In this wonderful February 2011 piece on GigaOM, Om Malik writes about changing the DNA of a company. And he argues about how tough that is – but its possible instead to identify the bad behavior – which is creating the drag – and steadily change those behaviors. That’s very tough too… but possible.

In an unrelated piece, in the January 2012 Forbes India issue, Samar Srivastava explores how PepsiCo is approaching the BoP market in India and the changes its having to introduce into its retail operations. Including the creation of a new set of goals, different team and a cost structure and business model that is very dissimilar to the Global Pepsi business – but necessary in the context of a distributed, competitive, fragmented market like rural India.

And sometime in December I read a newspaper article analyzing the difference between Low Fare carriers and Low Cost carriers. (Couldn’t locate a link to this article unfortunately). But in essence the article pointed to Kingfisher and Jet being full service airlines trying a low fare service – with a full cost mindset. Versus Indigo (and the former Deccan airways) which were set up as Low Cost Carriers – thus making it possible for them to succeed in the tough industry climate – because their essence and core DNA was to be low cost across all aspects of operations and delivery.

What links them together?

Essentially the 3 different pieces of thinking all pointed back to the fact that:  To solve a nagging problem and to INNOVATE around a challenge, its impossible to find the direction without first RECOGNIZING THE MINDSET or DNA that drives the BEHAVIOUR of the organism. And start by changing the behavior that’s blocking innovation.

PepsiCo as a part of its India BoP strategy has set up office in an area that maybe somewhat dilapidated, but half the cost of its offices in the Global Business Park in Gurgaon. They are located with several other similar businesses, are using local production facilities, field sales men without field devices, leveraging local distributor cash, focusing on providing good incentives to the retailer and a variable pay structure to its team. Back to the basics of retail in many ways. But combined with a new set of relevant products for this market.

After a few unsuccessful years of trying smaller packets of popular products and cheaper costs – PepsiCo finally put together a strategy to start fresh in rural and BoP markets, without the behaviors of the global business. Collaborating with Tata on an energy drink for daily wage labour defines a big new start.

In Om’s article he quotes Gregory House, the cranky, genius doctor from the television show, House, who solves medical and diagnostic mysteries. House say’s “Almost dying doesn’t change anything. Dying changes everything.”

Indeed. Kingfisher airlines seem to have found some direction in its near-death experience. Will it go ahead and kill itself before it recreates though? It appears that the Management is keen to lay claim to the Full Service model, exiting Kingfisher Red over a period of time and focusing on its ‘service’ and ‘hospitality’ promise. Jet airways is seeking to stay in both fields – but with two different companies and two completely different operating cost models – one designed for an Efficient Full Service and the other designed around the promise of Low Cost.

Have these two airline teams dug deep enough into their DNA – and have the bad behaviors been identified? Will PepsiCo’s Iron Chusti, Glucoplus and Lehar win the market in rural India?

For now… it’s interesting to see the reflections and the new behaviors that are being put into place…. in the search for innovation impact!

Parvathi Menon, Bangalore.

The two days of engagement was a quick immersion into the complex Development world of the North East. The region is perceptibly isolated from the rest of the country, politically, geographically, economically... A brief research of the core challenges in this part of the country points to porous borders, leading to migration, infiltration and huge demand on a weak economy. High degree of ecological instability and recurring natural disasters repeatedly impacting livelihoods, increasing displacement and further reducing opportunities. Adding to the complexity is a feeling that ‘the Central Government does not care about the North East‘.

 Combine all this – human rights struggles, cross-border violations, weak economy, limited opportunity and lack of any strong progressive policy frameworks – and what you get is a situation ripe for human conflict.

In this context a strong Civil Society can be a major pillar on which new ideas, sustained human intervention and support can be crafted.  Ashoka India has elected some remarkable social entrepreneurs and development professionals over the last 2 decades who are leading the change. Over 20 of these Changemakers and Ashoka Fellows came together for the thematic session because the subject of Scale is troubling them as much as it is any other social entrepreneur in India.  The crux of the scale question for the nonprofit organization is  – HOW CAN WE GET SIGNIFICANTLY MORE PEOPLE TO BENEFIT FROM OUR PROGRAM, AT THE SAME TIME FIND WAYS TO BECOME FINANCIALLY SUSTAINABLE, and ALL THIS WITHOUT ADDING MAJOR COSTS TO OUR BOTTOM LINE?

The core of the discussion stayed around the deconstruction of the approach to scale. Debating weather the route to scale needs due consideration or should it be a natural serendipitous evolution. Is it even possible to scale purely non-profit models and if so how. The real challenge is to increase the impact of a programme/ initiative, without the resources or bandwidth available to increase people, capacity or infrastructure. And therefore this becomes an opportunity to really apply innovation thinking to the problem of scale.

Also under discussion was the very real concern with funding. While a lot more market-based venture funding is being made available to social entrepreneurs across India, the scenario in the North East demonstrates a classic need for blended funds. The ‘market’ in that sense is not nearly able to pay for the nature of challenges being addressed. What is needed is a combination of strategic long term institutional funding, Government support through programme funding for implementation and a need to fund capacity building of the teams working on potentially sustainable market based models. Foundations and CSR initiatives probably need to adopt some of the core capacity building areas under development in this region – especially related to ecology and its sustenance, allowing social innovators to find breakthroughs that combine development with economic returns.

Debating frameworks, routes and methodologies for scale, the discussion is a start point to some of the Fellows adopting a ‘by-design’ approach to significantly increase the impact of the work they are doing. Here is a sample of the Ashoka innovators and entrepreneurs who joined the scale discussion.

