Category Archives: SocietyForward

A Change for Tomorrow

I have been reading The Beautiful Tree by James Tooley recently and was amazed with the amount of research which went in to write the book. This book speaks on James Tooley’s experiences in the developing countries as to how they are over-looking the Public education system and turning towards Private education to provide a better future for the young generation. Two case studies, one of Hyderabad, India and one of Nigeria caught my utmost attention. When James tried to turn to the Government to understand how and why the poor families are turning towards paying small amounts of fees for their kids to be educated in private schools, most of the times he received answers in the affermative. When he continued his journey, he found amazing results and he was astonished. I cannot summarize a 300 odd page book here, but the one thing which I took away, is that no poor family of the so-called developing country is leaving any opportunity to rewrite their future.

In the recent issue of Career 360 I was really impressed with the cover story. It is the same old story which we all hear that the education system in India needs to be revamped. But, few stories of children of poor farmers from Bihar on how they went against the odds give a refreshing perspective. The story of Anand Kumar who started Super 30, a school which coaches top 30 poor children to get into IIT is really inspiring. Can you beat this, in the last 7 years, 182 students of 210 have made it to the IIT’s and in the last 2 years, all 60 students made it to the IIT. These are the results we speak about.

In an interview Tarun Tejpal mentions that the education in our country is more of academic and marks oriented. This is the most disturbing part.

I hail from South India (Andhra Pradesh) and when I completed my graduation (I did not take up Engineering/Medicine) most of my friends have either taken up Engineering or Medicine and after education, one has to take up a job in either Infosys / Wipro / TCS which are the best IT compaines. What you do in the organization does not matter, but as long as you have one of the 3 brands, you are entitled for a settled, secure life and when time comes, a huge dowry for the wedding.

Just to give the other side, if one has to apply for B.Sc Economics in Delhi School of Economics, the cut-off percentage is usually more than 95%. When I took up Economics and Computer Applications in my graduation (this course has been terminated after 2 batches because there were no takers), I was termed the most un-fit and unsuccessful in my batch. After 10 years, when I look back, I think I made the best decision of my life and I really need to thank my Parents and Brother who gave me all the support to do what I want in life.

Now, why did I get into this topic? One thing I realized after co-founding HeadStart and founding Dazasya is that we are not yet ready for Building a better tomorrow with the current way of how we deal with things. In the last two years of being with the Startup community, what I notice is that the willingness to take risks is not yet ready in our minds. Even if one is ready to take the risk, family and social pressure’s take up a lot of time to get you forward. Once you get forward, what misses is the Bigger Picture. Should I attribute this to our up-bringing? From our childhood we are “told” what to do and if we do not, we are not guided enough to come out of the situation.

We are not taught problem solving, but taught only the application of a formula. We are not taught how to think differently, but only taught how to follow what has been thought over by our teachers and elders.

This is one of the primary reasons as to why we do not have an Apple, Microsoft, Google coming out of India.

Many entrepreneurs today are in the path of Entrepreneurship for freedom to work and chase their dreams. When we look at their dreams, ideas revolve around something which exists today, rather than trying to create something new. Why don’t we have even a browser bring created in India?

Let me take my own example, I co-founded HeadStart 2 Years and 6 months ago and founded Dazasya 2 Years and 2 months ago. In either of the two organizations, I am able to Innovate anything new which can help the Startup community.

Let me begin the change here….

World of Ideas…

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I was recently reading an interview of Mr. Narayana Murty on Rediff and decided to write this post. Mr. Murthy, in his interview touches upon few key aspects of today’s living – Education (Why half of India’s Engineering Graduates are not getting employed) and Politics. In one line, I 100% agree to what Mr. Murty is saying about Politics and Government – That the Government should concentrate on providing basic education, primary healthcare and create a conducive environment for living and the remaining would fall in place as and when required.

The aspects I would want to touch upon a bit more in-detail is about education and HealthCare with my experiences and exposure.

Education

I will not go deep into the primary education sector, but touch upon what the readers of this blogpost have been through. To begin with, let us look at our syllabus. Even though we are one country, every state has its own course structure and mode of delivery. Why? Is this not creating a disparity in the intellectual learning of individuals?

