Tech MNCs lend a helping hand,help solve social problems……..Peerzada Abrar & Sreekala G
Companies Bid To Grow Business And Also Appeal To New Users Of Technology
Companies Bid To Grow Business And Also Appeal To New Users Of Technology
FORCED to show up for her second day at work on a pair of crutches,Sonia Shrivastava discovered first hand the challenges faced by a differently abled person.Struck by the disparity,the young engineer turned to technology to find a solution.
Signing onto an innovative programme offered by her employer Intel Inc,where socially relevant ideas by employees are incubated and funded by the global chipmaker,Shrivastava designed a low-cost hardware utility that helps visually challenged people communicate and access daily information.
The idea has now been developed into a viable business model and farmed out to Daksham,a Delhibased NGO implementing the project while Intel continues to provide specific inputs.
Shrivastava is just one of the many people taking advantage of their employers new-found interest in social entrepreneurship.Faced with the task of growing their business and appealing to a number of new users of technology,multinational giants such as Cisco,IBM,Intel and Microsoft have come up with new ways of championing the use of technology to solve socially relevant problems.It is a growing focus area and these global technology companies are using different models to engage with the Indian social enterprise sector.
At Intel Inc,employees with socially relevant business ideas are provided incubation,technical support and funding to transform ideas into business.Cisco runs open competitions for social entrepreneurs where winners receive technology back-up from the global networking major.Microsoft,the worlds largest software developer,is setting up innovation centres at colleges to incubate businesses focused on underserved communities.
All this is aimed at expanding the use of technology products and services by underserved communities,as these global majors as seek new innovations and more business in emerging markets.
According to a new report by The Boston Consulting Group (BCG),Swimming Against the Tide,emerging markets have moved beyond being primarily a source of cheap labour to becoming important centres of technical innovation.
Some social service projects start generating revenues
THE ABILITY OF ENTREPRENEURS TO PROVIDE SOLUTIONS TO SOCIAL PROBLEMS CAN BE THE NEXT GROWTH STORY
SEVEN of the top ten telecom performers,five of the top ten media performers,and four of the top ten technology performers are based in India,Taiwan,Mexico,China,and other emerging economies,says the report released at the end of December last year.
The ability of entrepreneurs to provide solutions to social problems,identifying efficiencies in an economic environment,(and) finding creative solutions to them is the next growth story for emerging markets, says Tarun Khanna,Professor,Harvard Business School.This is a significant part of our strategy to tap emerging markets.Ideas from employees get reviewed by internal and external groups of people and we provide them with technology and seed funding similar to VCs to create proof-of-concept, says Praveen Vishakantaiah,President,Intel India.
Other ideas that have emerged as part of this programme include business models aimed at tiger conservation and technology solutions for crop management.Praneet Goteti,an Intel employee,and his team are working on a project to install cameras and sensors in tiger habitats to track and monitor the big cats,a project now being run on the ground by the Centre for Wildlife Studies.The crop management solution built by Srikanth MA,another Intel employee,is helping farmers control the price fluctuation of perishable items such as fruit and vegetables.
Employees think of ideas and implement them as they continue to do their regular work.Once ready,the projects are handed over to NGOs or independent entrepreneurs, says Rahul Bedi,director (corporate affairs ),Intel South Asia.Bedi feels supporting social entrepreneurship is a key part of increasing Intels impact within local communities.It is a win-win strategy as it helps us learn more about the role that technology can play in social change in the long term, he adds.Many of these projects dont just stop at the pilot stage but actually go on to generate revenues.
Networking major Cisco scouts for the best social enterprise ideas by running open competitions for independent entrepreneurs in the sector.The winners gain access to technology,seed funding and mentoring from the worlds largest maker of computer networking equipment.
One such venture Lakshya Networks run by three young entrepreneurs Anurag Pawar,Jyoti Pawar and Prachi Jain with the help of Cisco is taking education to the forests of Chhindwara in Madhya Pradesh.Lakshya reaches out to students,mostly the children of farmers in the district,and connects them with teachers located elsewhere in India through its online education model.It provides after-school math,science,accounting and English tutoring to students at nominal rates.
The start-up,which received venture funding,technology infrastructure and mentoring from Cisco,has now evolved into a viable model generating revenues.The mentoring team included people with entrepreneurship experience from the Cisco ecosystem worldwide.Cisco is now discussing similar solutions with five state governments for government schools.
These efforts also help Cisco generate new business ideas across a number of exciting industries, says Susheela Venkataraman,Managing Director for internet business solutions group at Cisco India.
Similarly at Intel,one of the socially relevant ideas generated by an Intel employee has been adopted by the United Nations.The SMS-based Relief communication management system is helping the global organisation receive,track,and respond to requests from its relief workers through a centralised system.
To connect with more such grassroots innovation,Microsoft is partnering with a broader ecosystem comprising universities and NGOs.The worlds largest software developer is setting up innovation centres at colleges to incubate business ventures.
At a Hyderabad-based college,students such as Kondamudi Swarna Rekha are being mentored to convert innovation ideas into business ventures.The engineering graduate has developed an electronic device by which farmers can operate irrigation motors remotely.
The centres also help attract students from nearby academic ecosystem to participate in the innovation.We expect to reach out to about 10,000 students through this initiative in a year, says Phani Kondepudi,Lead (LSE,academic access & alliance),Microsoft India.
In another case,IBM,the worlds largest provider of computer services,has committed to deploy 1,500 of its employees in six emerging markets in 2011 as part of its corporate service corps programme.They will work with local government agencies and NGOs and solve a variety of socio-economic problems.
The big picture here is that these initiatives are helping us identify problems in emerging markets and come up with new business solutions, says Mamtha Sharma,Manager (corporate citizenship and corporate affairs) for India and South Asia at IBM.
In 2010,over 30 IBM professionals visited India to work with 15 NGOs in Bangalore,Hyderabad and Pune on a variety of projects.One project to emerge out of its initiative is aimed at creating an alternative revenue stream to tourism in Ladakh.
As a first step,the tech major has tied up with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to design a plan for collecting,processing and marketing seabuckthorn,a highly versatile plant with multiple uses.
The aim is to demonstrate how technology can link these remote regions with the outside world and create sustainable livelihoods, says Sharma.