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The story of Grameen Shakti - how a division of the Bangladeshi bank for the poor installs more solar units than the whole of the USA - is a fast moving one. There have been changes of personnel since the content we wrote below the line (which we will update once I have an opportunity to make my fifth visit to Dhaka). For the moment this piece from Yunus Forum serves to show that Dr Yunus is keeping this social business's extrordinary goals energetically on course.
| An Interview with Professor Muhammad Yunus Chairman, Grameen Shakti |
| 1. Why Grameen Shakti? Global warming is an on-going over-riding issue in Bangladesh. So is the shortage of power. There is hardly any electricity in the rural areas. Eighty per cent of people of Bangladesh live in the rural areas. Seventy percent of the population of Bangladesh has no access to electricity. I thought it gives us an opportunity to bring renewable energy to Bangladesh. But it was not easy, because the price of solar panel per watt was too high; it was not affordable to villagers. In addition, high costs are involved in installing solar panels in village homes. At one point, I thought I should start experimenting with it even if it is too expensive. Maybe someday, the price of solar panel will come down; and it will become affordable. I contacted Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) in January, 1995. They responded very warmly to help us experiment with the acceptability of solar home system. I went to the USA the same month and met them. Following up on our discussion RBF wrote to Mr. Neville Williams, Chairman, Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) explaining my interest in experimenting with solar home systems in a sustainable way. Mr. Williams connected me to Solar Power Light Company Ltd (Sri Lanka) and Lotus Energy (Nepal). After discussion with Sri Lanka and Nepal we worked out an action plan. Solar Power Light company will provide us the solar panel, Lotus Energy company will give us the accessories, Rahim Afroz of Dhaka will supply us the battery. Grameen Shakti will install 20 solar home systems under this agreement. The total cost of $ 16,700 was to be funded by RBF. This was the beginning of Grameen Shakti. In the next phase we expanded our programme to 100 solar home systems in 1995. Shameem Anowar, who was the head of Technology Department of Grameen Bank, became the contact person for all our negotiations and activities. Khalid Shams, the Deputy Managing Director of Grameen Bank was leading the Grameen team. For marketing the first 100 units we came up with the following options: Each solar home system will cost Tk. 20,000 Option 1 Total amount to be paid on installation of the system. Option 2 Total amount to be repaid in five years in monthly installments of Tk. 300, with a down payment of Tk. 5,000. Option 3 To be repaid in monthly installment of Tk. 400, or in weekly installments of Tk. 93. By March 1996 Grameen Shakti started to implement the programme with great enthusiasm. RBF provided $ 75,000, Stichting Gilles of Belgium provided $ 40,000. Dr. Farashuddin joined as an Advisor to Grameen Shakti in October, 1995. Dr. Farashuddin just came back from abroad after retiring from his service in the UNDP. I gave the responsibilities to him to oversee the project. He was supported by Engineer Ruhul Quddus who provided the technological know-how to the project. The solar home system experiment excited me. For the first time I started to feel that this can be done. This is not impossible at all. We need to focus on it as a consumer product. People need it, we can provide it in an affordable way. With the confidence I gained from the experiment I wanted to proceed in a more systematic way. Dewan Alamgir was appointed as a consultant to write project documents. Whenever we talked to the energy experts about our project, they would advise me to do more research. I kept saying that I am not a researcher, I am a seller of a product. I want to make it a popular product. That's how I'll design everything. Soon I found out that our product was gaining popularity. Rural people started to pay attention to our product. By 1996 I felt that it was time to convert the project as a not-for-profit company. Since Dr. Farashuddin was leaving I put Dipal Chandra Barua's (General Manager, Grameen Bank) name on company's memorandum of association as the Managing Director of Grameen Shakti. This was done as a stop-gap arrangement until I could find a full time Managing Director, Usually I put Khalid Sham's (Deputy Managing Director, Grameen Bank) name for such appointments. Since his hands were full, this time I gave it to Dipal. 2. Were you happy with the response you got? Yes, I was. I felt very encouraged. We developed the product and made it attractive to our potential customers. However, maintenance became an important issue. We found a great solution to it by giving the responsibility to young village girls with some schooling and gave them an attractive name - Solar Engineers. They loved it and became proud of it. We have installed over 365,000 SHS in Bangladesh and we hope to reach a million SHS by 2013. We are selling 20,000 SHS per month in 2010. 3. How does it make a difference in the context of Global Warming? It is such a tiny effort. This might be a small effort in terms of global warming. We have developed the seed in Bangladesh and this seed can be planted everywhere in the world. If the costs of the panel are reduced, more and more people will switch to solar system for sure. If the cost comes down to $ 1.50 per watt, the panels would be extremely popular. I think the whole of Bangladesh will go for solar home system. Demand for SHS is in a steady growth even with the price of almost $ 3 per watt. 4. Is it replicable? Of course it is! We can use solar energy for all our household needs. It works for individuals. It works for community. Households can actually become producers of electricity for the national grid. This can become extra source of income. This can work anywhere, in Bangladesh, or any other country. 