I graduated in 1998 in Economics and Computer Applications. At that time, Andhra University was offering this course and I was in the second batch. I was very clear that I am going to be in the IT field and hence choose this course. Most (well, almost everyone) of my school classmates took up either engineering or medicine. Hardly one or two of my classmates are currently doing what they specialized in their Engineering. A person who has specialized in Civil Engineering, is now a Java Programmer and if I continue my examples, I have many more. Why? Is it because working with computers is more lucrative or provides opportunities to work/live/travel abroad? Well, I would need to narrow down to this reason if I look at the bigger picture.

What I am saying here is not that it is wrong or one cannot do that, but what I am only trying to say is that the Investment of time, money, resources is going waste for learning what we are not going to use in our career.

Our education approach has always been to just study and get good grades. One gets 90%, then the person is very intelligent and elite, but the student is not taught on how to implement what they are studying, rather they are just told how to implement. We have a proven algorithm and we use that to solve problems. Is this correct? What we need to learn is to understand and articulate problems. If the student questions or proposes a new way of solving a problem, he/she is the most discouraged – “Do what is said, do’t try to act smart” is what is the usual reply.

As part of my job, I take campus interviews for recruiting members to our teams. Many a times, when I ask a question out of the text book, I do not get an answer, instead I get to hear that it is not part of they syllabus or it is not discussed in class or they are not aware of it. I interview Engineers from Tire B/C Engineering colleges and many(not all the time) a times I get to hear only this answer. Why? This is because, the student is not provided an opportunity to go out of their way and research on understanding the concepts. Engineering colleges are becoming like schools where text books are provided and students are just made to learn and complete their exams. Engineering needs a technical bent of mind and out-of-the-box thinking, which I personally feel is missing in most of the engineering graduates (please do not take me offensive, this is just based on my interaction with people). There are very few (you can count on fingers) students who go out of their way and learn something more than what is actually taught in the class. Let me tell you, these are the killers. They aspire and achieve what they want.

HealthCare

Again, we are one country, but there is a huge disparity in HealthCare infrastructure. Let me quote one of my favorite examples here. Let us consider Uttar Pradesh, one of the biggest states in India and Kerala, one of the smaller states.

Few key statistics:

Population: UP (190 Million) & Kerala (31 Million)

Literacy: UP (57%) & Kerala (91%)

The number of registered primary/secondary and tertiary HealthCare centers in UP is between 900-1200 and the same in Kerala is around 2,500. What a disparity? Do the numbers match at all?

Well, this is what is missing today. Many private HealthCare facilities are being setup across the country, but end of the day, they are either in Tier 1 or Tier 2 cities, where only 30% of India’s population lives.

Close to 50% of Medical graduates, graduating in Indian Medical Colleges, are going out of the country for better infrastructure to learn and practice medicine. Money is not the only reason, but most frequently, we also hear that the infrastructure does not provide opportunity for them to learn and practice. Where are we going wrong?

My above thoughts are mostly generalized. What we need today is out-of-box thinking in providing solutions to the problems.

Power of Cooperatives

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Last Friday, I was at a book shop and the first book I stumbled upon was I too had a dream. I was looking for any books by/on Dr. Kurian for a long time and finally found it. I just picked up the book and began reading. Today, I completed it.I have to rate this a 5 Star. An amazing narration and very well written and compiled.

I didn’t know what to name this post. First, I wanted to name it as “Malayalee.Milk & Movie” (Read the book and I am sure that you would agree with me on the title).

Well for those of you who are wondering what this book is all about, it is the amazing story of Anand Milk Union Limited (AMUL) and journey of Dr. Verghese Kurian as India’s Milk Man.If there was anything which is a box-office and smashing hit in the Indian Cooperative Movement, it is the story of AMUL. I am definitely not going into the details of the book, but would want to highlight the key aspects of the Operation Flood.

What made me read the book non-stop is how bureaucratic our country has been in accepting the Cooperative methodology. India is a country with more than 70% of the population living in the villages. Since the independence, we have had many Government’s which came and went and also we saw a lot of development in many areas of life. In fact, I would not hesitate to say that no other country has come this far in the first 60 Years of Independence (comparing to countries which have been ruled by some other nation). However, there is a long way to go.

