Dylan Lubbe

Location / Country: Ahmedabad, India
Organization: Centre for Innovation, Incubation, & Entrepreneurship

LUBBE: "In the summer of 2017, I joined the Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship as a Strategy Associate. Working vigorously under four initiatives, I gained vast exposure to many startups, industries, ideas and entrepreneurs.”

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Centre for Innovation, Incubation, & Entrepreneurship

“The Indian Institute of Management’s (IIM) Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (CIIE) helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into viable businesses by incubating, accelerating, mentoring and funding innovative start-ups. CIIE believes that entrepreneurship can bring about disruptive change through ventures across impact areas like energy, environment, agriculture, healthcare and affordable technology.”

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Impact:

The India Innovation Growth Programme (IIGP)

“Under this program, selected startups and entrepreneurs were hosted by CIIE and took part in a week long, intense lecture series held by IIM professors. In addition, entrepreneurs would participate in concentrated sessions with CIIE mentors to discuss their businesses and ideas. On behalf of CIIE I advised and mentored at least eight entrepreneurs and startups under the programme. During these sessions, we discussed the challenges faced by these startups, identified growth opportunities and critiqued the business viability and models of the businesses.”

IIMAvericks Initiative

“This program is dedicated to helping graduating MBA students of IIM focus on their business ideas and sustain themselves during the first two-year period of starting up.

I worked particularly closely with two members under this initiative. First Nahulan Pranav, who wants to bypass the traditional method of purchasing fruits and vegetables in India by creating an express delivery service.“

Innovation City

“Innocity” is an on-demand and a customized startup support platform designed by CIIE. Through CIIE, Innocity enables aspiring entrepreneurs to get customized guidance, support and services from relevant professionals, mentors, startup founders, angels and other startup service providers.

Under this initiative, I delivered presentations on Customer Development to Innocity attendees. I took entrepreneurs through various frameworks and tools such as the Business Canvas Model, Lean Model Process, the concept of Minimum Viable Products and the Lean Start Up process to help them validate and refine their ideas and early stage startups.”

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Conclusion

“My experience at CIIE was remarkable and one that I will never forget. Not only have I gained valuable experience, quality learning and an acquisition of many new skills, my work was rewarding and energizing. I really felt that I added value to those with whom I worked with which was a great takeaway.”

Claudia Cruz Leo

Location / Country: Hyderabad, India
Organization: Vaya

CLAUDIA CRUZ LEO: "Vaya is a for-profit microfinance institution (MFI) based in Hyderabad, India, the capital of the Indian state of Telangana. The organization is the brainchild of former SKS Microfinance1 CEO and Tufts alumnus, Dr. Vikram Akula, who now serves as Chairperson for the organization and is a constant source of guidance and inspiration for Vaya staff. Vaya sees itself as “a next- generation financial inclusion organization”, as it provides financial services with a focus on integrating digital finance technology through the use of tablets for loan management.2 The firm’s aim is to enhance the livelihoods of underserved low-income women, mainly in rural areas, through the provision of financial services and financial literacy training. Vaya is operational in six states in India and is currently the only microfinance firm present in Telangana following the Andhra Pradesh crisis in 2010.

Throughout my nine weeks at Vaya my focus was on individual lending. Being a traditional microfinance firm, Vaya currently only offers group lending, or joint liability, products. After an initial discussion over Skype with the organization’s Chief Financial Officer (CFO), I realized individual lending would be a priority area for the organization. This hunch was confirmed after I arrived in Hyderabad, following an annual all-staff retreat in which senior management stressed that the organization going forward would begin to transition into individual lending.

