In conversation with Social Entrepreneur Satish Jha

Niraj: Welcome to Foundations TV. Today we will talk about a very interesting topic, a topic that impacts all of us living in this community, in this society. We are going to talk about Social Entrepreneurship. Social Entrepreneurship is very unique, in a way that it’s success is measured on two dimensions. The first dimension being, its positive impact on society and the community and the second dimension being, obviously, the financials. This is very different from a business entrepreneurship, where the success is primarily measured on profit and loss of the venture. So, with that background, I would like to invite in our studio Mr. Satish Jha, who has been a serial entrepreneur as in a corporate entrepreneur, a business entrepreneur as well as a social entrepreneur. He has worked in 5 continents, was most recently the chairman of “One Laptop Per Child” initiative in India and most currently is working on is latest social entrepreneurship venture ECCO. With that, background I would like to welcome Satish.

Satish: Thank you very much. I am happy to be here.

Niraj: So, Tell us more about ECCO. What exactly are you doing? I have read something about it. It sounds like an interesting concept. Do share with our audience, the background, the motivation behind such an initiative and what is the path you are treading with this.

Satish: In my journey to take ‘One Laptop Per Child’ to every State, every entrepreneur I knew, and virtually everyone in the past 5 years that I did that, I realized that India had not created a product in 60 odd years of its freedom. Early, in the 90s I had been a chairman of a product creation company, I knew it was very very difficult, and that’s why India had not done that. But after seeing OLPC , my  thought changed. I thought that if you can take the principles of OLPC, perhaps you can create something. I met some people and they were thinking along those lines independently of us. One investor told me that ‘someone I know has a similar passion as you have about creating something Indian’. So when the founder came and met me, I was totally surprised and pleasantly shocked to see this product concept. When I saw this for the first time, I thought that if this is true, then we can actually do something in India, where we can imagine, design, manufacture and create in India. A product that is made in India but make it world class.

Niraj: Really? All global standards

Satish: Exactly. And not only that , but in every area, we stretched the boundary, stretched the frontiers. Whatever the solar lamp specs were in the world, this one went a step better. To the extent the International Corporation of Finance said, ”It is one probably of the finest solar lamps in the world” And that too designed in India. That is what got me hooked. And they asked me to join them on the board and finally couple of months back, made me the chairman because most people don’t understand what product creation is, it’s complexity. They usually don’t have time to, as they are busy doing what they do. It’s not that they can’t understand, it is just that this requires time. Product creation process is difficult and complex and there is investment required and time is needed for that. Nobody wants to invest in design in the trader mentality and trader phase. When you approach people, they say, ”How much can you make and in how short a time?” But  this required lot of time. It took almost 2 -3 years, along with couple of million dollars investment. So you have to find investors to do that. When I saw this, I said, “Now India is entering a new phase.” And so here I am.

Niraj: So, Given the fact that India has not designed, produced and manufactured a product solely in India, and you were the first one, I’m sure you would’ve come across some challenges in terms of finding the right skills, right mentality, investors etc. So, what were those challenges to reach to this stage?

Satish: I think first thing is that they are exceptional people. So this team is of exceptional people. Bowny is the guy. He is an absolutely exceptional person. He has done a few things before in life. They were all exceptional. He did not want to leave India. He is a BITS Pilani topper of two streams. His wife is a BITS Pilani topper as well. So they are a team who just believe in doing something interesting. His history is such that for 50 odd generations, they have been the painters to small kings. That is the recorded history of their family. So they always imagine things. They created things, they designed things. They are two brothers and they are both doing different things. But primarily, he is an exceptional individual. It’s like you can say, India’s new Edison. Though its too early to say that but if I look at the 6 – 7 things he has done, if only we had a business partner in each of them, I think he will be one of the most talked about guys from the developing world.

Niraj: So now, is the product ready?

Satish: Yes, the product is ready and has reached more than 100,000 people. We have created 3 – 4 versions of it and each one is very unique. If you charge once , it lasts for 350 hours. I don’t think you can find another lamp that would do that. We have designed one for Chhatisghar, we call it ECCO 36, because in Hindi chhatis is 36. It basically looks at the tribal art, takes the aesthetic forms from there and creates something that show how tribal forms will look like in modern times.

Niraj: So, you have localized the lamp design to meet the local needs as well.

Satish: You can say that we have localized or you can say how we have take the local form and taken it to the next level of technology driven local forms. So, it is very interesting.

Niraj: This product that has been designed and built in India, is it primarily for rural sector or government sector? Who is the real audience for this?

Satish: Basic idea is very simple, that if you look at the solar power that is available in India, which is several times more than the power producible with conventional sources. India produces very little power if you look at per capita consumption . It is about 1/20^th or 1/30^th or any other comparable economy. When I say comparable economy, I mean any economy that has 2000 dollars of per capita income, compared to that, we use fraction of that power and it is distributed very very unevenly. Villages of course may have literacy line crossing the villages but those lines don’t really give power to the homes in the villages. Even if the government say the 80 – 90% of India is electrified, I would say only 20 – 25% people are.

Niraj: So they may be ‘wired up’ but they may not have power on those lines.

Satish: Right, So wire is basically those lines that cross the villages. They won’t let the power come down.  This way every individual can find the power that they need. It is light. Before the power, you need light. Our lamp not only offers power, but actually offers light. You can even charge a mobile phone. Mobile phone charging has been a big problem in villages. Normally  they would walk 3 – 5 Km or go by bicycle and pay 4 – 5 rupees per charge, just to keep the mobile phone going. This allows them to charge the mobile phone as well as if they have tablet tomorrow, that too can be charged by these lamps.

