Workshop on Innovations and Social Entrepreneurship for a Sustainable World

Mr. Charles Tsai, a change catalyst dedicated to helping young people conceptualise and realise a better future for themselves and their communities. An internationally sought after speaker and trainer, Mr.Charles mentored young changemakers through his work with Ashoka, the world’s largest incubator of youth-led ventures, as well as his own charity, Global Youth Fund around the globe.

He was kind enough to launch the draft of his toolkit "The Creative Activist Toolkit", an interactive visual guide to social change written by and for young leaders which will be launched officially later on. He trained the participants of the workshop in the following modules :

• Social Innovations and Entrepreneurship-

This module provides a general introduction to social entrepreneurship, its brief history and where it’s headed.  We explore its potential to ignite change a massive scale and how it’s catching on around the world.

We explore the difference between a social enterprise and a traditional enterprise or even a "socially responsible company." The key difference is “outcomes.”  We look at the difference between outcomes and outputs and how to identify outcome metrics for a social enterprise. We discuss how to identify the problem that you want to solve and how to center the business model and innovation of your venture on achieving the social change you want to effect.  

Inspiring examples are presented - Youth Venturers and Ashoka Fellows. Also resources that participants can access to help them think through their social mission of their ventures, develop a strategy, and measure their impact are presented.

• Why innovation is needed-

This module helps participants understand the importance of innovation in our daily lives and in the world.  What around us do we consider “innovation”?  Why are some things considered innovative and others are not?  What do the innovative things have in common?

Innovation - social or not - improves things, makes life better and changes the way things are done.

Together, participants develop a set of criteria for “innovation” and formulate a checklist they can use to guide them as innovators. Participants learn how checklists have been applied in health and aviation sectors, leading to dramatic results, and how venture capitalists are beginning to adopt checklists as well to guide them in their investments.

• Market Analysis

Today's successful innovators know good entrepreneurship begins not with product development but with market analysis - a thorough effort to understand who your customers are, what problems they're trying to solve, how much they're willing to pay and whether they think your product solves their problem.  However, this process can't be done at your computer.  "No facts exist inside the building."  How they have to get outside and talk to your potential customers.

The session starts with a presentation by Mr.Charles and then the participants will work on worksheets in small groups (teams).  The worksheets helps them develop a comprehensive list of hypotheses about their customers.  They will then create a plan and questionnaires to test the various hypotheses.

In this module, youth identify their key hypotheses and create a feasible plan to do "customer discovery" for one week before drafting their final business plan.

• Business Models: The heart of a businees plan-

A startup exists to find a repeatable and scalable business model.  That's it.  So a business plan's main objective is to present your business model.  This module covers what a business model is and the 9 key components. We provide a canvas (template) that allows participants to map out their model.  Here too, we ask them to identify the key assumptions made in their model so they know what to test and how to test.  The trainer will present the concepts of the 9 components of the business plan, and then the students divide into teams and work through the business models.

• Thinking outside the box-

To get the participants' creative juices flowing, we give them hypothetical companies that operate with some pretty crazy business models: a record label that gives away music for free, an airline that charges $10 per flight, a car company that gives away cars for free, etc.  The youth form teams and try to imagine how such models can work.  How could their company be profitable?  The youth share what they come up with.  We then explain that these are real companies, not hypothetical, and how they actually stay in business.  Youth are also asked to brainstorm one alternative business model for their venture.  Can they completely reconfigure where revenue comes from. They will spend time later in the day to diagram their existing and alternate business models.

• Art of Pitch-

A basic understanding of sticky messaging will help youth craft a more powerful pitch for their venture.  But a pitch tends to have its own logic flow.  We show youth a sample pitch and break it down into key elements.  We then ask youth to form pairs so they can practice pitching to one another, giving each other feedback.  We ask a few volunteers to pitch to the whole group.  The youth are asked to prepare for a mock panel the following day where they have to make a formal pitch and answer questions.

A camera is set up and each team is asked to record their basic pitch to video.  The team will likely continue working on their video over the summer or they might be able to submit this video to the competition.

At the end of the day, the participants returned home not only enlighted but inspired too.

    

Calling all social entrepreneurs

Center for Social Entrepreneurship and Development (CSED) welcomes you to Social Transformers 2010!! This annual event organised at Vellore Institute of Technolgy (VIT), Vellore, India aims to inspire thousands of youths all over the nation.Youths who recognize society’s problems and want to bring about global changes starting from back home.These social entrepreneurs have the burning desire to create “social value” and develop long-term solutions thru a sustainable business model.

So what do we do?? We give them the much needed start-up seed funds and expertise. Yes here we make their dreams a reality. We give them a chance to grow as social entreprenurers. Back from our roaring success from 2009 this year we have many exciting entries lined up.