5. Why isn't it spreading like Microcredit did? Microcredit took time to spread. We started microcredit in 1976. The first replication came in 1982. By 2010, it became a global phenomenon. Grameen Shakti was born in 1996. Initial growth is always slow. Then it picks up speed. Grameen Shakti has all the elements of success. All new concepts and methods must be tried and tested before they gain huge momentum. 6. Will it always remain dependent on foreign suppliers who will make money for themselves? If the market grows internally, I’m sure it will be possible for the panels to be produced locally. Bangladesh can produce its own panels. Chemical based technology would be a cheaper alternative to the existing, silicon-based technology. We are waiting for that. We want to create social business to produce solar panel. We are discussing with a German company to produce solar panels in Bangladesh. 7. How can social business help spread the use of solar energy? Social business can play two roles: producing the solar panels and installing the SHSs. Social business is an important addition to traditional capitalism. In social business, there is no intention to make personal profit. SHSs can be installed at a cheaper price as a social business. Social business is the most effective way to spread renewable energy. 8. When will it really take off? It has already taken off. Big momentum. Important technological breakthroughs in producing solar panels will allow mass production locally. It will boost sales, usage, and make solar energy a product of mass consumption. Social businesses with the objective of popularizing solar energy will hasten the speed of its growth. 9. What is the management structure of Grameen Shakti like and how has it improved over the last 15 years? The management structure at Grameen Shakti is virtually the same as the one within Grameen Bank. There’s a head office in Dhaka, 12 Divisional offices, 117 regional offices and 840 branch offices. The branch offices are the most important entities because that’s where the actual contacts with the households are maintained. Other higher level offices are for keeping the supply line fully primed, offer any assistance to the branches, plan and monitor the expansion and quality of service. 10. Were there any obstacles in the early days of Grameen Shakti? How did you overcome them? The price was the main obstacle but we overcame that problem by allowing customers to pay for their solar panels over 2 to 3 years in monthly installments. If the customers are not satisfied with the product, they can return their SHSs and they will not be required to pay monthly installments any more. They can enjoy the panels for as long as they pay the monthly installments. People found it very attractive offer. Very few customers in reality actually returned their SHSs. Once electricity enters your house it is impossible to get it out of your life again. 11. Will you remain focused on Solar? What about other renewable sources? We are not focused on solar. Solar, wind, and bio-gas are all sources of renewable energy which we are deeply involved with in Bangladesh. Both our bio-gas plant and Improved Cooking Stove (ICS) programmes are growing fast. By March, 2010 we have installed almost 11,000 bio-gas plants. Each month we are adding 550 bio-gas plants. By 2012 we expect to install 50,000 bio-gas plants. Fuel-saving ICS are also growing at a fast speed. We add 20,000 ICSs per month. By 2011 our plan is to have 400,000 ICS in rural homes. Our first million ICS will be installed by December, 2013. We are continuously looking for more ways to produce green energy. We are also focusing on hydrogen fuel-cell. Soon we hope to produce hydrogen fuel-cell based electricity for the rural poor. We have the technology; we are looking for the investors. As soon as financing can be arranged we can go for production and marketing. 12. Can renewable energy play a significant role in the economy? I see an enormous possibility. But cost factor will be the deciding factor. The world needs to put a great emphasis on the research to make the technology cheaper and more efficient. If this is done, the goal can be achieved. 13. What will happen ten years from now? With the terrible crisis of global warming getting more serious every day I think in ten years a dramatic change will have to come in converting the economies from fossil-fuel-based power to renewable energy. We are preparing the ground for it. We are playing the role of being the facilitator of that massive change-over. Pursuing the COP15 conference, more research can be done to find cheaper, sustainable energy sources. Time is running out. We'll have to move faster and faster. I hope within 10 year renewable energy will become the norm in Bangladesh, and in the rest of the world. Technological advances along with lowered prices will put fossil fuels in the declining phase, and make renewable energy the power source of the future. For more information on Grameen Shakti, please visit: http://www.gshakti.org/ |
Global warming is an on-going over-riding issue in Bangladesh. So is the shortage of power. There is hardly any electricity in the rural areas. Eighty per cent of people of Bangladesh live in the rural areas. Seventy percent of the population of Bangladesh has no access to electricity. I thought it gives us an opportunity to bring renewable energy to Bangladesh. But it was not easy, because the price of solar panel per watt was too high; it was not affordable to villagers. In addition, high costs are involved in installing solar panels in village homes. At one point, I thought I should start experimenting with it even if it is too expensive. Maybe someday, the price of solar panel will come down; and it will become affordable.
