THE world is in the midst of an unprecedented churn. Political upheaval, economic volatility, technology disruption and climatic changes have made the poorer strata of society more vulnerable than ever before.
Over 30% of India?s population of 1.2 billion is living on less than $1.25 per day. There is a growing sense that old paradigms of government aid and private philanthropy are simply inadequate to meet the critical challenges of India in the 21st century. What?s needed are innovative solutions that foster sustainable economic growth.
There has been a phenomenal surge of interest in social innovation globally as a way to achieve sustainable economic growth. Social innovation is helping solve some of the world?s most pressing problems with new solutions, such as distance learning, mobile money transfer, livelihood training, techno-farming and healthcare. In the process of creating solutions, this is also profoundly changing beliefs, basic practices, resources, and social power structures.
However, social organisations in India are often restrained from achieving large-scale impact due to few resources, poor infrastructure and limited working capital. Social organisations need targeted capacity building, customised mentoring and an innovative solution-based approach to work on some of their biggest challenges.
Marico Innovation Foundation, through its Social Innovation Acceleration Programme (SIAP) helps social enterprises apply innovation to take a leap into large-scale impact. A hands-on methodology, SIAP comprises the following six ingredients:
* Mindset for scale?The first stage of engagement involves a deep diagnosis to understand the organisation?s readiness for an acceleration journey;
* Co-created innovation challenge?Once the larger challenge and innovation goal are identified, the SIAP team co-owns the goal with the organisation;
* Capability for insight, the real blocks to scale?Perspectives on users/consumers are important, for e.g. why someone from a poor community will pay for the product, or how a service can be delivered at a low cost in an entirely different manner? Fresh insights emerge when a team does a deep dive into a challenge area, with an open mind, willing to unlearn and relearn.
* Capability-to-prototype?The approach lends itself to an intrinsic need to ensure that insights get converted into ideas; ideas into prototypes; and prototypes into learning and execution.
* Organisational capacity building (people, resources and operations)?Once the right insights are found, an appetite is created and the organisation finds its strength to scale.
* Access to growth capital?Based on the nature of the model, organisations are linked to new business opportunities, institutional funding, beneficial platforms and government schemes.
This framework has helped the SIAP programme and its partners build an ecosystem of innovation. For instance, Yuva Parivartan, a livelihoods and employment social sector organisation, has now been able to train around 1,22,000 unemployed youth per year from 18,000. It has set goals to skill over one million youth within the next three years. It also plans to engage with other constituents in the skills universe to embrace the models incubated by SIAP to benefit the larger pool of youth across the country.
The SIAP programme envisions building innovative replicable models that can deliver large-scale impact and build a culture of innovation in India.
Ushering innovations in the social sector in India are a new breed of social innovators such as Akshaya Patra, which serves 1.3 million mid-day meals everyday. This gives us an indication about the ideas, innovation and intent available to transform the under-served communities in India.
Through the SIAP programme, Marico is attempting to bring together an entire eco-system of social entrepreneurs. But given the large-scale problems facing India, this is but a drop in the ocean.
While many MNCs and venture capital firms focus on accelerating start-ups in the business space, there is a dire need to accelerate start-ups in the social sector. Some of the most important social challenges facing India require radical innovation that cuts across boundaries. These challenges require a blend of new technologies, dynamic processes, hybrid networks and models to build human and social capital. With the mandatory 2% profit contribution to corporate social responsibility (CSR) budgets, India Inc has the opportunity to change the narrative of CSR by embracing social acceleration.
The author is founder, Marico Innovation Foundation
