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Today's discussion on development is a Marxist nightmare.  With patient capital, philanthrocapitalism, and venture capital models becoming ever more popular ways to fill the voids of the base of the pyramid (BoP), the power of the market is emerging as increasingly vibrant. Vestergaard Frandsen, a European manufacturer of emergency relief and disease control products (previously covered here), and an Acumen Fund working partner, is harnessing that very power.

In 1992, Vestergaard Frandsen underwent a mission makeover from producing hotel uniforms to delivering textiles such as anti-malaria bed nets, plastic sheeting, and water filters to the awaiting developing world.  Although the company exchanged its old input materials for new ones, and altered its ambitions from clothing production to solving global threats such as malaria and impure drinking water, it never abandoned its basic ambition to succeed as a for-profit business. 

However, at the core of its new self, VF was dedicated to helping the BoP.  The plan was to "do well by doing good," and thereby enact a truly self-sustaining solution to global poverty and health issues. Professionalism, with a dose of ethics, was to thread together the company's otherwise unlikely transition. 

VF sells its products, PermaNet, ZeroFly and LifeStraw directly to low-income customers and to aid organizations such as the Red Cross and Save the Children at affordable- yet undeniably-high impact prices. Some critics disparage the company for imposing costs on an already burdened population, while other opponents propose that aid dollars invested in sustainable infrastructure are dollars better spent.  However, the company sees things another way, and one does not have to look far to be convinced.  In fact, just check out their most recent press release.

The day after Haiti's tragic quake, VF pledged to donate LifeStraw and ZeroFly products to the ailing region. Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, the company's CEO, commented: "We are working at full speed to supply our partners with tools they need to contain the spread of disease that often follows natural disasters. We encourage those interested in joining our efforts to donate to one of the many organizations providing relief for the people of Haiti."

Rewind to months earlier for another demonstration of the compassion that supplements VF's financial aptitude.   More impressive than their decision to travel to Africa and donate their products in celebration of their 50^th anniversary, was the care with which they executed this plan.  Since HIV testing carries a weighty stigma in many regions of Africa, and is hence often neglected, VF constructed a salient strategy: any African to visit a communal clinic for HIV testing would receive a CarePack filled with the company's lauded products.  This incentive battled what has been a longstanding deterrent to HIV testing and succeeded in testing 80% of the population of Lurambi.

You can be sure that VF's social accomplishments are very much due to their financial prosperity. VF's use of capitalism does not perpetuate inequalities, rather enables their aid and bolsters their efforts.  VF continues to exhibit that one can give while getting, and that a business model can be as lucrative as it is altruistic.  To quote Fast Company, VF is "[g]ood indeed: The life-saving textiles business is now 10 times the size the old uniform business was just a decade ago".

"Once you don't have it - that's when you realize the value"
David Kuria, founder and CEO of Ecotact, speaking about toilets

When I first journeyed to Kenya in 2004, celebrating the launch of a public toilet facility was one of the last ways I imagined spending a Monday morning - or any morning (or afternoon, or evening), for that matter. In fact, unless I had enjoyed an elephant's dose of mango juice and was on a 5 hour safari across the Great Rift Valley, I might not have had reason to celebrate a toilet at all.

Six years later, however, armed with the realization that an estimated 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation and 2.2 million die each year from water and sanitation related diseases, I now have billions of reasons to attend toilet parties, an emerging trend in the Nairobi slums thanks to David Kuria and Ecotact. So when the Acumen team received the invite to attend the launch of Ecotact's 17th Ikotoilet facility last Monday, I practically ran for my dancing shoes.

Sitting under a small tent adjacent to the about-to-be-launched Kawangware Ikotoilet, Rob Katz and I listened eagerly with the 200-plus gatherers inside and spilling out the edges of the makeshift party hall. The crowd - a mix of residents, officials and journalists - engulfed the architecturally distinct Ikotoilet structure. It was clear that Acumen wouldn't be dancing alone at this party.

The Minister of Public Health and Sanitation and the Chief Public Health Officer also showed up for the celebration. Given the honour of Chief Guests, they both made remarks before cutting the ribbon: this day marks the launch of a noble public-private partnership initiative, as we bring necessary services closer to the people and are no longer dependent on flying toilets.

