Sasha writes about fear in one of his recent posts

Speaking of fear, just recently something exceptional just happened to me:  I had the absolutely worst fundraising meeting I’ve had since starting my job at Acumen Fund three years ago.  It’s not worth going into the specifics…suffice it to say it was unpleasant and transactional in the worst way.  Paint your worst picture of what a fundraising meeting could be, and that was this meeting.

I admit, I was a little shaken for a little while.  I had to vent some to a couple of folks to clear the air.

And then, almost right away, it was done.  The feeling was gone, the meeting was in the past.   And no real harm was done.  The actual experience of the thing I feared – the thing that can keep me and you from picking up the phone or putting yourself out there or standing in front of an audience or pitching a new, crazy idea or going with your gut – was exposed.  And it was so much less powerful or meaningful than the picture I’d drawn over time.

There’s the lurking monster I imagined, and the reality that it had no teeth.

A lot of times we cook up stories in our head, simply because it’s easier to do so. Its easier to expect the worst. I have done it in the past. Why? Maybe because we don’t trust people, or maybe because it’s the worst case scenario and it can’t get any worse, or maybe some  other reason for that matter.

As a person who exaggerates things at times to find humor in them, I hope I don’t exaggerate fear.

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

At the Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership’s Rural Entrepreneurship Development(RED) division we’re on the look out for market based approaches to helping rural communities (often right outside the campus).

However, what is also important is to educate the college community regarding the pressing social issues that plague our nation (and the world) and how enterprises (often community lead) can help uplift sections of society. RED would like to help create a class of more responsible BITSians who are socially conscious and use their technological and business acumen to find solutions to alleviating poverty and help generate income for rural communities.

It is for this reason that we’re creating a RED resource section which will contain information on the emerging sectors, case studies of success stories (and sometimes failure) of models that worked at the Base of Pyramid, books that inspire on to get their hands dirty, reports that show figures and business models, important articles from credible sources. Hopefully, more and more BITSians will skim through it and realize the incredible opportunities that lay in front of them in the responsible business sector.

We’re in the middle of the compilation, which should be completed anytime next week. We also plan to publish this resource on one of the top blogs on social entrepreneurship in India.

If you can contribute to this resource in anyway (articles, books, reports, case studies), please shoot me a mail at rishabh at celbits dot org

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

A recurring theme in romantic novels and movies is that you travel all over the world to finally find what you were searching for, right where you began. Could it be that the answer to malnutrition and self sustaining communities be a plant which has been growing in their back yard for all this time? This might be the case with Moringa Oleifera, often dubbed as the Miracle Tree, often discussed as being a savior of vulnerable communities especially in Africa and South Asia.

The plant, which grows in dry soils in tropical lands, is known primarily for the exceptional nutritional value of its leaves. Lowell Fuglie who has been researching abut the uses of Moringa for over a decade (and used to work for the Church World Service) says ”Gram for gram, Moringa leaves contain three times the iron of spinach, four times the vitamin A of carrots, seven times the Vitamin C of oranges, three times the potassium of bananas, and four times the calcium and twice the protein of milk” (a much larger list can be obtained here). “Nutritionally, you can’t beat it.” he adds.

But it doesn’t end here; Moringa Oleifera is known to be a really good water purifier, plant growth enhancer, biofuel (abstract only), and has plenty of medicinal uses. These address some of the most pressing issues faced at the BoP today: Enegry, water scarcity & agricultural yield and most importantly malnutrition. All this being said, one would expect entrepreneurs to jump at this opportunity and capitalize upon it. A Moringa-based idea submitted to the Ashoka’s Nutrition Competition was even adjudged as an early winner. However, we don’t see any major players trying to create an industry based on this wonder plant. Why so?

The opportunities and challenges in the commercialization of Moringa have been summed up well by in a paper written by J P Sutherland, who was involved with a biotech startup called Optima Environment SA based in Switzerland. He cites lack of extensive research, skepticism from the scientific community, barriers to entry in the form of government regulations as well as poor marketing as some of the factors which constraint the commercialization of Moringa products such as oil, water coagulants and packaged food. He emphasizes that if entrepreneurs can find a way to improve the extraction process, moringa oil has a potential to become a useful source of fuel (both industrial as well as domestic) in the years to come. However, it’s also up to the venture capitalists in the agro-health sector to realize it’s importance as a life saving plant and encourage investments in this domain.

What’s really fascinating about this plant is that it is locally available in areas that need it most. The tropical nations provide the temperature and soil requirements that is suitable for its growth.  Every part of the plant, be it the stems, the leaves, the pods are useful in one way or the other. Even if it takes time to commercialize it on a large scale, I can see this as a useful community run venture to meet the nutrient needs of villages that are struggling to meet their requirements.

