Event Report

Table of Contents

Executive Summary ................................................................................................................................... 2

Introduction ................................................................................................................................................ 4

The Evolving Inventor-Entrepreneur Matrix ....................................................................................... 6

Empathy & Community Focus: Serving Communities not Markets ............................................... 7

Building Sustainable Inclusive Models .................................................................................................... 8

Information Architecture ....................................................................................................................... 10

Building Networks of Trust................................................................................................................... 12

Telling Powerful Stories ......................................................................................................................... 14

Collaborations and Networks .............................................................................................................. 16

Reflections and Recommendations ...................................................................................................... 17

Appendix I: Africa Trends Roundtable ............................................................................................... 18

Appendix II: Agenda ................................................................................................................................ 19

Appendix III: Fellow Participants .......................................................................................................... 22

Appendix IV: Other Participants .......................................................................................................... 32

1
 Executive Summary
Invention and technology are critical to development. Yet at this moment in human history,
a time when the technology revolution seems to be at its peak, we seem to be no closer to
solving big social problems than ever. Indeed, with the world changing at a logarithmic scale,
even the most rapidly advancing technologies seem hard-pressed to keep up. As Ravi
Venkatesen, Chairman Microsoft, India, said:

“Why do these solutions which seem so full of potential so seldom live up to their potential?”

Tech4Society, a three-day convening of 76 Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows with hundreds of

thought leaders, engineers, philanthropists, venture capitalists, and business leaders in
Hyderabad, India, at once posed the question and proposed a solution. The essence of
invention, participants agreed, must change – and is changing. It is far less likely to occur in
anonymous garages, a function of individual brilliance, persistence, and luck. Instead, truly
world-changing invention today is linked inextricably to entrepreneurship. The goal of
Tech4Society was to dramatically narrow the gap between technological potential and
realization – by learning how to build systems that maximize the social impact of
technological innovation, and that continually cultivate the next generation of
inventor-entrepreneurs forging change around the world.

Successful inventor-entrepreneurs tend to engage in four critical activities toward creating

social impact. This “idea to impact process”, as described by The Lemelson Foundation,
includes:
• Backing initiatives that deliver hands-on opportunities in engineering, science and
invention in order to nurture future innovators.
• Cultivating long-term partnerships with organizations that mentor gifted inventors by
connecting them with the tools and expertise necessary to develop their innovations
from concept to commercialization.
• Taking risks on early-stage innovations that promise to dramatically improve lives.
• Scaling and replicating successful dissemination models by connecting entrepreneurs
and their organizations with networks of funders, partners and practitioners.
Tech4Society discussions revealed five core competencies that cut across those functions. In
order to effect system change, inventor-entrepreneurs must develop and exercise at least
one of the following:
• Empathy and community focus – understanding the user perspective and broader
context.
• Building sustainable inclusive models – forging models that don’t rely on subsidies or
grants and serve the full market, including the poor.
• Information architecture – the ability to aggregate and synthesize diverse
information.
• Building networks of trust – the skill to connect with other individuals and
organizations based on trust in order to minimize risk.
• Telling powerful stories – the ability to use narratives to build networks and
motivate people, especially youth, to make change

2
 What emerged over the course of the conference was a matrix linking the four stages of
inventor-entrepreneurs with the five core competencies. This report articulates that matrix,
exploring each competency in terms of the stages they critically inform. The report
concludes with three primary reflections and recommendations to increase the scale of
impact of inventor-entrepreneurs and cultivate the next generation:
1. Support the development and strengthening of the five core competencies outlined
in this report for future generations.
2. Work to create and value networks of trust.
3. Create pathways for women and girls to become inventor-entrepreneurs.
4. Practice the art of storytelling and work to engage young people.

3
 Introduction
Invention and technology are critical to development. Yet at this moment in human history,
a time when the technology revolution seems to be at its peak, we seem to be no closer to
solving big social problems than ever. Indeed, with the world changing at a logarithmic scale,
even the most rapidly advancing technologies seem hard-pressed to keep up. As Ravi
Venkatesen, Chairman Microsoft, India, said:

“Why do these solutions which seem so full of potential so seldom live up to their
potential?”

