Fellow Connect January 2013

Quarter 4 | January 2013

THE TECHNOLOGY

CONUNDRUM Will it touch unexplored terrain, or will it overlook, once again?

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Editorial

In this issue what we want technology to do for us.

It is about how technology enables us to come closer to create a world that has the ability to address its challenges. The future of technology is about how we collaborate and co-innovate, leveraging the power of empathy.

Before the Bus Misses Us

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he words ‘New Year’ usher in a good feeling, even as we seem to be emerging from a series of bad news. A new year is about hope, wishes, promises and resolutions. It’s the beginning of the future.

We live in an era where another word for the future is technology. Innovations in technology and its various applications seem to be defining our future. In this special edition of FellowConnect, we decided that talking about technology would be the best way to usher in the New Year.

Although we chose the topic of technology for discussion, we consciously did not venture into talking about gadgets and tools. We widened our lens to look at technology and its adoption as a philosophy.

Let me also mention that this edition will use the words technology and innovation interchangeably. It is because when we look at technology through the crystal glass, we usually see innovations.

To begin with, the supreme success of digital technology has rendered the word ‘digital’ redundant. There’s a growing sense in most of us that technology refers to everything digital. This certainly is not a healthy sign.

Digital technology is only one of several means to innovate in spaces. The world requires innovation to take place in each of these spaces with equal fervor.

The future of technology is not about the advancements we make. It is about

The manner in which technology has dominated our lives is unprecedented.

Gadgets define us, and today, there is more attention given to innovation in technologies keeping in mind the spectrum of challenges we face.Therein lies the opportunity for the next boom.

Innovators need to move from a technologybackwards approach to a problems-forward approach. While they bring in expertise in technology, the life of the products they design will depend on how urgent a challenge their innovation is trying to address. It is so simple to understand that the bigger the impact their innovation makes, the longer it would stay relevant.

Social entrepreneurs too have a role to play in ensuring that innovators focus on these untapped set of opportunities that exist.

This sector awaits a movement backed by revolutionary innovations. And, as they say, if we have missed the last revolution that we witnessed, the second-best time for this movement is now.

We invited technology experts and social entrepreneurs to express their views on where the twain will meet, for a new wave of innovation to take place that will address some of the most urgent social challenges of the world today. We hope you will enjoy reading these exclusive articles and share your views with us.

Here’s wishing you a year full of happiness, success and togetherness.

Yours truly, Manoj Chandran

Editorial: Manoj Chandran, Meera Vijayann, Olina Banerji Contributors: Keith Hammonds, Sachin Malhan, Prasanto K Roy, Dr. Andres Randazzo, Karuna Nundy, Ananth Aravamudan, Shipra Mathur, Nihar Kothari

P3 2013: Odyssey Two

Photo courtesy : www.npr.org

GUEST EDITORIAL

P4 Knowledge of the Many

P6 Where Technology is a Means P8 Getting it Right, Legally P10 From Wow to How: Technology for Change P11 Collaboration is the Mantra P12 First Movers

P18 Solutions for Change: A Technologist’s Perspective P20 A Quest to Transform Back Cover Change, Only a Click Away Cover Illustration Nilomee Jesrani

Design: info@crossover.co.in Talk to us: mchandran@ashoka.org Website: www.india.ashoka.org Address: 54, 1st Cross, Domlur Layout, Bangalore 560 071 Telephone: +91 80 4274 5777

Disclaimer: The views and comments mentioned in the articles of FellowConnect are that of the respective authors and do not reflect the position of Ashoka on these issues.

2013: Odyssey Two As we transition into 2013, technology for change will recruit a new tool - the widespread use of mobile data in the world’s most populous countries.

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nce, a Puducherry businessman sent a tweet to only 16 followers, in which he raised questions over the assets of a young politician. He was arrested for his statement, and a subsequent outcry ensued.

In less than 24 hours, his follower-count on Twitter increased hundred fold, and the message - about a corrupt politician in defunct state machinery - multiplied itself.

Through re-tweets and television coverage, it was national news now, reaching out to over 100 million people.

India’s growing liaison with technology is being written in new ink. While it’s an old, much-quoted tale, it’s the pattern of mobile usage that is changing. More than ever now, the act of spreading the message is being done through mobile phone data usage.

Last year saw repeated attempts by state governments, and occasionally the central government, to suppress free speech on the internet by using the Indian Information Technology Act’s draconian Section 66A. The upside, however, was that millions used social networking sites and other online platforms to voice their opinions, often

bypassing and pre-empting mainstream media.

For most of urban India, 2012 ended in rage and anguish over the brutal gang rape of a young woman inside a moving bus. The protests that followed shook the centre out of its complacency, which then quickly turned to a confused and unnecessary assault on the protesters at Rajpath. In attacking the mass with water cannons, the police also ensured that the smartphones being used to convey the size and tone of the protests outside of its physical parameters were destroyed. It’s important to note that almost all the social media use and coordination for the anti-rape protests was done through mobile devices.

The unprecedented, countrywide mass mobilization of the anti-rape protests were coordinated entirely on Twitter, Facebook and SMS.

The unprecedented wave of spontaneous anti-rape protests was coordinated entirely on mobile-based social media.

The Delhi protests are an early indicator of the shape that the current social media explosion is going to take. The big turning point for Indian technology in 2012 was that mobile internet access in India (based

By Prasanto K Roy

on number of users) overtook PC-based access. One could argue that internet access itself, in terms of pure numbers, is small in India. But the growth of this access is growing fast. Last year’s mobile internet crossover makes for an important foundation—the revolutions of 2013 will build upon it.

Mobile internet access was driven by an explosive growth in social media use, and not necessarily on expensive smartphones.

Of the 102 million handsets sold in the first half of 2012, only 6 million were smartphones, according to research agency CMR India. What drove this growth was the reach of services and apps into the lowerend “feature-phones” category, especially Facebook for Mobile on low-end phones.

India’s telecom regulator reported 904 million subscriptions till October last year, of which 704 million were active subscriptions.

How many actual users is that? About 600 million people, going by a very conservative multi-SIM usage figure of 15 percent. This indicates that almost every second Indian has a mobile phone device.

Why is that news, you may ask? Mobile usage has been growing over the last 16 years, with a big jump in numbers in the last five years.

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Knowledge of the Many

by Keith Hammonds

Thanks to new communication technologies, the landscape of knowledge dissemination is fast evolving. Everyone can now be a publisher or broadcaster of information relevant to others.

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he information revolution has come to this: Bhan Sahu, a poor woman from Chattisgarh’s Rajnandgaon district, can produce high-quality video news stories about official corruption in her rural village.

With support from Ashoka Fellow Jessica Mayberry’s Video Volunteers, her reports can be uploaded to the internet, accessible not just across India, but to slum dwellers in Brazil, or teenagers in the United States, or anyone with an online connection.

The explosion of new media, and the low cost of distributing data through the media, have both made the reins of information available to all. It is no longer the exclusive domain of large media organizations and 4

knowledge professionals. Social networking technologies have connected people in several new ways. And centralized, traditional channels of information now compete head-on with multimedia, as the crowd becomes its own channel.

This media per se, is democratizing: more people have access to more information, from more sources. Content has become accessible to many previously informationmarginalized by geography, economics, and culture — in multiple forms on the web, but also on mobile phones and radio. And the ready availability of information has diminished the ability of governments and other institutions to determine or limit what citizens know about the world, forcing them to reckon, instead, with the promise of much greater transparency. Today, thanks to Abgeordnetenwatch.de, German citizens not only know how their representatives in Parliament have voted, they can ask directly about that vote and reasonably expect a public response. Tribals in incredibly remote areas of India can get and report news via a phone-based service called CGNet Swara.

We are moving rapidly from top-down knowledge systems to global knowledge networks. Unbound by geography and with only modest barriers to entry, these new networks are flexible and ever-changing.

