inclusive innovation

Want To Know The Secret On How Startups and Mobile Operators Work Together in Emerging Markets?

~ Venkata Gandikota

Check the infographic and also the web link to see a detailed report on how useful APIs are between mobile operators and start-ups in emerging markets.

API Mobiles Infographic

According to the article on GSMA website, there are around 15,000 APIs, with 40 new ones created every week. Salesforce already generates 50 per cent of its revenues via APIs, eBay generates 60 per cent, and Expedia 90 per cent. Welcome to the new API economy.

An API, or Application Programming Interface, is what allows software programs to “talk” to one another and reach a broader audience. APIs are what allow you to share a news article on LinkedIn or send your location on WhatsApp using your smartphone. APIs are also what allow a farmer in Senegal to check crop prices via SMS (MLouma) or a student in the Philippines to pay for their bus ride using their mobile airtime credit (Bustayo) . Services like these are powered by the APIs of local mobile operators.

If you want to directly read the report, it is in pdf format here.

Impact Investing Is A Good Way To Go For Frugal Innovators As Well

~ Venkata Gandikota

Over the past 3 years, I have been developing ideas on all the different ways that Entrepreneurs and Startups who are creating frugal solutions can access capital.

Mind you if you are a big company that is publicly listed or even privately owned, then they can go for their own cash reserves or set aside budgets to deal with these as new R&D&I projects.

But for startups, they can either access traditional innovation funds in the public sector, or raise funds via crowdsourcing, or get funding via big foundations in your field. Now Impact investing is a growing phenomenon trying to take advantage of all these.

Came across this nice overview for Impact investing from The Global Impact Investing Network’s What You Need to Know About Impact Investing

Many types of investors are entering the growing impact investing market. Here are a few common investor motivations:

  • Banks, pension funds, financial advisors, and wealth managers can PROVIDE CLIENT INVESTMENT OPPORTUNITIES to both individuals and institutions with an interest in general or specific social and/or environmental causes.
  • Institutional and family foundations can LEVERAGE SIGNIFICANTLY GREATER ASSETS to advance their core social and/or environmental goals, while maintaining or growing their overall endowment.
  • Government investors and development finance institutions can PROVIDE PROOF OF FINANCIAL VIABILITY for private-sector investors while targeting specific social and environmental goals.

Just Came Across Conscious Capitalism – Initial Thoughts

~ Venkata Gandikota

“It’s not about minimizing costs and making profits. You have to build on growing, caring and making an impact.”- Babson College Professor, Raj Sisodia, co-founder of Conscious Capitalism Inc.

This above quote is from this article Conscious Capitalism: the Next Chapter in Business. 

This is part of the increasingly mainstreamed way of doing business. First came Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), then Inclusive Business, Social Entrepreneurship, Impact Investing and Frugal Innovation have started to push business from “Laissez Faire Capitalism” to responsible capitalism.

This in combination with economists like Tomas Piketty’s “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” and Professor Angus Deaton (2015 Nobel prize winner in Economics) have started to highlight the necessity in creating a more responsible way of doing business.

I will have to read more, get more examples, digest them all and will get back to further thoughts on this in future blog posts.

Sepia Ink – A Suitable Cheap Alternative In Monitoring Groundwater Contaminants And Pathogens

~ Venkata Gandikota

Scientific article in the Journal of Contaminant Hydrology claims “Sepia ink is an organic pigment consisted on a suspension of eumelanin, and that has several advantages for its use as a promising material for introducing frugal innovation.

… in the fields of public health and environmental research: very low cost, non-toxic, spherical shape, moderate polydispersivity, size near large viruses, non-anomalous electrokinetic behavior, low retention in the soil, and high stability…

We concluded that sepia ink is a suitable cheap surrogate for exploring transport of pathogenic viruses, bacteria and particulate contaminants in groundwater, and could be used for developing frugal-innovation related with the assessment of soil and aquifer filtration function, and monitoring of water filtration systems in low-income regions.

Read the article if you are scientific minded or even if not, just go absorb the essential points they make at this link here.