Tech4Society, a three-day convening of 76 Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows with hundreds of

thought leaders, engineers, philanthropists, venture capitalists, and business leaders in
Hyderabad, India, at once posed the question and proposed a solution. The essence of
invention, participants agreed, must change – and is changing. It is far less likely to occur in
anonymous garages, a function of individual brilliance, persistence, and luck. Instead, truly
world-changing invention today is linked inextricably to entrepreneurship. Design processes
often involve global collaboration and require the ability to aggregate and synthesize diverse
information. More and more inventors move beyond the design of a product or process
into its implementation and scaling. One Tech4Society participant, Satyan Mishra, put it
aptly: “an inventor today is an aggregator,” weaving together many disparate parts into an
ecosystem capable of designing, introducing, and disseminating new technologies.

In 2006, Ashoka and The Lemelson Foundation launched a partnership that aimed to find,
support, and celebrate these emerging inventor-entrepreneurs – social innovators whose
inventions and technologies offer fresh, effective approaches to advancing social change.
Combining Ashoka’s 30-year track record for finding and supporting the world’s leading
social entrepreneurs with The Lemelson Foundation’s renowned expertise in incubating and
celebrating invention for social good, the partnership has sought to prove that
entrepreneurship and invention can align in powerful ways to enable everyone to be
changemakers and problem solvers and, ultimately, to improve the world.

Over the course of three years Ashoka and The Lemelson Foundation have supported over
100 Ashoka Lemelson Fellows whose individual work fits into one or more of these
categories:
1. Invention and design of a technological innovation for social good
2. Dissemination of the new technology
3. Education of the next generation of inventor entrepreneurs in science, technology,
engineering, and math.
4. Creation of an enabling environment for invention and innovation (includes market
creation and new economic models)
Among the Ashoka Lemelson Fellows are pioneers on the cutting edge of innovation in solar
energy, clean water, mobile technology, science education, agriculture, and healthcare. Each
of these inventor entrepreneurs is bringing powerful and affordable solutions to many
millions of the world’s poorest people and inspiring people around the world to envision
solutions to the world’s most pressing social challenges.

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 The Tech4Society event represented a culmination of a range of activities where Fellows
shared ideas, began collaborating with each other, and interacted with leaders from industry,
academia, the citizens sector, and the media. Four regional meetings were held prior to
Tech4Society which allowed smaller forums for discussion and helped shape the
Tech4Society agenda. In addition, a special edition of the journal innovations was created
for the event highlighting inspiring stories of invention-led development (Invention-Led
Development, innovations, special edition, 2010).

The goal of Tech4Society was to dramatically narrow the gap between technological
potential and realization – by learning how to build systems that maximize the social impact
of technological innovation, and that continually cultivate the next generation of
inventor-entrepreneurs forging change around the world.

5
 The Evolving Inventor-Entrepreneur Matrix
Successful inventor-entrepreneurs tend to engage in four critical activities toward creating
social impact. This “idea to impact process”, as described by The Lemelson Foundation,
includes:
• Idea Conception – identification of the problem, the initial design, and prototype
• Incubation – feasibility studies, development of a business plan and attraction of early
adopters.
• Market Development – building the supply chain, selling the product and providing
maintenance and servicing.
• Impact Expansion – increasing production capacity and expanding distribution.
Tech4Society discussions revealed five core competencies that cut across those functions. In
order to effect system change, inventor-entrepreneurs must develop and exercise at least
one of the following:
• Empathy and community focus – understanding the user perspective and broader
context.
• Building sustainable inclusive models – forging models that don’t rely on subsidies or
grants and serve the full market, including the poor.
• Information architecture – the ability to aggregate and synthesize diverse
information.
• Building networks of trust – the skill to connect with other individuals and
organizations based on trust in order to minimize risk.
• Telling powerful stories – the ability to use narratives to build networks and
motivate people, especially youth, to make change
What emerged over the course of the conference was a matrix linking the four stages of
inventor-entrepreneurs with the five core competencies. This report articulates that matrix,
exploring each competency in terms of the stages they critically inform:

Idea Market Impact

Competencies/Stages Incubation
Conception Development Expansion
Empathy and community
focus 
Building Sustainable
Inclusive Models  
Information architecture
 
Building networks of trust
 
Telling powerful stories
 

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 Empathy & Community Focus: Serving Communities not Markets
In order to graduate from isolated impact to widespread adoption, an inventor’s idea must
be infused with empathy in every aspect of its implementation – from design to distribution
to governance. Indeed, the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes is the
primary “competitive advantage” of Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows. Empathy allows inventor-
entrepreneurs to gain a holistic sense of the problems and solutions at hand, to understand
how they fit within the broader system. By connecting to a greater diversity of perspectives,
they have a better chance of seeing the “whole elephant” so to speak.