The information we see each day may come from professional journalists at The Guardian or The New York Times – or from rogue journalists at Wikileaks, or a woman we’ve never met in Rajnandgaon district.

Suddenly, anyone can be a knowledge intermediary, helping to shape how others see the world.

It’s impossible to predict precisely where all this is headed. In comparison to a decade ago, the architecture of knowledge today is changing with breathtaking speed. But we do know this: The world will produce and absorb more information, not less. And the forces that help us engage with information as never before – new technologies and entrepreneurial strategies that seize on market opportunities – also lay the seed for a growing dysfunction that will amplify two already urgent needs: First, citizens must know that their participation in knowledge

Photo courtesy : Arpaneducation.blogspot.com

Photo courtesy : Wikimedia Commons

INFORMATION

systems will not compromise their right to privacy or personal security. Like it or not, more and more information will be collected about us – not just with online tracking, but with the GPS apps on our phones, with video cameras on street corners and in flying drones, and with sensors embedded in the objects we use. The growing question is, how can individuals control all that personal data – to determine how and by whom it is shared and used? How will society regulate the ability of businesses and governments to follow individuals’ communications, purchases, and movement?

We’re seeing the emergence of entrepreneurial solutions to the privacy challenge. Companies such as Privacy Fix and PrivateAccess help individuals understand how their personal information is exposed and used online; Personal.com offers a secure platform that stores personal data and allows individuals to decide how to share it; and FreedomBox proposes a suite of hardware and software technologies that prevent governments and companies from mining personal data.

Yet privacy advocates still confront antiquated privacy laws and a global patchwork of local cultural preferences.

Privacy standards are emerging in the United States, Europe, China, and other countries – but since information travels globally, there must be global agreement on regulation and enforcement. What combination of policy change and technology advances will safeguard privacy as a human right while ensuring the free flow of information? What incentives will ensure that information publishers balance privacy with profit, and that people productively share information rather than hoard it?

All this knowledge will be powerful only as long as it allows people to advance their lives , to engage powerfully in their communities and society.

Second, we will have to address the burgeoning quality problem. Information can drive change only to the extent that it is accurate, relevant, and trustworthy. As the news and knowledge we get comes to depend increasingly on judgments, explicit or implicit, of our networks, we find that those mechanisms are inconsistent and often suspect, leaving us hard-pressed to decide which information to trust.

That’s why more entrepreneurs like CrowdVoice.org and Egypt’s Meedan Swift are applying both human judgment and technological approaches to ensure the accuracy, not just of journalism, but also of political campaign statements, corporate financials, and disparate reports emerging from social media. We will still rely on professional journalists to tell us the truth and help make sense of our world; the challenge will be to leverage their expertise in ways that can keep up with the flood of information.

A host of start-ups are also attacking what’s called ‘big data’ – identifying trends and harvesting intelligence from the mass of

data streaming through our lives; a quarter of finalists in the recent African News Innovation Challenge proposed big data solutions for everything from reporting on the continent’s extractive industries to tracking government budgets.

We expect that these kind of solutions will increasingly be integrated with each other, and with policies that keep innovation in productive tension with the values that historically have informed knowledge systems.This new, self-correcting architecture will adjust effectively to whatever change happens – new technologies, shifting politics, or emerging user needs. It will balance entrepreneurial reward with social good. It will be a long-term proposition, as resilient and responsive as the common law system.

Yet all this knowledge will be powerful only as long as it allows people to advance their lives, to engage powerfully in their communities and society – and, ultimately, to make change. There is a critical link between making sense and acting, between media and movement. That’s why it will be crucial to rebuild demand for knowledge.

People must understand that engaging with quality information about their world is an important right and responsibility of citizenship. And they must be literate – not just able to read, but equipped to navigate new information technologies and empowered to use it to make change.

Keith Hammonds is the Director of Ashoka’s News & Knowledge Initiative. He helps identify and support news and knowledge innovations to better inform people around the world.

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EMPOWERMENT

WHERE TECHNOLOGY IS A MEANS

By Dr. Andrés Randazzo

For years, rural Mexicans have been deeply affected by poverty because of the lack of access to basic amenities.

Using simple eco-technologies, Ashoka Fellow Dr. Andrés Randazzo ensures that they have clean water and adequate housing.

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echnology is enabling the lives of rural Mexicans - Why did you, with your experience as a doctor, choose to work with eco-technology?

It is extremely important that the work people do is productive, efficient and effective. Eco-technology, for the most part, does not take into account the effort put forth by the people. Workers often don’t value what they do because they don’t get monetary benefits. But this is wrong. There must be value in one’s work whether one gets paid for it or not.

Photo courtesy : www.cairofrombelow.org

As a doctor, I found it very easy to relate to water, housing and nutrition with childhood development. I also related to adult health, and its potential development in Mexico.

Poverty automatically regenerates here if the accumulated wealth is not distributed fairly and we believe that every job should be developed and systemized in order to make the work easier, shorter, and have better results. It is not taken into consideration that workers stop doing other work in order to carry out many of the eco-technology projects. One must always respect this and pay them for the work.

In which areas of preventive healthcare can technology be leveraged to improve health and decrease malnutrition?

Malnutrition during pregnancy will deeply affect the future of the mother and child; an under-nourished child will have its intellectual development or mental potential decreased by 10 or 15 percent.

This child will develop chronic degenerative diseases, like diabetes, artery sclerosis, and different types of cancer and will, on an average, have a shorter life expectancy in comparison to a well-nourished child of the same age. Furthermore these children will have severe difficulties related to attention span and memory, which will give them a great disadvantage when facing our rather competitive and unjust society.

Basic technologies like rainwater collection systems, which are related to better hygiene and diet, can complement each other with an ecological heater that helps prevent babies from inhaling toxic and irritating gas fumes. A well-nourished baby gets sick between 8 and 10 times lesser than an under-nourished child. This leads to a good

TECHNOLOGY FOR THIRST The basic problem in rural india is access to resources. Keeping in mind that basic resources such as water is inaccessible to millions, scientist Suprio Das, built ZIMBA, an automated chlorine dozer, which automatically adds chlorine to water and makes drinking water accessible to all.

school attendance, better attention, and the absence of anemia, usually from association with parasitic disease in children.

How is eco-technology changing the way people, especially women, live in these rural communities?

Women and their children invest many hours in transporting water that is usually of bad quality. By having a home water tank, they would have more time for other chores. This would allow them to engage in other productive activities, like taking care of domestic animals, studying, and relaxing.

Access to basic necessities like water elevates auto sufficiency and encourages one to overcome other obstacles.

Your model mentions that these technological products are being produced at 70 percent of the original cost. How do you achieve this and how do you ensure quality standards for these products?

We have a space where we develop practical solutions in order to facilitate the construction work related to fighting poverty. When we use these technologies, we have different approximations: If we work for an official program or a foundation, and this program has a certain magnitude, we are able to employ a local workforce.

We always pay deserving salaries, and we can do this because we use the time needed to finish the process wisely, which in return reduces the costs substantially. For example, we built a 12,000-litre water tank using four workers in four or five hours.

When it is done with the technology, it generally takes a week longer with the same number of workers. This allows us to pay very well, charge those who finance the program a lower than standard price (25 percent less), and train people so that when we finish the program, they can continue using the technology that we donate to programs with low resources. These jobs have to be carried out with the presence of at least one trained operator certified by our organization. We supervise workers over the duration of the project and ensure what we leave to the communities have a lifetime guarantee.

Furthermore during the work period, we conduct several training workshops on nutrition, health, the environment, and

wellness, among other issues.

Do you see potential in this model to be replicated in a South Asian context?

Yes, I think that technological development should be included in community development work. It could be adapted to different geographies and customs. It is essential that this be done because it motivates the people, and their jobs are done more efficiently. It also leads to better results and the impact within the population grows significantly.

