IDEO

This post was originally posted on the Ripple Effect blog by Acumen Fund’s Sangeeta Chowdry - Ripple Effect Project Manager.

Ripple Effect team presenting at the conference

The Ripple Effect team marked the end of the successful India phase of the project by attending and presenting at the recently concluded Water Summit 2009 conference held in New Delhi.

The summit had an excellent turnout with over 150 attendees and speakers representing multiple stakeholders from the water sector in India. These included senior representatives from the Government of India, NGOs, World Economic Forum, UNDP, USAID, SDC, private sector, as well as various State Water Boards and financial institutions.

An introduction to the Ripple Effect project was made by Acumen Fund and IDEO, followed by presentations from four of the organizations running the pilot projects – Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, Naandi Foundation, Piramal Foundation and Water Health India.

All the presentations were very well received by the attendees, who also provided valuable feedback to us. In particular, the technology based work of Piramal and Naandi was complimented by several members of the audience. It was mentioned that while similar ideas had been implemented elsewhere, (eg. by Mother Dairy in India), this approach had not been tested in the water sector until now. One audience member commented that successful projects like they had seen within the Ripple Effect, should be linked to the public sector through policy interventions, in order to reach even greater scale. Yet another, from an international NGO, suggested starting a Ripple Effect like project in sanitation.

Jal Bhagirathi water outlet

During the pilot presentations, Jal Bhagirathi spoke of the successes it had achieved through their public-private-community partnerships model. Their reverse osmosis plant was now selling water to newly established remote water outlets, owned and managed by the community members. The project resulted in improved availability of safe drinking water while providing opportunities for livelihood generation for the women in the village. As a result of this project, the volume of water sold from their reverse osmosis plant, had increased from an average 2000 liters a day to 12,000 liters per day. The location of the outlets had resulted in reducing the distance of access to water from 2 km to under 0.5 km for the community.

This post was originally posted on the Ripple Effect blog by Acumen Fund’s Sangeeta Chowdry - Ripple Effect Project Manager.

At the edges of the Thar desert in Rajasthan, in the region of Marwar -The Land of Death- Jal Bhagirathi Foundation, a Ripple Effect pilot awardee, has been working to bring water security to village communities. This is no small challenge in a region where the average annual rainfall is a mere 100-500mm and the water table is declining at a rate of 1-2 meters a year. The focus of communities here is to get access to any water at all – let alone safe water. It is in this environment that JBF has, amongst other water harvesting initiatives, been running a reverse-osmosis treatment plant in Pachpadra, about 100 km from Jodhpur.

Ripple Effect and JBF have been working together to develop a sustainable business model to extend access to safe drinking water to households located at a distance from the RO plant. This model not only aims to meet the water needs of these communities but also to provide a source of empowerment through livelihood provision to the members of local self-help groups.

The model that is being operationalized has water from the reverse-osmosis plant delivered to several distribution outlets run by members of the local self-help group where it is then sold on to other households. By reaching both wholesale and retail users, the output of the plant is being tripled and local incomes increased. The careful and collaborative business planning that went into the model has enhanced its potential for viability and sustainability – costs of operations have been carefully determined; a break-even analysis has been performed; and a tiered pricing strategy implemented.

Planning can, however, only go so far. Critical to the success of this model is the buy-in of the community – water quality was not previously seen as a high priority – and a powerful awareness-raising and marketing campaign was essential. In this area JBF’s passionate work made all the difference. In a few short weeks multiple meetings and discussions were held with self-help groups; market surveys of hundreds of households were completed; individuals selected and trained to run outlets; many hours of physical labour dedicated to gearing the plant to handle the up-scaled operations; and multiple community awareness activities have been undertaken and will continue. It has been most heartening to watch the skeptical village Sarpanch, turn into the foremost champion of the project and lead a rally through the village to announce the work! The local media too has picked up on the work being done and has publicized this swaach (safe) water initiative.

It has been truly remarkable to have been on this journey with JBF and to see the synergies from effective public, private, community partnership. At the time of writing this, the demand of the water at the outlets has already reached twice the initial target!

It’s 9 a.m., day two of Net Impact.  I grab my compostable coffee cup and head into the session on social intrapreneurship.  The panel focuses on corporate changemakers working inside businesses to deliver innovative market solutions for the world’s toughest social and environmental challenges.  Among the panelists is Acumen Fund Fellow alumna Jocelyn Wyatt who currently serves as the Head of Social Impact and Business Factors at IDEO, a global design consultancy.

Jocelyn came to know about IDEO during her Acumen Fellowship while visiting VisionSpring in India.  IDEO was interested in bringing in someone to build out the firm’s social impact work, so she wrote her own job description – knowing nothing about design and having never visited the firm itself – was made an offer, and then started the job.

One of her biggest surprises was that she had to figure out her job once she got there.  She was also surprised to discover a thriving group of social entrepreneurs who were already on board at IDEO.  Jocelyn realizes that the biggest asset in being able to make changes in a company is having a team of like-minded people who share the values of bringing services to the poor.  She started an e-mail list called “social impact at IDEO.” After that, she launched a social impact wiki page where people post resources and social impact projects.  The group then started meeting over Monday lunch hours for strategy meetings and social labs with entrepreneurs in the field.  “Everything is really transparent and open,” said Jocelyn.