The Kawangware facility is part of Ecotact's newly implemented slum outreach model; it is now the second Ikotoilet in the informal communities of Kenya.  And according to Kuria and the Minister, there will be more Ikotoilets in Kawangware in the near future - extremely exciting news for Acumen as a BoP investor!

Ecotact is experimenting with a school model in the slums as well.  After cutting the ribbon at Kawangware - and being mobbed by reporters as she toured the facilities - Minister of Public Health and Sanitation and Kawangware MP Beth Mugo led a delegation to the Dagoretti Secondary School, about 10 minutes away from the new Ikotoilet.

The school's 150 students currently use pit latrines. But with funding from the Solid House Foundation, Dagoretti will soon inaugurate a free-for-use Ikotoilet on site. What's more, a biodigester will generate valuable methane gas, pumped from the toilet to the school's kitchen.

With facilities in Nairobi's central business district, city parks, slums and schools, Ecotact is tackling the sanitation problem here in Kenya on many fronts. As an investor and partner with Ecotact, Acumen Fund is eager to continue the celebration with Kuria and his team, as they grow from 17 facilities to a target of more than double that within the next year.

I want to pick up where Rishabh left off in his post yesterday on adaptation to climate change, specifically in relation to the climate negotiations happening now in Copenhagen (blow by blow of the negotiations).  Assuming that the tens and then hundreds of billions of dollars in "climate financing" under discussion for the least developed countries materializes, of which half might be earmarked for adaptation, a robust discussion is needed on how best to use those dollars. 

A significant proportion would be intended to reduce vulnerability to climate shifts among the poor and particularly the rural poor, utilizing some of the same mechanisms and technologies frequently discussed here, like water-efficient drip irrigation.  So this is an opportunity to mainstream into public financing the approaches that this blog's co-sponsor, Acumen Fund, and others like it, invest in. 

Seeing the actions of African and island nation negotiators at this summit brought home to me in a visceral way the reality that although "global warming" entered public consciousness as a problem for polar bears, climate change will manifest itself as a developing world crisis - like the debt crisis of the 1980's except much more deep-rooted, longer term, and much less reversible. 

The impacts of climate change - the shifts that are underway and are inevitable given carbon emissions thus far - will go far beyond rising sea levels flooding Bangladesh and disappearing Pacific Islands.  The poor will be impacted widely by temperature shifts that disrupt agriculture productivity and natural resource availability, rainfall shifts that create drought and floods for both rural and urban communities, more severe weather events that become natural disasters, and geographic shifts in disease vectors. 

Warming is expected to happen faster in Africa than global averages and it is difficult to contemplate the instability that will be created if the reduction of the Himalayan snowpack and glaciers ultimately shrinks rivers in the immense arc of watersheds that fans across Asia - from the Indus in Pakistan across the Indian subcontinent to the Yellow River in China.  In many ways climate change will be reflected in the developing world as water stress that reaches crisis proportions. 

Accordingly, adaptation has entered the lexicon of the negotiations, but is contemplated now through an aid and public spending lens.  It is likely that billions of dollars, hopefully additive to existing public aid flows, will be earmarked for adaptation.  There is in-depth if speculative discussion of where this money will come from, such as fees on international shipping and air travel, but much less has gone into how this money should be spent.  Little if anything is clear about who will administer this money, how it will be purposed and distributed, to whom it will be distributed, what the specific goals might be, and how success will be evaluated. 

The United Nations' agencies are not well situated to manage this and besides it being politically problematic, many might not be inclined to trust the U.N. to do the job well. The World Bank has overseen the Global Environment Fund created in the early 90's but developing nations in particular are somewhere between skeptical of and staunchly opposed to a similar approach now.  But no matter how this money flows, the overall approach and expectations for adaptation funding and finance will guide it no matter what form it takes.

Some adaptation to climate change must involve public infrastructure spending, addressing flood protection, major water infrastructure, country-level food security, and so forth. This is where an aid approach makes sense.  But at the ground level the question of climate adaptation for the poor, particularly the rural poor, is not exotic and disconnected from existing development through enterprise. 

Adapation is really a question of increasingly resiliency in the face of climate change, and resiliency can largely mean economic stability and prosperity.  It is a matter of preparing for income shocks as a result of shocks to agricultural productivity and natural resource availability.  And so the tools used by microfinance institutions and businesses with technology for the poor start to come into play in a big way - to grow income, provide credit and insurance, create access to information (of markets, weather forecasts, etc.) and increase productivity with efficient inputs of natural resources.  These approaches not only help the base of the pyramid adapt to climate change but reduce their vulnerability in the first place. 