Babloo Loitongbam has designed a human rights curriculum that equips traditional village institutions to organize themselves and simultaneously internationalizing grassroots responses to human rights issues and violations.

Binalakshmi Nepram is the Founding Secretary General of the Control Arms Foundation of India, and focuses on grassroot efforts of disarmament. Bina works primarily with women affected by gun violence in the region. She also began the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network.

The region is known to be disaster prone with cyclones and high rainfall. Floods are common and waters have been known to rise up to 30 ft effecting over 10,000 villages every year. The impact of these turbulent weather conditions is high levels of displacement and poverty, the agriculture and farming sector of the region suffers greatly. Unregulated deforestation, pollution, indiscriminate fishing, and a lack of community involvement are depleting the region’s biggest asset.

Ravindranath is institutionalizing a civil society model in which villages and communities in flood-ravaged regions are better prepared to predict, confront, and cope with floods, turning a one-time calamity into opportunities for people to create new and alternative livelihoods. A service that facilitates healthy Pig breeding and farming is one such direct opportunity.

The region shares borders with Bhutan, China, Myanmar and Bangladesh and these poorly monitored borders have become a hub for human trafficking, narcotics and illegal arms trade, leading to more violence and strife amongst the people of the North East. Tourism is a significant source of income and livelihood in the region but the industry has suffered due to widespread ethnic conflict and violence.

Ashoka Fellow and inspiring social entrepreneur Hasina Kharbhih has developed the well known Meghalaya Model, a comprehensive tracking system that connects the state government, security agencies, legal groups, media and citizen organizations to combat cross-border trafficking of children and women. She is now on her way to developing an idea to rebuild the community of local handicraft connecting to national and international markets.

A market-based model that is making headway has been developed by Ashoka Fellow Pranjal Baruah. Farmers are put in control of their produce through his land-to-lab strategies, training and support – transforming the farmers into “mushroom entrepreneurs.” This results in new livelihood opportunities for thousands of unemployed youth and landless families in Assam. By federating farmers, Pranjal is creating systems that aim to put an end to farmer exploitation in the northeast region. We were treated to the taste of the highly coveted Oyster Mushrooms, a delicacy grown in the Hills of the North East – now cultivated in an organized manner through Pranjal’s initiative 

The Ashoka Fellows have been selected carefully, for their innovative work in livelihood, human rights, empowerment, environmental awareness and conservation, all subjects of great significance in the North East. In comparison to several market based social enterprise models we (Innovation Alchemy) engage with in States like Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Gujrat  – the models in the North East continue to stay strongly within the non-profit paradigm – and understandably so.

 Makes it even more compelling to have an innovation strategy that can help them leapfrog into a sustainable, high-impact mode in the next few years.

The International Energy Agency estimates that about 1.5 billion people around the globe do NOT have access to electricity and 85% of these people live in rural areas.  In India, close to 40% of the country’s population still lives with limited access to grid electricity. This is not to say that rural India is in complete darkness. The up-front cost of procuring clean, affordable energy is high and so several parts of rural India rely on kerosene, charcoal and other forms of fuel that are easier to access and in local purchase terms, cheaper. The existence of these alternatives indicates that people have the ability to pay for energy, but it needs to be in a format and amount that they can access. Regular energy sources have not been able to find ways to fit this need yet. Simpa Networks leverages this insight into the rural market to find a way to fit within the ‘ability to pay’.

“Customers pay upto 1000$ over 8-10 years for kerosene lanterns why not capture what the customer is willing to pay and give them a cleaner alternative?”says co-founder Michael Macharg.

Based in Bangalore, Simpa Networks aims to develop affordable energy solutions for the poor. Their product makes solar electricity accessible and affordable to the rural and under served consumer through their innovative pricing system called ‘Progressive Purchase’.

Simpa Networks has developed a metered solar energy system that generates electricity and can be installed in any rural home. The system can be purchased for a small upfront cost and can be recharged (through local agents via SMS) according to usage. If the meter runs out, it switches off and comes back on once the user has paid for a recharge (recharge amounts vary from 50-500 rupees). But the real proposition is that as the user recharges the system, he or she is slowly paying to own the system. Once enough recharges have been made (across a period of approximately 3-5 years), the system unlocks and produces solar power for free.

What’s enabling adoption?

Flexibility. One of the reasons rural India relies on kerosene is that it appears cheaper since the user can pay only what he or she can afford, and buy based on money at hand. Simpa recognizes that rural incomes are irregular and applies this insight to their product pricing; the cost of electricity generated by the solar panels is the same as buying kerosene lamps. The ability to pay for clean electricity in small doses and the added bonus of eventually owning a solar panel that generates free power is what makes this product especially remarkable and innovative.

What are the challenges?

Need to create and build distribution and service channels into the targeted markets. Finding the right local partners to help distribute the solar panels into rural homes is a challenge. Right now, Simpa partners with SELCO India to take their product into villages and reach the rural population in Karnataka; and will need to find similar dedicated partners in other geographies to expand and scale up. The system also potentially requires routine maintenance. Servicing and employing an efficient workforce of partners to execute this maintenance is also a challenge that the Simpa team is looking to work through.

Impact – current and potential

Simpa Networks was incorporated in India in mid 2011 and have conducted their first round of pilot testing in Karnataka. They have a Sales agreement with SELCO India to sell 1000 solar home systems in 2012, growing to 5000 + systems through SELCO and other distributors in 2013. By 2014 they aim to have sold 25,000 solar home systems demonstrating a clear model and scale approach.

Paul Needham co-founder elaborates on the Simpa Business model. Watch him speak at Poptech 2011 (Video).