My direct supervisor and I developed a work plan with three goals for the summer:

1. Investigate individual lending products and underwriting practices in India and around the world;

2. Design a survey to administer in the field and gain a solid understanding of the demand for individual lending products;

3. Recommend entry or delay into the individual lending market and propose a road map for next steps.

“In addition to conducting independent research, I worked closely with various department heads at Vaya (operations, finance, training, data management, and human resources). I made two visits to the field to speak with and understand the composition and needs of Vaya clients and staff. I also spoke with key staff members at competing microfinance organizations, e.g. Ujjivan Financial Services, Muthoot FinCorp, and others, to understand the approaches others in the industry were taking towards individual lending. My final recommendation was based on the Indian context with regard to individual lending (products and process); client demand; and the firm’s level of readiness.

Apart from this main research effort and market analysis, I also helped Vaya staff begin to think through how to design a credit absorption index to assess new clients’ creditworthiness, although this work was preliminary. “

IMPACT:

i. Vaya’s Staff

Vaya’s CEO was very thankful for my efforts in helping the organization move one step closer to cracking the individual lending puzzle. My research, which combined an academic and fieldwork approach, provided the organization with the groundwork and tools for conceptualizing an individual lending product and the new underwriting process. This is something for which the organization did not have the resources, human and financial, to do carry out on its own.

ii. Vaya’s Clients

Various colleagues at Vaya told me in my first days at the organization that their clients had been clamoring for individual loan products. Many of these women had already successfully completed various loan cycles with Vaya and other microfinance organizations, reaching the maximum amount they could borrow at one time under RBI regulations, and therefore wanted expanded opportunities to access larger chunks of capital to grow their businesses. I spoke to women who felt this way on my field visits. Others, interestingly enough, no longer wanted to be responsible for other group members’ repayments. The recent demonetization effort further exacerbated this issue as many women were unable to meet their repayment schedules, putting undue pressure on their peers to meet their repayment obligations. Although my ultimate recommendation was to delay the launch of individual lending products, I emphasized the need for the organization to put in place the necessary processes and seek the needed expertise to meet these women’s needs.

Sai Kumaraswami

Organization: iSTAR Skill Development
Country: India

SAI: India is the world’s youngest and second most populous country. 62% of its 1.25 billion are in the working age group of 15-59 years and it adds 10 million people to its work force every year (4 million of these are graduates). However, less than 2% receive any form of skills training in their respective occupations. Comparative figures in other economies are – 96% (South Korea), 80% (Japan), 75% (Germany), 68% (UK) and 40% (China). Academia in India has been traditionally characterised by an anaesthetic learning experiences for the students – an assessment centric approach to teaching that ignores practical application, outdated concepts, rote learning, poor college infrastructure, underpaid and underqualified teachers. As the world looks to India to take its seat at the engine of growth, policymakers in the country are faced with the onerous task of facilitating this demographic dividend. There is a need to focus and reorient India’s education system to make it more skills based and aligned with the needs of the industry.

iSTAR SKILL DEVELOPMENT

iSTAR is an education technology firm that addresses the skilling needs of people and addresses the problem through a public –private partnership. It provides end to end services in higher education management including content and program development, curriculum design, delivery, assessment, recruitment and consulting services. Its mission is to create sustainable livelihoods through intensive skills training across multiple sectors including banking and financial services, retail, IT and IT enabled services. Its current market is the urban base of pyramid, serving socially and economically disadvantaged undergraduate and graduate students in tier 2 and tier 3 colleges. The firm was started in 2009, by Surga

Thilakan and Sreeram Vaidyanathan, alumni of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In a short span of time, it has quickly scaled up and expanded, largely due to its slick business model and timely funding opportunities. It currently operates in 10 sates of India, working with around 150 colleges and has trained over 50,000 students to date.

IMPACT

During my internship, I was able to deliver the following results to iSTAR:

1. Rolled out pilot skills training program in 4 sites in 65 days – which was 15 days before the target deadline

2. We admitted 1700 students into our program, and 83% of them were from families in the bottom 2 quintiles of India’s per capita income

3. InAmbasamudramandDharwad, the colleges expanded and set up their first full-fledged computer lab because of our pilot program, improving the infrastructure facilities of the college.