I contacted Rockefeller Brothers Fund (RBF) in January, 1995. They responded very warmly to help us experiment with the acceptability of solar home system. I went to the USA the same month and met them. Following up on our discussion RBF wrote to Mr. Neville Williams, Chairman, Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) explaining my interest in experimenting with solar home systems in a sustainable way. Mr. Williams connected me to Solar Power Light Company Ltd (Sri Lanka) and Lotus Energy (Nepal).
After discussion with Sri Lanka and Nepal we worked out an action plan. Solar Power Light company will provide us the solar panel, Lotus Energy company will give us the accessories, Rahim Afroz of Dhaka will supply us the battery. Grameen Shakti will install 20 solar home systems under this agreement. The total cost of $ 16,700 was to be funded by RBF.
This was the beginning of Grameen Shakti. In the next phase we expanded our programme to 100 solar home systems in 1995. Shameem Anowar, who was the head of Technology Department of Grameen Bank, became the contact person for all our negotiations and activities. Khalid Shams, the Deputy Managing Director of Grameen Bank was leading the Grameen team.
For marketing the first 100 units we came up with the following options:
Each solar home system will cost Tk. 20,000
Option 1 Total amount to be paid on installation of the system.
Option 2 Total amount to be repaid in five years in monthly installments of Tk. 300, with a down payment of Tk. 5,000.
Option 3 To be repaid in monthly installment of Tk. 400, or in weekly installments of Tk. 93.
By March 1996 Grameen Shakti started to implement the programme with great enthusiasm. RBF provided $ 75,000, Stichting Gilles of Belgium provided $ 40,000.
Dr. Farashuddin joined as an Advisor to Grameen Shakti in October, 1995. Dr. Farashuddin just came back from abroad after retiring from his service in the UNDP. I gave the responsibilities to him to oversee the project. He was supported by Engineer Ruhul Quddus who provided the technological know-how to the project.
The solar home system experiment excited me. For the first time I started to feel that this can be done. This is not impossible at all. We need to focus on it as a consumer product. People need it, we can provide it in an affordable way. With the confidence I gained from the experiment I wanted to proceed in a more systematic way. Dewan Alamgir was appointed as a consultant to write project documents. Whenever we talked to the energy experts about our project, they would advise me to do more research. I kept saying that I am not a researcher, I am a seller of a product. I want to make it a popular product. That's how I'll design everything. Soon I found out that our product was gaining popularity. Rural people started to pay attention to our product.
By 1996 I felt that it was time to convert the project as a not-for-profit company. Since Dr. Farashuddin was leaving I put Dipal Chandra Barua's (General Manager, Grameen Bank) name on company's memorandum of association as the Managing Director of Grameen Shakti. This was done as a stop-gap arrangement until I could find a full time Managing Director, Usually I put Khalid Sham's (Deputy Managing Director, Grameen Bank) name for such appointments. Since his hands were full, this time I gave it to Dipal.
2. Were you happy with the response you got?
Yes, I was. I felt very encouraged. We developed the product and made it attractive to our potential customers. However, maintenance became an important issue. We found a great solution to it by giving the responsibility to young village girls with some schooling and gave them an attractive name - Solar Engineers. They loved it and became proud of it. We have installed over 365,000 SHS in Bangladesh and we hope to reach a million SHS by 2013. We are selling 20,000 SHS per month in 2010.
3. How does it make a difference in the context of Global Warming? It is such a tiny effort.
This might be a small effort in terms of global warming. We have developed the seed in Bangladesh and this seed can be planted everywhere in the world. If the costs of the panel are reduced, more and more people will switch to solar system for sure. If the cost comes down to $ 1.50 per watt, the panels would be extremely popular. I think the whole of Bangladesh will go for solar home system. Demand for SHS is in a steady growth even with the price of almost $ 3 per watt.