Products, services and business models that can help bring cheaper, more user friendly, clean energy into homes and work spaces across India is going to be a huge opportunity for innovators and entrepreneurs alike. Its early days yet, but enterprises such as Simpa Networks are doing some critical experiments in this direction and the insights from their learning and growth in this market will form the basis for a lot of development in this industry.

We will explore this subject further in the next Alchemix session. If you haven’t yet joined any of the Alchemix insight sessions – here is your opportunity to find out more. You can also join the Alchemix Community via Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter @innovalchemy for regular updates.

If you are working on an interesting idea, new business model, unique challenge – we would love to meet you and understand more. Write to the Research & Insights Team at Innovation Alchemy (info@innovationalchemy.com) with a few details and we will be in touch.

Blog Post Research & Compilation: Mansi Reddy, 11th December 2011

Session 4 brings together 6 speakers, 60 participants in Bangalore and over 500 viewers* around the globe via the live stream – for an interactive 2 hour discussion.

The focus this time was on businesses and organizations that are applying the power of social energy: social platforms, tools, media and connects in a way that impacted their core business model.

The Premise for the session: Organizations are starting to use social tools in innovative ways, going beyond just ‘online presence’ and this is defining the evolution in harnessing social energy. The session was designed to debate and discuss what these new evolutions are showing us as insights, and is social energy an innovation tool that can be applied for impact?

Here’s a quick summary of what each speaker highlighted as their learning. You can also go towards the end of the post to read a summary of the insights that emerged through the group discussion.

Shradha Sharma talked about YourStory.in leveraging social platforms as a low-cost, easy access approach to help Start-ups and new ventures in India get visibility and coverage. YourStory fills a gap left wide open by the organized PR machinery that does not see value in covering ‘very young’ or ‘still unsuccessful’ teams and first generation entrepreneurs. Social media provides the apt vehicle to not only connect and share – but to also build a large community of similar start-up entrepreneurs and teams and follow them through their journey to success.

Maya Hemant shared the social publishing approach that Pratham Books leveraged. Several platforms used simultaneously (Scribd/ Twitter/ Facebook/ Soundcloud/ Flickr/ YouTube) to engage with a range of different audiences in customized ways. An excellent example is the sharing of published content that Pratham Books may have printed in a few languages but does not have the bandwidth to cover more languages. By sharing content (via CreativeCommons) through Scribd, interested people can republish the books in local languages. So a teacher in Germany can take a book or an interesting story from India, created by Pratham Books, translate and publish a few books for her school in german. Neat. ‘Social Publishing’ indeed.

Shankar and Nathalia shared the secret behind the immensely popular mDhil Facebook page. With over a 100,000 fans on Facebook, the mDhil Team has blended the power of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) on social media tools, with the original content that they create (over 70 videos on YouTube for example). And this blending of technology know-how and content helps them reach a very large number of youth interested in health information.

Sathy Joseph talked about Ashoka India’s approach. Still young with the social media efforts in India, the idea is to become a hub for information on social innovation, social enterprise and examples of change – leveraging the various platforms (such as Changemakers) that Ashoka works with in India and globally. With one of the largest networks of social entrepreneurs, Ashoka India can potentially leverage rich, authentic content, complemented by engagement through twitter chats and online engagements with social entrepreneurs. Ashoka India is hosting its 2nd Twitter chat next week on 22nd November 2011.

Sidhharth Mangaram provided an inside view into the architecture of the very popular FLOH network. It’s about changing the way urban singles meet and interact – powered by simple social rules that exist on Facebook. You log in through a Facebook application, automatically sharing basic details and allowing your social community to ‘know’ that you are joining the network. For people who are selected into the network, FLOH designs a set of very engaging real-world interactions that become the ground for people to meet and engage. Facebook then becomes a back up for continuing connects between people who like each other. Key message you cannot remove the real connect. Virtual connection is a critical ingredient – but without the real world meetings and engagement – this model wouldn’t work. So the key is getting the ‘blend’ right in a way that the experience stays rich.

Insights from the discussion…

Emerging from these five examples were some interesting thoughts and initial insights:

Individual use vs. organized community usage: While we all started using social tools for personal interactions – organizations are now finding ways to leverage that connect in ways that are meaningful – both for the user AND the larger purpose/ objective. And this is probably the evolution we will see further in Social Media 2.0. Infact as Siddharth Mangaram  highlighted, he personally does not like Facebook as a user, you cannot find him on Facebook even if you wanted to, the privacy settings are so high. But as a tool, he finds it to be incredibly useful in helping to connect similar communities. This leaves a question: will users start looking for more ‘orchestrated’ ‘meaningful’ ways to connect online – rather than just ‘be online’?

User Generated content is still a small part of the content – and as the debate on this progressed, it appeared that many of the current models are still in the ‘development’ stage, picking on early evolutions in communities and user engagement. Therefore most of the ideas we heard are creating their own content. As in any self-organizing system it is feasible to see a point in the near future where a lot of these communities are large enough to become self-generating?

What about user experience? How do we make that a focus in the design and development of social content and platforms? Currently the medium (Facebook/ Twitter/ Scribd…) defines its own user experience in many ways through the format – but will that change? Do companies need to create a layer above this that blends all the tools under a specific context?

While all this is evolving, so is the Social Media user. Low and middle-income families with meager means, with young adults in colleges who are new subscribers to Facebook. Youth who find it easier to be ‘social’ online than in real life. All in transformation, simultaneously.

The debate is still open on many of these points and the Alchemix Community will look forward to connecting again in a few months to focus on similar innovation tools and challenges, as they emerge and evolve.

