Archive for November, 2010

By Dipika Prasad, Intellecap intern

Manoj Vasudevan is a young social entrepreneur with a bit of a surprise up his sleeve. Addressing the winners of ISB’s iDiya 2010, he said his company, Source Pilani, takes up large-scale social media projects for companies like Lenovo. It tracks online conversations, grades them according to kind of feedback, and maintains an extensive record. Source Pilani is a 3-year-old venture that provides services like medical transcription outsourcing, social media outsourcing, and business process outsourcing (BPO) services. The company employs a staff of 55 that hails from the village of Pilani and adjoining areas.

A winner of the first edition of iDiya 2009, Source Pilani was started with the vision of taking a BPO to the BOP and engaging some of the 130 million rural skilled workers who are unemployed due to lack of opportunities in India.  Source Pilani’s people are recruited through townhall sessions that are advertised as “rozgar diwas,” which means employment day in Hindi. Once hired, they are trained in BPO skills over a three-month period and paid an average monthly salary of INR4,000 (USD$90). Vasudevan says he incurs a cost of INR7,500 to 8,000 per employee and his billing rate is 10,000 to 12,000 per employee. Beyond Profit caught up with Vasudevan to find out more about his journey, the impact he has had, and his views on future trends for the BPO sector: » Continue reading “Providing BPO Services out of Rural Rajasthan”

Villgro Unconvention
On Dec. 3 -4 the second annual Unconvention social entrepreneurship conference will bring together stakeholders to discuss and exchange social market business models and ideas. This year’s conference will include a summit, an investor forum, a business plan competition, an innovation fair and the Villgro Awards. Beyond Profit will serve as the social media partners and offer a 25% discount.

iDiya
iDiya is a national Social Venture Ideas Competition organized by the Indian School of Business. It aims to develop high impact, self-sustaining social businesses in India. The winners of iDiya have been invited to ISB for a one-week bootcamp, which started November 27, where they will be
trained by industry experts, ISB faculty, and entrepreneurs. Beyond Profit will serve as a media partner.

Social Mashup
Social Mashup is a social entrepreneurship conference being organized by UnLtd India. It will see start-up and senior social entrepreneurs; and funders/investors converge at the Indian School of Business on December 2 and 3. The agenda will cover topics like fund raising, governance, case studies etc. through informal story sharing sessions and learning circles. Beyond Profit will serve as a media partner.

You can also find us at the Rural Marketing Congress, on December 7 an 8 at the J.W. Marriott in Mumbai. Beyond Profit is also a media supporter of the 2011 Unreasonable Institute. Applications are due December 15. Apply here.

Beyond Profit “On the Spot” with Steve Hardgrave of Gray Ghost Ventures from Beyond Profit on Vimeo.

Steve Hardgrave is the senior managing director of Gray Ghost Ventures, an impact investing firm focusing on market-based solutions in India. Beyond Profit spoke to Hardgrave about Gray Ghost Ventures’ new project in the affordable public school movement.

A young boy from southern Rajasthan leaves home at the age of 13 to search for work in the diamond industry of Surat in the neighboring Indian state of Gujarat. This boy is one of an estimated 800,000 who migrate from southern Rajasthan to Gujarat and Karnataka.

Because of their migratory status, these workers are excluded from the financial system. Often, they are excluded even from self-help groups (SHGs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs). Working to provide these migrants with access to the financial system is the Aajeevika Bureau, whose co-founders, Rajiv Khandelwal and Krishnavtar Sharma, recently won India Social Entrepreneur of the Year, awarded by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, in partnership with the Jubilant Bhartia Foundation. » Continue reading “Meeting the Unique Financial Needs of Migrants”

What would you do if a French man showed up at your doorstep wanting to take a picture of you making a funny face and hear your life story? If you were a woman in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya, you might do it. And, you just might enjoy it.

