Poor Richard: Goli of the Day #10.. TOMS Shoes : It's Different #1.. Interview with Sonal Shah, Founder Indicorps.. Power of Imagination: Goli of the Day #9..
Using the pseudonym of "Poor Richard," Benjamin Franklin published his Almanack from 1733 to 1758. The Almanack was hugely popular in American colonies, selling about 10,000 copies per year. Its contant varied, including not only many franklin aphorisms that becoma famous but also calenders, weather forecasts, astronomical information, and astrological data. The content had huge economical and cultural impact during those days. Napoleon Bonaparte considered the Almanack significant enough to translate it into Italian.
Usually we hear about companies earning huge chunk of money and then helping society through CSR activities. But rarely do we hear about companies that make helping the society an integral part of their business. One such organization is “TOMS Shoes”.
“For each pair of Toms shoes sold, the company gives one away to a child in need. One for One”
Started by Blake Mycoskie, a former contestant of reality TV’s “The Amazing Race”, the name TOMS is derived from the slogan "Shoes for Tomorrow". The goal behind TOMS shoes is to end poverty in third-world countries through fashion, generosity, and charity.
Mycoskie came up with the idea for TOMS after visiting Argentina and seeing many children without shoes living in villages plagued with poverty. While in Argentina, Mycoskie adopted the style of the traditional light-weight Argentinean shoe called alpargatas, which is the shoe that he modeled TOMS after.
“I created TOMS with a singular mission: to make life more comfortable.” – Mycoskie
TOMS Shoes has recently won the “People’s Design Award”, an award sponsored Target and awarded to the company with the best design as voted by the people.
Sonal Shah works for Google.org on their Global Development team, where she is working on defining their global development strategy. Prior to Google.org, she was Vice President at Goldman, Sachs and Co. and developed and implemented the firm’s environmental strategy. She is also the co-founder of Indicorps (www.indicorps.org), a U.S.-based non-profit organization offering one-year fellowships for Americans of Indian origin to work on specific development projects in India. As the former Associate Director for Economic and National Security Policy at the Center for American Progress, Sonal worked on trade, outsourcing and post conflict reconstruction issues. Prior to joining the Center, she was the Director of Programs and Operations at the Center for Global Development managing the daily operations and serving as a strategic adviser to the president. She also developed and managed policy and advocacy programs for the Center. Before that she worked for eight years at the Department of Treasury on various economic issues and regions of the world. She was the Director of the office covering sub Saharan Africa, worked in Bosnia and Kosovo after the war, and served as the senior adviser to the Under Secretary and Assistant Secretary at the Department of Treasury during the Asian financial crisis. She was also awarded the India Abroad Person of the Year in 2003.
Q: What motivated you to start Indicorps?
My sister, brother and I wanted to start a program that would allow Indians from around the world to be part of India's development. For many around the world India is part of their heritage, but they don't have way to reconnect in a way that is meaningful and in which they can make a difference. India was a very strong part of our identity and we wanted others to have similar experiences and at the same time make a difference.
Q: How difficult was it to initiate such an initiative in US? Any major hurdles that you would like to tell us about?
With a strong vision and real belief in what we were doing, there were no real great challenges. In fact, our American colleagues were great supporters and were the first to donate because they strongly believed in the diaspora giving back. However, it required us to articulate a clear vision for what we wanted to achieve.
Q: How is progress on "Teach for India" initiative? Do you really think it will be possible to convince an Indian graduate to teach for a few years before joining a job?
This is a great question. Everything is possible. If we want to see India change we need to be a part of India's progress. It can not just be Indians from abroad, but it is together with Indians in India that we can make a real difference. It requires each of us that we can be a part of the solution. At the end of our lifetimes we should not look back and say I wished I had worked 55 years instead of 57 years. For some period of time in our lives, we should put our education and energy to use for something greater than ourselves. Nothing beats that feeling when you have helped someone else. At the end of the day, it is truly the giver that benefits.
Q: Would you like to share some incidents from your experience in Bosnia and Kosovo?
