Stanford E-Week : Idea to Implementation - Media X at the intersection

Get an insider view of the Stanford research ecosystem where , technology begets social transformation -   Join us during Stanford E-week:

Monday, March 5, 6:00 - 7:30 PM #100 Cordura HallIdea to Implementation - Media X at the Intersection

Media X panel during the Stanford Entrepreneurial Week

Neerja Raman, moderator

Chuck House, Chancellor Cogswell College, Emeritus Media X

Franny Lee, Assoc. Dir. Stanford Intellectual Property Exchange

Chao King and Hiroshi Tomita, Konica Minolta Systems Lab

   How does a research project evolve to a product? The Stanford Intellectual Property Exchange provides an example.

Google, SUN Microsystems, Yahoo - just a few of the highly successful companies with research roots from Stanford University. Sometimes the business community pulls ideas out of the university. Sometimes the university pushes them out. Along the way from idea to success, many organizations and individuals get involved, providing talent, information and capital. This innovation ecosystem of relationships, catalysts and resources is part of Stanford's secret sauce. 

   This panel will highlight some of the critical entrepreneurial enablers that have given life to a research idea introduced in 2006 and developed into a technology that is transforming the way people can monetize and use online content created by themselves and others.

Social E-Challenge: Final Round

The annual BASES Social E-Challenge, a student-run social entrepreneurship business plan competition, where I mentor, will be hosting its final round event Wednesday, May 18th at Stanford University. Our finalists are:

Foresight Medical is a low cost device for cervical cancer screening, a disease that kills 270,000 woman a year.
Culture Kitchen is a social enterprise that seeks to connect immigrant women in the U.S. with female American “foodies” interested in learning to cook authentic ethnic cuisine, by creating a culinary and cultural forum focused on empowerment.
1/2 PROJECT champions the idea of giving on a small scale through everyday common purchases, instead of large annual gifts that require more financial commitment.
Juntos Finanzas creates innovative personal finance tools that empower first generation Latino communities.

The finalists were chosen after multiple rounds from the following:
 
1/2 PROJECT
AquaNation
Axis
Biological Processing of Milk Wastewater
Culture Kitchen
D3W: Diagnostic Devices for the Developing World
DesiHaat
Foresight Medical
Gram Power
Juntos
Milaap.org
NextDrop
PLANT ELEMENTS
PublicVine
The College Gap
WorldMedSchool

Fellowship Opportunity with AIF

Fellowships opportunity announcement from AIF:     http://www.aifclintonfellowship.org/
SERVE. LEARN. LEAD.

MISSION: The AIF Clinton Fellowship for Service provides a select group of young American professionals with the opportunity to serve marginalized and underprivileged communities in India by working with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) for a period of 10 months.

VISION: The AIF Clinton Fellowship Program is committed to developing the next generation of young Americans leaders. Equipped with a practical, field-based knowledge of international development, they will become life-long ambassadors for service to the marginalized & underserved in India.

Together, AIF Clinton Fellows and NGO leaders form dynamic partnerships to exchange technical skills and knowledge, as well as passion, commitment, and new ways of looking at the world, which ultimately transforms both the individual and organization.

Since 2001, 291 young Americans have worked with over 150 Indian NGOs through the AIF Clinton Fellowship for Service. Alumni have become transformative leaders and entrepreneurs in business, international development, academia, journalism and other fields, and together represent a collective force and organized network for sustaining a long-term agenda dedicated toward change in India.

APPLICATION DEADLINE: November 15th: Early; January 1st: FINAL

Please check out our blog which highlights stories from the field:
WWW.AIFCLINTONFELLOWSHIP.ORG/BLOG