The danger is that if funding is used on a siloed, project-by-project basis, adaptation finance might prepare communities for specific climate impacts - like the spread of malarial mosquitoes - but leave them otherwise as vulnerable as before to income and natural resource shocks.

On one hand, approaches to development acrosss the board must respond to the reality that the fundamental backdrop of a region's climate will no longer be the same or even predictable.  For example, the seeds and techniques that would make up a new 'green revolution' in agriculture in Africa must be able to withstand changes in growing seasons and scarcer water or they will be created for a landscape that will no longer exist.

And on the other hand, it is an unfortunate opportunity to have, but influencing the shape of adaptation funding coming out of the Copenhagen summit could hugely impact the growth of approaches like microinsurance products, agricultural technology for the poor, water efficiency and quality products.  It is a debate that the businesses and investors behind these approaches should be joining in order for the funding to be used effectively to bolster the position of the poor.  Before the money gets appropriated, now is time to shape how it will be spent.

 The main problem with climate change, as David Keith highlighted in his brilliant TED talk, is that in the immediate short run, it creates winners and losers. And the major portion of this loss will be borne by developing nations almost all of whom are in the global south. The food productivity of a lot of areas will suffer. They will be plagued by more diseases. Water scarcity due to the melting of glaciers and evapotranspiration will limit the already acute fresh water supply. The list is endless.

Also, it is pretty much agreed that for the world to meet its climate change mitigation goals, business cannot continue as usual. Though businesses realize that adapting to the changing scenario is inevitable, they don't want to be at the receiving end of a raw deal in order to remain competitive.

I came across an interesting paper (via AccountAbility) titled The Business of Adaptation that strikes at the core of this issue. It's a call to action for the governments and UN from the businesses side. The paper admits that the private sector has been slow to adapt to climate change challenges faced by nations, however, it's also quick to point out that with adequate support in the form of appropriate financial mechanism and suitable international policies the private sector can act be a huge helping hand to the public sector to meet their targets.

Take the case of Microfinance institutions, for example. Given their existing rural market penetration they can always expand the range of services they offer as is the case with Grameen Shakti. It capitalized on the Grameen Bank's business linkages and evolved its financial package to become one of the largest renewable energy companies in Bangladesh. In the future, such a transformation could be performed as a public private partnership too, making the program more efficient.

 But one of the advantages of market based approaches is that they act as primary breeding ground for technological innovations. Some striking examples are Global Easy Water Products which provides affordable drip irrigation solutions to many small scale farmers in India, or Electricité de France, which, through partnerships with NGOs and the government, provided over 6,000 Mali homes with affordable electricity using solar source and low cost village grids.

Efficient business adaptation is hindered by various factors, however. These include lack of soft venture capital, absence of business linkages with the government, lack of awareness pertaining to climate change, and in some cases lack of adequate environments to do business. The report highlights some points and concrete recommendations, including the role of business and its mention in the UNFCC text, the role of national poilicies in enabling private sector participation, and the availability of suitable financing mechanisms that facilitate the participation of enterprise in addressint the effects of climate change. 

In the end, it comes down to a simple inevitable truth which is beautifully summed up by Jared Diamond in his best-selling book Collapse:

"Because we are rapidly advancing along this non sustainable course, the world's environmental problems will get resolved, in one way or the other....the only question is whether they will become resolved in pleasant ways of our own choice, or in unpleasant ways not of our choice, such as warfare, genocide, starvation...and collapse of societies.

If you're at all interested in the way climate change, business and the base of the pyramid meet each other, I suggest you give this report a read.

If you'd been to the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai on November 19, you would have found a group of people squatting together  with a couple of portable toilets in the vicinity. If you didn't check the papers in the morning, you would probable have thought it was part of a ritual of some bizarre cult. Instead, what these people were doing was showing support for the 2.5 billion people all over the world that lack access to basic sanitary facilities. The folks at Chowpatty beach were not alone. People all over the world were celebrating the "World Toilet Day" by taking part in "The Big Squat".