Originally posted on Nextbillion

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

If something isn’t broken, do we still fix it? This is something one hears quite often and it’s importance in Base of the Pyramid contexts is often neglected. A recent talk at BITS Pilani by (Retired) Brigadier P. Ganeshan, Andhra Pradesh head of Honeybee (we have earlier covered Honeybee here), focused on just that. In a nutshell, Honeybee is a digitized compendium of rural innovations and local practices implemented by rural communities in Indian villages. It currently houses over 100,000 innovations from all over India. Talk about an idea pool huh?

The crux of his talk was the need for knowledge-based growth. Despite India being a knowledge-based economy, he said, it is surprising to see how the knowledge possessed by BoP populations is being neglected and not given the attention it deserves. He stressed that many social entrepreneurs, though willing to spend vast amounts of time lending an ear to the problems of villages, aren’t as willing to accept that these villages have come up with solutions to their own problems. The critical part, he believes, is optimizing these solutions to maximize their output.

He spoke of how India’s farmers usually follow 30-35 farming practices, but no initiative is in place to optimize these practices and introduce appropriate technologies. According to him, villages are the oldest and most natural and form of open source knowledge, with potential to be further improved for the benefit of the entire nation.

The best thing social entrepreneurs could do is understand local technologies already being used and optimize them with local knowledge gathered from the insight of their users. Local solutions in the villages are often the most eco-friendly and sustainable, and they are also locally made, cutting down on operation costs.

The pic is a washing machine cum exercising machine which was invented by Remya, young girl from Kerala and is now patented.

Moses Lee highlighted the notion behind the above in a previous post, calling it “survival entrepreneurship”. Similarly, Fast Company has referred to the overarching trend as “trickling-up innovations”. The sheer simplicity of this particular example amazed me. It doesn’t require any electricity, it is sustainable and, hey, it even keeps one fit. Ganeshan added that for a nation like India, it is production by the masses and notmass production which will alleviate poverty. Hence it’s critical to involve the community from where the idea is taken in the manufacturing of a product. This would ensure inclusive growth.

What about the innovators themselves? This question led Prof. Anil Gupta, founder of the Honeybee Network, went on to found the National Innovation Foundation, which then started the Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network (GIAN). GIAN allows entrepreneurs to take ownership of technologies, commercialize products and scale production. As far as innovators are concerned, some want to simply be compensated for the technology while others are more entrepreneurial and desire venture funding. More about that can be read in their Business Opportunities section (North, West).

It’ll be interesting to see how entrepreneurs can utilize this goldmine. There’s huge potential for the knowledge of informal sectors to be leveraged and introduced into the formal economy. Once entrepreneurs and investors start realizing this and giving it due recognition, I’m confident that we’ll see India’s villages achieve growth at a much faster rates.

published originally at Nextbillion.net

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Yep you heard it right. Just got the news that I have been selected as a student delegate for the 13th World Business Dialogue at the University of Cologne in Germany, one of the most prestigious student symposiums in the world.

So how is this one different from most of the symposiums out there?

Well for one, the speaker line is simply mind blowing. Yes I know that is what the brochure of every student symposium would say, but don’t take my word for it, check it out your self. Another important thing to look for in these student symposiums is the legacy and this one sure has a great one, 25 years strong.

This years theme is Crisis Demands: The End to Anything Goes”

The efforts demanded by crises are tremendous. Especially in the current global economic crisis this fact became obvious. The 13th World Business Dialogue wants to portray and discuss important questions and tasks dealing with this topic.

The conference will deal with the dynamic status of our world today, what has changed in the way we look at businesses, what needs to be done.

The application process was pretty simple but I suppose that made it all the more competitive. I am told the applicant pool was 1400 and about 300 were selected finally, which is a lower selection ratio as compared to other equally awesome symposiums such as St Gallens (whose application is also open, in case you’re interested).

The trip is in mid March(16-18), which also means that I don’t miss out on BITS Pilani’s tech fest APOGEE and the TEDxPilani, an event I am personally involved with and am really excited to attend.

Finally I would like to thank my buddy Abhishek Nayak, who has possibly made the largest impact on me here and is one of the coolest and smartest chaps I have come across during my college years.

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

This Summer.

Go on a road trip.

Get your hands dirty.

Why a road trip? Because it’s about being on your own and exploring the hinterland. It’s about surviving with approximately 2 USD per day. It’s about realizing how your skills can benefit  others.

