E-Health Clinics in India

This is a health clinic in rural India using an interesting combination of clean water and e-healthcare. This business is being incubated by Ashoka, here is the original press release.

Difficulty of getting products in country

This is another story from VisionSpring. I realize I just made a reference to them in my last post but they are simply the most active participant online in this space and they provide a level of transparency that I cannot access from other initiatives. I hope to continue to provide variety in the examples but in the end we're looking for principles--

VisionSpring has been piloting with BRAC in Bangeldesh and are now about to "spring" into a full implementation of their program but they are struggling with meeting the inventory demands of BRAC, particularly in terms of getting product into the country from their factory in China.

This is a very common problem, I was just on a call with an organization that ships high-nourishment food packets across borders and getting through customs is one of their biggest challenges. I see the Grameen-Danone model of mini-plants as an innovation that will help to overcome these challenges in the short term and I think the model should be attempted by more but not all products can be streamlined into mini-manufacturing. The challenge of low prices and high volume for the bottom of the pyramid may ultimately be best served by large plants with great distribution systems.

Are mini-plants the engineering innovation needed for bottom of the pyramid products?

Kickstart and donor money to build markets

Britt Bravo over at Have Fun Do Good recently posted a great interview with Martin Fisher, CEO and co-founder of Kickstart. For me, the most interesting part of the interview was the discussion regarding the challenges faced by Kickstart, interesting because 1) I believe Kickstart has molded and adjusted to those challenges extremely well and 2) the issue of having to create entire new markets when introducing new products or services will be a similar challenge faced by most of the microfranchises discussed on this site.

It can be easy to talk about social enterprises as if launching a business were easy and success were automatic. Here we are reminded of the reality by one of the most successful organizations at introducing a new technological product at the bottom of the pyramid saying they expect it to take ten years of heavy promotion and reliance on donor funds to tip the market. That strikes me as a much longer time frame than is commonly presented in the industry. We like to talk about sustainability and revenue streams from social enterprises but we must not forget that there is still an incredible market failure in the funding for this market-creation stage. Even the most hard-nosed revenue stream proponents will need to understand the world of philanthropy and fundraising.

Briquettes: a lot of bang for your buck

There was a great highlighted technology over on Afrigadget that could lend itself to a branded microfranchise. It would be a briquette making business. There are other technology designs out there but the idea of a briquette making business is very appealing because it can address multiple issues in one intervention, i.e. as a business it would obviously seek to create jobs and increase incomes but selling briquettes would also bring some great positive benefits to the health of the family and the local environment.

The D-Lab out of MIT reminds us that charcoal is a smokeless fuel, cutting back on the indoor air pollution that leads to so many respiratory infections in children where there is open fire cooking in the home. In terms of the environment, charcoal can be made from agricultural waste which would otherwise be burned off as waste. This is particularly critical in a country like Haiti where deforestation is at a dire level. For a quick introduction to the technology GOOD Magazine did a great little article on this and other basic technologies a while back.

Has anyone has success or failure in attempting to launch a briquette making franchise. What were your greatest challenges?

Greg Van Kirk elected an Ashoka Fellow

Lucy Bernholz over at Philanthropy 2173 beat me to the punch in posting about one of the latest Ashoka Fellows who has a microfranchising connection. But there's always room for repeated coverage of good models.

When the Ashoka newsletter came out the other day I was excited to see a familiar name, Greg Van Kirk, as one of their new Fellows. I am not involved on the venture side to have seem it coming but I'll probably be involved in deciding what funder provides his living stipend :)

I first learned about Van Kirk's Micro-Consignment model at the last ESR Conference at BYU. I remember being impressed by the many different levels of involvement of CE Solutions, providing complete support in the business incubation process. I have seen other models that are very good at the microfinance side, others who whose strength is training and mentoring, and others who have successfully moved technological solutions, but Van Kirk is supporting the entire process and having incredible success because of it.

So, congratulations to Greg and CE Solutions. Congratulations likewise to Ashoka and their continued ability to identify these high impact social entrepreneurs and to all those that fund them through giving to Ashoka. (Always have to acknowledge those behind the scenes now that I've worked in Development).