Archives for October 2009

Meeting Bill Rodriguez

October 18, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

Last week, LIGHTs fellows greeted our first guest, Bill Rodriguez, an inspiring global health entrepreneur with a diverse background in medicine, for-profit companies, and nonprofit organizations. Bill recently cofounded a company with Mehmet Toner called Daktari, which produces a new type of CD4 counter for HIV diagnostics that is portable and practical for use in the field. Previously, Bill Rodriguez was the Clinton Foundation’s Medical Officer and he led research in global health diagnostics at Harvard Partners AIDS Research Center at MGH.

Our conversation started with interest in Bill’s startup company, Daktari, which currently has $2.8 million in Series A funding. They aim to roll out in three, then seven, followed by thirty countries.  Currently Daktari has a central manufacturing plant, but they plan to localize production when the capacity is available in each country. His vision for sustainability is focused on “making small margins on high volumes rather than high margins on small volumes.” He also discussed the importance of venture capital and the need for more patient capital in the social enterprise space to address global health issues. Bill Rodriguez is a true role model for LiGHTs fellows for applying science to practice and using for-profit enterprise to alleviate social problems. We look forward to support Daktari and Bill’s efforts in the future!

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Legatum Progress Through Innovation

October 18, 2009 by · 1 Comment

Winner of Legatum photo competition

This image was the winner of the Legatum Photo Competition India track, in which women, trained by engineers, prepare food with solar cookers to sell to people in neighboring villages.

If you believe in these type of products and services that engage citizens and are commercially sustainable, then check out the buzz about the Progress through Innovation Legatum conference, held on October 2, 2009.

When I arrived Friday morning, I was thrilled to see such a diverse audience. The hall was filled with attendees ranging from entrepreneurs, investors, media, think-tanks, non-profits, business executives, and students.

The welcome remarks from Iqbal Quadir, Founder and Director of the Legatum Center at MIT, portrayed parallels with the most recent Economist piece on Mobile Money and referenced the 140th birthday of Mahatma Gandhi, a man who took individual action to bring about change. The panels and keynotes included a cross section of thought leaders in government, entrepreneurship, and development. Some key highlights were:

  • Keynote morning address from Esko Aho, former prime minister of Finland, who emphasized that the world did not face a lack of technology, but rather a lack of innovation.
  • A panel on “Entrepreneurs” including Sriram Raghavan, head of Comat, Lisa Conte, head of Napo Pharmaceuticals, and Tokunbo Talabi, CEO of Superflux, who stressed how systemic change started from bottom up approaches.
  • Inventors, such as Tod Machover, an innovator in music and Dean Kamen, who invented a $2000 generator that runs entirely on cow dung and a water purifier that makes 1,000 liters of water every day.
  • A panel on how the Internet is helping to empower people in low-income countries and Tim Berners-Lee, founder of the World Wide Web, who highlighted how 80% of humanity still does not use the internet.

The most dynamic panel of the day was on “Investing in Low Income Countries” moderated by Magatte Wade-Marchand. Alvaro Arregui, founder of IGNIA Fund, highlighted the important link between risk and perceived risk, asserting that in order for working with the poor to become “lower risk”, attitudes needs to change. Runa Alam, who launched Development Partners International, believed that investing in low income countries is as good as investing anywhere else in the world. Magatte Wade Marchand, founder of Adina, affirmed her vision to make Africa the sustainable manufacturer of the world. 

Every social problem is a business opportunity. By 2050, the world’s GDP will be in emerging markets. The Legatum conference inspired me to get back to work to solve the key issues in organic economic growth and to address the underlying deep-rooted social and political problems.


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Writing and Living

October 18, 2009 by · Leave a Comment

I love blogs. They provide me short snapshots into issues, beliefs, speakers, events, and anything connecting people and ideas. 1 year ago, I started becoming a blog writer, for other blogs related to my work, extracurricular activities, and events I attended. Now my blog posts are on 10 different blogs and it’s only when I google myself do I actually find these stories that I wrote about myself and the experiences I had. I think now is a great time to start a real blog for myself. I hope to share my thoughts and experiences as well as my journey to play my part in changing the world.

Before I start, I am posting a few of my old blog posts to recap some of my most exciting experiences, working in India with Education Access for All and starting Young Professionals for Acumen Fund, which is now called New York for Acumen.

Young Professionals for Acumen Fund:

Reflections on Dignity event

Monday August 10, 2009

In part two of our series about YP Acumen’s DIGNITY event, we hear from YP Acumen Co-Founder, Erica Dhawan. Erica is a recipient of a Legatum Fellowship and will attend MIT’s Sloan School of Management this fall to pursue her MBA.