During the course of this book, Dr. Kurian emphasizes the importance of making farmers responsible for their produce, marketing and returns. What this simply means is giving the ownership and the Government playing the role of ensuring appropriate avenues are available. Well, to be very honest, this is the most difficult thing which any country can achieve. But, Dr. Kurian proved that with commitment and dedication we can definitely achieve this. What you need is the Will and the Belief in your dream.

I personally understood one aspect – The Primer Minister’s are people with a dream, and believe me, only people with that commitment get to the position (there are definitely exceptions too). In this book, Dr. Kurian writes about his personal interaction with almost all Prime Ministers since Jawaharlal Nehru to P V Narasimha Rao (after which Dr. Kurian retired). The key aspect is the team which surrounds this super power of our Country.

If you are an aspiring Entrepreneur/Social Entrepreneur, I highly recommend you reading this book.

Also, in this book, Dr. Kurian jumps deep into how Operation Flood, one of India’s most successful cooperative project came into existance and how long it took for them to succeed.

Interesting OpenSource Sites

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Over the period of time, organizations have evolved and changed the way they played the game. Once upon a time, organizations were masters in what they produced and most of the time played their cards well. With the growth of Internet, organizations have not only capitalized the advantages, but also working day and night to grow along with their competition.

One fine day, Sony and BMG, the leading music company woke up just to see how MP3 (a particular compression technology for music tracks) shook the roots of their empires. They knew all about the technology, but were over confident that their homes were the safest places and over-looked how the new technology was building its strength under their own homes. When they realized, they cried foul, but it was too late.

IBM was struggling with its server software, which was not a huge success in the then market. Intelligently, it was following the success of Linux and Apache, the open source Web server software. IBM did not give up on any of its hopes and understood the rules of the “Open Source” game. It quickly acted and came into an agreement with Apache and soon, IBM’s server hardware was rolling out with Apache running on Linux. IBM has dedicated teams that Contribute to Linux and Apache. An intelligent move that only bettered IBM’s market place rather than hampering it.

When the concept of Open Source initially came out, many organizations did not pay serious attention. How can people around the world write software when it is not controlled or checked by anyone? This is an Interesting question, which cannot be answered in a line or two.

Over the series of my posts, we will discuss and share ideas on how Open Source will be the major contributor to tomorrow’s world.

Let me begin by listing few web organizations, which are built around interesting and innovative ideas.

Taking IT Global – Taking IT Global is a not-for-profit organization bringing people together to share and work on projects that are beneficial to the world. The idea revolves around people in the community listing their ideas and projects and community members come together to support and work on the projects.

SpikeSource – You have been using open source software. The key element is that the code changes every minute and new functionality keeps on getting added. How can you manage these changes? Spike Source is an open-source source code integrator. This integrator runs periodically and runs through various open source code, test and integrate the same to your base code. Sounds interesting? Try it out?

43Things – A Social Networking site with a difference. List your professional / personal goals, search for people with similar aspirations and work together. Also, you can keep updating your goals with the progress and get encouragement from your peer members.

InnoCentive – The most interesting site I came across. This is a web based innovation center. Organizations / people list their problem for which they are looking for solution and if you are a master in the subject, feel free to solve the problem. There are many chances you are paid if you provide the most innovative solution and also, you are a celeb 🙂

NineSigma, InnovationXChange Network, Eureka Medical, YourEncore and Innovation Relay Centers are quite similar to InnoCentive.

I really like the TakingITGlobal and Innocentive. Over the period of time, I will deep dive into OpenSource in various fields concentrating on HealthCare and Social Innovations

Microplace

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Microfinance is a very popular term and it has become a very lucrative business for many organizations. However, there is a lot of difference between banking institutions having a microfinancing arm and an NGO working towards providing micro loans to people below the poverty line. There have been innumerable discussions on this topic and the whole practice depends on how it is utilized.
On one hand, providing micro-loans to people below the poverty line in groups, provides an opportunity for them to build up their livelihood instead of depending on bank loans (which for various reasons are more tough to get) and on the other side, there have been questions and debates on the interest rates which are being charged.
I am working on a white paper based on my understanding and will publish this soon.
Many major organizations are venturing into this business and e-Bay has recently launched their microfinance arm – MicroPlace. MicroPlace is an organization which has tie-up’s with other NGO’s who work at the grass root level to provide loans. Users can invest in MicroPlace and then the money is provided to organizations for the kind of investment the user chooses. The user has access to all profiles / organizations which are listed on the site and looking for any kind of investment and decide as to where his/her money goes. The most lucrative aspect of microfinancing is that the repayment rate is close to or more than 98% most of the time.

