I would like to thank Professor Zak and each of you for making this class experience so spectacular. You really do learn a lot spending an entire semester turning a passion into a reality, and watching others do so as well :) Being with such an empowering bunch of folks has really helped me come to terms with the fact that I'm graduating, and it's time to get out and change things, bottom-up and in an innovative way. Could we continue posting to this blog? Would love to hear updates from everyone!
Our team eagerly awaits the results of the Dell Social Innovation Challenge for our water purifier solution for rural communities in India. The five finalists will be announced next week. Today, I met with Josh Knauer, truly a phenomenal person. Before I explain my purpose in writing this post, I have to go on a slight tangent. Josh is currently CEO of Rhiza Labs - a business intelligence start-up that strategically develops ways to easily visualize and communicate data. They do some really cool stuff, including equipping Brazil's fierce Surui tribe to partake in the carbon market and reap the benefits of carbon offsets. Rhiza has equipped the tribe members with a smartphone that includes GPS tracking, a camera, and web capabilities that will enable scientists to construct maps of the rain forest and calculate carbon offsets. Rhiza collaborates with Google Earth to implement this solution.
Speaking of collaboration, Josh suggested our Neer (water purifier) team to explore opportunities with Wello, a social venture that utilizes a WaterWheel to give people in Rajasthan, India easier access to potable water. The Wheel carries 5 gallons of water, enough to meet the needs of a family for a day. http://wellowater.org/the-issue-our-solution/
This opportunity excites me and I'm excited to convey it to our team.
So, as a lot of interesting ideas rush, twist, turn, spark, and flare through my head as a result of this class, I am so thankful that they are now ideas with catalysts for implementation and set of instilled guiding principles. This came from our class. What's more, Ketaki, something you said during your Hult success really resonates with me -- "you don't need to change the world by yourself." There are amazing opportunities for collaboration out there, and I'm every ready to join in on the fun!
Thank you! All the best to everyone.
Amy
Friday, May 11, 2012
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The journey we take ...
Time and again we have listened to several entrepreneurs tell us that social entrepreneurship is a journey; not a destination. You start with an idea, one that according to you will make a significant social impact, and then you start building a business model around this idea to make it sustainable, and generate at least a basic revenue stream. Nothing big, just enough to get you by.
Slowly you realize that your initial idea was not as impactful as you thought it would be. Either that, or you realized that people would not be willing to pay any money for it. So, you revise it and start the iterative process: will this be sustainable, will it target the market I am aiming for, will people be willing to buy my product, will I be able to generate a cash flow .... you add and you subtract, you bend forwards and backwards, you spend sleepless nights writing feasibility pitches and chalking out business plans, you practice your pitches - 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes and 5. Soon you have become a tiny part of the world of social entrepreneurs - all wanting to change the world in a small but significant way.
As I write this last blog before the end of semester, I realize how fortunate I have been, and maybe fortune had nothing to do with it, maybe it was persistence. If you keep doing new things everyday, you have less time to focus on things that did not work out, and instead you are always looking forward to the next thing that might actually work. As I started the year, I interviewed with the best consulting company - which did not work out at all as I had expected. I simultaneously received the confirmation that our team made it past the first round to go to Boston, but I was I so upset about the consulting company that I did not celebrate that success. Soon school started and I kept applying for one competition after another, one scholarship after another, knowing that SOMETHING would give. The Hult competition was such a farfetched victory that I never really gave it second thought until we won the regional finals in Boston.
Then came the Dell Social Innovation Challenge, and I was a little more upset about not getting into the semi-finals than I expected. By that time, however, I had started a process of getting over things that did not succeed much easily than ever before. Be really upset, mope around a little, and then move on. I think the biggest thing I have learned in this journey, other than the technical aspects of how to survive in the world of social entrepreneurs, is the skill to keep at it. Pick yourself up, and start again, and again ... until something just works right and your life changes forever. It will happen, and in some cases, if you put your soul into your work, it will happen sooner than you think. But don't give up. We all have some amazing ideas, and have gained a slew of skills to make the ideas work. All it needs now is our commitment. That, and the ability to fix our processes when things go wrong, instead of lamenting about our failures! I would like to end with another favorite quote:
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”
-Henry David Thoreau
Slowly you realize that your initial idea was not as impactful as you thought it would be. Either that, or you realized that people would not be willing to pay any money for it. So, you revise it and start the iterative process: will this be sustainable, will it target the market I am aiming for, will people be willing to buy my product, will I be able to generate a cash flow .... you add and you subtract, you bend forwards and backwards, you spend sleepless nights writing feasibility pitches and chalking out business plans, you practice your pitches - 30 seconds, 1 minute, 2 minutes and 5. Soon you have become a tiny part of the world of social entrepreneurs - all wanting to change the world in a small but significant way.
As I write this last blog before the end of semester, I realize how fortunate I have been, and maybe fortune had nothing to do with it, maybe it was persistence. If you keep doing new things everyday, you have less time to focus on things that did not work out, and instead you are always looking forward to the next thing that might actually work. As I started the year, I interviewed with the best consulting company - which did not work out at all as I had expected. I simultaneously received the confirmation that our team made it past the first round to go to Boston, but I was I so upset about the consulting company that I did not celebrate that success. Soon school started and I kept applying for one competition after another, one scholarship after another, knowing that SOMETHING would give. The Hult competition was such a farfetched victory that I never really gave it second thought until we won the regional finals in Boston.
Then came the Dell Social Innovation Challenge, and I was a little more upset about not getting into the semi-finals than I expected. By that time, however, I had started a process of getting over things that did not succeed much easily than ever before. Be really upset, mope around a little, and then move on. I think the biggest thing I have learned in this journey, other than the technical aspects of how to survive in the world of social entrepreneurs, is the skill to keep at it. Pick yourself up, and start again, and again ... until something just works right and your life changes forever. It will happen, and in some cases, if you put your soul into your work, it will happen sooner than you think. But don't give up. We all have some amazing ideas, and have gained a slew of skills to make the ideas work. All it needs now is our commitment. That, and the ability to fix our processes when things go wrong, instead of lamenting about our failures! I would like to end with another favorite quote:
If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put foundations under them.”
-Henry David Thoreau
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