This year we have entries classified under four categories :

•  Water for all
• Waste Management
• Poverty Alleviation
• Renewable Energy

Take a sneak peek into this year's innovations by budding social entrepreneurs from IIT Bombay, University of Pune to back home VIT University and many more. 

Water for all:

• Hydroblitz: The Thiagarajar College of Engineering, Madurai, students aim to solve the water shortage in rural areas by eradicating the useless spread of vegetation that is prevalent in the barren tribal lands and cutting down on the rainfall and ground water consumed by them. Once they tackle the growth of weeds,the water that was consumed by them will be saved. This will lead to an increase in groundwater level, which can be used by scores of villagers who depend on the groundwater wells for their water source. The other advantage this team sees is the employment of the jobless villagers in the clearing operation, which can help them earn their plate of rice. These weeds and trees can be allowed to dry and then converted to fuel that can be used to run brick or furnace machines that are largely found in the vicinities. Hydro-blitz says "we are planning to negotiate with Tamil Nadu Government and get an approval for chopping the trees in these barren lands. Since we are requesting for a plan which does no harm to the public and enhances the ground water level, we are confident that we have a good chance of getting the approval." 
• GraamNIR: A social minded enterprise conceptualized to address the need for affordable, clean water for those living at the Bottom of the Pyramid (BoP).Their model is different from already existing models in this area significantly because existing models first focus upon source of water then comes packaging of water finally transportation comes into picture. So they basically start from purification which affects their reach deep into market due to cost. But in GraamNIR they first focus upon logistics then barrels and finally comes water resources.For transportation purpose they have already designed a fold-able bicycle trailing trolley which was appreciated at design event in IIT Madras for its innovative design and usage.These can be easily manufactured locally. Local entrepreneurs can then provide delivery services at the doorsteps through mobile dispatch centers using the multipurpose trolley. Even water containers of existing water businesses can also be delivered in the same way. So in this way this model can be adopted by local water vendors. Option of picking water from the kiosks is provided to the people is also offered and so flexibility is achieved.

Waste Management:

• Ecofriends: As their team name suggests this team from VIT University take on waste management. They are making a Garbage Compressor Dustbin (GCD) in which a large volume of garbage can be compressed to a small volume. Being in compressed form, garbage will not spread in locality and hence will lead to reduction of pollution. In this way compression solves many of our problems such as disease spread, shabby appearance of the locality.There is no usage of electricity and it is purely based on mechanical work and no other energy consuming devices are used in this.The GCD will contain a wooden platform, springs, load (30-40kg), strings, a capped dustbin, and a chimney. It works on simple pulley system.When a person has to throw waste, he/she just has to stand on the wooden platform placed in GCD. This platform is connected to a heavy load and when the platform will come descends due to person’s pressure, load will come upwards. Then the person can drop the waste in the chimney which is connected to normal dustbin, so the waste will fall into dustbin.And when the person will steps away, the platform restores upward and hence the load descends and compress the garbage.
• Goths: Bio-medical waste can be very harmful if not disposed properly but in many non-reputed clinics and hospitals in the nation do not follow proper procedures to dispose such waste. The University of Pune students aims to create proper systematic segregation of wastes according to their individual characteristic categories in separate containers and particular color codes is done.Since segregation must be done at the point of its generation, thus reducing the chances of spreading infections, thus preventing th occupational hazards, they came up with Master Apparatus for Toxic(Bio-waste) Execution [M.A.T.E.] containments.They use heat generated by mixing lime and water which is sufficient to disinfect and dispose of sharps and other bio-medical instrumental wastes in a thick containment pit.The containment is then covered with a mixture of lime and waste fly-ash that reacts to form cement like material to encase the waste and seal it off completely.This containment is then buried at the barren waste land.The Sharp instrumental metal wastes are completely disinfected and disposed away from human contact, thus preventing the spread of harmful contagious diseases.
• Rurian: They aim to use powdered agro-wastes materials like apricot/almond shells or bamboo stocks as fillers in the manufacturing of the cement blocks.These natural products added to the cement mixture in specific proportions to minimize the usage of conventional cement.Some research projects have been conducted in this field but the results are not yet commercialized. Keval Kamani of VIT Univsersity says "If a suitable agro-wastes fits with the cement and better mechanical properties is achieved then it will be very helpful in recycling these agro-wastes and will help in clearing dumped waste-lands. When such materials are used in cement composites in developing countries, which produce these, become part of global composite industry as developer and manufacturer leading to increasing revenues and the creation of jobs."
• Socio-titans: E-waste is one of the fastest growing waste today and grows almost at three times the rate of municipal waste globally. As per current estimates, the global e-waste market is predicted to reach 53 million tonnes by 2012 from 42 million in 2008 thus growing at a rate of 6% each year. This team is in particularly focusing on the mobile phones being discarded . They first want to collect the dead and discarded mobile phones from the users from various centers. Secondly they sort the phones according to their component makeup. In the third step, they dismantle the phones into their primary components such as battery, circuit boards, ICs etc.In the fourth step, reclaiming the hardware which can be reused. For example camera, LCD screen, keypad,touchpad etc. In the fifth step, various components are properly tested to differentiated and sent to various industries, such as batteries sent to the smelter industry which will extract valuable metals from it such as zinc,manganese,etc. Lastly the components left will be sent to scrap industry. So,ideally nothing toxic will be left in the waste to create any sorts of pollution.
• Sprouting noises: This team aims to come up with a process for preparation of Activated Carbon(AC) from plastic waste (PET and polythene bags), by using chemical activation and followed by physical activation. By this method, small pieces of PET and polythene bags (up to 0.5 cm sq) are treated with potassium hydroxide solution with plastic in a base weight ratio of 1:6. This process occurs at 373K until depolymerisation of PET is completed. Then the solution is filtered and the residue is then pyrolysed at 973K with heating rate 5K/min in nitrogen flow for 2-3 hours (Carbonization) in furnace. The final product is AC which then washed with water to remove ashes. The activated carbon formed by this process is Activated Carbon Fibre (AFC) which has applications in field of military in making of military cloths and gas masks.

