Riders for health, social entrepreneurship..

Riders for Health reach in Africa ..

When bike riding fans Andrea and Barry Coleman met in Africa and decided to help the Central Africa states how to tide over the transportation logistics problem, nobody thought it would become a craze and benefit millions of people and save millions of lives.. 

Riders for health - is the story how an NGO on wheels helped five Central African countries tide over problems of poor logistics and transportation to improve the healthcare delivery ecosystem in Africa and bring in transformative change of communities ..

These problems are too narrow in scope to warrant legislative activism nor are they too profitable to attract private capital. But the right intervention at the right time across the right parameters can bring about lasting societal transformation and change. That is the essence of social entrepreneurship.

Click here for a video on the organisation ..

The NGO helps Ministries of Health and other health related organisations to manage their fleet of vehicles (click here) in good running condition and also provide extra fleet in the fight for AIDS prevention etc to these countries..

Reading through the article in Harvard Business Review (click here..) which highlighted this NGO and its activities, I was immediately moved by the impact of such social entrepreneurship. Knowing that it was the poor maintenance activities of the vehicle fleet that grounded these vehicles and prevented healthcare from reaching the poor and needy people across the central parts of Africa, Andrea and Barry Coleman offered to maintain a fleet of motorcycles for these governments who will carry out the last mile logistics of carrying patients, medicines, injections etc to the hospitals and to homes.

Andrea and Barry Coleman, co-founders ..

It has now grown to a fleet of motorcycles and vehicles that is helping solve the transportation problems affecting the health infrastructure of Africa.

This simple idea has now translated to become one of the greatest innovative interventions that helped improve the last mile delivery effectiveness of healthcare operations in Central
 Africa.

The whole crux is on providing a reliable transportation fleet to help the health organisation network in Africa aiming to reach more than 25 million people across Africa.  - to make the last mile the most important in health care delivery..

Wish more such socially beneficial entrepreneurial ideas come up in the world to help save and benefit humanity in many ways.

Australia culling 2 million Feral cats by 2020 ..

Feral cat, harmless to humans but ...

The Felis Catus (cat) we breed at our homes is a small mammal that has been harmless to humans and domesticated. Historical records show of this animal having been domesticated around 7500 BC in Cyprus and later spread to other parts of the world to Egypt, Greece and so on.

The main reason why this mammal found favour with the people was its ability to keep away the rodents that attacked the scarce food reserves in these places.

Australia has 6 million of these feral cats.  Feral cats are domesticated cats that have been abandoned and hence have become suspicious of humans and keep away in the wild.

These cats look very innocent, but they have been in the Australian landscape since the 17 century when Europeans brought these non-native cat species to a foreign land.

A feral cat consuming an innocent bird ..

What has been the problem with these 60 lakh harmless cats that roam around Australian landscape in the wild ? It is said by Australian Conservancy, ever since these cats have come to Australia, it has resulted in the extinction of almost 130 species of birds and reptiles from Australian landmass.

Every year they kill almost 316 million birds and 596 million reptiles across the country. As per this New York Times report, feral cats have established their presence over 99.8 percent of Australian landmass with over 100 cats per square kilometre area. The NY Times report states that in US free roaming cats kill between 1.3 to 4 billion birds and 6.3 to 22.3 billion mammals every year.

The bait used to kill these cats is burger airdropped in the wild Australian landmass, containing Kangaroo or chicken meat laced with a poison named 1080. It can also kill other non-native species like foxes.

These cats finish off rodents in a flick ..

The proliferation of these cats arises out of the fact that the food chain ends with the cats. They roam around freely like humans do on planet earth. These cats can only be poached on using poison or should be promoted as a national stew on the breakfast tables of Australians.

The problem is with how these cats oversee the extinction of hundreds of native species of birds and reptiles in Australia that have evolved over millions of years in the isolated landmass of Australia secluded from other land masses.

Even if 2 million of these wild feral cats are killed by poisoning, there are still the other 4 million cats around, posing a major threat to the native Australian birds and reptiles. In the long run will Australian government with just 30 million people around have to take a decision if and when these cats outnumber humans.

Only God knows what will happen next ?

Integrating ridesharing apps with public and mass transit systems

Imagine a situation in Bangalore where you tell Ola that on a particular day you would like to visit the city of Mumbai, go to so and so offices from this time to this time and travel to this hotel for staying overnight, vacate the hotel, completing some morning assignments and catching the afternoon flight to Bangalore.

