promote ones that would not make it in a traditional market.

Which brings me to the third big struggle or both nonprofits and social enterprises – measuring impact and when do you call it quits? Obviously, all development projects should have a timeline. Millennium development goals have a deadline of 15 years, culminating in 2015. The idea is that if the organizations that pledged to those goals have not made significant, measurable strides, then they should bow out and make space for those that can. The tricky thing about social businesses is truly measuring their impact and then deciding when it is time for them to close up and move on. Traditional businesses would love to live on for hundreds of years, and continue to expand – there are no deadlines set. So far, the social enterprise sector has said very little about setting timelines and milestones for success, and has instead focused on “scaling up,” and out, which reflects the traditional commercial sector. Determining impact metrics and setting timelines for success I believe is going to be the greatest challenge for the social enterprise sector.

SELCO, a leading solar energy company based in Southern India, has been producing and selling solar energy units to the rural poor since 1995.  SELCO works alongside state-owned andcooperative-owned banks in India, to provide loans to rural households in order to assist in the upfront costs of the solar lighting.  Families that switch to SELCO solar energy products experience both lifetime savings on energy costs and incalculable costs on healthcare that is prevented from cleaner burning energy.  In addition to providing homes with cleaner energy, it is also reliable; users cited that SELCO products increased productivity and quality of life.

Food Stall with SELCO lamp

The company model works by setting up centers in rural areas that are responsible for selling and servicing the products in their vicinity.  These centers are small enough that they know their customers and trust has been built between the consumer and the SELCO employee.  This is an important relationship since SELCO has taken responsibility for underwriting the loans the “unbankable.”  In addition, by placing their centers within close vicinity to the households served, SELCO technicians are able to respond within 36 hours if equipment is in need of repair.  It is important to SELCO’s founder, Dr. H. Harish Hande, that SELCO maintain a good reputation with their customers, as trust in the product is a driving factor in the consumer’s choice to buy SELCO’s products.

SELCO lanterns

Six years after inception, SELCO broke even in 2001.  Since then, the enterprise has gone through several pivots, investing in R&D, building partnerships and trying to keep its products competitive.  Although SELCO hopes to continue to grow at a steady pace, Dr. Hande believes that real impact will only continue by keeping their small-scale model.  SELCO management would prefer to assist others in replication of the model (in the North, East and West of India), rather than scaling up their enterprise.  As Dr. Hande explains, “It is better if we focus on developing other SELCO’s suited to the context where they would operate, rather than trying to grow this SELCO.  Ideally we should create an organization that can become investment partner for entrepreneurial entities – the SELCOs’ of the future. We can provide the seed capital and pass on to them our knowledge, things that we learnt the hard way. However, the new entities will have complete independence in the way they would develop their business, because their specific model needs to be suited to their context. We would like to do this in other parts of India first and thereafter, maybe, across the globe.”

Often, impact investors searching for investable social enterprises seek out businesses that have eventual scalability.  Profitability and impact are often examined hand in hand, and evaluated with the same weight, therefore making scalability a vital factor.  However, culture context is just one of a slew of issues that prevent many industries from scaling up.  Customer trust, social capital and depth of impact are challenges that scale may pose on a social business.  Perhaps, as SELCO’s management team would suggest, impact investors should re-evaluate their terms of measurement, examining the real trade-off between scale and impact.

Note: Information gathered and quotes are taken from: Mukherj, Sourav. “SELCO: Solar Lighting for the Poor.” UNDP Case Study: New York, NY, 2011.

… And new change of scenery.  Last summer, I was working for a social enterprise incubator in Bogota, Colombia.  This Spring/Summer, I am working at the Center for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) on the campus of India Institute of Management – Ahmedabad, India (IIMA).  CIIE, in collaboration with Village Capital is hosting the Tech4Impact Incubator.  The incubator has a cohort of 14 start-ups, which will participate in the 2 month long business incubator in which 2 companies will receive funding of at least $50,000.

Meet the companies here.

Hub Bogotá y Village Capital buscan empresas sociales en Colombia

por Jennifer Clessas

Bogotá, Colombia.