For instance, why have two Fellows – Anshu Gupta and Mohammed Abba, both male, no
less – focused on sanitary napkins as an incredible force for change? They understand that
lack of sanitary napkins keeps girls from going to school and is the source of frequent
reproductive infections (leading to vicious cycles of poverty and child mortality). Their low-
tech, simple inventions are powerful levers for social change. In this way, inventor-
entrepreneurs see inter-connections between problems that elude others in the
development world.

Ashoka Lemelson Fellow Albina Ruiz tackles the problem of garbage in Lima, Peru, by seeing
and tackling a far broader set of challenges. Her project organizes waste collectors into
micro- enterprises, giving people at the base of the pyramid populations their dignity back
and solving extreme poverty through employment creation. Albina thus creates economic
incentives to build healthier cities and healthier relationships between waste collectors and
the rest of society, supporting her core mission to improve the lives of marginalized
populations. (And yes, Lima is a lot cleaner as a result.)

The second critical contribution of empathy is in the design of the product itself. How will it
actually be used? What real problem does it solve? For example, Elizabeth Hausler, who
uses recycled materials for post-earthquake reconstruction, discovered that making
adjustments and “tweaks” to existing technologies that people already used yielded better
results than creating entirely new ones; people trust what they have and resist change. Hilmi
Quaraishi, by contrast, designed a CD-based distribution strategy for his e-learning games
overlooking the fact that a vast majority of schools in India do not have computers. “We
went to the villages and realized kids were using CD´s as reflectors,” he recalls. Hilmi
shifted his strategy to incorporate mobile technology and phones. Gustavo Gennuso speaks
about being empathic about the context for the design: “Our water pump has two wooden
legs –wood is easily found anywhere in Patagonia. But when we went to install the pumps in
La Puna region, we realized that people there don´t use wood; they replace it with a cactus
that was useless for the water pump. This mistake taught us that even though we believed
we had a universal product, local context always calls for adaptations.”

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 Building Sustainable Inclusive Models
“We are a social enterprise. We need to be sustainable. But our goal is to maximize
inclusion, not profit.” – Gustavo Gennuso, Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow

Creating a sustainable inclusive model was seen by some at Tech4Society as a critical step
towards scale and impact – though there was disagreement on whether “inclusive” meant
serving the full market or focusing strictly on the needs of the very poor. In either case,
participants viewed the model for distribution and use as at least as important as the design
of the invention itself.
Though some may dismiss social businesses as small-scale endeavors with limited impact,
sustainable inclusive approaches have the potential to influence the entire market by
reordering pricing, and distribution, and financing.
Pricing. Rebeca Villalobos’s ASEMBIS has transformed healthcare for vision in Costa Rica by
dramatically undercutting commercial prices for eye surgery and glasses. Its gross margins of
150%, far lower than the 1000% realized historically by competitors, allow it to cover
operation costs with enough left over for expansion and reinvestment. In response,
commercial eye glasses stores have dropped their prices, and long lines for surgery in public
hospitals have been dramatically reduced. David Green similarly has forced his competitors
to drastically lower their prices for contact lenses. He says: ”It’s not just that Aurolab was
able to grow (10 million lenses sold). It has changed the competitive landscape. Pricing
becomes the weapon to change the competitive landscape.”
Many Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows maximize inclusion through tiered pricing strategies.
ASEMBIS and Aravind both provide the identical medical treatment to rich and poor at
different prices depending on the customer’s income. In the case of Aravind, led by
Executive Director Thulasiraj Ravilla, 60 percent of patients get the service for free or at a
steeply subsidized rate, and 40 percent pay the full price. Aravind was able to successfully
implement a tiered pricing system by creating effective product differentiation: middle/higher
class people pay for a private room and other amenities, but the treatment is the same for
all customers.
Some Ashoka Lemelson Fellows discuss that pricing is a function of two dimensions: the
objective – people’s income – and the subjective – people’s perceptions. For instance,
Pradip Sarmah’s customers say “they can afford to spend 10 rupees a day but 300 rupees
per month is too expensive.” In this context, David Green’s insight, although simple, is
crucial: “the capacity to pay has to translate into the willingness to pay.” Through multiple
market studies, he has found that people are generally willing to pay their average monthly
income to get their sight or their hearing back. Similarly, in order to gain acceptance of solar
lighting in Nepal, Fellow Anil Chitrakar looks at how much the families spend on kerosene,
and applies the monthly savings to the initial cost. Anil also helps families switch
technologies by integrating with payment schemes and education programs here village
youth help the elders become familiar with new technologies.
The work of many Fellows, including Harish Hande of SELCO, also shows us that financing
is often an important element that either enhances or limits market penetration. While
some of Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows directly offer financing either to individual customers or
to borrowing groups, “keeping it informal, not too bureaucratic”, others like Gustavo
Gennuso prefer to outsource financing by partnering with existing microfinance institutions.