4. Is it replicable?
Of course it is! We can use solar energy for all our household needs. It works for individuals. It works for community. Households can actually become producers of electricity for the national grid. This can become extra source of income. This can work anywhere, in Bangladesh, or any other country.
5. Why isn't it spreading like Microcredit did?
Microcredit took time to spread. We started microcredit in 1976. The first replication came in 1982. By 2010, it became a global phenomenon. Grameen Shakti was born in 1996. Initial growth is always slow. Then it picks up speed. Grameen Shakti has all the elements of success. All new concepts and methods must be tried and tested before they gain huge momentum.
6. Will it always remain dependent on foreign suppliers who will make money for themselves?
If the market grows internally, I’m sure it will be possible for the panels to be produced locally. Bangladesh can produce its own panels. Chemical based technology would be a cheaper alternative to the existing, silicon-based technology. We are waiting for that. We want to create social business to produce solar panel. We are discussing with a German company to produce solar panels in Bangladesh.
7. How can social business help spread the use of solar energy?
Social business can play two roles: producing the solar panels and installing the SHSs. Social business is an important addition to traditional capitalism. In social business, there is no intention to make personal profit. SHSs can be installed at a cheaper price as a social business. Social business is the most effective way to spread renewable energy.
8. When will it really take off?
It has already taken off. Big momentum.
Important technological breakthroughs in producing solar panels will allow mass production locally. It will boost sales, usage, and make solar energy a product of mass consumption. Social businesses with the objective of popularizing solar energy will hasten the speed of its growth.
9. What is the management structure of Grameen Shakti like and how has it improved over the last 15 years?
The management structure at Grameen Shakti is virtually the same as the one within Grameen Bank. There’s a head office in Dhaka, 12 Divisional offices, 117 regional offices and 840 branch offices. The branch offices are the most important entities because that’s where the actual contacts with the households are maintained. Other higher level offices are for keeping the supply line fully primed, offer any assistance to the branches, plan and monitor the expansion and quality of service.
10. Were there any obstacles in the early days of Grameen Shakti? How did you overcome them?
The price was the main obstacle but we overcame that problem by allowing customers to pay for their solar panels over 2 to 3 years in monthly installments. If the customers are not satisfied with the product, they can return their SHSs and they will not be required to pay monthly installments any more. They can enjoy the panels for as long as they pay the monthly installments. People found it very attractive offer. Very few customers in reality actually returned their SHSs. Once electricity enters your house it is impossible to get it out of your life again.
11. Will you remain focused on Solar? What about other renewable sources?
We are not focused on solar. Solar, wind, and bio-gas are all sources of renewable energy which we are deeply involved with in Bangladesh.
Both our bio-gas plant and Improved Cooking Stove (ICS) programmes are growing fast. By March, 2010 we have installed almost 11,000 bio-gas plants. Each month we are adding 550 bio-gas plants. By 2012 we expect to install 50,000 bio-gas plants.
Fuel-saving ICS are also growing at a fast speed. We add 20,000 ICSs per month. By 2011 our plan is to have 400,000 ICS in rural homes. Our first million ICS will be installed by December, 2013.
We are continuously looking for more ways to produce green energy. We are also focusing on hydrogen fuel-cell. Soon we hope to produce hydrogen fuel-cell based electricity for the rural poor. We have the technology; we are looking for the investors. As soon as financing can be arranged we can go for production and marketing.
12. Can renewable energy play a significant role in the economy?
I see an enormous possibility. But cost factor will be the deciding factor. The world needs to put a great emphasis on the research to make the technology cheaper and more efficient. If this is done, the goal can be achieved.
13. What will happen ten years from now?
With the terrible crisis of global warming getting more serious every day I think in ten years a dramatic change will have to come in converting the economies from fossil-fuel-based power to renewable energy. We are preparing the ground for it. We are playing the role of being the facilitator of that massive change-over.
Pursuing the COP15 conference, more research can be done to find cheaper, sustainable energy sources. Time is running out. We'll have to move faster and faster. I hope within 10 year renewable energy will become the norm in Bangladesh, and in the rest of the world. Technological advances along with lowered prices will put fossil fuels in the declining phase, and make renewable energy the power source of the future.
For more information on Grameen Shakti, please visit: http://www.gshakti.org/
Social Business Case - Grameen Shakti -open source property asserted by The Social Business Action Team - Q&A welcomed by team - chris.macrae @yahoo.co.uk washington DC 301 881 1655
What's the greatest innovation team you have ever encountered? http://www.gshakti.org/
Being privileged to go on a full tour of Grameen headquarters in Dhaka – which can typically happen once a summer to celebrate dr yunus birthday http://yunusforum.net – is rather like going into 20 magician’s laboratories. Unless you’ve done the tour within the last 5 years, you are almost guaranteed to find each lab has an entrepreneurial revolution accelerating exponentially that is about to make conventional wisdom history.