How is the technology you developed imparted logistically?

Every job has different logistics and operating capacities according to the magnitude of the project. Sometimes, we go to build more than 10 water tanks per day while in other cases the rhythm is slower, but in every case, all of the materials, appropriate tools, and transport are provided. The people are trained, and in a few days they grasp the nature of the work, look at it practically, learn to use the technologies, and effectively work in groups. Once they get used to rejecting low performance, tedious, and unproductive practices, they feel proud and enthusiastic about their productivity.

Furthermore, we generally pay them a higher amount.

Do you also believe that technology is only a means, and not the end, when it comes to solving social dilemmas?

No, technology is not an objective in itself; it cannot resolve dilemmas that are very different. Poverty is much more complicated.

We believe that while we achieve some solutions to the demands of these people, the same solutions strengthen themselves.

The only thing that gives them dignity is the power of knowing the reasons for poverty.

These problems are the product of a very alienated, and unfair, economical and political system, but if the people cannot eat, bathe themselves, or live with a little dignity, they cannot, and do not, have time to think and analyze the situation. Work should fundamentally contemplate the development of the people, the knowledge of their rights, the analysis of the reasons for poverty, and help them reject the charity and the kindness of organizations without direction.

Ashoka Fellow, Dr. Andrés Randazzo, works in Mexico’s poorest rural areas to implement eco-technologies to create clean water.

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GETTING IT RIGHT, LEGALLY

LAW

By Karuna Nundy

Technology has become a contemporary experimental theatre, where the relationship between law and society is still being formulated.

How can laws in India fasten, and not halt the process of justice? Supreme Court advocate Karuna Nundy writes that law and technology, as major tenets, determine how we live our modern lives, and should adapt to each other.

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he laws of the land are always framed in aspirational terms—an ideal that we would all like to live under. It isn’t, however, the current state of things as they exist.

Even when the Constitution was mandated and the idea of citizenship brought forward, not all citizens were considered equal. In fact, even after 65 years of Independence, we haven’t achieved the goal of equality.

But the idea of equality is something that we believe in as a nation. The idea that is the Constitution will affect the way people live and relate to each other and the State.

The law and society have an irreversible impact on each other, and both must evolve together. Changes in society, within the ambit of the Constitution must be reflected in the laws we adhere to as a people.

Photo courtesy : Gamers Global

Our current set of laws around technology, however, do not reflect such consonance between the two spheres. Let me illustrate through an example. Let’s look at the IT Act (Section 66 A) of the Indian Constitution and its consequent amendments that have kicked up a fierce debate both online and otherwise. The explosion of the internet into our lives created the first change in society—Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and e-commerce.They were laws initially created to regulate e-commerce online. The scope soon involved spam messages that began choking people’s inboxes. Simultaneously, a lot of popular opinion found articulation in internet blogs, some of which were highly critical of the government. The government began to panic, and to regulate content, inserted laws to control this growing trend.

Now let’s look at the wording of the law itself. Any comment deemed “annoying or inconvenient” would be a cognizable offence with a maximum punishment of three years as per the amendments made to the Act in 2008.This law is clearly framed strangely, and therefore it is bound to have unconstitutional consequences. There is too much concentration of power amongst the lower rung of law enforcement agencies, who often have a less evolved understanding of how online spaces work, to decide what can be termed “inconvenient”.

Let’s now look at how this law in turn impacted society and its engagement with technology; a Jhadavpur University professor was arrested for posting a cartoon on Mamta Banerjee, a businessman from Puducherry upbraided for questioning Kanti Chidambaram’s amassed wealth, and two girls from a Mumbai suburb arrested for some fairly innocuous statements about their city shutting down upon the death of a controversial figure.

When the government decided to correct its mistake, it added a guideline that someone higher up in the police hierarchy, like an Inspector General (IG) would whet the comment instead of a lower-rank official. This move doesn’t change anything since it does not make the law any more constitutional.

The challenge now lies before the Supreme Court, to amend a law that necessarily impedes an individuals’ right to free expression. Technology has become a great contemporary theatre, where the relationship between the law and civil society is still being formulated.

Now let’s look at how technology can impact the physical execution of the law itself. One instance is the need for video conferencing in courts for clients based in remote areas. In regard to juvenile justice courts, for instance, there are too few courts to ensure easy access. Video conferencing can be of immense aid in dispensing justice faster, since by law, children are not allowed inside courtrooms. With the use of ICTenabled platforms, a conference between the district judge, and child witnesses, or juvenile convicts, can speed up proceedings and yet be sensitive to a child’s needs.

There are also online portals such as

Manupatra that are committed to collating and disseminating information about set precedents and trial judgments—from the legality of the issue you’re looking for, to a particular section of a judgment to looking up precedents—the access to such legal research is very valuable. From a lawyer’s perspective, I can now easily check court dates on my phone, thus helping me manage my time better. For clients, court dates can now be looked up online to understand how fast or slow the legal system and the judges are moving.

The limitations in the physical distribution of justice crop up because of the relative lack of computer literacy in India. Mobile phone penetration has beaten internet connectivity to the punch as being a platform that can be leveraged for social change. For legal cases, the physical need for documents makes it difficult to engage the cell phone network. However, setting up a mechanism for people with little access to the law and a cursory knowledge of the Constitution will help. Very often, after a transgression of rules, people do not know what the next step is.

Using mobile phone technology to inform people about set protocols and dictate course of action if their rights have been violated, can potentially help change the system. Given the SMS revolution, this is a massive area of intervention.

I see technology playing a definite role in the dissemination of justice, especially since technological innovations have changed the way we live our lives. The evolution of technology is also the evolution of society. The lawmakers of our country need to understand this if the full impact of this collaboration between the law and technological innovation is to be achieved.

Karuna Nundy is an advocate in the Supreme Court of India. Nundy is leading litigation concerning the rights of the Bhopal Gas victims against the Government of India, State Government of Madhya Pradesh, the Union Carbide Corporation and the Dow Chemicals Corporation.

Photo courtesy : Olivia Arthur/ Magnum Photos 9

From WOW to HOW: Technology for Change

Collaboration is the Mantra

What are the challenges of implementing a technology-based solution to a social problem, and why is empathy a key ingredient?

The growth of the social sector will only be possible when we see a greater number of innovations addressing the challenges in this sector. This untapped mine of opportunities for innovation will open up only when social entrepreneurs and innovators collaborate.

By Sachin Malhan

By Manoj Chandran

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Photo courtesy : globalaccessibilitynews.com

he information technology industry today employs more than 2.5 million people in India.They work on a cross-section of spaces– from research on emerging technologies to developing applications and solutions using cutting edge inventions to providing support services to installed technologies. It is thus imperative to discuss the relevance of technology in the social space, and the possibilities that talent from the sector will bring.

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etween 2008 and 2011, I worked almost exclusively on a project called Inclusive Planet. Our mission is to use technology to enable people with visual impairment to share their personal collections of accessible content (books, notes, thoughts) with each other on an accessible online platform. By all accounts it is a transformational idea – that a large amount of critical content can be made available for the visually impaired by the visually impaired at almost no cost.

When the idea is presented to people they respond with an affirmation of the power of technology to change the world. In essence, they are captivated by the technical step, the platform that makes it happen. And yes, it’s true that technology can change the world but this conclusion is a half-truth.

We discovered in painful ways that it often becomes a potential hazard to first time social entrepreneurs the world over. This is where the real learning begins.

Given where the world is today, it’s 10

quite redundant to debate the value of technology – the pointer has shifted from the ‘Why’ to the ‘How’. People all over the world are thinking about ‘how’ to use technology in creative ways to cause and accelerate change and this is wonderful.

The problem is that we, the digital natives, the technocrats and suchlike, are guilty of framing too many critical social challenges as ‘technical’ challenges when they are much more. Once we frame them, we craft a particular kind of strategy, organization and roadmap – and then we fail.