Thank you for joining in and engaging – in person, via twitter, on Facebook and by catching us through the live stream

Send in comments or connect for more discussion with @innovalchemy and @parvathimenon

* 550 viewers via the live stream at peak points, with an average of 40 viewers at all times.

I couldn’t move. Its strange how sadness can be a physical weight. Some days must never dawn. Tears rolled down in heartbreak for the loss of a man who I had never seen in person, never met in my life – but with whom I co founded my company in 2009.

Its a personal loss for me, and probably for millions of other people who have dared to dream up an idea in their head and go out try to build it. Armed with a conviction and a Mac Book, as the first and only close partner on the entrepreneurial journey.

Don’t you have a co-founder I am often asked, strangely entrepreneurial success is linked to having  co-founders who complement strengths and not being a lonely dreamer with some ideas.

But I do. My first gleaming purchase with the limited cash on hand was a Mac Book pro. I knew that if there was anything I needed on this journey it would be a fast, super efficient, user centric machine that could partner me on this road. Everything I have ever done in the last few years, each victory and several failures are all contained in the depths of the documents, details and ideas that are stored within its elegant frame. New ideas, inspiration, sounding board, all accessible to me through the simple features of the incredible Mac. And if ever I was tempted to do a mediocre job – the Mac Book in its perfection would deny me that slack.

In conferences across the world full of like minded people I would see Macs, IPhones and IPads competing with the number of humans in the room. If you had an idea, believed in yourself, you could not really be using anything other than an Apple. Is it possible to pour your philosophy into hardware and software such that the lines between a concept and its physical avatar could be reduced to an illusion? It would seem impossible if Steve Jobs had not shown us how.

As millions in the world did, I followed every keynote, every word uttered by Jobs in the delightful anticipation of knowing that he would again push the boundary of innovation. And show us what else was possible, and how easily we had accepted the last Apple product as ‘the best’ whereas the best was always yet to come.

You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.

Steve – thank you for the inspiration to live, believe in and pursue a dream. And for being my inadvertent co-founder.

Many initiatives, both government and private have been started in the past decade to address the issues of India’s healthcare system. Government initiatives and funding are far below international recommendations and there still remains a severe shortage of sub-centers, primary health centers, and community health centers and basic health care initiatives are lacking. A Boston Analytics study on the state of healthcare in India indicates that “It is expected that the private sector will continue to take on an increasing role in India’s healthcare system“.

Innovation Alchemy hosted the 3rd session of Alchemix to address and explore some of these opportunities through a discussion with entrepreneurs exploring Healthcare in India. The session was held at the DREAM:IN Center in collaboration with Idiom.

We invited the founders of two innovative, Bangalore based businesses that are attempting to create impact in the healthcare space to speak at the session. Dr. Shantanu Rahman and Dr. (Maj.) Satish Jeevannavar from NationWide Primary Healthcare Services Pvt. Ltd. and Nandu Madhava, Founder & CEO of mDhil shared their experience and insights.

The NationWide team attended our last Alchemix session as participants (Innovation in Sanitation and Waste Management). We were intrigued by their model and researched it to understand more (read the blog post). This became the basis to seek out a few more Healthcare models to bring together at the Alchemix session.

NationWide Primary Healthcare Services have set up clinics in neighborhoods in Bangalore that provide accessible, affordable primary healthcare options to families in the area. They are not looking to set up large multi specialty Hospitals – but instead smaller, local centers with high quality General Practitioners.

Nationwide Team at Alchemix Session 3

The emphasis on the use of a General Practitioner, extensive use of EMR’s (Electronic Medical Reports) and their focus on providing primary care to urban Indian Families makes them unique.

The Innovation Challenge: Enable a shift in mindset for large scale adoption

What emerged from the discussion around the NationWide model was that in order for the model to be successfully adopted, NationWide would have to work through the challenge of shifting the mindset of people who use medical facilities. Right now, the belief is that a medical specialist is your go-to person when dealing with any health issue; this is evident from the great advancements in India’s secondary and tertiary healthcare facilities. People self diagnose or head to a specialist or large specialty hospitals to treat small ailments like a fever or a headache when what they need to do is visit a General Practitioner. A GP offers better, more customizable services, deeper familiarity, will know when to recommend a visit to a specialist and should be the first point of contact. But this form of medicine has almost vanished in urban India.

Similarly with the use of Electronic Medical Records (EMRs). NationWide creates EMRs for all its patients and makes them accessible via the web to the patient anywhere anytime. But, as one of the participants asked, why should one share details of their medical history with a private organization like NationWide? Because it will create transparency and the ability for any doctor anywhere to help the patient with those records. But again this requires a mindset shift for adoption.

Clearly, innovation in healthcare would require a disruption of some of the current approaches and paradigms – and a new value proposition to be identified.

mDhil is attempting to take the subject of health directly to users via a mobile & web enabled platform. They provide information and education on basic health and health issues via sms, online literature and simple video clips available via the web.

Nandu Madhava, mDhil’s founder, after graduating from college volunteered as a medical transcriber with the PeaceCorp in South America, and it was there that he realized “many people suffer due to a lack of basic health info”. Urban Centers in India are also seeing a huge growth in very basic, preventable health problems due to a lack of simple information. mDhil tries to address this issue by providing basic info to the urban population.

A lot of mDhil’s content is on taboo subjects like sex, STD’s, HIV, menstruation and reproduction. The Indian cultural opinion and values on sex and other related subjects make it difficult to discuss and learn about. Indian teenagers have questions about sex and often have no available, reliable source to go to.

mDhil info is available on mobile phones through the regular service providers like Airtel and Vodafone and is a great way to educate in a manner that also retains personal privacy. With recent developments in 3G technology, the mobile phone offers the best, most private way to access information and learn about taboo subjects. As Nandu said “…these days a 2nd hand smart phone is available as cheap as Rs. 2500..” making this content accessible to a large target audience through a simple sms.