Please contact: INFO@AIFCLINTONFELLOWSHIP.ORG,
POONAM.SINGH@AIF.ORG, OR CALL 408-816-1975

There is an information session: 11/3/2010, Pigott Hall, Stanford 4:30-6:30

What is BOP? And Why You Should Care

Bottom of the pyramid (BOP) is greater than half of the world population. And if you are reading this, chances are you are not BOP. But, read on anyway. Once upon a time BOP was the "third world" and the model of interaction (if any) with the BOP was charity or social services (like welfare). Activists ruled as the keepers of our conscience. With globalisation came the need for cheap(er) labor and BOP became the "emerging market". Entrepreneurs ruled. But then things got complicated. First world infrastructure (innovated at the dawn of the industrial age) did not scale in sustainable fashion to meet either the third world/emerging market needs or first world lifestyle. Worse still, communication channels (innovated in the computer age) became digital - making all this mess in live action, color video for all to see at the click of a button. So now what?
Now is the time to merge the best of activism and entrepreneurship and think of BOP as an innovation engine. It is the space for activism, entrepreneurship and business model innovation that allows for leapfrogging tired old industrial age technologies that are proving too costly in terms of environmental as well as human health. More than half the world population is a good market incentive for innovation.

We stand at a crossroad today where either we continue to export sustainability-challenged technologies or we partner with the BOP as the "next bench" to develop new technologies and create a new market at the same time.  

So - Is BOP Market or Strategy? A Mirage at the bottom of the pyramid? Capitalism gone haywire or Socialism gone haywire? A case for philanthropy? OR its not my problem; because its not interesting? or I can’t do anything about it?


I prefer to think of BOP as an innovation driver and as we know innovation is an extreme sport. Life would be dull without it. So watch it, support it, get involved. MediaX is kicking off a year of 21st Century Conversations with an all day seminar on Wednesday July 21called Social Media and Social Technologies: Changing Personal and Civic Conversations. the topic for my panel is : The New Realities of Grassroots and Civic Activism.

Transformative Potential of Social Entrepreneurship

I went to the AIF-Stanford University event "Transformative Potential of Social Entrepreneurship" not only as a supporter of AIF’s Digital Equalizer (DE) program but also because I wanted to show AIF my support of the topic, especially as it applies to the India growth story. I also hoped I would meet some new people and I did. While the whole program was energising, the bonus came from David Bornstein keynote and discussion. Insights about social entrepreneurship for me were:
1- Heart-driven: the reason why social entrepreneurs were effective and tended to outperform other entrepreneurs - Tolstoy quote :"everything I know, I know only because I love"
2- Profit vs. non-profit: "nothing will work but everything might". For profit structure is highly built so easier. But bringing organic green vegetables to inner cities will only happen for a non-profit at this time.
3- Role of supporters: figure out how government and business can meet regularly to create a friendship model (heart driven) of working together (as opposed to being adversaries doing lip-service)
4- Role of media- find stories of hope to bring about change - its like being a hunter/gatherer - there is so much negative news, the good gets drowned. Media can create a "Yahoo effect" - where a few good examples can get a movement going
5- Role of technologists: what are the technology platforms that can change the game?
6- Academics - create a discipline (minor) in Social Entrepreneurship - is happening but not very common

Other useful tips:
L3C- low profit for benefit hybrid model - now gaining ground in California: http://l3ccalifornia.org/# (also B Corp)
SOCAP - social business capital where funder gets capital back but no return - e.g. Acumen fund; Beyond Profit is a magazine that could have a "yahoo effect".

The message of the panel discussions was - "partner, partner, partner" - this field has been one of pioneers (with the arrows in the back) but now that situation is changed - to scale one must partner.

Social Good is Also a Business- MC Hammer at e-week

These words, doing social good is also a business, music to my ears, came from MC Hammer at the eweek event "The Power of Social Technology". Unfortunately they came right at the end and I didn't get to ask him specifics. But still, having him say it at an entrepreneurship event was good. The panel of experts which included Robert Scoble and Loic Le Meur, shared tips and personal experiences around social media engagement. I was there to find out "why you don’t need money or power to ignite seismic (seesmic - get it?) social change." Well, I was far from convinced, but certainly a good time was had by all and nobody was sleeping - granted - it was lunch time and all around me were scarfing sandwiches. And, it was interesting to see in real time how, even as each panelist logged into their twitter stream, attendees sent messages. So:
- Social software never sleeps: the world is moving fast - its real time -so 24/7 engagement is important - solution is to get a partner in another time zone (not wear yourself to the bone). Loic said his company has no PR department - just 2-3 people managing social media engagement.
- Always try to add value - social media are great source of information: eg. if you are interested in a VC follow him/her on twitter; or follow those who follow them etc. - find out how you add value and pitch to the right people - network in person after getting informed
- Content is king- Don't get caught up in the tools- Before you engage find out what you are passionate about, develop a voice that is personal but also amenable to being a brand

GSB dean made some good points:
- Social media - fastest communication medium today
- increases need for traditional content (else nothing to tweet about)
- is not a substitute but a complement to current tools
- finding a vice on twitter et al is hard - balance your personal voice with the institutional voice

Bottom line - work hard and smart and social media is your ally in getting eyeballs - which can lead to heart and mind.