Social Entrepreneur of Year 2007

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The Nand & Jeet Khemka Foundation and The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship in collaboration with United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Confederation of India Industry (CII) give away the “Social Entrepreneur of the Year” award every year. This award is decided by nominations received from across the country. This award carries the title of “Khemka Fellow” and Rs.8,00,000 (Eight Lakhs / Eight Hundred Thousand Indian Rupees).

Nominations for this award for 2007

Harish Hande, SELCO
Climate Change, Rural Financing, Base of Pyramid Economics, Alternative Energy.
SELCO provides solar electrification solutions to the rural people in India. Around 57% of India population do not have access to electricity adding to unreliable power supply. SELCO provides solar electricity to people below the poverty line through a combination of customized home lighting, innovative doorstep financing and understanding the market need. SELCO has reached around 80,000 clients in Karnataka and Kerala and now working with people in Gujarat.

Rajendra Joshi, Saath
Public Private Partnerships, Base of Pyramid Economics, Urban Issues, Livelihood
Unplanned/Unprecedented migration is a major problem in various parts of the world and India being no different. In Ahmedabad alone, almost 40% of the city’s residents live in slums without access to basic amenities. Among this population, only 1 in 5 have private bathrooms (latrines) and only 1 in 4 have access to HealthCare and more than 50% rely on in-formal livelihood.
Saath works with Private and Government organization is creating an affordable cost model where people in these areas are not evicted and a small amount is charged for providing with amenities like roads, water, sanitation, lights etc. Saath then worked with private electric company and government to bring out charges which is a third of actual cost to get electricity and provided this to the people in slums. The companies realized a 30% increase in revenue and also the government has benefited with the tax paid. In total, Saath has worked with more than 70,000 families in Ahmedabad including 10,000 people through Slum Networking Project and 40,000 households through Urban Resource Centers.

Pravin Mahajan, Janarth
Education, Migration Issues, Labor
There are more than 30 Million (30 Lakhs) children who are taken out of school as their parents migrate in India.
Pravi has worked in creating education opportunities for these children by creating hostels for children who’s parents migrate for work and also Shakharshalas or the on-site schools for children who go along with their parents. These schools are accredited by the government and ensure that students from Shakharshalas are re-admitted into regular schools at any time. Janarth has reached around 10,000 children and proved its quality in education and also is working with Government of Maharashtra to have these schools in every district through out the state.

Chetna Gala Sinha, Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd.
Rural Development, Livelihood Development, Banking

The Mann Deshi Mahila Sahakari Bank Ltd(MDMSB) and Mann Vikas Samajik Sanstha (MVSS) together develop systems that rural women need to evolve as successful entrepreneurs and build financial assets. Chetna has established the first Indian rural all women bank through equity within tribal women and also the bank runs by all rural women. The bank works in creating products from their client perspective such as micro-pensions and customized health insurance schemes. MDMSB and MVSS have collectively reached around 58,000 women in five districts of Maharashtra. Expansion plans include states of Karnataka, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat.

The WINNER
The Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2007 has been awarded to Mr.Harish Hande of SELCO.

Hope to see more nominations and more finalists in the coming years.

You are read more about the above nominations at http://www.schwabfound.org/india/.

BCT – Visit Report

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On the 19 September, I visited Bhagavatula Charitable Trust, a Not-for-Profit organization who’s vision is “To transform 100 villages in 3 mandalas, viz. Yellamanchilli, Atchyutapuram and Rambilli of Visakhapatnam District, Andhra Pradesh into model villages in such a way that all able bodied persons are gainfully employed, that substantive improvements in the state of literacy, health and economic sustenance take place and that local leadership and facilitation is fully developed.”

Here are my notes from my discussions with Mr.B.Sri Ram Murty, Joint Secretary of the organization.