Poverty Alleviation

• Nanocare Pharma Co. : This team of IITians aim to propagate unique and a patient compliant mode of treatment for cancer, which is based on Nanotechnology. The cost of simple primary medications for cancer is in several thousands, which is simply unaffordable by the common man. As a result the government by channelizing the taxpayers' money for healthcare, which could possibly be used for other projects. They feel that in this scenario if an affordable and cheap therapy appears for the treatment of cancer, it will not only reduce the healthcare burden from the government but it will ease the common man also who is the most susceptible amongst all to go poor. Also it would also come as a boon for poor people who could ill afford to avail cancer treatment. Their start-up company plans to enter the market in the pharmaceutical domain with the aim of providing smart solution for a chronic medical ailment named Psoriasis along with other cancers such as Colon cancer, Hepatocellular carcinoma,etc.
• Adhyapana: Four working individuals in leading Multi-national Corporations (MNCs) such as Nokia, Amazon feel it is their turn to give back to the student committee now. Motivated from their personal experiences and their passion for teaching Adhyapana wants to create awareness among students about the job opportunities available today and the skills that are required to make students job ready. One of the ways they propose is to bridge the gap between the industry expectations and the students' knowledge through specialized courses over and above the regular classroom teaching by including practical trainings in technology and softskills.This will be further enhanced through mentoring sessions, online guidance and industry interactions.They want to coordinate with colleges and deliver the courses in the college itself taking advantage of the available infrastructures and supplementing it further by sensitizing the industry about the need to support this drive and garnering their support as well. The ultimate aim to the program would be to create job-ready graduates, so that they can compete in equal footing with urban students.
• Carpathia: They are devoted to farmers' upliftment and alleviating poverty by a two-pronged approach : Agriculture and Business. First phase of their project is to identify several major consumers of crops and offer tham a lower rate than the current rate.Then approach a small number of farmers and offer them a slightly higher rate than what they are getting now.They plan to use their seed capital for the purchase and transportation of the  the crops selling them at a small profit. Second phase involves setting up of help cells to teach the business and technological aspects involved in modern agriculture to the farmers directly. Third phase is more of a roll back phase where they let the now well-equipped farmer manage on his own through the awareness created. Thus eradicating the evil cycle of middle men.
• Cenchrogel: Centchrogel™ is a smart, intelligent and unique contaceptive gel formulated by this trio from Haryana.The contraceptive gel offers a sustained release of contraceptive drug centchroman-one of the selective estrogen receptor modulators or SERMs, a class of medication which acts on the estrogen receptor, in systemic circulation with anti breast cancer efficacy through the nail plate.The normal routes of administration such as oral administration, parenteral,implants are inconvenient due to high risk of adverse effect and high dosage requirements. Gel formulation of centchroman shows increase bio-availability and decreased side effects than its conventional formulation.
• Green India: True to its name this team aim to harvest cornucopia of medicinal plants. The rural people are contacted to grow the medicinal plants without affecting their own agricultural produce. The accumulation in a vast collection of the same then could be either sold in national and international markets or utilized by Indian researchers. As India is a varietal emporium of medicinal plants and there is a growing demand of medicinal plants around the globe for various forms at any suitable prices. The team attests " If we go by the current statistics we can evidently see that there’s a huge and long term profit in this area."
• 'Maid' in India : This team from Maharashtra University of Health Sciences and Dr. D Y Patil University aim to formalize the channel through which domestic help can be hired in urban areas. By doing so they plan to address the problem of  lack of basic job rights and perks to these maids.Due to the absence of stringent employment laws, maids have no ‘guaranteed’ access to health and childcare services, and if not none, very few progress to a higher pay grade. 'Maid' in India aims at providing these ‘set of services’ along with better employment conditions, job security, additional employment, vocational training – and Organization in the sector to maximize earning potentials. By adapting this model- which is already very successful in other Asian counterparts like Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand-this team is hopeful of a good shot at changing the lives of millions of unorganized workers and their families. 
• Grow Green India: Yet another bunch of students from IIT Bombay plan to alleviate poverty by opening a channel through which every citizen can participate in the development process of the rural sectors along with environmental development. Implementation of this idea would transform the rural sector into a manufacturing facility hub, creating rural areas as primary manufacturing outsourcing places, creating employment opportunities and development. GROW GREEN INDIA plans to sell “Rural Development Currency ( RDC )” worth 100/-, 500/-, 1000/-, 10,000/- , 100,000/- which can be bought by the individuals, corporate and organizations for a specific period of time. This RDC is considered to be a direct investment in the rural sector, hence it is 100% tax exempted. This RDC can be cashed back after the specified period of time along with an interest (Rural Investment Interest) earned on the sum invested.The money generated would be invested in the establishment and installation of rural based revenue generating feasible projects. GROW GREEN INDIA would act as a rural venture capitalist investing its money to nurture new business, SME and rural based projects and mentor them for a specified period of time to help them transform into a successful business venture. The revenues generated would be used in cashing back the sold RDC to its customers along with paying a nominal Rural Investment Interest on the value of RDC.