"If there are five people in each family, then we require 500 million household toilets. Then, we require another 500 million away-from-home toilets - in the workplace, in schools, in religious places, in the marketplace, in transport centers. So in this market, we need 1 billion toilets." says Jack Sim, founder of World Toilet Organization (WTO) (which conceptualized the World Toilet Day) in a interview with Beyond Profit.

The oft-avoided topic is becoming a major cause of worry for developing countries. According to a paper written by Rowshan Nantaz (Associate Professor, Department of Civil Engg, BUET), Dhaka City Corporation runs only 69 public toilets for a city whose population is beyond 10 million. And this isn't half as bad as the condition in Nigeria (est population as of 2008:151.3 million), where reports suggest that there are less than 500 public toilets.

In a recent article by Reuters, Sim was quoted saying "You see it long enough, and there is a basic acceptance that dirt is normal. But being repulsed by dirt, its smell and sight is a natural defence against disease". He estimates that the sanitation market is in excess of 1 trillion USD (which, for sake of comparison,  happens to equal India's GDP). Still, it's interesting to note there have been times in the past where investors have hesitated to invest in this sector,which happened in the case of Saraplast, nowadays one of the fastest growing portable toilets companies in India today. Despite having made record profits for the last three years they had a tough time attracting investors, until Aavishkar finally saw sense in the business and bought a 21% stake for an undisclosed amount this last August. Saraplast will be tying up with the New Delhi municipality for the Commonwealth Games in Delhi next year.

Ecotact (an Acumen Fund investee) is another interesting organization working in the sanitation industry that has received lots of publicity lately. It's Ikotoilet brand works on the build-operate-transfer principle of public-private partnership and plans to open another 200 facilities in Kenya in the near future. An interesting variation to the standard pay-per-use toilet model here is that it complements the toilet facility with additional service such as shoe shining, soft drinks and newspapers, which bring in additional revenue.

The Pee Poo bag, made by a Swedish architect provides an effective solution to the problem for its low cost, biodegradable and since its lined with urea, it sanitizes the feces and doubles up as fertilizer when buried. However, such solutions can at best be a short term measure to a problem which is closely related to the water and sewage industry. In fact, sanitation sufres in many rural areas due to the poor state of the water works and the high costs involved in initial investments. Maintenance costs also become a considerable issue once the public toilets are setup. Issues such as keeping the toilet dry, ensuring there is adequate water supply and flushing function is working become issues of prime importance.

Despite of these challenges, sanitation concerns are huge and growing, which presents an undeniably attractive market opportunity for innovative enterprises willing to tackle it. 

How can we design, fund and implement affordable solutions for the developing world's toughest challenges? How can we maximize social impact with our designs? The "Design for Extreme Affordability" panel at Net Impact conference tackled these very issues.

Jeffrey Gangemi, Communications Consultant at Dun & Bradstreet moderated a conversation between two entrepreneurs who have designed affordable solutions: Peter Frykman, Founder & CEO of Driptech and Ting Shih, Executive Vice President of ClickDiagnostics.

Problem: Farmers in drought-ridden regions of the developing world need better, cheaper, more effective ways to use their meager water supplies efficiently.

Solution: Driptech creates affordable, water efficient irrigation systems for small-plot farmers in developing nations. Their drip irrigation product is low cost and low tech, but designed using high-tech expertise.

The Driptech team met at Standord in a course called Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability. Traveling to Ethiopia, they noticed that farmers were unable to grow crops due to scarcity of water and high costs drip irrigation products. This spurred their invention of Driptech tubing, which is 2-5x less costly than the alternatives and works better and more reliably. In a 5-month pilot with 15 subsistence farmers, Driptech was found to save farmers water, labor and time while enhancing their dry-season crop income.

Problem: The developing world lacks doctors, particularly in rural areas leading to poor healthcare coverage.

Solution: ClickDiagnostics uses accessible mobile technology infrastructure to arm community health workers with the ability to connect to remote medical specialists who provide remote consultation. Rural healthcare professionals that lack adequate expertise to make diagnoses can take photos of patients, send them for review by the proper physician anywhere in the world, and then make a diagnosis based on their expert input. Treatment can happen immediately. ClickDiagnostics' solution can work anywhere in the world with decent cell reception.

Both Driptech and ClickDiagnostics offer elegant, cost-effective solutions. But getting there hasn't been without challenges. Frykman and Shih described their challenges and keys to success building affordable products to serve emerging markets.

