How students can be emerging market for

innovations for the rural sector

Entrepreneurship Awareness Camp

March 15,2009
An innovation in a telephone booth
 Examples of business opportunities

• Hottest start up of 2008 (conducted by

NEN)
• Promoted by recent graduates of IIT-M
• Development of a product for mentally
disadvantaged rural people

Invention Labs Pvt Ltd

 Examples of business opportunities

• Hottest start up of 2008

• Promoted by incubatees of RTBI,IIT-M
• In the business of design and marketing
of handicrafts
ROPE Pvt Ltd
 Examples of business opportunities

• Promoted by incubatee of RTBI,IIT-M

• Rural BPO

DesiCrew Pvt Ltd

 Rural Opportunities

• Globally, 4 billion at the Base of Pyramid

• Less than US$2 per day.
• Combined purchasing power of US$5 trillion
• In India, 26% at the BoP and 60% of
workforce dependent on agriculture
 United Nations Millennium Development Goals

Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger

Goal 2: Achieve universal primary education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental sustainability
Goal 8: Global partnership for development
 Sectoral scenario

Agriculture – relates to goal 1

Means:
Agricultural Productivity
Employment generation through value addition
Of agriculture products
Market linkage of agricultural products
 Sectoral Scenario

Health – relates to Goal 4,5,6

Means:
Affordable medical technologies
Health services
Insurance
 Sectoral Scenario

Water – relates to Goals 6,7

Means:
Affordable water purification technologies
 Sectoral Scenario

Energy – relates to Goals 7

Means:
Harnessing solar, wind and renewable
technologies
 Enterprise for rural prosperity – case study

SELCO – Solar Electric Lighting Company

Business – Affordable lighting solutions for
poor
Since 1996
Based in Bangalore
 Enterprise for rural prosperity – case study

Opportunity – Tribal & remote villages not

connected by electricity grid
Product – solar lighting systems
Beneficiaries – households, vegetable vendors
& flower pluckers
Innovation – financial and local value creation
Business Models at the BoP

NGO

Social Enterprises
 Strategies for businesses at BoP

Strategy 1:
Leverage technology & build business
processes

e.g. Post harvest technologies

Efficient energy technologies
Affordable medical devices
 Strategies for businesses at BoP

Strategy 2:
Invest in removing market constraints

e.g. Employability factor & IT finishing

schools in rural areas
 Strategies for businesses at BoP

Strategy 3:
Leverage the strengths of poor

e.g.
Employ local people as producers,
intermediaries in the value chain
 Strategies for businesses at BoP

Strategy 4
Unconventional partnerships

e.g.
BP & CCD for Oorja stove business model
 Strategies for businesses at BoP

To summarize strategies
• Design for the poor
• Local value creation
• Unconventional partnerships
 How can students participate in
‘social enterprise’
‘inclusive growth’
Business model for the rural sector?
 The RIN Model

Innovat
ors

Rural Users Entrepreneurs

 The RIN Model

Innovator Entrepreneur Enduser

L-RAMP Samrudhi
UCID
Talent Development Program
Knowledge Development Program
 The RIN Model & Students

In collaboration with IIT-M & funded by The

Lemelson Foundation, US
Works with innovators/entrepreneurs to incubate
innovations

L-RAMP Student level engagement VIT

PSG-TECH
At 4 institutions TNAU
GRU
My Idea Program

Student Project Funding

 The RIN Model

Significant milestones
• 1400 students reached through My Idea Program
• More than student ideas developed into products
e.g. sugarcane weeder, wheel-chair for physically challenged
• 1 candidate pursuing doctorate in rural innovations
 Steps to participate

• Be innovative, look at the social problems

around through the prism of business
• Be entrepreneurial, take calculated risks to
convert problems into opportunities
• Network and create a team
 Support systems to participate

• Funds available for product development,

business formation from government and
other social venture capitalists
• Strong networks and association of bodies
Thank you!