Social Entrepreneurship During Stanford E-week Feb 21-28

The annual Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford, is February 21-28, 2010 and this year we have more events dedicated to celebrating social entrepreneurship and clean-tech than ever before. These are 2 events I am helping organise which are free and open to all:

February 26, Cordura Hall,9-6: Relief 2.0 in Haiti: Enabling Agile Crisis Response with Entrepreneurship In Relief 2.0 we'll take an inside look at an emergent phenomenon - Agile Crisis Response made possible by social ventures, social media, crowdsourced solutions and other entrepreneurial approaches. We will look at lessons learned and how we might rethink and redesign the way we approach disaster relief and rebuilding, starting with Haiti’s reconstruction effort.

February 28, Wallenberg Hall, 3-5: Structures for Social Enterprise: Panel and Showcase- this lively panel discussion features social entrepreneurs Kjerstin Erickson (FORGEnow.org), Eve Blossom (Lulan.com), and Esther Kim (REDF.org). Moderated by Kriss Deiglmeier, executive director for the Center for Social Innovation, the panel will discuss nonprofit, for-profit and hybrid models for starting and growing a social enterprise. From 4-5 p.m., mingle with entrepreneurs at a fair showcasing their intriguing early-stage social ventures. Social entrepreneurs available for interaction during the showcase are:

Lloyd Nimetz: Blitz Bazaar: Starting and Creating a Movement
Akshay Kothari, Kapeesh Saraf: Design for Extreme Affordability Workshop
Varun Jain: E4SI: Engineers for Social Impact
Anu Mahal: Development Alternatives
Carlos Miranda Levy, Margarita Quihuis: How Social Media Allows Us to Instantly Organize for Crisis Intervention
Viji Dilip: Bookshare International: Reaching Out to the Print Disabled in Developing Nations
DC Jayasundera: Rural Returns: Better Value Chains for the Rural Poor
Rodrigo Santibanez: Puentes Global: Non-Profit International Employment Agency for Low-Income Workers

Additionally the Graduate School of business has a panel discussion on social entrepreneurship on 26th afternoon as part of their annual entrepreneurship day

Social Entrepreneurship Challenge Competition

BASES Social E-Challenge: The Social Entrepreneurship Challenge is a business plan competition for entrepreneurial ventures that effect social change. Participants range from For-profit businesses with a strong sense of social responsibility to Nonprofits with sustainable revenue-generation models. These companies all have a positive impact on our society and the environment. The Social E-Challenge provides participants with $50,000 in total final round prizes, as well as the resources and training to launch their startups: mixers, workshops, mentorship, and individual feedback from renowned judges.

Past winners include Kiva.org, D.Light Design, re:motion designs, and Samasource.

Info session: Wednesday, January 13th, 7:00-9:00pm, Stanford Paul Brest Hall, Munger Residence, Snacks and Drinks Provided. RSVP http://baseschallengeskickoff.eventbrite.com/

Metrics and Management for Heart-Head Impact

My workshop last week at Stanford about technology fuelled social innovation as applied to the for-profit as well as non-profit world drew an exceptional group of change agents from industry, NGOs and universities. The theme- every transaction is a business - whether registered as a for-profit or non-profit and how technology can help. Some highlights:
1- A business "Metrics Intelligence Management" solution (MetrixLine) applied to Give2Asia as an example of how real time metrics generation is relevant for non-profits and can reduce the cost of data-gathering - with a live demo showing "customer" (in this case - donor) profile, balanced scorecard (management metric) and more. (by CEO Aman Walia)
2- A live interactive session showing the use avatars and game technology for education (kidscom.com) about social responsibility in teens. Our session had about 12 teens (under 14) who were asked what social issues they cared about among other things - Number 1: health care; number 2: providing a "family" for kids who didn't have one. (by Founder Jori Clarke)
3- An example of how to make a mainstream lending institution engage in micro finance through loan (social) guarantees (UnitedProsperity.org) while also providing the individual story just as an MFI would do. Another feature of this session was an illustration of partnerships (UnitedProsperity, MFI's and Banks) so each does what they are best at without re-inventing the wheel - a theme in the workshop (by Founder Bhalchander).
4. More to come...

