With delegates from 30 nations participating at Tech4Society, the three day session of the plenary panel, breakout session, marketplace session and roundtable discussions concluded with a vision on the Changemaker. Global leaders, social entrepreneurs and thought leaders put together their predictions for the future of invention, technology and the powerful intersection of social entrepreneurship as well as global demographic trends and planetary challenges.
The day focused on the rapidly changing work environment and need for social inventor entrepreneurs to re-evaluate business and financing strategies with social venture capitalism, low profit LLCs (Limited Liability Company) and revenue models representing just a few of the new financing structures being utilized by social inventors.
Bill Drayton, Founder and CEO of Ashoka Foundation said, ?Social entrepreneurs do not want to capture a market; they want to change the world.?
With the Marketplace Session highlighting specific issues in agriculture, renewable energy, health and other sectors. Representatives of these sectors engaged inventors at various levels, which included live demonstrations on the effectiveness of product innovations and business models for sustainable development.
The occasion was one of a kind in status for Ashoka Lemelson social inventor entrepreneurs to network and collaborate for their innovations and look at future business opportunities at the Marketplace session. It was a platform for participants to share models and products, and explore opportunities in partnering with Ashoka Lemelson Fellows.
Tech4Society brought to the fore key strategies to help social entrepreneurs enhance their abilities in confronting socio-economic barriers. To this effect, key observations were shared by business leaders and experts, like Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman of Microsoft India and Prasad Ram, a Google research scientist who helped create Google News.
On ?Invent to Scale?, said Prasad Ram: ?An innovation will scale faster if it is designed intentionally and ambitiously. Correspondingly, innovations that cater to unique and isolated markets are doomed, however effective, to stay there. Always build a global product. Don?t make a product just for the emerging users. Find the application for the product that a global user would go for. When Google created its language-translation device, it launched with the capability to operate in 57, including five Indian, languages. Because of the breadth of its application, three national governments took immediate interest and helped finance the product?s development. It was a success from day one, because we launched it globally.?
Ravi Venkatesan points out to inventors whose inventions can?t live up to their potential, those who seem obsessed with their own inventions and thereby lose sight of the challenge of scaling, those who feel greatly challenged by the prospect of raising capital or by distribution. ?Typically these innovators work in isolation, distanced not just from capital and markets, but from professional and social networks that might help accelerate mass adoption of their ideas. Winning traction for their inventions in local markets is relatively straightforward but only a small percentage of these entrepreneurs achieve social impact on a national or global scale like Tech4Society. But if the obstacles to greater success were made clear, so would the pathways to change!?
The participants? views also highlighted the message on ?wants being scalable and needs that are local?. The challenge therefore, is to effectively distribute and market technology at the community level. For, it is only at this level that demands are assessed and responded to, in the specific context or contexts of end users.
Successful innovations serve the many and an individual simultaneously.
The event was supported by Microsoft and Infosys.