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 Distribution. Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow Satyan Mishra is lowering the cost of entry into
remote or small markets by creating a network of local entrepreneurs who open multi-
product kiosks. Once his entrepreneurs have established one line of business, it becomes
much easier for them to diversify to other industries such as health or education to
strengthen the business. In this way, the product or service in and of itself ends up being less
important that the distribution channel. As Mishra puts it: “The last mile has to be travelled
first.” (see box).

Satyan Mishra says “at the beginning, we were focused on bringing Internet connections and
affordable access to information in extremely remote areas. We identified local
entrepreneurs, trained them to start a business – a kiosk — and brought added value to
them with capital, know-how, coaching.” After reaching the break-even point he realized
that they were still only affecting a very small percentage of the population, so his
organization transformed itself into “a supply chain of a wide range of products and services
linked to education, health, employment generation, micro finance and banking, among
others. We are an alternative low cost and effective distribution network for rural India, we
transformed ourselves from a McDonald’s into a FedEx”; from a focus on a single product
to a focus on developing an entire distribution chain.

Aravind creates more effective distribution chains by training village girls to become
technical contact lens experts. They simultaneously free up the time of medical doctors,
ensure higher efficiency and lower the cost of treatment. The strategy also creates new jobs
that give girls opportunities to develop into highly-demanded professionals. Aravind and the
hospitals it has trained have achieved all this while halving the number of surgery
complications compared to the rates in the UK: “Volume translates into quality in eye
surgery,” says TK
Financing. Enterprises designed to be sustainable and inclusive cannot be funded with the
same logic as a traditional business. As venture capitalist Mark Cheng observes: “We need
to be more creative in the financial instruments we want to design; we need to build more
suitable fund structures that are adjusted to the social enterprises reality, without imposing
on them exits strategies and other burdens.” He identifies three features that financial tools
for social enterprises should have:
• Time horizon must be long enough to allow the social business to start repaying,
• Exit strategy that enables repayment to the investor from the cash flow of the
business and not from a sale,
• Return requirements that are lower than for a typical VC
Program Related Investment strategies from traditionally grant-making foundations are in
the formative stages, but they can play a critical role in allowing inventor-entrepreneurs to
take greater risks, experiment, and then enable the entry of other investors into a social
business. As Julia Novy-Hildesley states, “At the Lemelson Foundation we are moving
beyond grant making into program-related investments, taking new risks and making equity
and other creative investments. We can afford taking high risks because these type of
investments may be counted against the minimum 5% of assets foundations are required to
pay annually, so we may or not have returns on the investment. Trying these tools is
particularly important for Lemelson Foundation, because these pioneers are making a strong
leverage for others to enter the market, so we are contributing to shaping a new field”.

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 Information Architecture
It’s clear that successful technological innovation is, with increasing frequency, married to a
well-considered information strategy. Indeed, for many Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows, the
underlying information system is at least as critical to the adoption, spread, and scaling of
their work as the technology itself.

Inventors once thrived in a world of information balkanization. Those who had access to the
best information, won: If you had a technology no one else knew about, or exclusive market
intelligence, you enjoyed an advantage.

The dissolution of historical barriers to information production and distribution, and of the
historical economics of information, has had a profound effect on technological invention.
Arguably, more efficient flows of information have enhanced social problem-solving, and
better information has created more efficient marketplaces — more informed buyers and
sellers, fewer pricing dislocations. Just as arguably, when information is so freely available,
there’s the potential for everyone to participate in the process of invention.