A specific example of this was our own experience. While the ‘wow’ factor in Inclusive Planet has always been the online platform, its success was dependent on a keen understanding of how people with visual impairment felt about using accessibility tools-- about sharing with other visually impaired people, about their fears of putting themselves out there.

Furthermore, it was dependent on getting

the other NGOs, many of whom used very basic technology, to see how they and their communities could grow with us. We needed to understand their concerns and state of mind.

Despite our best efforts, the mistake lay in that we spent very little time working closely with these groups to shift their thinking through positive experience. That cost us in terms of the speed of adoption of the platform, how people use it, and worse, the support from the other players locally and globally. To achieve the impact we wanted to, the tens of millions rather than the tens of thousands, we needed less technology and more empathy.

The experience has left me with a deep appreciation of the bigger picture and realization that whether it’s about the technology or not, it’s always about the...

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The business sector world over, has always taken the lead in leveraging technology.

Throughout the industrial revolution, most innovations in technology were predominantly applied in the business sector.

Or, if we look at it differently, the business sector (in Europe to begin with) evolved at an unprecedented manner during this period, following a series of innovations that enabled the sector to address its challenges. take the textile industry, for instance. The sector witnessed immense growth following a series of innovations in the spinning mills.

The last hundred years are replete with examples of inventions that provided immense opportunities to the business sector. A closer look at how the information technology evolved; from vacuum tubes to transistors, to where we have reached today, we see a co-relation between the series of inventions and the challenges that industries, faced. Increasing demand for innovation by the industry pushed the innovators to come up with new ideas.

Why is it that a few sectors repeatedly manage to leverage the increasingly rapid pace of technological innovations in comparison to other sectors? Or, putting it differently, why do we see innovations chasing only a few sectors? Why are some sectors always running a few years behind in adopting emerging technologies? Here

are some answers that may throw more light.

Innovators are not only equipped with the knowledge of science and technology but also empowered with the knowledge of spaces where opportunities for applying these innovations exist. They are always aware of the challenges that could be addressed by appropriate innovations. This is how innovators discover markets.

Market discovery for the social sector will only be possible when social entrepreneurs and innovators collaborate.

Take the case of innovation in communication technology. Innovators in this sector were always ahead of what the customers wanted and the challenges the service and infrastructure providers faced.

Be it smaller phones, longer-lasting batteries, faster processing power, greater number of features or revolutionary user experiences.

It would seem that the business sector naturally makes itself available for innovators to discover newer markets. The truth, however, is that the two communities have learnt synchronicity and collaboration.

The social sector, no doubt, would be among the fastest growing sectors in the world in the coming years. It will witness the entry of new-age social entrepreneurs who will make unprecedented levels of social impact.

This sector will organize itself to attract a greater number of talent than many other sectors. However, this never-before-seen growth in the social sector can be made sustainable only if we see innovations that address the challenges of this sector and the people whom social entrepreneurs address.

SPEAK EASY How can we break the language barrier in a diverse country like India? Ask Neha Gupta. The young entrepreneur has built on the technology Lipikaar using a method developed by her father, Jugal Gupta, to help establish regional, multi-language typing on computers across India.

Market discovery for the social sector will only be possible when social entrepreneurs and innovators collaborate. Each of them will need to take a few steps forward to understand the other’s worlds.

To begin with, innovators must be made aware of the innovation opportunities that exist in the social sector. They must know of the numerous challenges social entrepreneurs regularly face. Social entrepreneurs have a role to play in ensuring that innovators are exposed to their world of challenges and opportunities.

There is no denying that we have already begun to see a few small changes taking place. In the technology sector, numerous innovative products and solutions are made available that address some of the key challenges of the social entrepreneurs.

Be it mobile applications for farmers or transportation solutions for healthcare workers, innovators have collaborated often with social entrepreneurs to seize the opportunities. More impressively, there is an increasing trend of technologists themselves becoming social entrepreneurs.

However, we are yet to see this turn into a movement. Innovators – engineers, technology experts, scientists, medical practitioners, policy makers and, every corner of the society where innovation could come from - must connect with the social sector and social entrepreneurs to seek out opportunities, that will address the demand and create disproportionately bigger impact as returns. Social entrepreneurs, on their part, must extend the hand of collaboration. They need to reach out to organizations to co-innovate solutions to their challenges. They have a role to play in helping innovators learn about their world.

All the necessary ingredients for the innovation revolution are there. The players need to come together to create a win-win situation.

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Reinventing the Supply Chain

ENABLING SOLUTIONS

FIRST MOVERS T

echnology plays the crucial role of an enabler in today’s world. From finding solutions for clean drinking water to making spaces more accessible for the disabled to creating an identification system for the marginalized in a city, technology has been adopted by social entrepreneurs as part of their solution.

Photo courtesy : www.healthylivingindia.org

Through the work of five Ashoka fellows across sectors, we understand how technology can be leveraged to create social impact. Through their path-breaking ideas, we also learn how revolution through technology goes much beyond a Facebook status message or an high-tech gadget--it becomes an integral part of how we engineer solutions that will change the world.

REINVENTING THE SUPPLY CHAIN Kaushalendra Kumar

INCLUSIVE URBAN DESIGN Abhishek Ray

Kaushalendra Kumar

TO MAKE FARMING PROFITABLE

KC Mishra

INCLUSIVE URBAN PLANNING Pratima Joshi

BRIDGING THE GAP IN INDIAN HEALTHCARE Sameer Sawarkar

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Kaushalendra Kumar is empowering small-time farmers to aspire for bigger markets by re-inventing the supply chain from beginning to end. He has improved their competitive advantage in urban circles by designing an innovative, temperature-controlled vegetable cart.

The Idea Launched by Kaushalendra in 2007, Samriddhi (which means prosperity in Hindi) was an organisation aimed at formalizing the fragmented vegetable sector in Bihar. He found that between the growers and the consumers lay several layers of intervention that, when tweaked, could create better value for everyone who was part of the supply chain. By reducing the time lag between growing and selling vegetables,

he was able to reduce wastage and cut down the dependence on middlemen.

Through this re-engineered value chain, farmers and vendors are now organised as majority shareholders in making Bihari vegetables more affordable, available and of good quality. The platform has led to the creation of a system that provides increased profits, professionalism and sophistication for farmers and vendors.

The platform has led to the creation of a system that provides increased profits, professionalism and sophistication for farmers and vendors.

The Technology Kaushalendra’s organisation devised a manner in which the benefits of the traditional push-cart and Phase Change Material (PCM) technology were brought together. Distribution of fresh produce through ice-cooled carts help them last longer. A PCM is a substance with a high heat of fusion, which on melting and solidifying at a certain temperature, is capable of storing and releasing large amounts of energy.

PCM works on the principle of passive cooling and provides an energy efficient way to keep vegetables fresh for a longer

time. Under Samriddhi’s scheme, farmers deliver their vegetables to collection centres run by Kaushalya (Kaushalendra’s NGO), from where a network of vendors distributes these in ramped-up push carts to consumers.

The Advantages Kaushlendra has taken vegetables, once merely a highly perishable commodity, and by capturing efficiencies throughout the supply chain, significantly increased their appeal, availability and quality.

The Challenges Initially, says Kaushalendra, vendors were reluctant to adopt the new technology.They feared an adverse reaction by them and in some cases even outright rejection. What helped Kaushalya cross that hurdle was a household survey to gauge the reaction of consumers to this innovative distribution technique, and offer a fixed remuneration to vendors who adopted these carts.

A huge part of the challenge stemmed from the vendor’s concern that the new technology would not sit well with the existing set of customers—whether or not they would accept a change in their set pattern of vegetable buying. What helped overcome these concerns was a concentrated effort of educating the customer, creating awareness and learning from the household survey.