4. Each of the 23 recruiters we have tied up with has agreed to a compensation that is between 35% to 90% higher than the mean family incomes reported by the students to their colleges. This is a substantial increase in disposable incomes for students who will be recruited at the end of the program.

5. iSTAR successfully raised Series B capital, which will enable expansion into bottom of the pyramid and ramp up technological and geographic presence.

Deepti Jayakrishnan

Country: India

Organization: ACCESS Development Services

Deepti Jayakrishnan worked at Educate Lanka Foundation Inc, a 501c3 non-profit organization which creates a unique platform for the global Sri Lankan diaspora to engage with their home country by financially contributing the education of its children and youth. Deepti’s responsibilities included conducting feasibility studies, preparing project reports, identifying and potential corporate partners, reviewing existing legal contracts, and managing an intern.

Deepti : “Besides adapting my legal skills to a new jurisdiction, I had opportunities to refine my grant writing skills and negotiating skills. It also depend my interest in impact investing and social investment businesses. I am highly likely to start my own company or at least heavily invest in a social business in the future.”

Tapish Bhatt

Country: India

Organization: ACCESS

Tapish Bhatt spent a summer at ACCESS, which impacts the poor of India at all levels of the sector value chain. His work entailed Streamlining internal processes of the organisation viz. sales and production planning, designing a marketing strategy for JJADE, and studying the feasibility of a managed production cluster.

Tapish: “I remain committed to achieving impact at the bottom of the pyramid, but now I would like to work with corporations towards managing their donations better to achieve maximum output.”

Nate Stell

Country: India
Organization: PCI

Nate Stell carried out an evaluation of the OVC team’s vocational training model which provides services (skills, education, microfinance and life skills eduation) to street children, Orphans and Vulnerable Children through interviews with prior participants and key staff to determine if the processes being used are being optimized for success.

Nate: “One key attraction was that the focus of my internship was on designing and implementing an evaluation of a well regarded vocational training program. I was interested in developing a skill set in program evaluation because I am planning my career in the nonprofit management field.”

Hannah Schiff

Country: India
Organization: Start Up! India

Hannah Schiff’s work included in-person interviews with villagers, experts in the field, and other social entrepreneurs as well as exposure to a wide variety of social enterprise models. She gained experience helping social enterprises define smart business strategies and processes and created questionnaires, guides and other content for Start Up! India’s Incubation Tool Kit.

Hannah : “This was a powerful internship through which I gained many insights that will be useful in my academic and career decisions going forward. The experience helped me to refine my idea of what I am looking for in a future work environment.”

Evelyn

Country: India

Evelyn conducted field research with World Health Partners in rural India, in support of the social franchise’s efforts to improve access to healthcare using local market forces and cutting-edge technology. Her work in Bihar focused on understanding the organic network of Bihari health providers before the WHP network was to be started. She conducted a baseline survey of existing providers to find out how they were connected to one another, including doctors, pathological labs, pharmaceutical distributors and supply chain components. The goal was to see what gaps, bottlenecks or roadblocks existed. Data included referral practices, impact on patient in terms of cost and patient travel time, cost to patient for four priority diseases so that WHP’s franchise could be as efficient and effective as possible.

Jillian

Country: India

Jillian worked at CARE’s Economic Development Unit, examining and documenting agricultural projects put in place as part of the recovery process after the 2004 tsunami that devastated the east coast of India. She is analyzing agricultural and fisheries value chains, with an eye to using markets to empower women and support sustainable development.

Jacqueline

Country: India

Jacqueline worked with World Health Partners, implementing private sector practices in the reproductive health service delivery, including efficient service delivery, bundling of goods, and monitoring and evaluation.

Lily

Country: India

Lily held focus groups and interviewed members of farming communities to evaluate the efficacy of programs implemented by the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute (AIDMI), an NGO working throughout South Asia. Developed crisis mapping scenarios, held financial literacy classes and prepared proposals for dealing with major urban disasters.