Why getting your hands dirty? Because when you meet changemakers, the best way to truly understand the impact they are making, one has to taste the broth they’re cooking. One has to interact with the communities they’re working with.

It’s about bringing untold tales from the grassroots. It’s about creating a more responsible class of citizens who are socially conscious.

This summer, embark on a road trip, and you might just discover something new. Yourself.

Heard enough? So what are you waiting for? Seal the deal HERE.

Any other queries? Contact me at rishabhkaul at gmail dot in, or team at grassroutes dot in

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

Net Impact recently released a report titled Undergraduate Perspectives: The usiness of changing the world. Some findings:

88% of the students believe that for profit organizations should take into consideration the societal and environmental issues.

37% believe corporations are working towards that (this number doubled from 2007) and only 24% feel business leaders are responsible.

73% feel that responsible actions lead to business profits

84% want to seek employment opportunities that are socially relevant.

82% think their schools are doing a fair job of preparing them for their post-graduate interests. 75% of students are also confident their colleges are preparing them to specifically do good in the world, a signifi cant increase from only46% in 2007.

Do check out the report for other interesting stats.

However one important thing to keep in mind is that the majority of these responses are from Net Impacts’ undergraduates’ nearly all of which belong to US. It would be interesting to see how people from other emerging economies respond to this, especially China, which practices nationalistic capitalism.

In my university I notice a handful of people who want to get into this sector. Not a lot, but a decent number. A lot of them have the interest but either can’t find the resources to further their interest about the sector or don’t know how to look for opportunities in this sector. While there are a lot of opportunities within the campus to look for opportunities too (such as the Rural Entrep Division at CEL, Nirmaan, NSS etc), there aren’t enough linkages between the social enterprises in the region and the college (with the exception of maybe Source Pilani).

I would love to see some social enterprises come to Pilani for recruitment, or involve some students through the TIC projects. As with regard to the TIC projects, currently the college demands some money from the enterprises, perhaps in case of social enterprises, the money demanded can be waived off, or decreased (again depending on their revenue stream).

End note: Would 3/4th of the students from my university agree that the college is doing a good job to help them find their interests for their post graduate degree?

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

About 50 people have already asked me about my trip to Copenhagen and I have yet to give them a proper answer. I merely say something to the tone of “Hmm it was pretty cold” or “We didn’t really get that great a deal, I am sure you can read all about it in the papers”. The reason for that is because (and my buddy Abhishek will ditto me on this) Copenhagen was a very disappointing meet.

And on more than one grounds.

It had human rights violations, with the police capturing and beating up people, often for no fault of theirs.

One of the major issues for debate this time was the expulsion of NGO and civil society during the 2nd week of the conference. Rumors are that this was done so that Obama would face no difficulty when he was inside the center. It got so bad that there was an instance when R K Pachauri had to wait outside the Bella Center because the UN authorities wouldn’t let him in. (I had to confirm that twice before publishing it).

One interesting impact this had on the developing nations was that they lost a vital voice inside the Bella Center.  Why? Well Copenhagen is an atrociously expensive city and I suppose that was a major reason why there was such little representation from the global south at COP. And so that made it all the more important for the NGO to propagate their message inside the center and put pressure on the negotiators to come up with a fair legally binding treaty.

So much money was spent on the conference ( a number going to hundreds of millions of dollars viz an average per delegate expenditure of 15000 USD) and yet we didn’t reach a conclusion. Well, sort of. What we finally got was something weird. A politically binding accord. Check this WRI piece on what it actually means

Ah, now doesn’t that put us straight into the crux of the issue. Everybody wanted a treaty. Finally what we got was much lesser than what the science demands. 2 degree rise in temperature, billions short of the funding that’s recommended and a deal that isn’t even legally binding.

There were of course other issues whose answers will be revealed in due course of time, such as who will get how much money from the adaptation fund. That will be a critical question as far as I am concerned.

There are decisions to be taken but time isn’t on our side. India has already rolled out a massive solar project earlier this year and it will be interesting to see how that come along. At the same time we have also been making nuclear deals with US, Canada, Russia.

The talks at the Fresh Air Center (media center belonging to Tcktcktck, who funded my trip) were amazing. We had Andy Revkin, UN officials, Yes Men, Climate Action Network (CAN) guys come to speak. CAN told us few days before itself that there would be a massive campaign to spread the propaganda of China (and maybe India) being the major culprit behind the failure at Copenhagen, to take some of the blame off USA [here is one example, though I am not doubting Lynas' credibility, I am merely saying that such an opinion was always there on the table]. Truth be told, its not as simple as that. There are too many parties involved, each trying to ensure that they aren’t caught on the wrong side of the deal.

