India

We’re incredibly lucky at Acumen Fund to have friends and allies with their own web sites and/or blogs. It’s humbling to see two of these sites prominently feature our colleagues’ work - in this case, Sasha and Brian make the cut. In case you don’t already read Seth Godin’s blog or ThinkChangeIndia, here are a couple of worthwhile links:

Seth Godin, an Acumen Fund advisor and longtime friend, linked to Sasha Dichter’s moving “In Defense of Raising Money: A Manifesto for Non Profit CEOs.” Personally, I think Sasha did a great job tying together the reality of today’s non-profit sector with a vision for what it might be in 5, 10, 15 years. If you’ve ever fundraised for or donated to a non-profit, read this.

On ThinkChangeIndia, Vinay attended a guest lecture that Brian Trelstad gave at NYU last week. During the lecture, Brian conducted a live case study on Dial 1298 for Ambulance, an Acumen Fund Health Portfolio company based in Mumbai, India. Check out Vinay’s review here (and while you’re at ThinkChangeIndia, browse around - it’s a great site, combining a market-based view of development and an India-centric focus to create solid content every week.)

Want to lull me to sleep? First, start your event at 6:30 and go until 8:00 in the evening; I get to work early, so I’m often exhausted by the end of the day. Second, draw the blinds to keep out natural light; exacerbate the soporific effect by dimming the lights (so I can see the PowerPoint slides, sure). Third, serve food – especially heavy, rich food like meat and cheese – before the presentation starts. Between these three, you’re guaranteed to have me – and at least 75 percent of your audience – asleep by the 20 minute mark.

Or not. To my surprise, there’s an antidote to this sedative trio – and his name is Nachiket Mor. Last night, along with 150 or so others, I sat in rapt attention while Nachiket described his latest thinking on banking at the base of the pyramid in a talk entitled The Next Big Step: Revolutionizing Financial Services Distribution in Rural India. Yes, the event started at 6:30, and they served delicious (but heavy) hors d’oeuvres. And since the auditorium was bright in the late-day sun, the organizers drew the blinds and dimmed the lights. But for the duration of Nachiket’s presentation and through the Q&A, the entire audience sat and stood at attention. It was that good.

This post first appeared on Acumen investee VisionSpring’s blog, Business in a Bag. We’ll be cross-posting with Business in a Bag from time to time.

The post’s author is Tim Johnson-Aramaki, a student at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, who spent the summer with VisionSpring India working on a data-collection methodology to measure the long-term impact of VisionSpring’s work on the lives of Vision Entrepreneurs and customers. His project is part of a multi-year impact study conducted by Professor Ted London at Michigan’s William Davidson Institute.

Over the last few months, I’ve been working to develop a survey instrument with the VisionSpring team here in Hyderabad and the William Davidson Institute team in Ann Arbor. The first step was survey pre-testing, which involved conducting countless interviews in rural village throughout the state of Andhra Pradesh. These interviews are meant to help us discover whether the questions we’ve come up with are understood by respondents with varying semantic and cultural backgrounds, and if they prompt valid and appropriate responses. Some of the results we’ve gathered have been really interesting.

For example, one of the most critical pieces of data in measuring VisionSpring’s impact is the income of its Vision Entrepreneurs and customers. It also happens to be one of the most difficult things to measure as there are challenges when it comes to discussing money. Through our interviews, we’ve found that while people are relatively open in assigning a number to their income, that number may not be accurate. There are a variety of reasons for this, but one is that they fear the income figures may be passed on to state or national agencies, potentially jeopardizing the public assistance they receive. To avoid this, they often provide income figures lower than that which they actually earn.

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.

Varun Sahni, Acumen Fund India Director and Biju Mohandas, Acumen Fund India Business Manager, were both featured prominently in recent news stories.

In the first, an article entitled The Right Prescription, Biju is cited as “one among a growing number of doctors who have a nontraditional resume.” The article goes on to describe how the Indian healthcare industry is absorbing trained managers at a rapid pace, with Biju and his cohort leading the way. Of course, with his MBA as well as his medical degree, Biju is perfectly suited for his role at Acumen…

The second article, appearing in VC Circle, is a long-form interview with Varun, our India Director.

Enjoy both pieces, and congrats to both Biju and Varun on their new celebrity status.

Acumen Fund Fellow John Tucker was interviewed by VisionSpring’s Miriam Stone. Read the full interview here, in which John reflects on what he’s learned over the past year working in India as a Fellow. Good stuff.