13

To Make Farming Profitable

Abhishek Ray

Abhishek Ray is using the emerging genre of Universal Design to engage with builders, architects, city planners and citizen organizations to create inclusive and user-friendly environments that serve not only the special needs of the disabled but take into account the diverse needs of the general population.

The Idea Taking into account that disabled people have long been excluded by mainstream society, Abhishek is working together with urban planners to leverage technology to enable access for the disabled in public areas such as malls. The focus of this issue is to tackle, not the mere problem of apathy towards the physically disabled, but to take 14

There is a pressing need for architects to understand and exploit their knowledge of urban design strategically up the challenge of providing functional access through technological intervention.

The Technology Abhishek believes that there is a pressing need for architects to understand and exploit their knowledge of urban design strategically. Directing his efforts through his organization, Disability Research and Design Foundation (DRDF), Abhishek works directly with a strong network of commercial developers, policy developers, government bodies and national banks to create a system of acceptability in the urban sphere. To him, making design inclusive is part of a bigger movement.

Staying true to the cause, he works not only towards designing inclusive buildings but to transform existing structures to better their functionality. Collaborating with other firms, he advocates the possibility of working with design and architecture students, who are entering the field so that they move into the industry with a mindset of inclusivity.

The Advantages Through his training as an architect, Abhishek has successfully managed to steer and redefine how builders look at the differently-abled. He is introducing the concept of Universal design to leading architecture and design schools to help shape holistic thinking among emerging professionals and sensitizing them to the needs of the populace.

The Challenges Technology, to Abhishek, plays the role of an enabler. The challenges he faces come with learning experiences as well. In a city like Mumbai, working with nagging issues such as space remains an issue that architects are forced to have to work around. Laws are not in place to include disabled people in mainstream society as well. Despite this, when small technological intervention are made in existing buildings and accessibility is introduced to builders, a ripple effect takes place with newer buildings copying the same.

The concept of Universal design needs to be understood to bring together the widest spectrum of users, ranging from senior citizens to people with disabilities.

Photo courtesy : KC Mishra

Photo courtesy : nomadicneath.files.wordpress.com

Inclusive Urban Design

KC Mishra

KC Mishra has built a highly personalized portfolio management system that not only assesses the risks and needs of individual farmer, but also provides a platform for fthem to take concrete action to their risks.

The Idea Agriculture in India is not seen as an economic activity, and rather a knowledgebased activity. This has limited farmers in economically backward areas in the country, as the costs they must incur are far greater than profits. KC Mishra has developed a way in which technology could prove a worthy intervention to allow farmers to adapt.

The Technology Agriculture is a system. Yet, people who have been providing services do not take

Agriculture in India is not seen as an economic activity, and rather a knowledge based activity. a systemic approach. Keeping this sector in view, KC Mishra is linking small farmers to essential services and products to mitigate various risks they face during the farming cycle. His organization, eKutir, has designed farmer-centric IT applications keeping in mind the challenges of the rural areas i.e. connectivity, or item-based challenges. Introducing a series of webbased applications such as Mrritika and Ankur, he has opened doors for farmers to engage with agriculture in a systemic way. Organizing farmers bottom-up through local micro-entrepreneurs, he has introduced a sophisticated ICT platform that enables them to analyze diverse factors, make critical decisions, and manage processes to make farming a sustainable livelihood. The idea is to ensure that small and marginal farmers make profitable gains, and to generate rural employment in the agriculture sector.

benefitting 5000 farmers. All the microentrepreneurs who commenced operations earned their returns in the first seven months from the crop cycle. Working with local CSOs, KC Mishra is working towards creating strong partnerships to spread this successful model.

The Challenges One of the biggest challenges that KC Mishra faced is helping farmers understand how to adopt new practices. As nearly 80 percent of famers in India are small and marginal, they are largely ignorant of the complexities of the supply chain and limit themselves to traditional knowledge to avoid taking too many risks.

Another challenge is ensuring that enterprises, CSOs, government agencies and private companies work together and not sperate from each other. This can help build better access for farmers in economically-fragile areas.

The Advantages Since its inception in 2009, eKutir has helped create a network of 25 microentrepreneurs, across 200 villages in Orissa, 15

Photo courtesy : http://2.bp.blogspot.com/

Bridging the Gap in Indian Healthcare

Photo courtesy : Common data storage

Inclusive Urban Planning

Pratima Joshi

Pratima Joshi, co-founder of Shelter Associates (SA) combines the use of socio-economic surveys and Google maps to track slum development, and the rehabilitation of its citizens.

With the help of this data, she is empowering slum dwellers by recognising their participation in a city’s life.

The Idea Pratima’s idea was not only to map accurate figures for the number of families that lived in a particular slum colony, but to also assess their standard of living. Through SA, engineers can appropriate proper solutions for the eco-system. For the poor, it’s also a knowledge tool, which empowers them with information and identity.

The Technology Under Pratima, SA has been the first to use GIS to map urban data. It includes information on employment, caste, education and family size that is graphically overlaid onto the remote sensing image to get a slum-wide or city-wide view of the data. This inclusive approach helps lowincome households become a part of urban planning models and it is mandatory, under the Rajiv Awas Yojna, to map city areas using GIS and remote sensing images.

The Advantages The dynamic GIS data provides a detailed map of where and how low-income households operate, replacing assumptions with precise figures and plans. This helps local bodies and governments lobby for greater attention at the national level for fund allocations. Using the data, a convenient rehabilitation option for slum dwellers can be found out, which ensures they do not have to be pushed to outside of city limits.

Also, it gives inhabitants an accurate picture of the total strength of the population, and the amenities available to them.

The Challenges Once the areas of change have been earmarked, the next task is to convince communities to move. Not only must their livelihood opportunities be kept in mind, but also their adaptability to a new region.

The biggest challenge in using this data is however making it a part of policy dialogue and decision-making processes for urban slum development.

BEYOND SIGHT Indian inventor, Sumit Dagar, created the world’s first Braille phone, designed using a Braille screen that can display text messages and names. Within the next six months, he plans to incorporate features of a smartphone, complete with maps and GPS technology.

16

Sameer Sawarkar

Sameer Sawarkar believes in the potential of technology to address many challenges in country. Through telemedicine, he is now making it possible to achieve the vision of universal access to primary healthcare in rural India.

The Idea For decades, healthcare in rural India remained a distant dream. Quality medical assistance and infrastructure has been largely inaccessible for rural citizens and villages across India’s vast landscape. Keeping this in mind, Sameer developed multimedia kiosks that can be easily used by paramedics in the village to ensure that those at the Bottom of the Pyramid can avail basic medical care when needed.

The low cost of consultation has also helped rural households save 40 percent of their income.

The Technology The primary strategy was to design a tool that helps in effective diagnosis. Through his company Neurosynaptic Communications, he created ReMeDi, a remote diagnostic device that relies on tele-service technology to connect doctors to patients in rural areas. Doctors, despite being in other locations, will be able to hear the heartbeat of the patient in real time and engage with patients through a video-conferencing facility. In addition, details of blood pressure, ECG, temperature and pulseoxmetry are provided to the doctor when needed. With every health centre in the village equipped with ReMeDi, Sameer is working towards bringing together CSOs, private hospitals and developing government partnerships to help establish quality health centres across rural India, directly targeting 700 million people.

The Advantages In the year 2012 alone, there have been around 100,000 direct real-time consultations using ReMeDi technology.

The low cost of consultation has also helped rural households save 40 percent of their income. Sameer is working towards expanding the technology with partner organizations in West Africa, Central Africa, Mexico and Indonesia.

The Challenges Nearly 80% of rural India does not have access to primary healthcare. This is not only due to the lack of medical professionals and doctors, but that nearly 60% of the total hospitals are in urban areas. Most government schemes do not concentrate on patient care and options that are available to the poor are often too expensive for them. Taking on this challenge headfirst, Sameer Sawarkar decided to merge technology with medical services to bridge the yawning gap in Indian healthcare.