Sustainability workshop- Aug 7 at Stanford

My workshop, Media and Management Bridges for Heart-Head Impact is on August 7th 9-4. Check out the video link for details. Presentations include Hybrid business lifecycle, The Millennium Project and MetrixLine platform and practical tips on using online media tools for brand creation and management. Discussion items:
° Managing tradeoffs between business (profit) and social (people, planet) goals
° Public-Private Partnership strategies for harnessing markets to solve social/environmental problems
° Pragmatic changes non-profits should take to be effective and to scale

By the Numbers: An Obama Style Digital Makeover for India Politics?

I attended the Accel Stanford Symposium on Feb 25, 2009, The Impact of 2008's Dramatic Events on the World of Digital Media and Technology. Like others who know about Obama's tech savvy youth following, I have been curious about the nitty-gritty of the digital (My.BarackObama.com) campaign so I was all ears for the panel "Technology Priorities in an Obama Administration: Lessons from the Campaign" with Matthew Barzun (National Finance Team for Barack Obama) and Chris Hughes (co-founder facebook who time off to be Architect of Obama's digital Campaign Strategies). But I am not just curious for the sake of curious (as anyone who knows me would guess). I have been thinking; India elections are coming up next year, with Mumbai attacks and India's growing economic abilities, India-youth is willing and able to engage with the political system to free it of corruption and bring in young leaders (avg. politician age is 70 I think).

The question is How? Viola - Like Obama did.

Barzun explained the Hunting vs. Farming Model (from Purple Cow, Seth Godin) strategy. Obama realised he didn't have a long list of large-amount donors to chase (hunting) so he decided to grow new ones (farming). Some numbers: Feb 2007 Clinton starts with database of 250,000 names and Obama has 20,000 names; March 31, 2007 Clinton supporter calls convert names to 50,000 donors (divide by 5) and Obama digital campaign converts names to 100,000 donors (multiply by 5)- How? 1. Ask never-heard-of people to get 10 donations at $25 each and get the emails of the donors- all did it. 2. Raise expectations (ask for another $25) and so on. The goal was to have email lists larger even than the donors - to increase reach. Eventually -they ended up with an average $90/person donation. Chris explained the architecture and said they did regular surveys for course correction. They found that people like to donate via email and they liked to form community over facebook. So they did both. For example Barzun paraphrased the kind of email letters that were written - designed to show - in a young people way- Respect, Empower, Include - the campaign theme. But the panel was skimpy on financial detail. So, I cornered Chris Hughes (thanks Martha!):

ME - Really Chris, so how did you do it? I want to do the same for India elections next year

CH- I don't know how popular facebook is in India. It won't work. Besides its expensive and I can't do numbers for India

ME: Just give me US numbers; I'll do the conversion. My background is software development.

CH: It took 8-10 full time developers to create the platform, $15-20 million investment, and most importantly the push has to come from the top. It couldn't have worked without Obama pushing it. and he was right to push because we raised 3-4 times that in funding; not to mention the large number in popular support that converted to votes.

ME: And you also had lots of free time donated to the digital campaign - like yourself.

CH: Ah yes. Not just me but hundreds of staffers and campaign people gave time.

ME: thanks.

And here I am thinking - for India - money can be got, expertise can be got, digital model can be adapted to allow for lack of PC penetration in rural India, BUT- who is this leader? Rahul Gandhi are you listening? Or send this to your favorite candidate - I have no allegiances yet.

Social Enterprises Panel and Showcase 2/22/09

Mark your calendar and plan to attend the third annual Entrepreneurship Week at Stanford University, February 18-25, 2009. Enjoy a variety of events throughout the week, including prestigious speakers, panel discussions, workshops, mixers, VC/student "speed dating,” a start-up job fair and more. Most events are free and open to the public. The Social Enterprise Panel and Showcase is on 2/22/09, Wallenberg Hall, 3-5pm. Entrepreneurship Week is hosted by the Stanford Entrepreneurship Network (SEN), a federation of entrepreneurship-related organizations across Stanford University. SEN programs, including Entrepreneurship Week, are proudly sponsored by Deloitte.