In the summer of 2008 (10000 free dvds of our tour sampled or accessible as youtubes at http://yunus10000.com ), my biggest surprise ever was to walk into grameen shakti (which we were told means energy). There we were greeted with the news that this one bank for the poor was installing more solar units than the whole of the USA. As CEO of Shakti and number 2 man in the whole of Grameen Bank explains its been an exponential journey since starting Grameen’s renewable energy team in 1996.
I always forget the exact frequency of moores law – the couple of years or so it takes for computer-chip power to double being one of the few exponentials the western business world talks about. But Grameen’s doubling of solar units has now reached a faster rate of than silicon’s world.
Dipal Barua: I have a dream of empowering 75 million people of Bangladesh through renewable energy technologies, Dipal Barua CEO Grameen Shakti and in 2009 the First Winner of Zayed Future Energy Prize ( named after the Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi). My Vision for 2015 which Grameen Shakti is expoentially on track to achieve: 7.5 million solar homes will be installed 2 million biogas plants will be constructed 25 million improved cooking stoves will be produced 100000 Green Jobs will be created for villagers |
That’s why we can be confindent that Dipal Barua commits royal parties to his vision with optimistic realism. The royalty whose Barua and Dr Yunus shake around the world seem to have become the number 1 cheerleaders of breaking through climate crisis http://saintjames.tv – do rsvp info @worldcitizen.tv if you know of other opinion leader groups that are going beyond words to action summiting and social business funding.
Like microcredit banks, clean energy’s simplest sustainable forms are very micro and locally communal not something that big business models of global corporations can economically serve. This is probably why even if the world’s biggest petroleum companies had a change of soul their systems wouldn’t be the leaders in renewable energy and mapping local biomass interfaces.
Being an impudent Scot –ie one like half of all my compatriots whose descendants emigrated after the banking scandal of 1700 left us permanently in hock to the English – I love to ask the question which place’s people have the most leverage to help get the whole human race back on a planet-wide sustainability exponential instead of the crashing ones that fallible global has pun for quarter of a century.
In Dhaka, they tell people from the UK and London in particular please make sure your sustainability Olympics 2012 is recalled as much for sustainability as the passing sports. And please help the world’s largest social business business broadcaster http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8130130.stm learns most of all from that experience because if the BBC was asking change system questions about every sustainability crisis that would be huge.
Perhaps the UK is capable of the greatest single gift to humanity in the 2010s a nation is capable of networking, which facing the history books of the Indian subcontinent might be as near to reconciling the compound poverty traps spun by our colonial past as we –her majesty’s subjects - can get. Again we at info @ worldcitizen.tv love to hear of different greatest gifts nations could be connecting in uniting the network generation to end poverty. We urgently need to transform to Micro Up systems -so making every top-down crashing sustainability exponential history, and empowering the futures of all our children as safe to inherit a better place and space to be.
| Gordon and friends of youth- your final radio segment over the new year
(just heard) is a big aha moment for me 05-12.mp3 I have been wanting to start a discussion soon with people who are definitely coming to yunus dialogue on june 29 on do we agree what the 2 biggest questions are in the life of youth (or anyone with a future) my candidate questions for others to elect or replace are 1 how to make end poverty the space race of our networked generation - a game people play that unites communities beyond nations and gets far more share of voice than sports or other trivial pursuits 2 and what are the next billion dollar co-creation industries that we can invest our next 10 years of life around - the question your audio prompts with youth its seems to me that beyond moral value 1 is a systems and network transparency mapping question that helps you protect your commiunity from getting system trapped in poverty as well as helping others out of it; that the second question is the way round the fact that wall street and others with the biggest funds to invest with have stop compounding value sustaining futures -this is why their top-down professional monoploies and erroneous maths of bubble up and crash has literally stopped economics from celebrating more economic models- especially 10 times more economic banking, health, energy, education that networking could be leading towards so we the people need to ask the questions, and that means target people are youth 15 years up who need to also bet their lives, work, communities on answers to q2 Gordon- if I am nearly right that makes your game and other inputs absolutely central so the question becomes how can we prepare either way for the case that you are there in dhaka on june 29 and the case that we need to circulate a game of yours to all particpants in absentia of course I have some bias partly because you and yunus are the only 2 epicentres that have practised way