As one of the founders of Young Professionals for Acumen Fund, I was incredibly excited to have our first YP Acumen volunteer meeting hoping to get at least 5 members involved in planning our biggest fundraising event: a photo auction with Nuru Project. When over 25 YPs showed up with diverse backgrounds ranging from fundraising, finance, advertising, and media, we knew we were in for something much larger than we ever expected. Ten team leads volunteered each running different functions and gave updates at our weekly conference calls or in-person meetings over the next 6 weeks. We had more emails than you can imagine from a team with hectic day jobs actively working to gain food and drink sponsorships, manage ticket sales, set our budget, and market our event to organizations and media.

The week before the event, our last meeting culminated the hard work of the volunteers: “We have sold over 180 tickets” said marketing lead Rabia Ahmed as we strategized a plan if we sold out…which ended up happening. “We have over 15 sponsors and donations” said sponsorship lead Nina West as we coordinated on-site delivery. “I will make sure all of our day of logistics questions are coordinated with Tribeca gallery,” said venue lead Wendy Wecksell.

What was most inspiring to me is the power of Young Professionals for Acumen Fund volunteers to self-organize and their dedication to fundraise and work as a team. The photos at the Dignity event depicted an exciting optimistic vision for development, but the buzz around the gallery and conversations inspired a call to action, which Young Professionals for Acumen Fund seeks to build through a movement for social enterprise and patient capital.

May 12, 2009

BoP Career Paths: A Different Way to Educate India

Editor’s note: Guest blogger Erica Dhawan documents her experiences and the learning involved in joining an educational social venture in India.

In December 2008, I left my job at Barclays Capital to volunteer with Deepti Doshi, former Talent Manager at Acumen Fund and current CEO of an educational social venture called Ziqitza Education.

The mission pursued by Ziqitza Education is to ensure that the innovative, participative and efficient teaching methods used in some elite schools in India and internationally are made accessible to all schools and children. Ziqitza pursues its mission through two activities: managing private schools and distributing e-learning tools.

Working at the education startup has been a tough, yet very rewarding experience. Few other jobs would give me opportunity to work in as many different functions and understand how each specific area works. Working at Ziqitza Education helped me realize my hidden potential in building processes, managing resources and getting help from all possible sources. We were even incubated in the office of Dial 1298 for Ambulance – another startup – so my startup experience was enhanced by working side by side with another social enterprise that is growing and ready to scale.

As an Indian who grew up in the United States, being exposed to the cultural differences across states in India, and working directly with a team from Kerala, Rajasthan, andMaharashtra was a refreshing break from the homogeneity of corporate America.

Traveling through Rajasthan, Punjab and Delhi – being in the “rural India” that I have seen, heard and read about was real eye opener. After meeting with school principals, teachers, students, and parents, I saw examples of how the education system worked and how it failed, met people from many different organizations who are trying to improve education in India, and those who are already making it happen. It helped me realize the opportunity and challenge that Ziqitza Education has to make a difference.

Recently, Ziqitza Education became a finalist at the Sankalp Social Enterprise & Investment Forum in the Emerging Growth Education for All category. This award was exciting, but more importantly the conference introduced me to a whole new world of organizations and people who believe in social enterprises and its impact. Many of the people I had a chance to meet where supportive and encouraging to the mission of Ziqitza Education.

The past three months has made me realize that the future of India lies in educating rural India. More children are enrolled in Indian schools today than at any previous time in the country’s history, but results are poor in terms of student drop-out rates and their ability to read and write. Surprisingly, it’s the younger generation that is recognizing the need and placing an importance on it. At Bhartiya Public School in Pilani, a small town in Rajasthan, we met with 3 students who shared their thoughts on education:

“Before we move to the big cities for work, we need to think about educating the kids from the villages” said a 2nd Grader. “I wish we had mentors in our local area who have pursued different types of careers” said an 8th Grader. “I want to improve my English and find people who can give me language training” said another.

Kids like these deserve a chance and hearing it firsthand from them has been the real motivating factor for me to be part of an organization that is trying to make a difference.

It has been a unique, tough & exhilarating experience, one that has made me a better human being and also open doors to new relationships, friendships and collaboration to whole set of people that I would never have otherwise had the pleasure to meet, greet and work with.

Education Access for All presents at Sankalp forum as finalist!

May 4, 2009 by eaaindia

Imagine 100+ regional and international investors, business incubators, policy makers and corporates combined with hundreds of social entrepreneurs from sectors such as rural innovation, agriculture, healthcare, education, clean energy and more…

This was the Sankalp Forum hosted by Intellecap, which brought together social businesses and stakeholders sharing a common conviction that capital should be invested to create multiple bottom-line returns. One highlight of the forum was Vijay Mahajan, CEO of Basix, discussion of the word Sankalp which means “determination” and his story of starting his first social enterprise. Another highlight was the evening panel led by Venkat Krishnan, Founder of GiveIndiaand Educational Initiatives, who discussed ”Impact Investing” as a way to transform capitalism and as a new and morally legitimate industry.