Renewable Energy :

• Energizers: This team from VIT University aims to generate limited amount of electricity by a thermocouple. The small portion of electricity that is generated, can be utilised for cooking purposes in the household. They aim to save approximately 30 watts for each house.So for every 100 houses, they save upto 3KW of extra energy which can be further supplied to 5 or 6 more houses. After all, small drops of water create an ocean. They say "Our approach is simple and the heat energy wasted in the areas like kitchen are now being effectivley used".
• Biz Wizards: The dynamic duo from St.Joseph College of Engineering, Chennai promise an all time source of Eco-friendly renewable energy. The energy is obtained by Gasification of high biomass producing “Energy plantations”of a unique bamboo species, Beema. Its carbon absorbing ability helps to reduce the carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere. Their strength lies in carbon points earned and the competitive pricing.
• Titans: The students of The University of Pune propose to address the situation of de-grading electricity in the rural areas. Their innovation the “Ethanol Cooking Master Apparatus (ECMA)-Pressurized Cooking Stove” aims to replace non-renewable fuels such as Kerosene and Coal by ethanol. Their strength is their clean, eco-friendly alternative they propose.They aspire to provide a “permanent solution for the rural population that faces a constant shortage of cheap, clean and eco-friendly fuel to meet their energy demands.”
• Greenize: These mechanical engineering students from PSG College of Technology propose a self- sustainable renewable source of energy with the “Stand Alone Green” windmills. These are an integration of solar panels and windmills which could prove to be a competitive substitute to the existing combination of energy sources.The Greenize say “The advantage of this system is that it eliminates the need for carrying the working fluid over large distances. As a result the heat losses are reduced significantly thus eliminating the need for insulation. Our idea is not an existing technique.It is our own innovation.”
• Urja: Another team from VIT university propose that they could generate clean energy from saline water using a technique known as salinity power. In particular it involves the usage of use of bio-mimetic membrane made up of polymer with specific ion-channels and transporters in the production of salinity power. The basic principle behind this is Reverse-Electro dialysis (RED).This is as green as energy gets, opinions the team, as the only waste product is brackish water, which flows into the sea and mixes harmlessly with the sea water. It's also a weather-proof technology as it's not reliant on erratic forces such as sunshine or wind. The plants could be easily be combined with existing power-plants, built underground, in basements etc. reducing cost, and visual pollution. They summarise that "anywhere salt-water and fresh water coincide is a potential green power station just waiting to happen."
• Skillers: The team from National College of Engineering have designed and developed solar concentrators to collect solar energy with a automatic dual axis tracking system. In some current systems the tracking of the concentrators are controlled by sensor but if there is a problem due to shadows or clouds it does not work effectively. But the system which they developed tracks the sun effectively and is able to maintain the focus at a constant point throughout the year because of the programmable micro-controllers. The focused energy can be used for the generation of steam for cooking or/and for preheating the boiler feeds which in turn reduces the fuel consumption by almost one third.