beyond the fictional story of my dad's 1984 book but it wold be extremely sad for me if you and yunus never meet somewhere in this adventure learning tours (more in column 3) may be one of the next billion dollar industries and they also provide univesrity students opportunities to exchange places rather be located in one walled street seat of learning; I am pretty sure that paul rose already connects with advisers on how to go experience action learning, and that mostofa's challenge from yunus to identify 5000 youth ambasadors also links into to the wholoe entrepreneurial map that our ideas interconnect around the spiirit of youth to dare to ask the deepest win-iwin-won innovation questions before rushing to answers I will have another go at writing to the NZ vice chancellor of oxford on why he should send a delegate on june 29; anyone got any feedback on how to connect the above in ways that become unstoppably human? chris macrae usa 301 881 1655 future capitalism - questions; adventure learning tours; benhmark partners in 10 times more economic models | . From: Gordon Dryden Subject: FC conference on June 29. To: "chris macrae" <chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk> Date: Monday, 11 May, 2009, 12:36 AM Chris I am still trying to organize it so I can make it in person to your June 29 conference. My big challenge is that I have organized a big slice of funding for the major innovation I am working on to introduce creative innovation and business entrepreneurship as a New Zealand high school curriculum subject from 2010. The decision to introduce that as a subject in NZ high schools has already been made — and trialled (with fairly good success) in four New Zealand schools: three of them in the city where I live: Auckland. But the big challenge is to get sufficient teachers up to speed so they can run “Wow!”-type programs for students to learn from exciting real-world examples. While a largre part of that challenge will be achieved through leveraging my Aha! Game into an interactive Wev as the template for students to turn their own specific talents, passion, hobbies and loves into world-class business successes . . . The calls for a series of one-day seminars, which involve me personally (while I have a team developing the interactive Web platform). Unfortunately – for you timing, the first of these must be held in our mid-year two-week school holiday break, which starts from Friday, June 3, when I will be in the final preparation stages. However, the better news is that the online program, while initially funded fo New Zealand school use, will at the same time be available internationally and free. The first “layer” of that Website will be based on the Aha! Board game (attached again to refresh yur memory), but with up-to-date examples. Online, this layer will enable the program to be accessed individually by (1) students, thus with more business models invented by students, (2) teachers, (3) dropouts, (4) hobbyists, (5) parents and (6) grandparents. The “game” also teaches lateral-thinking and innovation all aspects of business (as in laying the board game) — and makes it easy for students to learn how to put together a business plan (including various aspects of low-cost or nil funding). Layer two of the website will have brief video and Powerpoint and Apple Keynote summaries of each of the 132 business-success examples in the board game (I will be presenting the summaries on videotape), with click-through links to YouTube, TED.com and other excellent interviews and videos covering the successful entrepreneurs who have pioneered the 132 examples. The next layer will enable students and teachers to both build their own innovative plans to build their own talents into successful careers – and for teachers to share best interactive lesson plans. If not able to attend, I can easily prepare a short interactive presentation to be used at your conference. Gordon Dryden in New Zealand | . RE: corporate inquiryMonday, 11 May, 2009 6:56 AM From: "Paul
Rose" To: "chris
macrae" <chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk>, Hi again Chris; This is in haste - just leaving for BBC Scotland, so will be in touch again later today. I am very excited about the learning tours and have been in contact with my dear friends at Impact here in the UK. You already know a little about Impact from me and Wendy of course, but I think the learning tours approach to corporates is a perfect ground for Impact. They are experienced and impressive at bringing global issues to life in the corporate world. For example; Last summer I presented at an Impact event in Athens which engaged all of Diageo with climate change issues including global awareness, top to bottom committment to the ambitious CO2 reduction promise, planting a million trees and adoption of a green energy project. All done in great style in 3 days! Impact have a brill track record with this approach and I reckon we should make plans for an Impact Corporate Learning Tour to be launched at Dhaka. I have copied this through to my dear friend at Impact UK, Jonathan Stevens. He helps me look after these type of initiatives and is a brilliant, well informed and connected corporate facilitator. I know you are running between US and UK aat the moment. I'm UK based for the next few weeks, how are you fixed for a UK meeting? Sorry this is rushed Chris - gotta get that train, aaarghh!!!!! All best, Paul http://www.paulrose.org/ Date: Sun, 10 May 2009 22:28:30 +0000 From: chris.macrae@yahoo.co.uk Subject: corporate inquiry