Stanford Offers Entrepreneurship Podcasts - Free!

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program has just updated and renamed what used to be called Educators Corner, a free podcast and video website for the entrepreneurship community. We are trying to get the word out about the new name and features – Entrepreneurship Corner (ECorner). We have a creative commons license, so it’s very easy for people to insert the content into their own sites and use almost at will. Obviously you may also use the material in your sites. We’ve had over 2 million podcast downloads alone, so the site is clearly providing something useful! Details below:

Stanford Offers Free Entrepreneurship Podcasts and Video Clips

The Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) in the School of Engineering at Stanford University invites you to visit its Entrepreneurship Corner (ECorner) web site. The site includes over 1,200 free, high-quality podcasts and video clips of entrepreneurial thought leaders from Silicon Valley and beyond. Recorded during guest lectures at Stanford University, the speakers offer important insights on all aspects of entrepreneurship. The content is great for classroom instruction, research, and general enrichment. Formerly called Educators Corner, the site has added many new, innovative features and has just launched under its new name. See the Creative Commons license under Terms of Use for guidelines. http://ecorner.stanford.edu.

An Image Makeover for Peace

Why Peace is not popular has to do with War.
I think we all know what is wrong with violence; we just can't seem to help ourselves.
I am reminded of this because today, April 30 is seminar titled "from a culture of violence to a culture of peace". Great. There are educational efforts to promote peace (Ahimsa Center and a class at Stanford are two I am involved with). But the fact remains that peace is not mainstream; it remains in the activist category. It is so because we make it abstract. The hard truth about peace is:

1. Lousy Economics: war is good business; peace is not a business - it is an NGO activity at best
2. Results Perception: violence is viewed as the weapon of the strong, peace of the weak, passive or otherwise uncool - any video games about peace out there?
3. Lacks Leadership: war is institutionalised so we know how to participate; peace is recognised as an absence of willingness to war. How to be proactive about peace? What image comes to mind? e.g. Churchill is seen as powerful, Mahatma Gandhi as saint - we can't all be saintly; it is easier to get fat and stick a cigar in your mouth.

I hope Social media will accelerate fixing the perception issue (item 2) - we can make it cool to have a culture of peace - just by hanging out together in cyberspace and sharing the sorts of content generated by events mentioned here. Re, Item 3 - I hope social entrepreneurs can begin to tackle. As for item 1 - any ideas?

Three things I learned from Amartya Sen

Economics Nobel laureate, Amartya Sen was in residence at Stanford this week. His upcoming book is - "The Idea of Justice" and after all his is the mind that provides the theoretical validation for socially motivated business creation. So I juggled my calendar and attended. The three lectures were called Indignation and Room for Reason, Impartiality: Contracts versus Voice and my favourite - Beyond Institutional Fundamentalism. I also attended his office hours - to know the man behind the words - a lot of words - a lot of really really really good words. His office hours were Q&A format - with 10-15 people. I was seeking to go beyond philosophy to actions that stem from conviction born of thoughtful argumentation (I like "The Argumentative Indian"). Here are the top three gems (using his words - from my notes) for me:

1- If you feel threatened it makes intelligent discourse impossible
2- For creating a just society: Empowerment is not enough. You must to ensure "enlightened empowerment" which can only come from public discussion and giving a political voice (to those who are not being heard)
3 - Recognition (or fame) can useful unless it becomes a substitute for doing anything useful

I noticed:
For every question, he acknowledged both sides of the argument and when he disagreed it was always with a smile.
He talks more about the voice of the poor (or minorities) because they have no/less voice - not that others don't deserve a voice.
Throughout my 3-5 day interaction I always saw him speaking from intellect and emotion - never from ego and recognition.

New Technology for Energy Savings - Why Bangalore?

New technology innovation and adoption can sometimes happen faster in a developing economy - it has the economic support for investment in new infrastructure because current infrastructure is poor and/or expensive.