Tele-medicine has tremendous scope for impact in rural areas as current alternatives to healthcare such as mobile medical vans are not sustainable in the long run.

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MANAGING SOLUTIONS

SOLUTIONS FOR CHANGE: A TECHNOLOGIST’S PERSPECTIVE

by Ananth Aravamudan

When creating a social impact, social entrepreneurs often approach the solution before the problem. What can we learn from this? Ananth Aravamudan, Associate Director of SELCO Labs, speaks out.

T

echnology can help produce major social impact. Take the mobile phone for example. Today it is as indispensable for a daily wager looking for work, as it is for a corporate executive sealing a deal.

Services like crop pricing, mobile payments and employment schemes that target the poorest of the poor, are rolled out through the medium of mobile technology.

But look beyond the mobile phone, and you will be hard pressed to find other examples of technologies that are making a difference to the poor. One is tempted to think that the mobile phone is an exception, the result of a fortuitous cocktail of ingredients coming together at just the right time. What is the direction then, for a technologist who wants to use his or her skills to benefit society?

What are the ingredients for success and the red flags indicating failure?

Photo courtesy : Ananth Aravamudan

I was grappling with these questions four years ago, when I left my 14-year long career in product engineering, to search for a path that creates social impact. I joined SELCO, a social enterprise that provides renewable energy services to poor and underserved parts of South India. I am part of a lab that experiments with innovative solutions, both technical and financial, in the off-grid renewable energy space. I have now travelled far enough down this road to be able to share some insights into what works and what does not.

One of the classic mistakes that most technologists make is to take the top-down approach to problem solving. They zero in on a particular technology, and then figure out a suitable problem to which it can be applied. In other words, they have a solution looking for a problem. Illogical as it may seem, this happens time and again in the industry, as the example below will illustrate.

As part of a previous employer’s social responsibility initiatives, I got together with a group of like-minded engineers to create technology that would help the poor. The first decision we took was to use an exciting new hardware platform that had state-of-the-art communication and multimedia capabilities. Could we build a socially relevant solution around this? We wondered.

We spent a couple of months trawling the web, looking for industry reports, expert opinions, government data, etc. We spoke to people from our network (mostly other technologists). Out of the several leads we got on impactful technologies, we narrowed down on telemedicine – enabling people in rural areas to consult and share diagnostic information with doctors and specialists in city hospitals. We met with doctors, hospital administrators, technologists who had worked with telemedicine - but never thought it necessary to actually visit a village, which needed this.

Our prototype was doing all the right things – providing a video link between patient and doctor, sending key vital signs and diagnostic data of the patient to the doctor – all in a potentially compact little box. Elated, we started doing the rounds of medical institutes to see if we could interest them in our product.

Reality hit us pretty quickly. The same people who were once generous with their advice, when approached with a business proposition, now asked us what we were doing differently. We found that we had no new insights into the nuances of customer need, behavior, business models, or supply chains. Most importantly, by this stage we had completely lost touch with the community that we set out to serve. Our product and all the efforts that went into it fell off a cliff.

I will now try to distill the key learnings from my experiences, with suggestions on what technologists could do better to make a social impact.

The web is the primary source of information for most technologists. We think we are spiders, jumping nimbly across its strands, searching for and gobbling up nuggets of information that show up on our screens. In reality we are the prey, caught in the trap of second hand knowledge, other people’s opinions and recycled data. Most of the real truths are out there in the field, and the web can, at, best be a secondary reference.

Problems have to be approached bottomup. Technologists who want to make a difference need to spend a large chunk of their time meeting with and listening to the voices of the people they want to help.

Developing the right technology is all about understanding the exact circumstances in which it will be used. In SELCO, we were designing solar-charged lights that could be rented by slum dwellers. We realized after

spending an evening in the slum that our lights’ 4-hour backup was not going to be enough. In slum homes, there is always a dim light burning through the night to keep out rats, snakes and intruders. We had to add a dimming feature to extend the burning hours of our lamps and provide training on how to use it.

Users at the bottom of the economic pyramid have as much of a right to choice as anyone else. A bright white LED light, which was quite popular with street food vendors, was proving hard to sell in fruit and vegetable markets. We realized that fruit sellers did not like the white light since it highlighted the scars and marks on their fruit. A warm yellowish light would work much better for them.

Social milieu and traditions can have a strong impact on technology. Scientifically designed biomass cook stoves have seemingly obvious advantages – less smoke, faster cooking and firewood saving. Yet they have proved to be among the toughest products to promote in rural areas. Family members would complain that without the smoke, food tasted different. The vessels in the household were too big for the new stove’s mouth and there was no money to buy new ones. Rice eaters found the stove’s grate too small – they needed to keep coming back to feed wood, losing out on time to do chores which they usually finished as the rice cooked. The most advanced engineering fails in the face of these simple realities.

Most importantly, technology always needs to go hand in hand with a business model, and a supply chain, to be able to succeed.

SELCO realized in the mid-90s that solar lighting had to be coupled with affordable bank financing, thereby converting imposing upfront payments into manageable monthly installments. The technology would never have taken off without this insight.

In conclusion, technologists should realize that their skills can be of immense benefit in bringing about social change. But they should open their minds to a host of other factors that have to go hand-inhand with the technologies they develop.

They need to start thinking holistically, like solution providers rather than technology developers. They have to work closely with the communities they serve. With this approach, there will be a thousand other technologies like the mobile phone, which will change the landscape at the bottom of the economic pyramid.

Ananth Aravamudan is the Associate Director of SELCO Labs, which innovates affordable products, particularly in the renewable energy sector.

19

INTERVIEW

Photo courtesy : Rajasthan Patrika

A QUEST TO TRANSFORM

Known to be among the largest read dailies in the country, Rajasthan Patrika has a long-standing vision of encouraging journalism with value, and driving change in society. Shipra Mathur, News Editor talks about the journey of the newspaper in becoming a socially relevant media.

C

ould you tell us about the social agenda of Rajasthan Patrika?

Since its launch in 1956, Rajasthan Patrika has dedicated itself to public service journalism.

Public interest helped establish the strong foundation of the newspaper early on. The newspaper believes in the power of the people to come together to set an agenda for debate, demand rights, and fulfill duties as citizens. We have adopted a people-centric agenda as our core editorial philosophy, where development issues, welfare policies, priorities for basic amenities and justice remain our core focus areas. It’s crucial for a developing nation to have an independent media that can portray right issues earnestly and fearlessly. Our deeper social agenda is to guide each of our members (journalists, readers and well wishers) towards Changemaking. Public welfare remains the core in every story we carry.

How has your newspaper led the change?

Change is a continuous process, and a newspaper alone is not a remedy to all the problems of society. But yes, we need to intervene and engage masses for sustainable change. All our stakeholders are required to play their respective roles honestly to help society transform into 20

a cultured, democratic space. There have been innumerable instances where we have fought for citizens, issues and the state with the strength of the public and tried to be a bridge between them and the rest of the three pillars of democracy. Independence is our real strength and we lose revenue, face the ire of the government, and advertisers in the process of raising right issues impinging on the interests of the power lobby.

Can you narrate one flagship initiative for driving change?

There are numerous campaigns in the past 57 years, but one of the most powerful and coveted ones has been Jaago Janmat (Wake up Voter) for election reform and accountability of public representatives with public participation. Informally we launched it in 90s but structured it in the year 2004.

The campaign involved strengthening elected representatives through media monitoring, and building public pressure for accountability of representatives.

The pre-election stage of the campaign included Janaadesh Yatra (journey for building public opinion) for public dialogues, pledges signed by election candidates and discussions on election agenda. The post-

election period, “Loktantra ki Pathshala” (School of Democracy) involved the evaluation of the performance of the MLAs in assembly sessions each day (Sadan ke Sitare) and voter’s assessment on performance of MLAs. Individual performance of the representatives in the assembly from the beginning of the 13th Assembly session was published on 27 August 2009 in the form of report cards for 197 MLAs. We realize the risk of taking up such a cause but we know we have been able to educate our readers for the right choice of public representatives by devising a way to keep a watch on their performance.