Frykman described how he was able to get funding to get Driptech off the ground, despite the process being slow and gradual. The first bit of funding was the hardest to get. After that they were able to talk about the money raised and convince other investors to get on board. They'll be going out for their A round in 8 to 12 months.

Both panelists mentioned the need to understand the country specific context in which they are working. For Driptech, distribution has hinged on successful country-specific strategies. In India, Driptech piggybacks on established commercial agricultural input distribution networks. In China, they've worked with local governments on distribution. At ClickDiagnostics, Shih has found the key to success is understanding how the healthcare structure works in each country they operate in. While her product can work anywhere, she absolutely needs to understand the context.

Driptech is eager to serve the base of the pyramid. "It's easy to design another attractive mp3 player to sell to rich people. But it's much harder to design a product to serve dollar a day farmers," Frykman said.

Both entrepreneurs are dedicated to sustainable revenue models with social missions. The for-profit model enables growth and expansion. "I'm adamant about doing well by doing good and attracting more products and services to this sector through enabling technologies," Frykman said, touching on the idea of trickle up innovation.

Keeping these products low cost is of utmost importance. Frykman acknowledged that he sacrifices durability for low cost to some extent. Driptech is currently manufacturing in India, laser punching the tubing in Palo Alto and then selling the product back in India. They plan to do all pieces of the manufacturing process in India, but for now they are eating the excess cost of transit to California to test market acceptance.

I was pleased to learn that competitive threats are not top of mind for Driptech or ClickDiagnostics. Frykman isn't worried about competition. The market he serves is untapped and a "rising tide lifts all boats" as he sees it. Similarly, partnering has been key to Shih's success so far. Shih described how ClickDiagnostics seeks out its competitors and then figures out how to collaborate, and leverage their technology, research or other assets. When solving big problems, we need to think more and more in this mind set of radical collaboration, rather than competition.

The first session I attended at this year's Net Impact Conference was a lively panel on approaches to address water-related challenges in the developing world. It was moderated by Cheryl Choge of the Global Water Challenge, who began by reminding us of a few key water facts, for those of you who're curious about the scale of the problem: There are 884 million people without access to clean water and about 2.5 billion without access to adequate sanitation, the burden of which is felt disproportionately by women and children.

Water-related diseases are a leading cause of death among children across the globe. Women in developing countries spend inordinate amounts of time walking to fetch water. The panelists spoke about their work in innovative, cost-effective business models for the BOP, and touched on supply chain models, distribution channels and approaches to pricing.

The water challenge: how is it being tackled?

The Water Initiative's approach was presented by Kevin McGovern, a serial entrepreneur and co-founder of successful companies such as the SoBe beverage company. He and his team are supplying clean water to low-income consumers in Mexico, where The Water Initiative mobilizes teams of top scientists from Universities such as Cornell and UCLA to develop promising water treatment technologies at the point of use. The company works closely with communities in Mexico, studying local water conditions and deploying appropriate water solutions at affordable price points according to the recommendations of The Base of the Pyramid Protocol. (Side note: Stu Hart, one of the authors of the protocol, is a board member and a partner in this venture.)

At A Single drop of water, a Philippines-based nonprofit, Gemma Bulos and her team match civic society with local government groups to create hubs of local water expertise (PODS - people offering deliverable services). The local groups work to implement community-led WASH (Water and Sanitation) solutions. These organizations decide what technologies to implement based on the specific needs of the organization.

Finally, Bjorn von Euler works with ITT, a global supplier of water pumps and systems to transport, treat and control water and other fluids. The company follows a risk-reduction business model and has its operations spread across a variety of countries such as China, Honduras, Guatemala and India.

Following are a few sticking points from the panel:

"Appropriate" technologies matter more than "sophisticated" technologies. Although technology is a huge enabler, it isn't in itself a solution. The technological know-how for water exists, but the technology that gets implemented is often not relevant to the needs of consumers. Says Gemma Bulos,"Appropriate technologies are key". In addition success in BoP markets is contingent on several factors: First, technology works only if it is possible to source materials locally; second, the system must be easy to maintain and fix; third, the sophistication of the technology isn't nearly as important as public buy in; and fourth, the product must be reasonably priced. If the people don't think it works, they aren't going to use it.