An individual’s sexual health is a personal issue and dealing with it requires a certain level of sensitivity. That being said, it is crucial that personal, taboo issues like sex, contraception, STI’s not be neglected or ignored. mDhil is sensitive to this and provides  a private forum for clear, factual information that is relevant and useful.

Innovators Challenge: Finding Investors willing to risk investment during the prototype and experiments phase

Nandu shared that he found it challenging to convince investors to initially contribute to mDhil as the business model did not seem to generate any direct revenue – and he was playing around in a taboo subject where no real tangible value seemed visible. Initially, investors could not see the value in simply generating and publishing health related content. mDhil worked backwards, created content before establishing a pool of users. The content generated attention from followers online and via social media networks. From here emerged a value proposition for Mobile Service providers to provide this information via SMS downloads. Teenagers and young adults are a huge base of Mobile users – and service providers are always looking for ways to engage this audience in pay for use options. This fits in perfectly.

Now, mDhil.com generates revenue through advertising, sms content and their popularity has also generated investments. The primary goal of mDhil continues to be to focus on creating relevant content for its targeted user base.

Basic Primary Healthcare Gaps and the Potential to Scale

The Alchemix session yielded a rich discussion on these models and what is clear is the need for disruption at the primary level. Creating far higher access and ease of use to the basic health care needs. The government or large multi specialty Hospitals do not have to be the only players in the healthcare space as privately run social enterprises like mDhil and NationWide Primary Healthcare Services are finding ways to create value and function within the gaps.

Alchemix

Alchemix is a platform for people to learn about new models and have discussions about innovation and enterprise. If you would like to contribute by writing a blog or have an interesting idea for us to explore, do get in touch by sending an email to info@innovationalchemy.com.

If you found this blog interesting, or wish to join the next Alchemix session, like us on Facebook . For more insight on what we do follow us on twitter @innovalchemy.

View more pictures from the Alchemix Session here.

Author: Mansi Reddy, Innovation Alchemy, Bangalore, 18th August 2011.

Guest Post by Dr. Shelly Batra, Founder and President, OperationASHA

“There is a tide in the affairs of men, which taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,” so said Shakespeare, believing, as I do, that one can bring about a change by acting as a catalyst. There are a lot of things that exist disparately, which, when combined at the right time by the right people, create a revolution.

I have worked as a medical specialist for several years. Over the years, I have witnessed every kind of human misery. I have worked under challenging conditions in understaffed, overcrowded public hospitals, where life was a constant war against infection and anemia. I have even performed emergency Caesarian sections by candlelight! The worst cases were those where because of an ailment, indignities would be heaped upon the patient, and social discrimination would raise its ugly head. These were truly those who suffer, for they would have no food, no shelter, no family, no treatment, only pain and suffering. Tuberculosis (TB) is one such disease where patients have to face horrifying discrimination and violation of human rights.

Operation ASHA (ASHA = ‘hope’ in Hindi) is a Nonprofit that works towards eliminating tuberculosis, a deadly but treatable disease. Currently, Operation ASHA provides treatment, comprehensive education, and counseling services to 4.5 million slum and village-dwellers in India and Cambodia.

As the largest nonprofit provider of TB treatment in India, our unique model works at the grassroots level to bring health and economic benefits to disadvantaged communities. Our TB treatment centers, also known as DOTS (Direct Observed Treatment Short course) centers, are established near or in convenient locations such as religious centers, bus stops, and stores within disadvantaged communities.  They are open early morning and late evening. Thus, patients can procure medication conveniently without wasting time and money on transportation, or losing wages from missed work.

Operation ASHA also creates jobs or augments the income of people from disadvantaged communities. Young men and women from slums and villages receive training and a salary from Operation ASHA to serve as counselors. 80% of our budget goes towards paying salaries of these people.  By placing treatment centers within the heart of underserved communities and by employing locals, Operation ASHA’s TB detection rate has increased substantially and the treatment default rate has decreased several times.

In an attempt to improve patient monitoring and further decrease the treatment default rate, Operation ASHA has partnered with the Microsoft Research to develop biometric technology. This low-cost technology tracks TB patients’ compliance with their treatment regimens. When a patient initially registers at a treatment centre, his or her fingerprint is recorded on a biometric device. Each time that patient revisits the DOTS centre to take his or her medication an electronic record is created when their fingerprint is scanned. At the end of each day, a list is generated and reviewed by a supervisor. Those counselors with patients who missed a dose are notified and given 24 hours to administer the treatment. Missed doses can have catastrophic consequences. Missing medication can lead to Multidrug resistant TB (MDR-TB) and extensively drug resistant TB (XDR-TB), which are global concerns. Operation ASHA reduces drug resistance in our patients by ensuring that they take their treatment regularly for the full 6 – 9 months.

Our biometric technology is currently used in 17 centers in the heart of Delhi’s urban slums, and more than 1300 patients have been registered on the biometrics. The precise tracking and monitoring that can be achieved with biometrics has reduced our default rate to much less than 3% – a number previously considered impossible to achieve in slum areas.

Our low-cost biometric technology has not only ‘turned the tap off’ on MDR TB, it also reduces the cost of treatment per patient, improves productivity of staff, prevents ‘gaming’ of the system, and ensures total transparency. It also streamlines our reporting system by electronically generating monthly reports, thus proving environmentally friendly and time saving. More funding is required to extend this technology to our other existing centers in India and Cambodia.