If Ola could arrange your travel itinerary with a combo of private, public transport and Mass Transit systems at a particular cost, it would definitely make travel and transport a pleasant experience. 

The ride sharing services like Ola, Über by planning working on the backbone of Indian Railways, Mass Rapid Transit Systems (MRTS) like Metros, City bus systems etc and effectively integrating with it, backward integrating and forward integrating, definitely, would transform the personal transportation landscape around country and the world 👍👍 It is already more than $1 trillion industry (conservative estimates) around the world.. (click here for a CNN report on global mobility integration)

The electric mobility system being planned by Ola in a big way in the country is based on this report of their electrical mobility experiment in Nagpur. (click here for the pdf report)

SELCO Foundation SDG7 For SDG8 Conference at IIM Bangalore ..

The SELCO Foundation SDG7 for SDG8 Conference at IIM Bangalore (click here for the conf) happened yesterday 26 April 2019 and continues on 27th too.

Prof. G Raghuram, Director, IIMB, giving the
inaugural talk.

SDG stands for Sustainable Development Goals 2015 formulated by United Nations in 2015 as part of the Paris Treaty on Climate Change to stall the global climate change and temperature increase to less than 2 deg Celsius by the turn of the century 2099 AD. (click here for the theme video for the conf..)

It was a great act by IIM Bangalore to host this Conference of global impact and on a very vital and important topic in their premises,. thanks to the intervention and support by the IIM Bangalore Director, Prof. Raghuram.

The Alliance Uty participants at the conf ..

We could, besides listening to the Chairman of Selco Foundation, the 2011 Magsaysay Award winner, Harish Hande himself, (click here for a write up on Harish) an IIT KGP alumnus, see all the indigenous innovative product and service applications that were up on display at IIM Bangalore stalls, which had come from different parts of the country. All these societal livelihood enhancement interventions have happened thanks to intervention by Selco Foundation, led by Harish Hande.

The 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals 2015
for the world to help curb climate change ..

One thing striking was Harish's leadership style. a true leader, he leads from behind. It was really gratifying to find how his team members from around the country at different Foundation centres were leading the charge in bringing a change by linking sustainable energy to poverty eradication and lifestyle changes in the country, while Harish was behind them, giving full support and encouragement.

Another statement, which Harish has been repeating at different fora across the country is how fortunate we are to be educated, to be living and studying off the subsidy collected from the poor of the country.

He was very concerned about the fallacy of the English speaking people of the country assuming themselves to be more intelligent than the vernacular language speaking people and were snatching opportunities meant for them. Let us  ask our conscience, are we not showing off intellectual snobbishness and snatching from and denying the intelligent vernacular language speaking people of this country the opportunities to excel in life ?

In one of his talks he was mentioning how at an IT company, as part of CSR, employees were registering to teach the students from the village schools while in return he asked them how they would feel if the village school children could in return teach them some life lessons !! Never underestimate the rural people, there are many Einsteins and Edisons down there, waiting for the right opportunities to be unearthed.

Listen to Harish speak (click here)  at the Tata Centre for Technology and Design at IIT Bombay in 2018. Also his 2013 talk at an INK conference.. click here 

Dr Harish Hande, BTech (IIT KGP), MS, PhD, UMass.
2011 Magsaysay Award winner, 2018 Skoll Award winner

The IIMB conference sponsored by Selco Foundation was all about linking sustainable energy applications to poverty alleviation and lifestyle improvement models for the rural people of the country. There were many demonstrations arranged where people from rural areas came with their innovative solar energy based projects which helped improve lifestyles. for example cotton fibre collection to solar energy operated cotton loom to stitching ..., the entire cotton fibre-cloth-dress value chain ..

This is how we at Alliance University have shown our commitment to the UN SDG initiatives by conducting a No Impact Week to raise awareness among students to consciously strive to reduce their Carbon Footprints initially over a one week period and later intelligently act throughout their life .. (click here..)

We could get great value out of the conference and we are planning to invite Dr. Harish to the University in the month of July 2019.

George.

Marketing (going for the overkill) and UN Sustainable Development Goals 2015 ..

Is there any relationship, adverse or beneficial, between Marketing and over-consumption  ??

What is the function of Marketing ? Marketing is more about developing and managing the demand for an innovative product or service which earlier did not exist in the market. Innovation brings a new product or service and marketing tries to reach it out to the world of customers, find the right customers for the right products or services at the right cost performance mix .