This topic came up a few weeks back, at a seminar I gave at Stanford about the economics of innovation. The example I used to make the point is for a technology I am intimately familiar with - the HPLabs "Smart" Data Center. It is a data center cooling technology that can cut down energy use by 40-50%. You would think HP would be debut this technology in an expensive place like Palo Alto, Right?- but no- HP has released it first in Bangalore, India - Why?

Because in Bangalore, just like in other big cities in India, with its poor infrastructure and intermittent power supply, you get data center up time of 24/7 by supplementing grid electricity with diesel burning generators - which is expensive - more so than grid electricity in PA. And so economically it makes more sense to refine/test it there. Additional benefits of course are emissions reduction etc.

So the lesson is - if you have great technology, and it does not seem economically feasible to innovate further in a developed economy, with its good, cheap, reliable infrastructure, try it in an emerging economy - there will be economic as well as environmental incentives, i.e. a double bottom line. For details -check out the Businessweek article.

Wage Peace: Submit Youtube video, win $250

One of my favourite courses at Stanford is around technologies for Peace. Here is an invitation from my colleague Adam Tolnay:

"I write to ask you to please spread the word on a contest we are running at the Persuasive Technology Lab. It would be amazing if person from the developing world would win!
Win $250 for identifying the best peace video on Youtube!
http://peace.stanford.edu/contest/
Sincerely, Adam"

deadline is march 31

MMM Good: Social Entrepreneurship Day at Stanford

As Social Entrepreneurs we must routinely flirt with Media and Money. The event at Stanford on Sunday (info in my previous blog) was an incredible such opportunity. But if you missed the Feb 24 event -not to worry. Catch up in the blogosphere. I am still pretty caught up with eweek so will get to my musings later but I wanted to get the ball rolling - For starters let me point you to great pics from Mitchell Tsai and a detailed writeup on the panelists from Project View John Kuner.

For the panel - Kriss pointed out that the debate was not about "what is social entrepreneurship?" - an endless and incredily engaging topic in and of itself - but about "how to be a social entrepreneur" by showing the Greg Dees definition of social entrepreneurship. For me this really set the tone of the event in a positive fashion - less intellectualizing and more action. All the panelists were stellar in providing practical "how to" advice. I liked "Do Good Smart" from Jessica who said she first heard it from someone else.

Digital Vision Fellows - that's us showcasing projects in all areas from Tele-medicine to Digital Big Game- attending "in the flesh" and "in the virtual" created an incredible buzz with their passion and energy. I met some new people and we all made new connections and partnerships that should further the cause of social entrepreneurship.

Ah yes - in answwer to the question "what else is the one thing, besides money, a social entrpreneur needs?" - the answer was - "Mentor" - and talking about mentors Stanford eweek is piloting a program called "Coaches On Call" a mentor match up program -

MMM Good is my summary: for social entrepreneurs - easy to remember- MMM - its Mentor (to bounce ideas in a supportive fashion), Money (SE is a new business model so it is extra efffot getting started and be prepared to do something fo a while before you get any), Media (get the word out and let them find you) but most importantly "Moi" - i.e that's you - the social entrepreneur - its about your focus, your passion and your leadership that will get the M3 chasing you an not the other way round.

Or, to quote: Just do it!

gotta go -

Entrepreneurship Week, Stanford Feb 22-29

Stanford e-week is coming up ( eweek.stanford.edu) and Social Entrepreneurship Day is Sunday Feb 24, Wallenberg Hall, from 3-5: agenda is
Panel – Funding Social Enterprises 3-4 (this one is being put up by Center for Social Innovation)
Showcase of Social Entrepreneurs 4-5 (this one is being put up by Digital Vision Program - that's us!)
See you there.

Give Them Jobs

Our readers know by now that I am not happy about the term social entrepreneurship but I have not been able to come up with a better "label". Here is another definition: http://www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/social_entrepreneurship_the_case_for_definition/
Bottom line - Entrepreneurship is not about big or small enterprises; entrepreneurs create jobs - for themselves and others - the entrepreneurs I am intersted in - label being social entrepreneurs - create jobs in geographies where there are no jobs and enable the "unskilled" to acquire enough skills to become procuctive workers with enough earnings to buy food, healthcare, education. In the knowledge economy this means businesses involving technology - access to mobile phones, solar lighting, internet ...