Creation of an Ecosystem

My mentor during my stay at Stanford is currently visiting Motorola India Research Labs in Bangalore on a temporary posting. He used this opportunity to invite me to make a presentation on our Disease Surveillance project to a group of senior people at Motorola India Research Labs this morning. It was a highly interactive session in which about 15 researchers took part and asked some very interesting questions on my project. Rajiv's objective was to get the local Motorola team interested in supporting our project in some collaborative way. A one-hour session went on for over 2 hours and was then followed by lunch. So I think it was great exposure
for our project. I also got to meet a set of very smart, young people who are excited about the potential applications of mobile technologies to social problems.

Thanks, Rajiv, for arranging this talk. Let us keep networking and propound our ideas in every possible situation. That is how we can create an ecosystem for social entrepreneurship in India.

Shashank

Social Entrepreneur or Activist Entrepreneur?

Back in Bangalore, I was recently discussing our stint at Stanford's Digital Vision Program with a few friends when a few good ideas came up. I was giving my usual spiel on Social Entrepreneurship when my good friend Partho Ray chirped up and said that instead of "Social Entrepreneur" we should perhaps consider the term "Activist Entrepreneur".

His reasoning was that while the word "entrepreneur" captured the concept of a passionate individual or group focusing on doing something positive very well, the word "social" has negative connotations as it tends to represent the average NGO and/or politico who is typically a stumbling block to progress. He felt that the concept of "social entrepreneur" is an oxymoron. The "socialist" is typically some guy out to bring the least common denominator to society, he is out to promote poverty as a virtue and to bring everyone down to a lower common level of wealth. On the other hand, an "activist" is a person out to disrupt the status quo, to bring about positive societal change and raise the level of the least common denominator itself.

Sounds familiar? A socialist society encourages shared community resources and distribution of wealth, even though unearned, and discourages private ownership. Distribution of poverty and collateral misery is the goal of a socialist, tghough he may not think so. On the other hand, a capitalist society encourages creation of individual wealth through personal initiative and ownership. How do you distribute wealth without first creating it? Sounds reasonable?

In a sense, "social" and "entrepreneur" do not mix very well and "social entrepreneur" may be an oxymoron. However, an activist sounds like a positive person who has his heart in the right place.

Now that's an interesting idea worthy of a fresh debate. Social Entrepreneur or Activist Entrepreneur? Does anyone want to take this theme forward?

Shashank

On Social Entrepreneurship

In a few weeks from now we would have passed through the hallowed portals of Stanford for the last time, each of us on the way to greater glory in our chosen profession. So, was our stint at RDVP and flirting with social entrepreneurship just a diversion? A stepping stone to a corporate career? Perhaps, perhaps not. Whatever we may do in future, it is time to reflect on what we have achieved and what we could have done better. Is there anything amongst the myriad choices that Stanford offers, that we may have missed out? I am sure there are many more things I could have done if only the day had 32 hours, instead of 24!

The precise definition of "Social Entrepreneurship" still eludes me though I suspect I know a bit more now, than before I came here. Under normal circumstances, "social" and "entrepreneurship" would have been at two different ends of the political spectrum. But these are not normal times. Socialism has failed and capitalism is the undoubted winner. "Social" was short-form for "socialism", an ideology that has been declared failed the world over, ever since the collapse of the erstwhile Soviet Union and its satellites. "Entrepreneurship" or the process of "creative destruction" is the new mantra. Adam Smith would be happy to be around today. But so am I, though it may not appear so from my ramblings so far. All of us fellows were already entrepreneurs the day we threw away our corporate careers and secure jobs to come here. We were probably all of a "socialist" bent of mind to even think of serving society!! Loonies that we all were, we didn't know we were social entrepreneurs. But now we do know better.

The young sages of Silicon Valley say that capitalism is the only way. But as these sages go older and richer, they also seem to have more time to reflect on this. Maybe, get a bit wiser. So, maybe, there is another way. Aha, we shall call it "Social Entrepreneurship", entrepreneurship with a heart!! Voila! We have a new term. Just like we invent new and better mouse-traps, we coin new terms. New terms for presumably new paradigms.

So Fellows, in light of the new flavour of the decade, I am now a "Social Entrepreneur". The problem I have with that it has taken so long for most other people to get it. Why do they get it only when they are older and richer? Why not start early?

That is where the concept of a Digital Vision Program that nurtures Social Entrepreneurship comes in. It not only teaches us to become entrepreneurs, it also provides our potential benefactors an opportunity to reflect on societal obligations a bit more. It is a two-way street for sure.

So what have I learnt? Well, all is not lost. I certainly did not waste my time here. I have certainly learnt that any organisation, in order to achieve its mission, needs to be self-sustainable. It needs to be scalable and replicable. It needs to have well defined and articulated goals. It needs to have a plan, and it needs to have a sound implementation strategy. It must also have quantifiable metrics to measure performance. But, did you hear "social" in any of this? Well, I did. It hit me clearly when we learnt of outcomes and impact. That is when I started to understand the concept of social entrepreneurship. Bereft of all the clutter, the concept is actually quite simple and elegant. We need to be able to specify the kind of impact we intend our project to have on civil society, and find the tools to measure such impact.

So I can go back home happy, secure in the knowledge that my project on using mobile technologies for Disease Surveillance will have societal impact if it can help people at the margins of society stay healthy or treated quickly, should they happen to fall ill. I need to articulate my definition of social impact.

Overall, my stay at Stanford has been absolutely fantastic. There are many more things I would have liked to do but couldn't. Remember, focus? The memories of the strong bonds of fellowship that we developed here will always remain and I hope to continue to nurture these friendships. The exposure to people with different skills and experience has been over-whelming. All the speakers have been outstanding and we are thankful for the quality time they spent with us. Our mentors have been particularly helpful and shall be lifelong friends. We had a mini-United Nations here and it was absolutely thrilling to come in every day and see the passion and this tremendous diversity.

I do hope to go back and create such a programme in my country with the hope that social entrepreneurship will take root in youngsters. Stanford, the DV Program, and many other similar initiatives on this campus have all been very valuable experiences for me.

What would I love to do if given another opportunity? Well, this "bleeding heart liberal" would like to storm that bastion of conservatism across the campus and spend some time on another fellowship there. Know what I mean?

Cheers,
Shashank

RDVP Fellow, Stanford

http://handheldsforhealth.org