WASH - a holistic view of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: In recent times, there is growing acknowledgement amongst players in the water industry that water management cannot be viewed in isolation. Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) are closely linked, and treating them as such helps businesses understand their consumers better.  As Gemma said, "If a mother installs a faucet in her kitchen and doesn't wash her hands while cooking, the technology becomes meaningless. For this reason, consumer education must be used in tandem with system implementation. It is the only way to ensure effective use of new products.

Community buy-in is key to success of BoP water businesses. At The Water Initiative, the team empowers communities to design products and distribution channels. The company brings cost-effective water purification systems to market, focusing mainly on technologies that remove carcinogens such as arsenic, flouride and harmful pathogens. Kevin calls himself a "pro bono" entrepreneur - "An entrepreneur who not just makes money solving pressing global challenges, but also creates jobs in the process". Gemma noted that for the POD model to succeed, political will is extremely important. For this reason, the organization makes the government sign an MOU with the PODs to give PODS complete control of water management.

The developed world may need to look towards the developing world for solutions. Contrary to popular belief - innovations in "Point-of-use" water technologies are coming from developing countries and not from developed countries. Bjorn Euler brought up a great point about water challenges in the developed world; he predicted that disruptive technologies in emerging markets will likely provide next generation technological solutions to developed nations. Many western countries are struggling to revamp crumbling municipal water and sewage systems that were built decades ago. According to Bjorn, "Developed nations are going to have to work much longer" to fix their systems than emerging markets.

Top down or bottom up? Political will, all the panelists agree, is extremely important to get the job done. It isn't necessary an insurmountable obstacle, however. Gemma mentioned how a measured, cooperative, "non-activist" bottom-up approach can actually work to influence the government. When you take time to build capacity, the government takes notice. When there is sufficient push from small grassroots organizations and civic groups, the government tends to cooperate, and actively includes innovation in its mandate. Gemma recounted that in the Philippines, "The government spends more money on WASH now, and has made it a priority." Engaging municipal governments will get political will behind. It really can work both ways - top-down and bottom-up. 

Large scale collaboration is needed. Bjorn pointed out that the lack of capital or technology isn't as much of a problem as an inefficient use of existing resources. There are billions of dollars that go into water each year, but ineffective transfer of knowledge and wasteful use of resources in a highly fragmented global water market make it difficult to exchange new ideas and technologies. He also stressed out the need for collaboration. Single organization breakthroughs are unlikely to radically affect water challenges.

Trust and reputation mean everything at Base of the Pyramid markets. Finding long-term partners on the ground is critical to the success of water businesses. For this reason, a water business must work on building trust within the community even before it begins its operations. Kevin says, "It can be dangerous if even a few members of the community hold a prejudicial view of your business". This is particularly important, given that water ownership is such a sensitive issue. In addition, creating services around the product can give people economic incentives to be involved.

For instance, women undertake product distribution and advertising, and have a clear economic incentive to do so. In terms of branding the product as it hits the market, it's extremely important to involve the local population in the product's messaging. Kevin urges water entrepreneurs to use focal points to help with community engagement. This is time-consuming but absolutely essential. Bjorn adds, "Schools, like churches, can be leveraged as focal points for discussions around water usage and practices."

* * *

What does the future look like?

When asked about their 5-year visions, all the panelists agreed that they wanted to focus their energies on women. Women are vital stakeholders in the scaling process. According to research conducted by ITT, the return on investment for water projects that involve women is nearly 10x higher than those that involve men. Women are more conscious about issues centered on health and family, and tend to be good advocates and partners in WASH initiatives. Given that women tend to multiply consumption behaviors in families and communities, no water business can be successful unless women are involved. From a purely practical standpoint, Gemma added, "The availability of women in the daytime is also a factor that makes them attractive partners for such businesses"

Almost fifty per cent of the developing world's population - 2.5 billion people - lack improved sanitation facilities, and over 884 million people still lack access to safe drinking water. The Clean Water Roundtable was recently held at the Haas School of Business, at University of California Berkeley to explore sustainable solutions to clean drinking water opportunities in the developing world.  By bringing academics, NGOs, foundations, corporations and venture capitalists together, participants explored and identified technologically and culturally viable, scalable solutions to developing clean water systems and what is needed to overcome existing impediments.

One afternoon panel titled "What Water Opportunities are Non-Profits Looking for in the Developing World?" included panelists Keith Stamm, from Water.org, Raul Gauto, from Avina, and Stephanie Maurissen, from CARE. The three organizations are each taking a unique approach to increasing access to clean water in the developing world. 