This French man, an international artist of mystery, who goes only by his initials JR, takes black and white photographs of people, mostly living in slums, and pastes them in large form in their own neighborhoods. Some label him a street artist, but he prefers the term “photograffeur.” (Graffeur is the French word for graffiti artist and how JR got his start as a teen.) » Continue reading “Photo: Photograffeur JR Wins the 2011 TED Prize”

For seven long years, the 27-story home of Mukesh Ambani slowly barged into the skyline of South Mumbai’s posh Altamont Road. The home is now finished, and the five members of the Ambani family will move in next month. Mumbai residents have been gossiping for years—both about the controversial design as well as the perceived excesses.

A short list of the reported luxuries:
• Three helipads
• A different story for each season
• A room that can artificially create weather
• 50-seat theater
• A grand ballroom
• 400,000 square feet of interior space—more than the Palace of Versailles
• A staff of 600

It’s that last number that I was discussing with a gentleman in Delhi last week. With Western bias clearly affecting my opinion, I took the side that 600 people is an excessive, and unnecessary, number of staff for such a small family. Honestly, the figure disgusted me. » Continue reading “Mukesh Ambani’s Antilia: Extravagance or Employership”

Earlier this year, Beyond Profit and the SEEP Network, a US-based NGO that connects microenterprise development practitioners in a global learning community, partnered to hold a competition to search for Social Enterprise Growth Stories. In this issue, we’ve featured the challenges and successes of the winning organizations—they were chosen on the basis of demonstrating rapid growth, outlining a plan for scaling up, and describing a challenging transition. The goal is to learn from these successful models. All of the entries can be found online at the SEEP Network’s Value Initiative page.

As always, we want to hear from you! If you have any comments, thoughts, or feedback, leave a comment on a specific post or get in touch.

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This story originally appeared in our November 19, 2010 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Earlier this year, Beyond Profit and the SEEP Network, a US-based NGO that connects microenterprise development practitioners in a global learning community, came together to host a pilot competition to uncover Social Enterprise Growth Stories.

Our goal was to give international social enterprises an opportunity to share stories of financial sufficiency and the benefits they have had on poor communities, and in so doing, to educate readers about successful models for social impact. The enterprises needed to demonstrate rapid growth, outline a plan for scaling up, and/or describe a challenging transition. Our geographic focus was “developing countries” and the “Global South.”

We were excited to receive many stories from enterprises around the world of all different sizes and with varying models. While the artisan-to-market model was very popular, we also received stories of value chain development, producer companies, new water products, and more. » Continue reading “Profiles in Transition: Enterprise Case Studies”

This story originally appeared in our November 19, 2010 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Microfranchise Solutions is a social business that provides loans and ongoing training to entrepreneurs in the developing world. The company’s first franchise, Taxi Excel, started two years ago in Lima, Peru. Beyond Profit spoke with the company’s founder, Grant Hunter.

Beyond Profit (BP): Tell us about the business model of Microfranchise Solutions.
Hunter: Microfranchise Solutions (MFS) is a social business in that it is consciously employing business principles in solving social problems—in this case, a lack of sufficient livelihoods and the concomitant problem of poverty. MFS provides ongoing training, marketing, and business development support to help entrepreneurs actually succeed with the businesses they launch. On the finance side, MFS acts as a bridge between socially minded investors who believe in enterprise solutions to poverty and the entrepreneurs in the developing world who need access to reasonable financing. » Continue reading “Interview: Grant Hunter, Microfranchise Solutions”

This story originally appeared in our November 19, 2010 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Beyond Profit and SEEP Network learned about many commendable social enterprises through our joint case study competition held from August to October. Read up on them below.

Wello: Walking Water
As we noted in our last issue, access to clean drinking water is a huge issue in most of the developing world. Women, usually, have to travel long distances to get water for the entire family. Wello, has engineered a rolling water container that can hold more than five times what a traditional barrel can—up to 20 gallons. This would weigh 175 pounds, but the wheel design creates an effective weight of only 20 pounds. The company’s pilot will focus on Rajasthan, India, where 90% of the population is reliant on the disappearing ground water. » Continue reading “In Profile: 8 Organizations to Watch”