 

Village Capital es un fondo de impacto social de los EE.UU., que invierte en empresas durante la etapa inicial de su negocio. Village  utiliza el poder de grupos para desarrollar negocios con el potencial de cambiar el mundo y transformar la manera en que realiza sus inversiones. Los fondos se distribuyen a través de un programa de aceleración que dura 4 meses, con el objetivo de formar y seleccionar empresas para la inversión. El programa combina sesiones de evaluación por pares y entrenamiento con expertos, permitiendo oportunidades para establecer contactos y llevar un valor único a los emprendedores. Al final de cada programa, a partir de la selección de los expertos, dos emprendedores son elegidos para recibir una inversión de USD$50.000. La mitad de la inversión proviene de Village Capital, mientras que la otra mitad viene de un socio local.

En los últimos dos años, Village Capital puso en marcha 13 programas en todo el mundo (India, Kenia, EE.UU., Sudáfrica, Brasil), apoyando a más de 250 emprendedores. Los participantes han recaudado $ 12 millones, crearon más de 500 puestos de trabajo, y sirvieron a 7.500 clientes. Nos estamos ampliando activamente en todo el mundo, buscando nuevas ciudades, y nuevos sectores en los cuales enfocar nuestros programas (por ejemplo:  energía, tecnología móvil,  y un programa centrado en mujeres emprendedoras).

Llegando a Colombia

Village Capital está interesado en trabajar en conjunto con el Hub Bogotá, para llevar su programa de aceleración a Colombia. Actualmente estamos investigando el clima de las empresas sociales y la financiación disponible a juego en Colombia. Además, estamos tratando de determinar la mejor manera de ejecutar un programa en Colombia.

Invitación: 

Estamos buscando todos los negocios sociales que estén interesados con el fin de recopilar información que nos ayude a implementar este programa. Las empresas que buscamos tienenlas siguientes características:

• Tienen al menos un empleado de tiempo completo,
• Tienen clientes (venden sus productos y servicios),
• No han recibido financiamiento externo sustancial,
• su modelo de impacto y de negocios están alineados (Nos dirigimos a empresas que generan impacto a través de la producción de su  producto o servicio, y cuya operación e indicadores de impacto son inseparables
• Están interesadas en un programa de aceleración (Entrenamiento de12 semanas por un costo mínimo)

Las empresas interesadas pueden descargar este formulario y  enviarlo por correo electrónico a  Lisa Ravenel lisa.ravenel@vilcap.com para más información.

As part of my internship assignment here in Bogota, my colleague and I have been asked to seek out social entrepreneurs that fit a specific set of criteria.  Our research has discovered that there is an ample amount of social businesses in Colombia, but many do not consider themselves to have a social purpose, and further, have no idea how to effectively measure their impact.  Being a part of the Hub here has allowed us to make some unique connections and meet some of these social entrepreneurs.

One of these businesses is called Tech4Riders, which produces airbag jackets for motorcycle riders.  The founder and director, German Acevedo Ordña, had been working for the Colombian Navy, as an engineer hoping to minimize wartime deaths.  What he discovered, was that more military personnel were dying from motorcycle crashes than from war-related incidences.  In fact, the highest cause of death in Colombia for those aged 15 – 30 is motorcycle accidents.   With this information, Mr. Ordña decided that he needed to do something to start saving lives.  Although Tech4Riders is not the only company in the world that is producing motorcycle airbags, it is the only company in the Americas, and he is trying to develop the technology at a low enough price, that Colombians will actually buy the vital piece of equipment.  Currently, there are jackets on the market in Japan and Europe that cost around US$800, or about 1/3 of the average yearly salary for a Colombian household.

So how does this technology work?  The airbag is fitted into a normal looking motorcycle jacket.  There is a cord that you can use to connect the jacket to the ignition of the motorcycle (imagine the same device used on a jet ski, if you get thrown off, the jet ski automatically powers down).  If a motorcyclist gets thrown from his motorcycle at enough velocity, the jacket will unlock and inflate in .3 seconds.

It is wonderful to see the rise of social businesses in Colombia, but what is still missing is availability to financing, especially local financing.  Banks in Latin America tend to loan at very high interest rates.  There are investment funds here in Colombia, but many are looking to make multimillion dollar investments in areas such as oil and coal, or mining.  The organization that I am working for, Village Capital, is investigating whether Colombia would be a good environment to invest in start-up social businesses.  In my opinion, there is sufficient evidence that the innovative social entrepreneurs exist here, I think the only remaining question is whether the financial climate is open to investments from abroad.  I believe it is, and I believe that social entrepreneurs such as Mr. Ordña will get his opportunity to save lives in Colombia and the Americas.