Tuberculosis eradication needs all hands on deck. This can happen in our lifetimes, but only if we intensify efforts, focus on prevention of MDR TB, and fight the disease with all our resources and all our might. Let’s now make a resolution to combat TB on a war footing. The fight goes on………..

OperationASHA are winners of the 2011 India Development Marketplace, organized by the World Bank and IFC South Asia and plan to use the grant funding to increase the reach of their programme by training more local counselors to help the communities in need.

For more information about Operation ASHA and its success visit the Website or email Dr. Shelly Batra at shelly.batra@opasha.org. You can also follow updates on the work of the Team on twitter @OperationASHA

All photographs copyright: Operation Asha and Keiran Oudshoorn, 2010.

Absolutely. There has been a lot of debate on this subject, especially around the belief that India cannot excel in building/nurturing product companies. I believe it can, and the time to carve that road ahead is now! Read on for my views!

Siva Ramamoorthy, Vice President, Genband Inc

While India has succeeded in building world leading services companies in almost all verticals – Information Communication Technology (ICT), Telecom Service Providers, Hotels, Healthcare – our performance in building Innovation driven product companies has been spotty. While we have a few successful role models such as Comviva, Tejas Networks; we are still a long way to go. By comparison puny Israel with a population of around two third’s of Bangalore boasts a bevy of Product companies in spaces as diverse as Aerospace, defense, Security, Software, Silicon. Next to Canada, Israel has the highest number of listings in the US Stock market. The tech heavy NASDAQ is home to Gilat, Audiocodes, Check Point, Radware and several more Israeli companies.

Why is it so? Does India really need to succeed in building Innovation driven product companies to evolve as a Global power? Are we better of focusing on our core competencies as Gary Hamel of HBS would say and live with being a services country?

Large countries need diversities in their industries. As Jessie Paul writes in her book “No Money Marketing”  two factors have flattened the world – the Internet and Container ships. Perhaps migration of talent, Global media can be added to the list as World Flatteners. While smaller countries such as Taiwan and Israel can focus and specialize; large countries with large populations need diversity of Industries. Large countries the way I see it are conglomerates of clusters – such as Tirupur’s Textile cluster, Surat’s Diamond cluster. Such clusters align with the geographical/ cultural diversity of large countries. Overall to sustain Global ups and downs and to provide employment to large populations,countries such as India need Intellectual diversity in their industries.

With that context I believe that India needs to evolve and focus on building a few world class Innovation Driven product companies. Clearly out of the hundreds of US based Google’s and Cisco’s and Intel’s we have room for a few such companies in this country of 1.2 Billion people.

Having led Marketing at Tejas Networks, one of India’s few successful product companies I am very optimistic on the future of product companies in India. I see a few reasons for this trend.

Emergence of India as a Market

With 1.2 Billion people and an economy growing at 8-9 % India has now arrived as a consumption market. Monitoring the annual reports of US listed public companies over the last 10 years, it is amazing at the much increased frequency of India appearing in these reports. Our Capex consumption in areas such as Defense, Telecom and Petroleum are among the top 5, 6 worldwide. This is creating a Pull-in effect for Indian product companies to develop products for this space.

Let us take mobile phones as an example. Years ago mobile phones had lifecycles of two or three years. The lifecycle of handsets is now around 12 months and possibly even lower in the low/middle segment of mobile phones- which is the bulk of the Indian handset consumption. Is it possible to design a handset with a lifecycle of 12 months or less sitting in the super cold Northern Europe for consumption in India? Perhaps not. Design decisions move closer to the point of consumption, eventually resulting in more and more of the innovation cycle happening in India.

Indian Venture Capital Ecosystem:

Venture Capitalists have played a bigrole in building an ecosystem for product companies in the US. Sand hillroad in Paolo Alto and the stories around VC’s identifying/ funding/ nurturing garage entrepreneurs are legendary in the IT industry.  Billions of dollars have been raised by several Indian/ US VC’s.  VC investments have grown significantly from around $500 Million in 2003 to over US $18 billion in 2010.

While most of the VC’s operating in India/investing in India do so at the Seed B/C stage or in plain English Middle/Late stage; several World class VC’s operate at the early stage as well.  Examples include Helion Ventures, NEA ventures, Venture East and several others. Besides providing the needed funds for startups to form, such world-class VC’s can serve and bring together very powerful mentor networks.

Role Models to follow:

Nothing breeds success like Success! The success of IT giants such as Infosys and Wipro has created an Indian ICT Services space of $60 Billion annual revenue, employing over 2.5 Million people. In the last 5,6 years we have seen a few successful telecom software and products companies such as Sasken (http://www.sasken.com/), Comviva (http://www.comviva.com/), Tejas Networks (http://www.tejasnetworks.com/), and Subex (http://www.subexworld.com/)among others. Many of them have pursued a “Start in India / Other Emerging markets and go into the Developed Markets” strategy which seems to be working.

Perhaps a 1000 flowers will bloom behind!

The successful $1.3 Billion IPO of Apple in 1980 has motivated waves of Innovation behind it, resulting in more successful IPO’s which in turn motivate more successful IPO’s.

MNC’s Move into India and move more High End work here:

Companies such as Intel, Cisco have over the last 10 years brought in more and more high end design/ Innovation activities into their India centers. I remember Intel announcing a few years ago that many of their Mobile CPU’s are now being designed in India. Likewise Cisco’s Globalization Center (http://www.cisco.com/web/about/ciscoitatwork/highlights/111620071.html) brings together almost all of Cisco’s functions including product innovation into India. Such high end activities have a rub off effect on the Local innovation ecosystem with talent flowing in from efforts into startups.