According to Prof. Theodore Levitt of HBS, Marketing invariably views the entire business process as consisting of a tightly integrated effort to discover, create, arouse and satisfy customer needs. ie. Marketing has more to do with creating a demand for a product and getting customers to pay for it, than actually selling a product to the customer.

It s a pity, how many of these UN SDG goals are supported by
the Marketing function in an organisation ?

More often than not, we find this process of creating demand for a product or service, which is what Marketing is actually worried about, overshoots itself. It identifies a non-existing need, and develops the product and supply chain mechanism to help meet that need for a cost. This process of trying to satisfy a non-existing need by exploiting the resources of the physical world is in itself, against the environment. This non-existing need, created by Marketing, is in itself the start of an unsustainable lifestyle, as it exploits physical resources which otherwise would have remained in the physical world for future generations to consume.

How far can we resort to Marketing in the physical world ? or what constitutes environmentally sustainable marketing and what constitutes environmentally unsustainable marketing ? Where do we draw the line ?

Referring to the above Sustainable Development Goals formulated by the United Nations Forum for Climate Change as per the Paris Accord of 2015 - 2030 to limit the increase of global temperatures across the world to within 2 deg C, and to limit to 1.5 deg by 2099 AD, is Marketing acting against this need of the global community to limit consumption and splurge ?

Marketing plays an important role in establishing relationships between customers and the organizations offering to the market. The marketing function is also tasked with branding of the organization, participation in publicity activities, advertising and customer interaction through feedback collection. Timothy Mahea

Marketing is acceptable when it limits its actions to creating customer awareness. But what will happen if Marketing goes for the overkill, finding a  product or service that can harm the environment or otherwise, creating non-existential demand for that product / service and then going for the sale. It is not sustainable Marketing. And we need to stop such dangerous marketing practices for the better future of the world.

Marketing within existing and future customer demand is fine, but not making customers create artificial needs for the customer and make him spend and waste more where actually he does not have a genuine need.

George..

Electric bicycles from Yulu on Bangalore roads ..

Cycles parked at Sony World, Koramangala,
Bangalore ..

Yesterday morning, 25 April 2019, while I came to the Silk Board bus stop to catch the college bus, I was surprised to see about 20 small cycles lined up in front of the Saphire shop area.

On close examination I understood this was Yulu Miracle, the electric bicycles from Yulu which was released in Bangalore and simultaneously in Bhubaneshwar and a couple of other cities in India.

It was quite interesting to know the following points

1. No helmet needed
2. No license needed.
3. The maximum speed at which one can move on this e-bicycle in 25 kmph.
4. A charge lasts for almost 75 kms.
5. The e-cycle can be found at important points in Bangalore and can be kept back at these places.
6. They charge no fee if you are taking the bike to your home and parking it for the night between 6 pm to 8 am.
7. Rs 10/- as rental for the bike and Rs 10/ - for the first 10 minutes and so on.

Read the article in Yourstory giving all details ..

How can this solve Bangalore's traffic problem? The Yourstory link points to a survey conducted some months by an agency that the average distance of any bicycle ride in Bangalore is about 2 kms and car ride is 5 kms. If we can travel this 5 km distance on this ecycle, that much space on the road for a four wheeler can be saved, the traffic reduces, easing the traffic flow and speeding it up and then so much less of fuel too.

This evening I am definitely taking it for a ride on Koramangala roads.

There are some questions for which we address here. For example,
1. Can this innovative application bring cleaner air and less time consuming commutation for Bangaloreans ?
2. Is Bangalore outstripping other cities in the country to have the first e-cycles on road ?
3. Are there only limited spots to collect and deposit these e-cycles in Bangalore city ?
4. Can this be taken to spots on the city outskirts, within 75 kms or only within some limits within the city ?
5. If a day's ride is more than 75 kms, how can it be managed ?

George..

Carbon fibre Loom and components.

Just like cotton fibres and cotton loom defined and kickstarted Industrial revolution in late 18th century, Carbon fibres and Carbon fibre looms (upto 300 kg/hr) like the above pic (Bertha at Uty of Bristol, UK) are defining modern carbon fibre composites manufacture.

Carbon fibre composites (all modern lightweight F1 racing cars are made from carbon fibre braided composites) are 10 times stronger than steel and 5 times lighter than steel !! 

We can expect very soon large scale and mass precision manufacturing to be taken over by automated carbon fibre looms ..

Courtesy Economist, UK, April 2019.