Today, I was fortunate to be part of a small gathering led by Ralph Simon, a long-time music industry executive and mobile technology leader.  Mr. Simon came to Hub Bogota to speak with staff and guests about how technology and social media are being used for innovation and social good around the world.  The talk was not only educational and eye-opening, but inspiring as Mr. Simon acknowledged Hub’s own leadership potential, “The Hub is creating a whole new road for Colombia to move forward.”

After working at the Hub for over a month now, I think it’s quite easy for the novelty of the Hub atmosphere to wear off; the co-creation meetings, the tables covered in scratch paper – to jot down ideas whenever they arise, the ability to suggest virtually any idea without getting an open-mouthed stare.  It was a refreshing to have Mr. Simon remind us that the Hub is a special place – one that you do not come upon everyday.  A work environment that thrives on innovation and change, and works to make ideas come alive.

As Mr. Simon said, “Innovation is everything because nothing stands still.”  Innovation is not about creating something completely new, but rather about transforming something existing into something  better and fresh.  The sad truth however, is that most firms are not excited by innovative ideas, and do not want to take a chance on something new.  Unfortunately “naysaying” is the norm and until we can break that paradigm, innovative thinking will be considered too risky for the average company.  My director here at the Hub, Paula Gutierrez, raised a good point as we were wrapping up our session; the Hub atmosphere is a space for open innovation, imagination and idea creation, “How can we make this space visible to the public?”  How can we get the community engaged in this open thinking to make real and lasting changes?

Anyone who knows me, knows that I am a patriot.  I love America.  Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling the world, being introduced to new cultures and food, but I always love coming home.  Obviously, I know that my country has it’s many, many problems, but I still love it.  Well, one thing I LOVE about Colombia, is most everyone I’ve met here is a Colombian patriot.  They love their country, the way that I love mine.  And there is such a rich, indigenous history, of which there are still many artifacts.

These pictures are of artifacts taken at the Museo del Oro (Museum of Gold) in Bogota.  Colombia has taken good care of the artifacts, and the museum is curated very well, and is quite beautiful.  The best part is that it is free on Sundays, which is great for both tourists and locals.  In fact, the great majority of visitors to the museum are Colombians, curious to learn more about their historic past.  It’s beautiful to see both small children and adults excited to learn about their history and I wish I saw that same excitement in my countrymen.

Not only do Colombians seem to relish learning about their history, but as well, are emotional when speaking about the future of the country.  A common sentiment here is, “The war is now over, but we still have not won our independence.”  Those of you that know your Colombian history may be confused by this statement, since Colombian won it’s official independence in 1824, and the world has yet to acknowledge that Colombian has been in a civil war for the last 50 years, calling it rather an “armed conflict.”  In Colombian reality, the country was in a war, and the country has now experienced a period of peace they haven’t seen for 30 years.

With this new found liberty and freedom, there is also a movement (especially among the youth) that Colombians are ready to begin investing again in their country.  The daily threats of robbery, kidnapping, and violence is all but gone, and so the people of Colombia are ready and excited to rebuild.  You can clearly see the entrepreneurial spirit alive in the country and this, I believe, is going to lead Colombia into a new “golden age.”

Working at the Hub has been great.  I have been working with a Colombian and another American colleague in strengthening the support services that the Hub offers to its entrepreneurs; we have called these groups “catalizadores del cambio” (or catalysts of change).  In the last 2 weeks we have set up meetings with Graphic Designers and publicists, lawyers and accountants to put together a brochure of services that can be offered for those working in the Hub.

The meetings were a great way to showcase not just the Hub itself to a greater audience, but also how programs are developed.  In the meetings, we asked the professionals of individual fields in attendance to co-work to create the program with us.  It has been really great to see people who had not met previously to come out of their shell and work together to create a project. These meetings are co-run with a Hub host.

The Art of Hosting is a central concept to making the Hub network work.  The host of the house not only welcomes entrepreneurs to the working space, but also creates opportunities for networking and brings innovators together to work on similar projects.  We will also rely on the hosts to assist in selling the services that we are currently developing with the designers, lawyers and accountants.