We were flooded with letters in response to a questionnaire recently to evaluate development initiatives of the MLAs. This speaks volumes about the impact.

Could you list a few other examples of social campaigns you have conducted?

We recently ran a campaign against radiation from cell towers (Bhatti mein Shahar) where we were able to involve IIT experts, radiation activists, advocates, resident societies, and victims. As a direct result of our intervention, the Court

ordered the closure and removal of 199 towers from school buildings, hospitals and playgrounds. This later became a national issue and final verdict was pronounced

by Rajasthan High Court while in Madhya Pradesh, Municipal Act was implemented on radiation towers. We also experimented with the Right to Education campaign (Aao Padhayein, Sabko Badhayein) where there was focus on reservation for poor children in private schools. This drive inspired other organizations and activists to participate and initiate actions independently as well.

Zameen ka Dard was a massive drive against the land mafia in Madhya Pradesh where poor people were cheated and the machinery was hand in glove with perpetrators. As a result of the campaign exposing the nexus of the mafia- police politicians, policy loopholes, many were arrested, and people got their due and cooperative laws were amended.The victims of Bhopal Gas tragedy were then worst sufferers because of media apathy on the misappropriation of compensation money.

After we entered in the state in 2008, we raised the plight of victims and questioned the distribution of the money and medical aid to the sufferers. After a series of exposès, a relief package worth crores was released by the central government and monitoring was put in place.

What is the vision and editorial strategy to address issues at Rajasthan Patrika?

We act primarily as a community newspaper with nearly 20 million readers in 7 Indian states with 30 print editions. Patrika actively encourages dialogue, citizen participation, advocacy and mobilization by building multiple linkages. Each edition of the paper is independent and self-sufficient, catering to community needs, issues, and observing cultural tenets to combine the strength of the community. Active and concerned citizens remain our key source, and we plan our course of action to address issues without bowing down to the pressures of the power lobby. The vision ever since has been to integrate a social agenda deeply into editorial functioning, and orient teams to step beyond merely reporting issues, to follow the instincts of public service. We also envision ourselves as an independent media exploring alternate support system (eg development agencies) to sustain the business model of public service journalism.

How do you operate your editorial teams?

All special campaigns are put in action after a discussion with the key editorial board at the headquarters, and the final plan is handed over to state editors for intermittent review and follow up. In the course of planning and campaign execution, we also connect with various experts, activists, community organizations, and support groups.

Reporting teams in their respective beats are free to design campaigns and share their ideas. Separate teams are also selected on

an issue-specific basis. These teams are also involved in brainstorming for ideas, research and mass impact. Then they are directly guided by the respective editorial in charge, and headquarter teams when required.

Independent teams are also segmented for campaigns, online and social projects to keep innovating and working on the ground. The editorial team organizes

and appreciate our concern and intent. We have often raised important issues, guided the public movements through edit pieces and taken a firm stand. Take for example, this incident of Chief Editor Gulab Kothari, who on his mission of public dialogue for transforming societies (Samvaad Setu for all and Disha Bodh for new generation) wrote an edit piece in 2007 grilling the public representatives and urging the masses and

“ The media is primarily a bridge between the people and the three pillars, and not the arrogant fourth. Those at the helm of development and change, have a restrictive vision of five to six years. Governments, development agencies, even corporates, have vested interests where a public cause takes a back seat invariably and long-term goals are never adhered to. All institutions have increased the dependency of people on governments. Shifting the onus to public institutions in every crisis, will not show results as the government does not have the resources nor the will to solve problems. There needs to be constant public engagement and public education for shared vision.

Here, independent media is at an advantageous position as it has a bird’s eye view of all small and big changes that need to be supported, sustained and replicated. Media by the virtue of its structure can have a longer vision of building societies. But there needs to be a clear distinction between sponsored media and independent media. We (Patrika) have been paying a heavy price for being people-centric. Recent campaigns for people’s rights in a Naxal-affected state and got the entire state machinery witchhunting journalists, banning government advertising, or against mobile towers, got us to lose all advertising revenue. We believe an independent media needs to be evaluated with a different yardstick and must be seen as a solution.

There should emerge an ecosystem where the independent media engages all the stakeholders of the society and invests in development agencies and foundations to strengthen our democracy as a joint force. This will also help envision long-term goals for the good of communities worldwide.”

Nihar Kothari is the Director and Executive Editor of the Patrika group of companies, which is amongst the top 10 media houses of India. camps with the support of the community organizations. The final execution of the campaign is reviewed regularly for follow up, and multiple linkages are used to scale up campaigns.

How do you intend to achieve impact beyond reporting?

The editorial functioning at Patrika has enabled all of us to work collaboratively to drive internal systems towards a social agenda. It’s through editorial meetings, participation in community programmes, and increased dialogues with social organizations, opinion makers and experts.

Besides this, we appreciate the good work of every journalist who has enhanced efficacy of the campaigns.This has resulted in increasing the faith of the readers. Readers and citizens often approach us in a state of crisis and reach out to us to let us know of pressing issues. The way a few individuals and social organizations have stood by us to work with issues on the ground, in courts, and extended moral support (and knowledge sources) gives us enough feedback about how much they endorse

agitated Gurjars (during the much hyped Gurjar movement for reservation ) to keep the movement violence free. As a result the Gurjars promised to restore peace and led the movement accordingly. Where machinery fails to handle a crisis, a credible newspaper can remind everyone of their responsibility towards state and lead them to right action.

This is public service journalism, which has activism as an intrinsic value.

How has the social agenda been able to change the mindset of your readers?

Patrika has spearheaded the social agenda fervently, and revamped the internal structure by setting up a national division Media Action Group (MAG). MAG has been striving to take up innovative strategies for media campaigning around development issues and connecting citizens for ground movements. It enhances the visibility of all the initiatives from a social change perspective in different editions for the global audience in English through daily updates on (www.mediaactiongroup.in).

21

2013: ODYSSEY TWO

...Continued

The difference is worth taking note of.

Photo courtesy : Rajasthan Patrika

So far, mobile phone usage was mostly voice, with a bit of SMS text messaging. This stands true whether you look at it in terms of the user numbers (over 90 percent used the mobile phone for phone calls), the subscription type (93 percent is low-spend, prepaid) or the traffic (over 90 per cent voice).

We have been able to bridge the gap between the press and civil society, over a period of 57 years of perseverance, with community service, through the newspaper.

Readers feel confident reaching out to us before they reach out to any other agency. Our teams help them using their connections as journalists before they look for the story in the common man’s plight.

Sensationalism has no place, and sensitivity is inherent in our editorial.

How do you see journalists becoming Changemakers?

It’s a slow process, but the agenda of each one being a Changemaker is firmly rooted.

The organizational culture motivates each journalist to connect closely with the cause, and issues affecting the common man. Senior editors have always motivated others to work towards a larger cause.

They also encourage teams to stay closely connected to understand the core issues and lead the change. One very interesting system is to evaluate each of the reporters on the basis of their work, which includes marking for their contribution in social work and campaigning. Besides there is a monthly and an annual award system for all teams in different categories.

What role can journalists play in spreading the message of Changemaking through their writing?

The media certainly crystallizes the agenda set by public and other agencies by playing 22

the role of a mobilizer and motivator. There are instances when the media sets goals for certain tasks, but ultimately thrives on public sentiments, and current developments to lead the change. Journalists, in this regard, play a major role by highlighting the positive stories by bringing Changemakers to the limelight, and giving them the space needed in news stories to add weight and earn faith of the readers. This way, there will be an increase in reporting on Changemakers and Changemaking. Journalists realize the value of covering struggles and successes for change and action.