This increasingly open-source world implies new paradigm for invention – and a new set of
skills needed to create impact. Much like journalists, inventors are becoming stewards of an
information-based process rather than sole producers. They support and collaborate with
other inventor-entrepreneurs to improve products, offer complementary services, etc.
Information is continuously shared within this ecosystem, making it better adapted to
respond to rapidly changing customer needs.

This confirms the observation of Fernando Flores: “The central problem of the planet for
the next century is communication.” That is, social problems don’t get solved unless they’re
effectively articulated and understood. Solutions aren’t spread and scaled until demand is
created – which depends on efficient flows of information. Suppliers, customers, partners
interact effectively only to the extent that credible offers, assertions, and commitments (to
borrow from Flores’ lexicon) yield trust. So, better information systems are foundational to
more effective social entrepreneurship in all realms.

In the context of design for example, inventor entrepreneurs at Tech4Society made it clear
that information gathered through user-centered listening is of critical importance. Rather
than coming up with ideas in isolation, they constantly listen and respond to the
marketplace. “We made this mistake in the beginning,” said Swati Bhogle. “We said, we have
a technology, where can we put it? We thought we knew everything. We didn’t ask.” By
contrast Sachin Malhan argued that his organization, Inclusive Planet, was successful because
it listened effectively to a broad network of customers, suppliers, and partners. The
information architecture allowed deeper listening and hence a greater understanding and
empathy of the end user.

Mayur Patel of the Knight Foundation demonstrated how important feedback was in
retelling his experience in 2007 during the Google-sponsored competition called “Innovate
or Die” to encourage new pedal-powered technologies. The winning team proposed
building a solution to provide rural communities with access to clean water. But the contest
didn’t end there: Within days, the Google community had piled on with thousands of
suggestions to improve the invention. Inventor-entrepreneurs operate in a cycle of
continuous invention and iteration. The value of any one invention begins dropping the

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 instant it is introduced; because flows of information are efficient, new ideas quickly are
copied and adapted by others. An entrepreneur’s real value, then, lies in his/her ability to
continuously and rapidly come up with the next new thing. While there was consensus that
design must be user-centered and ideally co-created to some extent, there was a smaller
group that had incorporated learning and feedback mechanisms as part of their overall
strategy.

Greg Van Kirk has also made customers and entrepreneurs’ feedback integral to the
approach. The MicroConsignment model reaches remote populations with essential
products and services at affordable price, through local entrepreneurs. “Local entrepreneurs
are our partners, they bring us information about the local needs, and on the other side
they play a key role in making villagers understand how this new product or service will
improve their lives. Often the objective need is there, but the person does not have the
motivation to purchase a product to address it because he does not know it, does not know
its benefits.” Similarly in Anil Chitrakar’s work, a client can exchange a broken or
malfunctioning tuki lamp for a new one. The client does not need to wait for a repair and
more importantly the broken tuki lamp and client feedback become part of a continuous
improvement process.

In Tanzania, Joseph Sekiku helps smallscale producers understand how markets work, and
how they can move beyond subsistence by adopting new approaches to postharvest
production, marketing, and distribution. He introduces methods that improve yield and
helps farmers connect to each other and to new markets. He’s figured out that, in his
mountainous, very isolated corner of the world, lack of information poses the biggest
barrier to his success – and his constituents’. So he has founded his own, tiny community
radio station that brings farming education to villages that no other media can reach.

For some inventor-entrepreneurs, information systems form the basis of a distribution

network for solutions. Andres Martinez Fernandez designs and tests technologies like video
microscopes and long-distance stethoscopes that increase the efficiency of rural health
centers in Colombia, Peru, and Nicaragua – but those inventions depend on a proprietary
communications platform that wirelessly connects those remote health centers to each
other, allowing the continuous exchange of data and expertise.

“To be an entrepreneur,” Flores said, “is a co-invention of a world with others.” That co-
invention, implying an eco-system of connected networks, requires inventor to effectively
navigate a complex web of information flows: knowing when and how to connect, borrow,
and refine, leveraging the expertise of others in the network. Sanjeev Arora’s work was a
powerful example and practical implementation of a network approach to co-create
knowledge and continuous learning, tapping directly into theories around diffusion of
innovation. His Project ECHO, aimed at improving care for patients with common chronic
diseases, creates a one-to-many “knowledge network” of specialists and up to 40 rural
providers, who meet by videoconference to co-manage specific patients and share two-way
teachings in which the ECHO staff works with remote clinics to coordinate and educate.