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youtube: socialactions socialbusiness futurecapitalism safebanks | -why! because helping your social networks understand the systemic threats and opportunities of future capitalism gravitates our net age Yes We Can democracy - as Barack Obama reminds us - broadly speaking entrepreneurial truth blossoms around future capitalism that is integrated bottom-up is safe, innovative, happily productive and free as in the sense chartered from the first penning of The Declaration of Independence. Conversely, capitalism top-downed by walled streets is a system that chains more and more people in poverty accidentally or knowingly as you can see from the way Wall Street has behaved | -how! the blog (eblow) part of this
web will try and grade insightful contributions to the debates every age group needs to hows so that your personal economics
and communities liberate your geratest competences and job creation not the reverse | -where is future capitalism thriving
most - we will map -and intercity blog - this (with your help) but 2 clues come from where gandhi's empowerting
cultures have most consistently blossomed - India and Bangladesh -our next youth dialogue is a special 69th birthday party in Dhaka with Nobel peace laureate Muhammad Yunus whose generational goal
- a collaboration space race to see which cities and villages can be forst to proudly justify poverty museums -for uniting
humanity entrepreneurially is the most inspiring we have yet heard of or tried to design social business practices around |
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Saturday, March 28, 2009 How to design nation to short-change next generation8th grade up
3:31 pm edt
Grade 15 & UP aka SMBA |
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- http://books.google.com/books?uid=6169501125510505276 - - 04J4wPbhsf4C http://books.google.com/books?id=04J4wPbhsf4C Keith Dinnie - ISBN 075068349X - 2aULAAAACAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=2aULAAAACAAJ Chris Macrae - ISBN 0201877430 - uCTLjpVRGfQC http://books.google.com/books?id=uCTLjpVRGfQC Chris Macrae - ISBN 0201544075 - YYH7ugbNDqQC http://books.google.com/books?id=YYH7ugbNDqQC Muhammad Yunus - ISBN 1586485792 - jzoKAAAACAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=jzoKAAAACAAJ Muhammad Yunus, Alan Jolis - ISBN 0195795377 - FPf5OwAACAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=FPf5OwAACAAJ Norman Macrae - F7IJAAAAIAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=F7IJAAAAIAAJ Norman Macrae - OO-_gSRhe-EC http://books.google.com/books?id=OO-_gSRhe-EC Norman Macrae - ISBN 082182676X - Mx6GHgAACAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=Mx6GHgAACAAJ Norman Macrae - ISBN 0283991135 - P0wiAAAAMAAJ http://books.google.com/books?id=P0wiAAAAMAAJ Norman Macrae
A social business system maps governance around 2 core dynamics:
-like other businesses it must have a business model that sustains positive cashflow
-unlike other businesses it has no owners demanding external dividends – in this respect it may be owned in trust or it could be owned by the poorest in the communities it serves
The system design of a social business is such that, at every cycle, it reinvests all its surplus in its purpose. Social business systems can thus sustain the most purposeful organisational designs in entrepreneurial world and free markets where needs are life-critical.
Extraordinary human purposes include helping lead the way in ending poverty and achieving the millennium goals which were cross-culturally agreed as cultivating minimum rights so that every child can be born to have a fair chance at life.
Regions with the longest experience in social business modeling began with microcredit banks. They are now also making sustainability investments which communities around the world can learn about with the internet’s open source modes of interaction. We will see worldwide examples such as leadership in solar energy and innovations with mobile and internet technology which are being led by social business entrepreneurs.
The Social Business permeates through transparent leadership and needs to attract and earn goodwill from many sides so that it can compound long-term consequences of vital matter. These are not systems governed transactionally by how much did one group extract every quarter. Deep communal goals need time to fully invest in sustainability’s upward exponential, as well as to reward hi-trust relationship interactions through.
TRANSPARENCY OF GOODWILL MULTIPLICATION
Moreover, transparent maps for achieving deep social impacts often involve upfront resolution of environmental or other cultural conflicts which trapped a community in poverty as a failed system. This knowledge echoes a system’s finding of open space facilitators and other community builders that the whole truth of human innovation –including transformation of a system to a higher order of harmony – often involves taking many sides who have been conflicted with each other simultaneously through the same conflict barriers. A community that does not enjoy “peace” cannot invest in job creation let alone its children however entrepreneurial the advice of experts or the global aid projects they bring.
Historically the social business system was conceived by passionately caring local entrepreneurs and microeconomists as a response to organically developing what had become the world’s poorest nation. In XXX Bangladesh achieved independence but only after the mother of all wars that flattened its infrastructure. Then in one year over a million people died of starvation.