Niraj: Very interesting

Satish: And what we have done is that we have used latest technology lithium ion LED lamps with lithium ion batteries, so they don’t have the lead acid batteries environmentally challenged either.

Niraj: So all the entire product set that you have used for manufacturing parts, they are all environmentally friendly.

Satish: Exactly

Niraj: That’s awesome. What are the distribution strategies that you are using to distribute it throughout India?

Satish: You know since the goal is to go to the poorest, this large scale work can only be done with the help of the government. We reached out to various governments. Government actually made lot of plans. So in this case we have done the Chhatisgar, the one state with lot of tribal population. You must be hearing about some violence there. So we thought that was a great place to start. And Government has asked us for 800,000 lamps to be distributed . Now we are trying to produce that many. We have already done several tens of thousands there. Ladaakh had a problem about 2 years ago. There were some natural disasters. We supplied some 30,000 lamps there. Uthrakhand recently had a natural disaster, we supplied 3000 there. So, I would say more than 100,000 lamps have basically gone out . The capacity now is about a million that we can produce, in India , in our factory.

Niraj: Million per day or…

Satish: Million per annum. But effectively it can be scaled up as per the demands. As of now we are working with State Governments within their bugdets. In retail, we have tied up with Mahindra, Anand Mahindra. He liked it very very much and he wanted to do that. So, in retail we are their partners and we are trying to find local social entrepreneurs. There is a company which is in one district of Uttar Pradesh . They have taken it to 5000 people. So what  they do is, that they don’t sell it to them. They charge Rs100 a month per user and they make sure that they have access to it. They charge for them. They deliver it to them every day so at night they have lights. So many models are emerging now.

Niraj: So you have been a social entrepreneur but you are creating other ventures and other avenues for other people who want to use the product and take it to the masses also.

Satish: basically the idea is this, About 80% India doesn’t have idea of what the markets offer. How did you go about it , so in that white space, many of us can contribute and if I go to villages and look at villages. We can train them to begin using what improves the quality of life from the point of view of basics of life, to hygiene , to learning , to helping them understand how the world is shaping up and explore whatever they want to explore as a full human being rather than working as just landless laborers or someone who has no opportunities. So look for things which will create opportunities for the majority of humanity . India has the largest number of poor in the world. India has the highest potential in terms of number of people it has. In terms of our faith in learning , I think we are culturally wired to become a learning society , except opportunities are not being given. So, lets see who all can join this movement, so to say. How do you all become entrepreneurs in our social setting where we earn , not according to what NYSE says, but according to what our local environment allows us and be happy with it.

Niraj: With the success that you have achieved in India, are you taking   this product outside Indian market as well? If yes, which countries?

Satish: Yes, we are part of ‘Lighting Africa’ of the International Finance Corporation  and ‘Global Lighting’ , ‘Lighting Asia’ , and ‘Lighting India’ programs, As we speak, last week some were sent to Thailand. If we can support anyone who is clear enough to start seeing the benefit of this in any country.

Niraj: So we have talked about the product, but we have not shown our viewers what it looks like.

Satish: Ok, I am hiding it right here. (smiling) (Demonstrating the product) So if you see it, when I show it to all my friends who are chairmen of Indian companies, they say, “Tell me, where is this from. Is it from America, Japan ?” and I say, ”Imagine India” and they feel shocked

Niraj: (laughing) No Way!

Satish: So if I have to open it, just see..(opening it) There are two parts. We are trying to make it simple . In one piece, it is a lamp that you can hang from the ceiling, or carry it as a torch. (Twisting the bottom) It is a table lamp. At a certain level of light it can go for 250 hours, at the peak it can go for 10 hours . So you have a choice as to how much light you need.

Niraj: If you can repeat that for our audiences, how long do they need to charge it for and how long does it last?

Satish: You can charge it using solar power, you can use electricity as well . Electricity from 70 V – 290 V would work for it does not impact its circuitry. It has lots of proofing done against deep discharge, against current reverse flow and all kinds of possibilities that you can imagine, we’ve proofed it that way. It is maintenance free . You know you’ve heard the principles of One Laptop Per Child, to be dust proof, sun readable, shock proof, water proof etc. all those principles got applied into this as well. So if you see this, you can actually hang it on the wall as well. (Removing the bottom portion of the lamp) Now you can take to the wall and hang it on that as well, either upside or down, whichever way you like it. So, it is something which you can use as a table lamp , a ceiling lamp , a torch or even to charge mobile phones.

Niraj: So, That was a pretty amazing story. I am sure many of our viewers who are itching right now, watching this interview would be curious to know , if you have a message for budding Social Entrepreneurs out there. 

Satish: I would say that, that India needs in every village, one social entrepreneur. I think there are about 3 million Indians in America. They basically mean about 700,000 – 750,000 families. If they can just adopt one village each , support one social entrepreneur . I think they will make a huge impact. Look at lighting, look at education. Look at things that may not be immediate, but look at things that will help them look into the future. If you support one, there is enough business to be done locally which can actually meet the expectations of someone who is investing in that. That can lead to a social entrepreneurship, a movement for that and I would say that if an investor says I will support 100 social entrepreneurs. Now you have a good business model, you’re actually talking about a few million dollars. You scale it up and it’s a great business opportunity for people here and you make a new India as well .

Niraj: That’s a great message for all our viewers and we really appreciate your time over here Satish, Thank you

Satish: Thank you for discovering me.