Category Archives: Social Entrepreneur

SELCO India – Bringing Light To The Rural Poor

Posted on June 30, 2008 | 1 comment

While visiting India, I spent a couple of days in Mangalore, a coastal city about 900 kms south of Bombay (Mumbai). I was taken around by Hemalatha Rao, SELCO India’s Karnataka operations chief to see some of their rural and urban implementations. SELCO was founded by Harish Hande after he completed his Ph. D. from the University of Massachusetts in Lowell. Harish’s objective was to provide affordable energy solutions, initially with solar energy, to the underserved rural areas of India.  I wrote a short column about my visit in Lokvani (reproduced below). I have also put a number of photos from this tour on this page.

SELCO India – Bringing Light To The Rural Poor, Raj Melville, Lokvani.com, 04/03/2008

Zooming past the lush paddy fields in Udupi, perched on the pillion of a motorcycle, I was whisked off the paved roads to a hamlet of a half a dozen houses tucked away in rural Karnataka. My host, Pravin, a sales technician for SELCO India, allowed me to shadow him on his rounds to his customers. The first stop was at farmer’s home, a three room house at the edge of their small plot of land. Miles away from the nearest town, it did not have access to modern amenities like electricity, running water or phone service.

The young farmer who met us at the door was obviously pleased to see Pravin and proudly escorted us to the one piece of technology in their humble abode. A single wire ran across the wall to a fluorescent light and a wall plug. A transistor radio plugged in provided the only form of entertainment. Outside, above the roof, a rectangular solar panel was perched on a pole, capturing the plentiful sunlight and converting it to electricity that was stored in a battery to be used by this family at night. This simple setup powered four lights in the house – in the kitchen, a bedroom, the hallway and at the entrance – and provided up to four hours of light in the evening. Continue reading →

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Posted in Rural Development, Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur, social Innovation, Solar

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Water and Sanitation – the next global challenge

Posted on June 28, 2008 | Leave a comment

This week’s column in Lokvani focused on the issues of water and sanitation. Together with food security, this is one of the most pressing issues globally. The root cause to most of the basic issues – health, nutrition, and even education can be traced in some way to water and sanitary, hygienic conditions.

By addressing this basic issue, millions of deaths per year can be prevented. Diarrhea alone kills nearly 2 million people a year, most of them children.

The good news is there is a renewed focus on water and sanitation. International agencies and major governments are putting resources to address this.  Corporations are making it the centerpiece of their efforts more for economic reasons or to assuage local communities when their actions seem to threaten local water resources. A number of NGOs and non-profits are helping create grass roots movements to address sanitation and water problems in the developing world, particularly in the underserved communities.

Here is the text of the article I wrote for Lokvani:

Water and Sanitation – the next global challenge. Raj Melville, Lokvani.com, 06/28/2008

Even as we go about our daily lives in the west knowing that we can duck into a McDonalds to use the loo or grab a bottle of soda to quench our thirst, nearly half the world’s population has to make do without the simplest access to basic sanitation and clean water. The UN estimates over a billion people (or nearly a sixth of the world’s population) manages without clean water. According to the World Health Organization, over 4 billion cases of diarrhea occur each year around the world, 88% of which is attributable to unsafe water or inadequate hygiene or sanitation. Nearly 1.8 million people die of diarrhea each year, the majority of whom are children.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Health, Hygiene, Sanitation, Social Entrepreneur, Water, Water resources

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An Introduction

Posted on June 22, 2008 | Leave a comment

The Social Ecosystem

Exploring Entrepreneurial Ideas that Address Social Issues, Enhance the Environment, Sustain Development and Transform the Developing World

This blog is about innovators that are addressing social challenges with fresh ideas, new approaches, and innovative business and entrepreneurial models. These breakthroughs come from a variety of sources ranging from academics, traditional non-profits to for-profit organizations. These include new approaches to charitable giving that have changed the way organizations address social issues. In addition to major changes at traditional philanthropies, they include newer sources of funds ranging from venture philanthropists to socially responsible funds that look for both social and financial returns.

This is an exciting and growing area that impacts us locally as well as internationally. We hope this blog will help educate, explain and engage you with these organizations that are doing exciting work around the world. We will use this blog to:

  • Showcase local and international organizations that have built scalable organizations and are doing significant work impacting social issues.
  • Highlight new approaches to philanthropy and support that are changing the way people address major societal problems.
  • Discuss new business ideas and models that are addressing key issues while providing both economic and social returns on their investments.
  • Present emerging ideas from the rich local pool of social entrepreneurial talent and enable the community to connect and support them.

We look forward to hearing from you about interesting social innovations that you might have come across.

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Posted in Social Ecosystem, Social Entrepreneur

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