Working at the Hub has definitely given me a new view on co-working and co-creation.  It can be a slow process and sometimes painful, but the product that is birthed from the co-creation is generally one that pleases everyone in the organization and one that is fully developed.  I plan on bringing these lessons back to my group projects at MIIS for sure!  Look out future classmates…

Hub

So, like most big cities, there is quite a bit of graffiti in Bogota.  In fact, pretty much every building is covered in it.  What surprises me about the graffiti in Bogota is that much of it is artwork.  Some of the street artists are commissioned by the building’s owner to spray paint images on the store fronts, and some is simply beautiful vandalism.  But when I see vandals spray painting beautiful murals, my reaction is not anger.

What I see is a budding artist community that is just pining for opportunities to show off their work.

Indeed, much of the work is beautiful, but there are also many political messages as well.

And, some of it is just plain funny.

That’s a great question… what exactly am I doing in Bogota?  Well, I’m working at an organization call Hub, which is part of a global Hub Network.  This week, I am helping Hub and Hub partners with their Social Innovation Week.  I wrote a description about the events happening this week in English to provide to partners around the world:

Meeting at the Hub, going over the schedule for Social Innovation Week

Social Innovation week is a connection of events across Colombia, creating spaces for social innovators and social entrepreneurs to meet, learn, network and collaborate.

Beginning with an early morning hike, and concluding with “La Cosecha” or the Harvest, the week will combine social events, networking opportunities and educational activities to allow social innovators and organizations to explore and expand their concepts within a community of like-minded individuals from Colombia and abroad.  Events throughout the week include social hours, networking nights, TEDx Makers Talk broadcasts and group bicycling throughout the city, an already popular activity with the trendy, young population of Bogotá.

ProAcción Café, a launching event for Hub Bogota, will feature entrepreneurs co-creating projects and will include participants from the public and private sector and from international and governmental agencies.  The final gala of the week will be the Harvest; an event with more than 100 members will be an opportunity for participants from the week to share collective knowledge gained throughout the activities and make partnerships to bring their ideas to fruition.  In addition to the events planned by the partnering organizations, there are self-generated events occurring across the country, as individuals and organizations are encouraged to create and promote their projects through an Internet platform.

Social entrepreneurship is a growing movement in Colombia and Bogotá is becoming an epicenter of development and sustainability in Latin America.  Stay updated on this week’s events online

http://semanadelainnovacionsocial.org/

http://www.nextbillion.net/

This weekend, I finally got out and saw some cultural parts of the city. Even though I was feeling a little under the weather, I went to La Candelaria this Saturday and went to el Museo de Botero and La casa de moneda. You may remember, Botero is the artist that paints everything likes it’s bloated. Pictures below if you’re still unsure. La casa de moneda was a museum about the history of Colombian money. Both were free and connected to a couple other museums.. I’ll definitely have to go back and see the other museums there. I didn’t really have the strength to do a full day yesterday.

I woke up today and felt much better. My “tocaya” (a friend who has the same name as you) called me this morning and told me to come meet her at the mercado de pulgas (flea market). Anyone who knows me, knows I wouldn’t miss a flea market! I met up with her a couple other girls, and we walked from there down through Candelaria to a restaurant for brunch named La Puerta Falta. It was a neat restaurant with traditional food that dates back to 1816. The girls also took me to Plaza de nariño, where the congress and presidential buildings are, and to Plaza del Chorro de Quevedo, what is believed to be the origins of the city of Bogotá. The first church and the founders homes are still standing there. Something that caught me off guard was that across the street, there was a cafe/bar called “Hellfish” with the symbol from the “Flying Hellfish” episode of the Simpsons. The Simpsons truly are all over the world.

We finished our day at a cute little coffee and dessert bar where we sat in a beautiful courtyard with an adorable little kitty. I may have went overboard on the kitty pictures…

We walked back from La Candelera which I clocked at about 10km – it was a good long walk! But most of it was right in the middle of the street. Every Sunday, Bogotá closes the main boulevards to cars, for what is called the ciclovia, where people ride there bikes, run or walk in the streets. This helps the city reduce its carbon footprint and gets people out exercising! It’s amazing how ahead of the US Colombia seems to be in environmental matters. Take note California!