We have a special supplement called Hum Tum, and other youth supplements, where we constantly cover the journey

of Changemakers and innovators.

Acknowledging the role that Changemakers play is an inspiration to our readers, and these stories enjoy a heavy readership in both regular news and feature supplements.

The endorsement, on part of the press, is a big boost for the entire process of Changemaking. Media coverage of change sends a message to the whole society to channelize their energies for the betterment of lives. Recent public movements and activism that we have witnessed on social media has had a ripple effect largely because of the respect and visibility of the public sentiments on mainstream media platforms. This has, in general, strengthened democratic voices.

Shipra Mathur is a News Editor and National Head at The Patrika Group.

She is a also development communicator who strives to bring public-service journalism to the forefront.

REDIRECTING ENERGIES Rajnish Jain devised an innovative method to put their destructive power to good use. By using pine needles from trees in the Himalayas, as fodder for a gassifier, Jain has been able to produce 9 KW of electricity for people in the villages.

Voice is a great thing – giving people the ability to call each other, or to call services, from a personal device is very empowering indeed. However, it has its limitations. Voice calls take time, limiting how many people you can inform in that manner. There is usually no record, raising the likelihood of message distortion when it’s transmitted onward to others.

The real change is afoot now. As usage shifts to data, the SMS explosion, the rise of instant-messaging apps like WhatsApp and BlackBerry Messenger, Facebook for

FROM WOW TO HOW ...Continued people – the people you intend to benefit and those around them. It is for very good reason that many of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs solve problems that they themselves faced at some point in their lives and that local or localized solutions stick better than foreign ones. Without the ability to empathize deeply with a problem and the ability to expand the circle of empathy around a problem, interventions, however shiny they may be, often don’t work the way you want them to. Change is almost always inside-out.

Early, last year my wife and I moved to Washington DC. En-route to work I encounter thousands of office-goers in work-inspired frenzy and in this crowd there are always a few blind people. Even though, this being the US where the blind usually armed with sophisticated canes, voice activated phones and audio books, they still move about tentatively with people bumping into them, pushing them, and drowning out announcements in a roar of conversation. They are like islands with an angry ocean swirling around them.

The station announcements by the train conductors are pathetically slurred, a mere formality. Unless we can fundamentally change how we look at inclusivity, our technology will not amount to much. At the pinnacle of its success it will create billions of islands and unforeseen challenges.

So what does this mean for tech-for-change social innovators? A few suggestions. In our

mobile on low-end phones and Twitter for mobile, will change the way in which social movements are carried forward.

Unlike the one-to-one, peer-to-peer voice service (you usually speak to one person at a time on a phone call), data allows one-tomany communication.

A single SMS text, if it’s interesting or important enough, is forwarded to ten people, who might in turn forward it to ten more. Just six such ‘generations’ of forwards could take that message, from one ordinary person, to a million people. All of this can be achieved in less than one hour.

Mobile data is the game changer in many ways. For instance, you can no longer

suppress something by banning it or arresting the sender. Each time you do that, you enormously amplify the message you seek to suppress; banning a controversial book, for instance, only leads to a the heroworship of its author.

This switch to data will be the big shift for India in 2013. The mobile as a major tool of mass empowerment and messaging, due to its graduation from the one-to-one voice service to the one-to-many data.

Which also brings up opportunities for innovators, startups and investors looking at the telecom-related areas, as well as social entrepreneurship. But that is another story.

Prasanto K Roy, editorial advisor at CyberMedia, is one of the most respected technology journalists in India. Follow him at Twitter @prasanto and read his blogs at http://www.pkr.in

DESIGNING FOR CHANGE How can one leverage technology in rural areas?

Lakshminarayan Kannan and Vijay Babu, two technologists, devised a low cost, low power, solar ATM to make banking easier for the rural poor.

hands lies the potential for great change-change that will come when we recognise our limitations and the opportunities that lie within them: First, Wire Them In Technology is a great enabler but the problem is almost always about the people.

A good strategy is about seeing the ‘people layer’ (sometimes it’s not so evident) and wiring your effort and organisation to meet that challenge head-on.

Second, Partner The resources needed to truly solve a problem are dispersed. They lie within other networks. One must collaborate with people who not only share your skill-set but also your objectives. You will find unusual partners and a greater chance at success.

Third, Learn From The Best While approaching the problem, don’t just rely on your expertise, especially if you’re not ‘from the space’ of social entrepreneurship.

To work closely on the problem, invite

and learn from people who have lived the problem—social entrepreneurs who can refine your solutions.

You can then validate your assumptions as well as set realistic but inclusive targets. I know that there is always the fear that you will then not be able to ‘do your thing’ but that’s often misplaced. Find the right mentor from that space and instead of diminishing your creativity, you will find that it adds critical perspective to your big idea.

Finally (and this is no suggestion) just an experience. A few years ago, I was very keen to ‘do something’ in rural India. I reached out to an ashram that was known for the work they did in rural India and was informed that I would first need to undergo a meditation program offered by the ashram. I was quite puzzled – until I was informed that I could only really do anything meaningful in the villages if my inner self was aligned. Even though I wanted to jump the ‘how’ I was being asked to contemplate on the ‘why’. As always, the inside-out.

The author is the co-founder of Inclusive Planet and is a member of the Changemakers team at Ashoka 23

BACK COVER

CHANGE, ONLY A CLICK AWAY lover of Bollywood films and technology, Sameer Segal is a young Changemaker who is making the work of those in the field of development a little bit easier. Sameer struggled to find a way to escape a typical career path after graduating from the National Institute Technology, until Banker to the Poor, a book by Muhammad Yunus, introduced to him the world of microfinance. Barely a year after graduating, Sameer, with his wife Indus, engineered Artoo. Artoo, named after one of Sameer’s favorite characters from Star Wars, has developed a software solution designed to help field agents of enterprises working at the base of the pyramid become more effective in serving their end customers.

Advocating the potential of technology, Artoo relieves field agents of the burden of paper work and does away with innumerable delays by utilizing tablets or smart phones to fill in customers’ information—instituting real-time information exchange between

microfinance or health institutions and their field staff and reducing turn around times.

Artoo takes the entire process of data collection and workflows online, drastically reducing expenses and time consummation.

Sameer, now 25, was born in Delhi but brought up in Bangalore. He attended National Public School and later the Valley School, Sameer notes as ‘unconventional’ before returning to conventional schooling in the 11th grade. Sameer described his childhood as very ordinary; he grew up listening to stories from his father about working with ‘Tech giants like HP and IBM.’ These stories fostered an obsession with computers and programming, ultimately leading him to electrical engineering in NITK. However, like most other engineering students, he gradually lost interest and realized that he wanted to do something different. ‘As I went along my engineering course, I got pretty bored. It was very theoretical, you don’t really learn much and there is not much motivation while you’re at an engineering programme’, says Segal. He came across Engineers for Social

Impact (E4SI),a unique fellowship program that connected top engineering talent to credible social enterprises driving marketbased solutions to development in India. He acquired a fellowship and an internship with Ujjivan Microfinance, Bangalore. He says, ‘I could now see the development track was a viable career option. It is possible to do good and do well!’

Regarding the success of Artoo, Segal says ‘I don’t think we have achieved something yet, Its just the beginning,’ Sameer modestly replies. The Paragon100 Fellowship has recognized Sameer as one of the most promising social entrepreneurs and Artoo continues to be a startup on the cusp of an emerging technological breakthrough. To all the budding entreprenuers, he simply wants them to believe in themselves and not give in to criticisms or minor failures. Once calling his choice ‘career suicide,’ his father now stands proud. Believing that he represents a new generation capable of exploring a lot more, Segal says that revolution has just begun.

For more stories of young Changemakers, visit ‘The Changemakers’ series on the Ashoka India website

Photo courtesy : Sameer Segal

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By Sneha Paul