Avina's vision is that thousands of excluded communities self-organize through equalitarian and democratic processes to manage their own distribution and sanitation of water. CARE aims to establish and scale up a trust fund to innovate financial mechanisms and technical assistance to water providers in El Salvador, and Water.org is focusing on combining microfinance with water and sanitation credit in southern India - building capacity at the community level and creating support groups to take loans. In addition, they are funding MFIs to enter the water space and develop financial mechanisms for water specific programs.

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I just got an email from our friends at Ashoka announcing the launch, just two days ago, of a venture that promises to disrupt and transform rural healthcare in India. Led by NextBillion co-founder and The Next 4 Billion lead author Al Hammond, the E Health Points are joint venture of Ashoka, the Naandi Foundation, the Government of the State of Punjab and and Healthpoint Services India Pvt. Ltd.

It's very exciting to hear about this launch and see the pictures of it in action. I've had the opportunity to work in and out with Al Hammond over the last 18 months and in several of our conversations this project was a dominant theme. His vision of bringing together technological and business model innovations to produce a disruptive new model for healthcare services in rural areas is now a reality. I'm already looking forward to hearing about the launch and the prospects of this venture in his own words. I'm sure he'll be looking forward to sharing these through NextBillion as well, so stay tuned.

For now, I want to extend my congratulations and best wishes to Al and the team that has led the charge in launching this pilot. If you wish to learn more about this project and its various components, I encourage you to read Al's earlier posts related to eHealth, the future of healthcare and community scale water treatment facilities. I also urge you to read the complete press release and take a look at the Flickr slideshow.

While SoCap involves a lot of investment lingo and a room full of venture funds and other players with large amounts of capital, a breakout session on "Towards Triple Impact: Sustainable Ventures in Developing Countries" sought to bring together a panel of developing country entrepreneurs. 

Moderated by Sahba Sobhani of UNDP's Growing Inclusive Markets Initiative, the session included Harish Hande from SELCO India, Crispin Pemberton-Pingott from Swaziland's New Dawn Engineering, and Carlos Wills from Colombia's DW Tech.   The panelists manage a variety of enterprises: solar energy services, appropriate technology engineering (such as cooking stoves), and community water purification plants.  Moreover, there was also a range of experience involved, with New Dawn Engineering operating for twenty five years, and DW Tech still starting up. 

The panelists gave an introduction of their enterprises and Mr. Sobhani posed three questions - How does their business model create value for the poor and for the company? How do they plan to scale up? How do you add value? 

Mr. Hande emphasized that value must be measured from the client's perspective, not the shareholder's perspective, since they are the ultimate end user.   This bottom-up thinking was prevalent throughout his comments, from the avoidance of hiring MBAs because of (according to Mr. Hande) their lack of field reality to the current development of an incubator for young entrepreneurs in India.  Mr. Hande also brought home the point that we need a complete rethink in how we develop technology.  An example he provided is that of the sewing machine, which requires a standard 110 watts to operate, but in India, a typical sari and blouse only require 30 watts to complete.  Mr. Hande asked, who is thinking about these issues? How can we remodify and make relevant technologies more efficient? There is a need to start from the bottom and unlearn the perceptions we bring in from the outside. 

As an inventor, Mr. Pemberton-Pigott sees New Dawn Engineering as a "philosophical solution" in the pursuit of the triple bottom line.  An issue that arose throughout his discussion was that of intellectual property, especially when it comes to product replication and imitation.  Since the organization designs technology as appropriate to a population, Mr. Pemberton-Pigott advocates more discussion on the issue of intellectual property.   

Mr. Wills' enterprise is in a startup phase, so while SELCO and New Dawn Engineering can speak to their pursuit of the triple bottom line, DW Tech is still finding its feet.  With 12 million people in Colombia without drinking water, DW Tech offers a reverse osmosis system to serve a variety of customers, including retail, government, and others. It will be interesting to see how an enterprise that is just starting up will benefit from learning the lessons of its experienced peers, so it will be worth following DW Tech and observing how the organization fares down the line. 

Hearing straight from entrepreneurs working on the ground and implementing solutions was a refreshing addition to the conference.  Most importantly, the session served as a reminder that achieving triple impact requires a sound business model, entrepreneurs with a vision, and a lot of dedication.