Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
'Villages don't need IT'
|
CEO Bob Hoekstra and social activist Venkatesh Raghavendra try to bring corporate India closer to the common man
|
PHOTO: MURALI KUMAR K
MEANINGFUL PARTNERSHIP Bob Hoekstra and Venkatesh Raghavendra: `We need to ask whether we have a level playing field.'
The sixth-floor room of Philips Innovation Campus is just the place for a chinwag between two expats. One is a blue-eyed, silver-haired CEO from The Netherlands who has morphed into a Bangalorean who can make chief ministers do a double take by haranguing them about the city's crumbling infrastructure. The other is a Bangalorean who now works in Washington D.C., not as a CEO, but representing a sector that can no longer be wished away as extraneous or unnecessary.
Bob Hoekstra, CEO, Philips Software Centre, has made Bangalore his home since 1999. He says his ultra-modern headquarters of a brand name familiar to Indians for 75 years, is indeed the right place for the topic of the day's discussion. He has chosen his office not because of the breathtaking view of Ulsoor Lake that it offers but the typical Indian "village" that plays out the ironies, the contrasts between the world inside the campus and outside it. The cows, the city's washing hung out to dry, kids playing with discarded tyres, drunken husbands getting a tongue-lashing from their angry wives.
Venkatesh Raghavendra meanwhile is Director, Global Partnerships for Asia, The Ashoka Innovators for the Public. The Washington-based organisation has given social entrepreneurship and community leadership a new paradigm. It has a philosophy that sees beauty, the potential to make someone happy in a scenario like the one that Bob Hoekstra's window offers.
ALLADI JAYASRI listens on as they talk about the how and why of social entrepreneurship, and how engagement between corporates and citizens can take the community along on the journey to progress.
Venkatesh: How does one make society get on the bandwagon and be a part of progress, can we call it giving back to the community?
Bob: First of all, I don't think we ought to call it giving back to the community. The underprivileged or the poor do not relish being called that, nor, as experience has taught us, do they value anything, a service or a gift given to them gratis. We need to ask whether we have a level playing field. Are we creating the infrastructure to make that child running on the street a future techie? I know from experience that the people living in those little houses down there would not want me to give them anything. But when I look out of the window and see the disparity, I wonder how I can make a difference, how I can touch one life out there for every life inside this building. Everyone said, "India Shining" and talked of 10 per cent growth rate by 2020. But those who need to do what it takes have merely downscaled it, lowered the bar, so how can anyone hope to take the community along?
Venkatesh: Becoming aware of the magnitude of the problem is part of the battle won. But is there a potential? Are we getting closer to this objective of making progress accessible to all? At Ashoka, we have worked out that what is missing is an interface between the corporate and the community. A mechanism that takes solutions to where it is needed most, and delivers it in the appropriate manner.
Bob: Yes, the NGOs. As a corporate, I had the money and the wish to do something, but I need to see too where the money goes. NGOs often lack the capability but they do have the rapport with the community. Their skills are as vital as the money, the quality time that goes into the initiative, and the results.
Venkatesh: It is Ashoka's goal to be that bridge. It is our core strength and capability. These are days when the corporate sector, we saw, giving copiously to mitigate and reverse the damage wrought by the tsunami. But how do we turn this into a future for the devastated community? Organisations like us have made finding answers to this question their core capability.
Bob: Yes, yes. I can see a need for Ashoka in effective delivery of solutions. Even in building trust with government institutions. When we began the Disha project a couple of years ago, it was clear that the Government looks at profit as evil. Management guru C.K. Prahlad has given us a new dictum — serving the poor profitably. The Government, in its well-meaning ways, offers freebies to the rural community, what they need is to see us believing in them as investment options. One time, I spoke on IT for the rural sector at IT.Com. Well, I don't think villages need IT. What they need is solutions. Just think, the urban spending on healthcare is 4 per cent of the GDP. In villages it is 12 per cent. Do you know why? Because when a man in the village falls ill, his entire family moves to the city, where the medical care is. He has to find the resources to feed the family and get treatment too. What does that tell us?
Venkatesh: What it does say is we need to get started on creating win-win partnerships between the corporates and the community, and show that we have our heart in the right place. What Ashoka has done with Cemex, the cement major in Mexico is an example. Cemex will sell cement to residents of impoverished neighbourhoods to improve their houses. To reach them, Ashoka's network of educators has worked with the community. That's better homes and education too for the people, and Cemex.
Bob: Yes, I remember when we worked with MYRADA, another NGO in a place called Budikote outside Bangalore. The village has a community radio. Their women have self-help groups with considerable financial resources, and they are waiting to be invited to invest. Can you imagine that, so close to Bangalore, Bollywood music blares out of brand-less radios? They would love to own a Philips, and pay for it too. That's the kind of revolution that we are looking at.
Venkatesh: All the top academic institutions around the globe today have factored in social entrepreneurship into the agenda. This is a good sign. Besides more corporates and individuals want to do more than write a cheque and be on their way
Bob: (Musing about being a foreigner in IT City) The contrasts are there. (Bob famously did a u-turn from the airport where he was to catch a flight back home when his wife Geraldine called him a coward for wanting out of the mayhem that was Bangalore) But when folks ask me, I say this is one place where I can still walk out with the wallet in my hip pocket.
Venkatesh: The one thing you would say to NGOs...
Bob: I must say I'm impressed by their motivation. To get a young girl in Budikote talking like a Bangalorean about what she wants to do in life is no mean achievement.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Metro Plus
Bangalore
Chennai
Hyderabad
|