It seems clear that the biggest issue here isn’t a political or an economic issue, but is an issue of trust. Apart from that there’s also the issue of big oil spending lots of big bucks, but that’s another story.

Also check out this excellent post by Dan Kammen who writes about the ups and downs that he experienced during the COP (he left Copenhagen after the first week).

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

A week before going to Copenhagen I had come across a rather intriguing news item which reported that 2 high level executives of Coca Cola held a press conference condemning their employers’ sponsorship of Hopenhagen (Hopenhagen was a festival/campaign held alongside the COP15 by the UN and included concerts, green exhibits and other niceties).

Check out the video below

(via GristTV)

This should have created quite an uproar in the corporate sector. Well it would have, in case it were true. But don’t let that let you undermine the efforts of the Yes Men, who are soon topping my list of the most creative activists around. They go around impersonating high level corporates and bureaucrats and inflicting shame upon them.

I got the chance to meet them at the Fresh Air Center where they spent an evening interacting with the bloggers and showing the premiere of their latest stunt (check that out here), trust me you do NOT want to miss it.

They fund themselves and are amongst us. And no, they haven’t been sued yet, or wait have they?

I was having a chat with a friend if he’d like to open a chapter of the Yes Men in India and while the prospect sounded exciting at the beginning; almost at once something inside the both us clinched our gut and made us retract. It’s the same reason we didn’t take part in the protests in Copenhagen. Because we were too scared.

Sigh.

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com

I am back home from a fruitful trip to Copenhagen (or Hopenhagen or Flopenhagen; depending on your convenience). I didn’t get as close to the action as I would have liked to (accreditation issues) but still managed to meet some pretty interesting people and generate some food for thought.

It also means that I have tons of compiling of stuff to do and rearrange my notes into meaningful blog posts.

But homecoming also means a visit to the local bookstore. However, since I live in a bylane (or gully), the local bookstore has never existed for me. A trip to Odyssey landed me with the following winter reads.

Photo courtesy State Library and Archives of Florida

Maximum City: Bombay lost & found (Suketu Mehta): I have heard so much about this book. It’s one of those books always lying on the bookshelves waiting to be picked by some inquisitive soul. Finally, it was a review by indie musician Uday Benegal and a reading of a paragraph on an age-old Indian cuss word that made me pick up the book. The book is about Bombay, a city living on the edge, filled up to its brim.

Blessed Unrest: How the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice and beauty to the world (Paul Hawken): The book is about how the civil society is changing the world as we know it today. From every nook an corner concerned citizens are forming associations to save the planet, to seek justice, to talk about the abuses of free markets fundamentalism. As Hawken puts it, there is no single name to this movement, no unifying ideology, but it’s there and you are probably a part of it.

Welcome to the Urban Revolution: How cities are changing the world (Jeb Brugman):  In this book Jeb argues that the greatest challenge for the 21st century involves in improved city building.  He says that the productivity, economic prosperity and political stability of the nation depends on how they embrace urbanisation.

The Game: Penetrating the secret society of pickup artists (Neil Strauss): He is the original pickup artist. Nuff said.

Changing my mind (Zadie Smith): My bong friend had recommended Zadie Smith’s White Teeth to me last year. I never really got around to purchasing that novel. What I didn manage to purchase though was Smith’s collection of non fiction essays on writing called Changing my Mind. Smith says “When you are first published at a young age, you’re writing grows with you-and in public.  Changing my mind seemed an apt, confessional title to describe this process.”

Free Lunch: Easily Digestible Economics (David Smith): Pop Economics, though hoping to be a better read than Freakonomics.

What we say goes (Noam Chomsky): Disturbing conclusions about US imperialism it seems and what could civil society do about it. Was recommended to me by a close pal.

Liars Poker (Micheal Lewis): This one is supposed to be better than Wall Street. Let’s give it a shot.

India after Gandhi: The history of the world’s largest democracy (Gurcharan Das): I became a fan of Das’ writing after reading India Unbound, which is till date one of my favorite books on India. This is one bulky book and I hope to consume it one gulp at a time.

I am also currently about to finish Cleo Paskal’s Global Warring. The book was gifted to me by Cleo herself (and obviously personally signed) after we got talking at the Fresh Air Center. She was part of a panel discussion in Copenhagen and writes on geopolitics and security. In Global Warring she writes about how environmental concerns will affect global security.

Rishabh Kaul is a rising economics undergraduate at BITS Pilani. Check out his profile at Linkedin or buzz him at rishabhkaul[at]gmail[dot]com