The ‘Return to India’ Phenomena:

With the booming economy, available of virtually all goods and services and the capacity to live closer to friends and family, many Indian are returning back after spending career spans in the US and other advanced Innovation countries. Many such engineers having spent a career working for a Product company such as Cisco seek out similar opportunities.

I believe now would be a great time for the Indian Industry especially in the ICT space to work together and nurture/build more such companies. Organizations such as CII, NASSCOM are starting to play a role in bringing together a self-reinforcing ecosystem for such Innovation based product companies to thrive. Clearly there is a need to bring together these product companies, Venture Capitalists, Related Services – product companies like Infosys, Symphony so that we can look at the gating factors and get into the mode of ‘carving the road ahead’. We can leverage the India brand built by Services behemoths such as Infosys, Wipro and work towards moving into the next steps of Innovation and Product expertise.

It would be critical for India to leverage all elements of the ecosystem that are slowly coming together – and mobilize them towards carving a clear road ahead as a Product Innovation Hub.

About the Author: Siva Ramamoorthy ; Follow on twitter @sivakm

Mansi Reddy, June 13th 2011

The primary health care space in India suffers from a sense of scarcity. Limited doctors, unused clinics and poor facilities.  Most doctors in India have chosen to specialize and you will either find large multidisciplinary specialty hospitals or private clinics run by specialists. The ubiquitous General Physician is missing!  In India, a successful doctor is a specialized one; General Practitioners are not valued in the same way as a Cardiologist or Neurosurgeon. And so India’s primary health care system over many years has ended up suffering from an over dose of specialty while more than 80% of illnesses require the advice of a good General Physician who knows you. This leaves a large unmet demand for primary health care doctors and facilities.

And this is where the Founders of Nationwide Primary Healthcare have decided to create a disruptive model.

Dr. Santanu Chattopadhyay and his team joined the Alchemix Session in April 2011 to participate in a discussion. And we followed up with a visit to their Clinic to understand the model better.

16^th main in Indiranagar looks like any other street in the area; clean, tree lined with old bunglows, and kids running around. This is the street Nation Wide Primary Healthcare Services chose to set up shop. A renovated bungalow with a lush green lawn on 16^th main road now houses the head office and clinic of an innovative health care enterprise, the answer to urban India’s primary health issues.

Walking in, you can’t help but be taken aback by the ‘non-hospital looking’ facility. But within the clinic they address pretty much every health need a family could have, right from pediatrics and gynecology to blood tests, diagnostics, referrals and second opinions through a network on internal and external Doctors. Importantly, they offer home visits (remember how GP’s used to come home to visit the family many years ago and stay on for long chats?) and health care plans that are specific to your body’s needs. A critical aspect of their health care model is the extensive use of EMR’s or Electronic Medical Records that contain a patient’s history and information, made readily available to the patient and doctors. Starting at around Rs. 300 per month, these are affordable and easy to access for family’s looking for a family doctor.

There is scope for a Nation Wide clinic in cities across India. Dr. Santanu Chattopadhyay, Founder and Managing Director of Nation Wide walked us through the evolution of this model. He saw that the growing need for tertiary and secondary health care systems was a direct result of a neglected primary care system. “You shouldn’t have to go to a hospital when you feel a little bit under the weather and shouldn’t wait till a health issue becomes serious before you go see a doctor. Prevention is given priority at Nation Wide”, explained Dr. Chattopadhyay.

Dr. (Maj) Satish Jeevannavar, Associate Director, Business Development, explained that Nation Wide’s view on prevention is cultivated by developing a strong, long term, open relationship with your doctor. They set up online accounts with medical history for every patient, conduct follow up phone calls (even when a patient isn’t sick!), have a 24/7 on call facility and even provide for home visits. The extensive use of EMR’s (Electronic Medical Records) allows for quick and easy access to a patient’s history. Nation Wide applies a holistic diagnosis method and tries to develop long term relationships between patients and their doctor. Nation Wide realizes the impact and value a knowledgeable doctor (with a thorough medical history of the patient) creates and tries to cultivate behavior change and awareness amongst patients.

Dr. Santanu highlights that a big innovation challenge was to find qualified GP’s in India. With a weak GP development approach in India, this needed a breakthrough. Interestingly many qualified NRI GP’s wish to come back to India but find little space in the ‘over-specialized’ medical space. Dr. Chattopadhyay’s team leverages this gap and provides a very fulfilling opportunity to returning GP’s to help build the Hub and spoke model of the Nation Wide network. As a result the Doctors bring in  the experience of working in international health care systems, this exposure allows Nation Wide practitioners to adopt the best practices from the world over. This route back to basics seems to have a few key elements:

• A focus on primary health care which forms almost 80% of all health requirements
• Perform the functions of a family doctor in an organized, easily accessible, affordable residential sphere.
• Utilize the General Practitioner method of treatment and diagnosis by employing NRI doctors returning to India with tremendous GP experience , or retiring Army Doctors who also have experience working within a highly evolved GP system
• Stress on the significance of an up-to-date, thorough medical history in diagnosing health concerns. Habitual communication (for example: follow up calls, irrespective of a person’s health status) with their doctors is a key element in their practices.

Nation Wide follows a hub and spoke model. In Bangalore, the first city of focus has hubs in Indiranagar and Whitefield, and clinics in Koramangala and smaller clinics in a couple of gated communities in Bangalore. They also have clinics in a few corporate organizations and are looking to expand their model in Bangalore, Mumbai and other cities by 2012.

Picture an India in a couple years time that hosts extensive, easy to access primary health care facilities, electronic medical information and tracking in every city to every urban family at an affordable price. The next time you feel a bit out of sorts, don’t rush to the big multispeciality hospital or wait till the problem gets worse, look up your nearest Nation Wide clinic and register with them. As Dr. Preeti Satish reiterates, walk-ins are also welcome!