During a two-week trip in June to various IDEO offices, Jocelyn put out a call out for people to start social impact initiatives at the local level.  Some have started this, some haven’t.  But, according to Jocelyn, IDEO’s social impact work has been able to withstand the current financial crisis because it is fully integrated into its normal business operations and because social impact services are priced at market rate.

Unlike Jocelyn, Henry Gonzalez of Morgan Stanley only gets to spend 25 percent of his time on social impact work, but his work as a patient advocate enabled him to found and integrate a Microfinance Institutions Group into the firm’s work.

“Your interests could evolve in the firm – whether you are the cheerleader, taking on your issue as an extracurricular project outside of the 9 to 5 p.m., or whether the firm eventually fully integrates a base of the pyramid strategy into everyday efforts,” said Henry.  “The more you can embed your initiative into the current business practice, the more the social impact work is unstoppable.”

The two intrapreneurs agreed on the importance of name affiliation in their ability to create a social impact movement.  If you’re a new social entrepreneur, but don’t have the name backing of Morgan Stanley, SustainAbility or IDEO, you’re not going to get asked to speak at conferences like Net Impact, they said.

Editor’s note: Jocelyn Wyatt leads the Design for Social Impact initiative at IDEO (a global design consultancy). Prior to IDEO, Jocelyn worked as an Acumen Fund fellow in Kenya and served as Interim Country Director for VisionSpring in India. Jocelyn has an MBA from Thunderbird and a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College. She blogs (periodically) on www.jocelynwyatt.com.

By Jocelyn Wyatt

Fully admitting my bias here, I did think the Design in the Developing World panel was an especially interesting conversation between a top-notch set of designers and practitioners. Caroline Balerin launched the panel with the question "What would it look like to design for the other 90%?" I fully expected the panelists, who have traditionally designed products, to respond with something about appropriately designed technologies. I was pleasantly surprised to hear each of them respond with the need to design not only the products, but the systems around them.

Paul Polak noted that the design of tools is trivial compared to designing how to mass market them. Tim Brown followed up with the need for us to design the distribution channels, supply chains and marketing strategies to ensure they get to market and scale. "Breakthrough innovation in the developing world is happening by designing systems." Kristen Peterson built on this with a story about how Inveneo started by designing hardware, but realizing that wasn’t enough, has moved to building partnerships with local entrepreneurs who can distribute the IT services.

The second point, which was made by Paul Hudnut, was the importance of empathy and the need to speak to your customers in a way that makes sense to them. In his example, the fuel efficient motorcycles that Environfit designed are appealing to its customers because they are faster and cheaper to run, not because they have lower emissions.

A major point of Paul Polak’s during the panel and in his book, Out of Poverty, was that design for the other 90% needs to be about the "ruthless pursuit of affordability." If we can design for people who make less than $1/day, the tools will scale. It’s not enough to cosmetically change existing technologies, rather, they must be designed for the needs of the customers. Tim Brown talked about the need for rapid "just enough" prototyping and close collaboration with customers to ensure that designs are appropriate and useful.

A point which echoed what I had heard throughout the conference was the need to take a business approach to designing for the poor. By showing that profits are possible, big business will be encouraged to enter the market and will start designing for the other 90%. Paul Hudnut emphasized this and mentioned that he’s most proud of the large factory in China that is manufacturing Environfit’s clean burning stoves, which is making it possible for them to be priced affordably enough to sell 10,000/month. Tim Brown added that "all progress has happened because of profit drivers." Philanthropy doesn’t have the potential to make systemic change or scale happen, but business does.

Finally, the panelists all emphasized the need to build local capacity. Kristen Peterson mentioned that designing a local delivery channel for installation and repair of IT solutions will allow for scale. Paul Polak and Tim Brown both emphasized the need to teach innovation and design thinking at universities worldwide. Paul’s plan is to create 100 Stanford and MIT-like design courses at universities, 50 of them in the developing world and Tim hopes to see the creation of design schools in India and Africa.

"Scale" was a frequently-used buzzword at the conference and the question of how to get good ideas to scale is one that remains on the table. We are now seeing how design can address issues of scale. Whether it’s by designing appropriate products or services for the other 90%, by designing the systems around these products or services, or by teaching the design thinking approach to social entrepreneurs and students, design certainly has a contribution to make to this sector and truly has the potential to help good ideas scale and create deep and lasting impact.

The Skoll Foundation funds a fantastic ongoing interview series called the X Interview. Posted online to Social Edge, the X Interview is conducted by a mysterious blogger named Global X. Recently, Global X sat down with Acumen Fund ally (and Advisory Council member), IDEO CEO Tim Brown.

The interview - only 2 minutes, 30 seconds long - covers a few different topics, but Brown focuses mainly on insights he gleaned from a trip to India in the company of Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz:

…he [Brown] was impressed by the systemic thinking and level of innovation that Dr.Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr. V) had brought to the Aravind Eye Care Hospital in Madurai.

It is now believed to be the best eye care and teaching facility in the world. The lesson?

“By trying to serve those who have the most needs, you can end up being truly innovative, to a point where those innovations have relevance not only in the developing world but in the developed world also.”

Via the new Skoll Foundation blog.