Current Organization strength is around 80.
Villages Covered : 40

Activities of BCT:
Education
Agriculture
Women’s Empowerment
Skill Training for Disabled
HealthCare

Going forward, the organization will concentrate more towards Education and Livelihood training for Children and Youth.

BCT believes in Programs and not in Projects. What is the difference?
Ramesh (as Mr.Sri Ram Murty is fondly called) says “Projects have a beginning and an end which comes with a report on how the project has started, progressed and closed, submitted to organizations/people who have funded/supported the project. However, Program is more longsighted and typically does not have an ending. We believe in designing programs keeping the grass-root level problems in mind and work towards making changes in the program if necessary as it progresses”.

Let me dig a little deep into the current activities and share my observations.

Education
BCT has been into Education since the beginning (infact, the organization started with a School). BCT schools are categorized as follows:
Class 1-5 : 144 Schools
Class 6-7 : 16 Upper Primary Schools
Class 8-10 : 1 Model High School

As per research information, over 45% of Indians are un-employed and over 95% (very high number) of Graduates are un-employable (There is a lot of difference in being employed and being un-employable, I will explain in detail in another post). BCT has identified three main categories in education system and is working towards building the same and implementing in their schools:

A) Academics
B) Vocational Training
C) Values

Academics are important (Social, Science, Mathematics and Language) and taught in all schools and in all classes.

Vocation Training encompasses providing skill based training to children which will add the value of implementing what they have learned through academics. It is not mandatory that what is taught in school should be practical and implementable, but what is practical and implementable should definitely be taught during the school days.
I find this absolutely correct. If we look back, how many of us agree that what we have studied in our school / collage days is what we implement today? I really don’t know and I personally am not implementing most of the things. I did my graduation in Economics and Computer Applications during the days when ‘Career’ is only Engineering/Medicine and both subjects are of use to me today.

Values – The most important aspect of education and bringing up are “Values”. In today’s world, most of us are just being for ourself – me and my family. But, we are part of the society and we do play an important role in living in the society. Are we any time taught the principals governing “Society”. Values are most important aspect of education and this is what BCT is trying to incorporate into their education system.

One basic question I have is that India has attained independence 60 years back and the education system was build over the period of time since then. We are one of the world’s largest democracy. Is there any subject in school/collage which educates children on “Democracy”? We can vote after we turn 18, but before that, are there any classes which teach children on what is Voting? How do you select your leader? What are your responsibilities? (I do know this is what we learn in Civics subject, but that is lot more generic and I do remember what I learned). This is where we need thinking and setting direction.

Now, let us look at what BCT has in its syllabus for inducting Vocation Training and Values into their education system.
Academics – Andhra Pradesh State Syllabus is followed
Vocational Training – Orientation in Agriculture (Bio-Intensive Gardening)
Values – Moral / Ethical / National Values

What is Bio-Intensive Gardening (BIG)?
This is interesting, Each student / group of students are given a 100 Sq.Foot area in which they would need to grow vegetables for a family of 5. All the required education, seeds, medication are provided by BCT and the student(s) have to grow vegetable themselves. This teaches students to be self-sufficient as they grow.

BCT also has KVK (Krishi Vidyana Kendra) which concentrates completely on Agricultural Research.

I have also visited their Baking Department where children are taught to bake biscutes and cakes which are sold in the local market.

They have a campus for Disabled Training program which concentrates on training disabled children in paper-bag making, stitching etc.

Please note that all Vocational Training Programs which generate any money will go to the person/child who has earned the same. Each child has bank accounts which are opened by BCT and any monetary benefit will be deposited in the account.

You can see few pictures of the organization at my flickr account.

If you are interested to know more/contribute to any of their programs, please contact:

Bhagavatula Charitable Trust
BCT Farm Complex,
Haripuram – 531 061
Visakhapatnam District
Andhra Pradesh. India
+91.891.255 0084 Phone
www.bctindia.net
bctindia@yahoo.com

The discipline of freedom

think higher, feel deeper…

Category Archives: SocietyForward

A Change for Tomorrow

World of Ideas…

Interesting OpenSource Sites

Microplace

BCT – Visit Report