Ziqitza Education, which is the for-profit holding company while Education Access for All is our non-profit foundation arm, made the finalist round in the “Education for All” category in the “Emerging Growth” model. Other finalists in our category included Technable Solutions, which offers employment oriented vocational training; BookBox, which has created animated books to support emergent literacy and language skills; Forklift Academy of India, which runs a premier safety training company primarily on material handling equipments; and Joy of Learning, which develops children friendly books and runs activity centers that use play-based learning to teach elementary concepts to students. We were proud to be there in such company to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing the education market, the role of government, and different types of education business models and believe that only with collaboration across sectors, regions and models will we be able to make a dent in changing education here in India.

March 31, 2009

The Origins of Young Professionals for Acumen Fund

Young Professionals for Acumen Fund co-founder Erica Dhawan (far left) writes about how YP got its start. Also pictured: Molly Alexander from Acumen Fund and Farhat Umar, YP’s other co-founder.

In November 2007, while working Lehman Brothers, I cold-called Acumen Fund to find out if there were any opportunities to get involved. Because I was unable to volunteer full-time, I began to brainstorm with Acumen Fund’s Molly Alexander about building a network of young professionals interested in social enterprise. With the help friends, we organized an event in June 2008 called “The Value Chain of Social Enterprise: How Young Professionals Can Get Involved,” which attracted over 300 attendees. We then hosted our first fundraising event in October 2008, raising almost $4,000 for Acumen Fund.

YP is now a group of over 500 young people – bankers, consultants, entrepreneurs, marketers, designers, non-profiters, and students – who share a vision of collaboration in the fight against poverty. We see a broad vision for our future: integrating this group with our peer organizations and providing more opportunities for young individuals committed to creating change. I truly believe that social enterprise is the cause of our generation and I can’t wait to see how YP evolves in the next few years.

March 31, 2009

Post from the Field: Erica Dhawan

Erica Dhawan was one of the first members of Young Professionals for Acumen Fund. In this post, she writes about her experience leaving an investment bank to join an educational social venture in India. If you have any questions, leave them in the comments and Erica will address them in a future post.


I am writing from Beawar, a small town in Rajasthan, India where our partner school Mangal Newton School resides. Two months ago, I left my job at Barclays Capital to join former Acumen Fund Talent Manager Deepti Doshi scale a social venture called Education Access for All (EAA), which seeks to deliver quality educational resources to rural areas across India through a for-profit and sustainable model.

Over the past month, we have met with school owners, administrators, parents, students, social entrepreneurs, investors, and friends across urban and rural towns who share the vision to bring quality education across India. We have solidified a business plan to launch a school management service and e-learning product that brings global best practices and innovation to small towns across India. We also plan to use a cross subsidy model to serve poor children who make up to 20% of the enrolled schoolchildren.


My experience at EAA has allowed me to interact with some of the smartest leaders in social enterprise, including board members Shaffi Mather and Sweta Mangal, founders of the Acumen investee 1298 ambulance company. The startup environment has taught me the power of patience and diligence, and most importantly, that we must and we will act only after we understand the education needs from the people in communities across India.


We can always use the support of smart, dedicated young professionals. If you’d like to get involved, email me aterica.dhawan@eaaindia.org. And for more on this venture, check outhttp://eaaindia.wordpress.com.


A Parents Vision

March 7, 2009

Editor’s note: New contributor Erica Dhawan joined our team in February 2009. Previously, she worked at Lehman Brothers and helped build a young professionals network for Acumen Fund. Erica has been traveling with me and will be writing about our experiences as well.

Meet Gordham, a longtime waiter at the well-known LMB restaurant inJaipur, Rajasthan. His wife and two young children live in his hometown Kalilpura Papra, a rural village 6 hours away from Jaipur. Every 15 days, Gordham goes back to his hometown and spends 5 days with his family and makes sure the plants are watered on his farm. Kalilpura Papra is a village of 450 people and his 2 children currently go to a nearby Hindi medium private school where he pays 240 Rs per month per child. Gordham has decided to send his 2 children to an English medium school next year which is 20 kilometers from his village. The fees are 600 Rs per month per child, which more than doubles the education fees and does not include transportation. Gordham, who spoke Marwari and Hindi, wanted his children to be the first generation in his family to receive an English education. When Deepti asked Gordham if he had a computer, he said he did not and mentioned that the electricity stopped every 8 hours in the village. His family does own a TV, but no VCR.

Deepti then asked Gordham that if he did have a computer, would he be willing to buy an e-learning CD for his children to learn on the computer. Although Gordham didn’t have a computer he quickly responded that he would spend up to 1000 Rs per month on each of his children for their education. We exchanged contact information with Gordham and hope to visit his village.

Education is the average Indian family’s second largest expense after food. By meeting Gordham, we saw a parent’s willingness to invest in his children with the best resources available to him. We also observed how the lack of access to basic electricity and technology infrastructure may affect many children and families in Gordham’s hometown. Our conversation with Gordham continued to confirm that we can view parents as partners in identifying innovative ways to bring high quality education to small towns and rural areas.



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