What looks like a competitive market is sometimes a huge opportunity for disruption. It just requires an entrepreneur to look at it from a different perspective…. especially in markets where years of development have led to expensive and complex solutions, leaving space open for simple ideas that take you back to basics…..

Follow us on Twitter @innovalchemy for regular updates on Research and Insights from the Innovation Alchemy Team.

If you are working on an interesting idea, new business model, unique challenge – we would love to meet you and understand more. Write to the Research & Insights Team at Innovation Alchemy (info@innovationalchemy.com) with a few details and we will be in touch.

And then S. Vishwanath (Adviser to Arghyam a foundation working on water and sanitation projects around India and Founder of the Rain Water Club ) shifted gears and took us through the evolving business models and policies in human waste management.

Meeting S. Vishwanath (@zenrainman) via discussions through the micro blogging site Twitter is one of those experiences that keeps me, personally, hooked to the power of social media. I was intrigued by his points of view on the process of Policy creation. Discovering that he is a fellow Bangalorean, I traveled to north Bangalore to catch up with him. And through this I discovered a part of the city that’s completely new to me – and had a hugely insightful discussion with someone who has an inspiring depth of insights, action and perspectives on water, waste management.

The addition of over 3 million people to Bangalore just in the last decade has put huge pressure on the water treatment and waste management systems of the city. Only 50% of the homes are connected to an old and aging system of sanitation (Read More). The rest have to manage with septic tanks and such. But without any clear policy of how and where this waste will be managed, much of it flows into the lakes of Bangalore along with industrial waste causing alarming levels of pollution, affecting the ground water over 100 kilometers outside Bangalore.

As the city bludgeons, clearly the Government cannot keep up. Water is more or less privatized with over 50% of the city’s supplies coming in via water Trucks that will deliver drinking water to your door-step at a cost. The locally modified Honey Sucker Trucks use the same enterprise principal and do the same for human waste.

There are over 300 of these bright yellow trucks that you will see zipping across Bangalore.

With an unbeatable 10-minute promise, and for a small fee, these enterprising truck drivers will bring in their super suction pumps, clean up your septic tank and leave your home within 10-15 minutes. The waste is taken to the outskirts of Bangalore where Farmers are having a huge challenge with fertilizers and the costs of farm input. Human excreta, a rich source of the necessary nutrients as manure becomes a resource that can be ‘leveraged’.  Farmers pay the trucks to dump the waste into pits where it’s transformed into manure for the farms.

This model today is running because of the enterprise of a bunch of truck drivers and farmers who have found a way to convert waste into a purposeful resource in an economically sustainable manner. It’s a naturally evolved prototype of an idea that can spearhead some really meaningful reform in waste management policy – IF one chooses to see it in that light.

A debate ensues in the Alchemix Session. Allow the Honey sucker model to run in the form of private enterprise? AND/ OR integrate it into a policy for waste management that rewards citizens for using such sustainable methods for waste management? But to really make it policy it would be critical to look at the entire lifecycle and formalize how this could be scaled – right? How can the waste be stored and converted into Manure at a large scale? How many farmers can really use and work with this type of waste? How can you incentivise citizens to use this process? Who puts in the infrastructure costs for expanding this model? (Each truck costs approximately Rupees 7.5 Lakh, breaking even in a 12-month cycle) Should farmers be responsible for the painful process of transforming the waste into usable manure? What is the responsibility of urban dwellers that are producing the waste? The current model is working on small-scale private enterprise (truck drivers become truck owners), should this be corporatized?

Several different perspectives emerge as we discuss the layers of this challenge – and what constitutes good policy and how these entrepreneurial experiments can be leveraged as working models, becoming the basis for sustainable policy.

Vishwanath makes a fundamental point, effective policy also needs an able institution that has the intent AND the ability to execute effective policy – which is not necessarily available right now.

Clearly, a single session cannot arrive at any conclusive points of movement, but the interactions between the diverse audience group and the practitioner experts throw up some pointers on the elements of innovative policy creation:

• Bring together a diverse groups of practitioners, researchers and interested citizens to articulate the real challenge
  

• Identify the range of ideas that are already active on the periphery of ‘structured solutions’. Ideas that have evolved through the enterprise of people – someone has always found a shorter, more economical route that is far more effective

• Identify the layers of the solution that would make it more scalable – through democratic debate anchored by an enlightened orchestrator (can the Government ever be this??)

• Build out ‘ecosystem models’ that elaborate on the interrelationships between the stakeholders involved in the solution

• Identify a series of pilots that could experiment with a range of solutions – essentially seeking ‘scale insights’

• Convert to version 1 policy based on successful Pilots

• Evolve Policy through a few versions of pilots over a 5-6 year period till it has been use-case tested across a range of pressures

• Confirm and crystallize the final policy

Much, much easier said than done, no doubt!!

But it’s exciting to know that a framework can be evolved through dialogue, debate and discussion. Huge thanks to Vishwanath for initiating the start point for such a great debate – and for bringing alive the discussion at the Alchemix Session! More discussions coming up.

Want to know more about the Rainwater Club? Find it here

Seeking more information about Biome Solutions?

More reading on water, waste and sanitation is available here.

Want to join the next Alchemix Session at the Innovation Alchemy Hub? Visit the Facebook page (www.facebook.com/innovationalchemy ) and Like it, you will get regular updates on these sessions.

Have a point of view, disagree with what’s written here, or agree and wish to elaborate further – please drop us a comment below! Thank you – and see you at the next Alchemix Session!