Those were truly life changing experiences. Being on the ground after the conflict was incredibly challenging, frustrating and at the same time rewarding. The Bosnians and Kosovars were amazingly resilient. Even the days that I was most frustrated, they did not give up. It taught me three really great lessons:
1) bringing people together after a war/conflict requires patience, understanding, and great negotiation skills;
2) that you need to have a vision for success -- for me at the time it was ensuring that the young Bosnians and Kosovars were able to do my job better than me after one year;
3) that diaspora have the ability to make a real difference -- I saw this in Bosnia, Kosovo and now Liberia.
These experiences taught me much about myself and continue to shape my thinking.
Q: How do you see Indicorps growing in future?
Indicorps has an incredible ability to affect the lives of young people from within and outside India. We want to continue to harness and leverage the power of youth to affect real change around them. We want them to see that their personal development is interconnected with the development of the society of around them. That each person has the ability to even small differences around, no matter how difficult the challenge. We want to continue to strengthen the NGO sectors ability to have impact. We would like to expand to do the same with the private sector and the government. We want to create a new generation of leaders who will be ready to take on the world's challenges and more importantly believe that they can affect positive social change.
Q: What is your message to Indian youth to help in the progress of the country?
To coin a term from the US election -- "Yes, we can." We can make a difference. We can change the system. We can improve society. We can help those around us. As a young and upwardly mobile community, we are in an unprecedented position to affect change; the only thing between us and greatness is our will.
With the greatest leader above them, people barely know one exists. Next comes one whom they love and praise. Next comes one whom they fear. Next comes one whom they despise and defy. When a leader trusts no one, no one trusts him. The great leader speaks little. He never speaks carelessly. He works without self-interest and leaves no trace. When all is finished, the people say, “We did it ourselves.”
In his book, Dr. Wayne Dyer has written his interpretation of what was written Twenty-Five Hundred years ago by a man named Lao-Tzu who wrote 81 verses that many believe to be the ultimate commentary on the nature of our existence. The basic text of these verses is called the "Tao Te Ching" or "The Great Way." The great scientist, inventor and artist, Leonardo da Vinci was a student of the Tao.
Do you know #3 American Express started off as a shipping company in 1850. It used to ship products across the United States and capitalized on the limited reach and slow speed of the United States Postal Service. Their main customers were banks and they shipped various financial instruments like stock certificates etc. They began selling money orders and traveler’s checks in 1882. American Express issued its first credit card in 1958. (Source: http://home3.americanexpress.com/corp/os/history.asp)
The article given below has been co-authored Balasubramaian V and SaurabhAgarwal.
"India is a sachet economy." Before the advent of sachets, as common a thing as shampoo was considered a luxury by the majority of Indians. A typical Indian would not have enough money to indulge in bulk purchases. India buys little, consumes it, and only then makes its next little purchase. Information can’t be treated differently than any other product. We have to sell the internet in byte sized portions in order to exploit the emerging market in information.
What we propose is simple. One man riding a motorcycle, giving answers to any question put to him using the power of the internet through a PDA (Simputer) or an internet enabled mobile phone. And he will be doing this for the meager sum of Rs.1 for an answer. The World Wide Web is not only about data from around the world. It is also about data about the street down the road and the world all around us. It is this local information that is most appreciated and useful. In conjunction with providing answers, tie-ups with local banks, it is possible to provide internet banking to the poorest of the poor, reducing cost of transaction for this neglected section. A telecom company can leverage its tremendous reach and network to provide relevant information at prices that would have been unheard of even 5 years ago.
Reality Check
The sad reality about ICT projects today is that the vast majority are doomed to failure and death. We cannot blame all of them on poor implementation. The problem needs to be looked at a macro level. The question that needs to be answered is “Are there any takers for ICT/ICT enabled services at village level in the emerging world.
Though there is tons of literature and talk on how the bridging of “Digital Divide” can uplift the "Bottom of the Pyramid" (BOP) living at the subsistence levels with a market oriented approach by Private corporations and at the same time sustain the profit motive of the latter, in reality it is possible only under the following conditions:
