Encouraging entrepreneurship in vulnerable environments Anshul Saxena Vikas Agarwal 9 January, 2007 CINE

Empowering Poor Access to resources, skills, institutions & technologies – Communication and Power interplay – Risk management Nature of risk Portfolio diversity and vulnerability – Building upon local knowledge systems – Role of culture, religion and other social institutions – IPR Protection – Retaining young blood

Dial “M” for Munna bhai

Telecom revolution Pride Fun activity Loyal customer base 25% increase in sales Business model for others

“Let there be light”… Shantipada Gon Chaudhuri Director, West Bengal Renewable Energy Agency (WBREDA)

Sunny side-up Savings up to Rs 10,000 p.a. Low crime rates (Street lights) Better medical facilities (refrigerators) New forms of entertainment (Radio, TV etc) Significant improvement in students’ performances Women can sew till late to supplement the family income Increased productivity (average man-hour work up by 10%) Gon Chaudhuri and his men won the Green Oscar in 2003 There are 22,000 applications for solar power pending now Target motto: ‘Electricity for all by 2012’

Banker of the poor Md. Yusuf: – PhD in Economics, Vanderbilt University, USA – Prof. in Vanderbilt University, USA – Fund villagers from own money for 6 years – Founded “Grameen” bank in 1983 Micro-credit bank – $3 billion – 2 million Bangladeshi benefitted Recognition: – Nobel peace prize (2006) – Included in list of 20 real heroes (US News & World Report, 2001)

Innovations: The Corporate Way Creativity: At employee level… approx. all big organizations have it To nourish creativity and make it to innovation level requires support Big Corporations have always come under tight grip of bureaucracy Creativity and Innovation could not get proper nourishment and support, because – They could not pass through tight and slow web of bureaucracy – Old stalwards could not understand changing environments and business requirements Some organizations promoted creativity but could not shape it to innovation

Xerox Story 1 st Personal Computer (PC) Xerox … COULD HAVE owned the PC revolution One of the biggest corporations in 1970s in US economy Biggest example of bureaucratic organization that could not support innovation Xerox PRAC invented desktop computing machines, icons, WYSIWYG printing But kept aside by ‘Commandos’ as they could not take their mindset out of copier business

1979: Death of ‘Alto’

IBM think tank – ‘Boca Raton’ Team volunteered with conditions that management (commandos) leave them alone and look the other way Management agreed And Boca Raton team violated every procedure in the book of IBM.. Result IBM PC For them… BAD was in fact GOOD Later IBM realized and changed the procedure to support innovation.. Now IBM has a good track record of commercializing innovations IBM Story

Creativity, as has been said, consists largely of rearranging what we know in order to find out what we do not know. Hence, to think creatively, we must be able to look afresh at what we normally take for granted.“ … George Kneller

Thank You !!