Microcredit community banking became the first innovation franchise that the social business model compounded around win-win-win relationships and inspiring human purposes that mothers in village communities elected. Local conflicts that Bangladesh microcredit entrepreneurs had to resolve first included ending loan shark’s stranglehold over remote villages, religious aspects of Muslim attitudes to loans and the way that rural girls and women were historically treated as an underclass.
Transparent constitution of governance is core to the entrepreneurial revolution of microcredit community banking –a leap forward for human progress that is not only the best tool for ending poverty in Bangladesh but is helping to achieve this goal around the world as we will see below.
Transparency is also earned in minutiae of social actions designed into a service franchise as well as what details are audited. For example, from day 1 Dr Yunus and the co-founders of Grameen instructed local banking staff never to accept any gifts – not even a glass of milk from members as the microbankers did their repayment rounds in Bangladesh’s humid climate.
After a third of a century of service, Bangladesh microcredit is justifiably famous for being the safest in the world with 99% repayment rates but it would be an error to assume that this is achieved by processing the most effective debt collection activities. It is earned because village members know that these same bank staff are servants of the 16 decisions – the goals that the women customers who own Grameen Bank chose from its first day of opening as defining the future of sustainable communities and ending poverty they wished to connect. Over time these 16 decisions have defined Grameen’s entrepreneurial duty to sustainably innovate and relevantly invest in micro-everything. here
.By Frank A. Hilario On 18 April 1906, the Great San Francisco Quake reduced much of the city to debris. He knew exactly what to do. Amadeo
Peter ´AP´ Giannini sifted through the ruins of his bank, the Bank of Italy, loaded his wagon with some
$2 million in gold, coins & securities, and went back home (Daniel Kadlec, 1998, time.com). Was he stealing it? He was stealing time. AP didn´t wait for the
other banks planning to open in 1 month; in 6 days, he set up his new ´bank,´ which was a wooden plank set on
top of 2 barrels, and proceeded to extend loans ´on a face and a signature´ to small businesses and small people
to help them rebuild less their business and more their lives. He was banking on the little people. | In Bangladesh, another fellow, another rare hero has been working without thinking of himself. He is Muhammad
Yunus. | In India, members of Team ICRISAT both theorize and practice for the poor. ICRISAT is the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics based in Patancheru, Andhra Pradesh, India, a terrific science NPO (non-profit organization) headed by Director General William Dar, since 2000. ICRISAT, among the 15 international science centers under the support and advocacy of the CGIAR (Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research), has been rated Outstanding in overall institutional performance by the World Bank twice in a row, in 2006 and 2007. The World Bank supports the CGIAR.
Rated O for 2008? I wouldn´t be surprised. ICRISAT is creative for a science agency. Among this NPO´s many initiatives is what it calls the ABI (Agri-Business Incubator), which it has set up in its campus in Patancheru. Another winner. The ABI received the AABI Incubator of the Year Award for 2008 last 29 October in Seoul, Korea. The AABI is the Asian Association of Business Incubators; that was their 13th General Assembly meeting. Not many people recognize a winner when they see one. ABI is not unlike Grameen, as it is also pro-poor and a risk taker. But this one is bigger business. This is essentially where capitalists meet the poor and with the support of the Government of India, donors and with ICRISAT technology, they incubate an entrepreneurial egg until it hatches and grows into a hen that lays all those proverbial golden eggs. My favorite example of an ABI product is the sweet sorghum facility of Rusni Distilleries in the Medak District of Andhra Pradesh, which is now producing 40 kL (10.5 kgal) of ethanol every day from sweet sorghum and other feedstocks. Harvesting and processing the stalks provides about 40,000 man-days of labor per year at Rusni. Last year, 540 ha were planted to sweet sorghum and involved 791 farmers in Andhra Pradesh. A great beginning of a great industry. Team ICRISAT is dead serious about sweet sorghum, and so am I, in case you haven´t noticed? And now the Team is developing a 5-year sweet sorghum R&D strategy. To help the fledgling sweet sorghum industry to develop, as far as I can discern from the senior staff discussions, with partners outside of ICRISAT, the Team plans to mainly: (1) map out zones for cropping in Asia & Africa. (2) breed sweet sorghum with higher & higher yields. (3) improve cane processing to reduce losses after harvest. (4) test syrup-making at the village level. (5) test a 50-mile radius for farmers supplying cane to distilleries. Those are the bare-bones essentials of the plan. I think it´s a good one. |