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 Building Networks of Trust
“Trust overcomes the uncertainty” – Fernando Flores

Networks are relationships of exchange – money, information, experience, goods, and

services among other things. These exchanges come with risk – the potential for lost
investment or bad information, for example. This risk is greatly mitigated by trust. This
ability to empathize with their stakeholders enables inventor-entrepreneurs to scale their
impact dramatically through the trusting relationships that emerge as a result.

As Flores discussed, successful entrepreneurship in an increasingly networked world relies

critically on converting transactional relationships – with clients, with suppliers, with
government – to relationships rooted in trust. Trust overcomes the uncertainty that’s
associated indelibly with technological innovation: Bringing a new idea to market, especially
in the remote and insular communities where many social entrepreneurs operate, depends
on converting suspicion of newness to credibility and support.

You have to remain true to your beneficiaries, maintain your true north, so that you can
avoid the trap of focusing on the organization rather than on the people you are helping. As
you scale, you can change everything in what you do but the mission: the focus on the
beneficiaries. – Greg van Kirk

Greg Van Kirk enables unprecedented village access to affordable, essential health-related
goods and services, from reading glasses to energy-efficient stoves. Because these products
have never been available to the remote populations Greg caters to, the environment is
risky and perceived demand is highly unpredictable. Trust is therefore of the highest
importance. The first step is to mitigate risk associated with starting a micro-enterprise.
Through his MicroConsignment approach, sellers do not need to worry about the burden of
debt payments that often push rural entrepreneurs further into poverty. This risk is
circumvented as entrepreneurs pay for their merchandise only once it has been sold.

While bourgeoning micro-entrepreneurs begin to trust the approach, Greg simultaneously

focuses on building trust between his new business partners and their communities. This is
not an easy task as the women he works with do not have a history of entrepreneurship
and the small communities in which they live do not necessarily trust that they can suddenly
become professionals. Greg therefore insists that all micro-entrepreneurs begin their
careers in neighboring villages where the women do not have a history. They can thus prove
their successes in those villages and convince their own communities that they are
competent. In addition, Greg’s micro-entrepreneurs are not seen as salespeople, they are
aptly called “community advisors.” This complex and extremely efficient web of trust is thus
bringing essential health products to more than 1,000 remote villages and fostering local
entrepreneurship.

Trust is also critical when it comes to working with external stakeholders such as the
government and business partners, indicates Manoj Kumar of Naandi Foundation. When the
Foundation began bringing safe drinking water to remote villages in India, they held
inaugurations for each water facility. However, only one political party would attend, which
led to the danger of possible backlashes against Naandi when that party went out of power.
So Naandi took a stand. They declared that they wouldn’t inaugurate a center unless there

12
 was complete representation from all parties at the event. By staying non-partisan, Naandi
acquired the trust of every political faction. David Green says “Trust is absolutely key to
bring a company into manifestation. You need to stay together during tough times, and this
creates the resiliency you need to create a social enterprise. I tell potential investors up
front all the bad things that can happen, and I am willing to bring on board only those who
are willing to be with you through difficulties, who won´t get nervous or suddenly want to
exit when things look bad – and they can look very bad, particularly in the initial years.”

But retaining trust is just as crucial as acquiring it; Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows discussed the
importance of setting up mission-focused governance models to ensure that trust is not lost
amidst the range of competing needs and challenges inherent in operationalizing their
solutions. In Indonesia, Willy Smits faces a dilemma. Having demonstrated the tremendous
economic and social potential of the sugar palm tree, he is keen to show his model to the
market to attract the kind of investment he needs to take his work to global scale.
However, early indications have been that large private firms would focus on tapping every
last drop of profit out of the sugar palm tree, reducing the local villagers’ income in the
process and distorting local politics and social structures. Willie is seeking to develop a
regulatory mechanism that would allow for significant return on investment yet maintain a
healthy margin for the local entrepreneurs and farmers. Until he can develop such a
governance model that respects the relationships and trust he has already established, he
will not proceed further.

13
 Telling Powerful Stories
“Invest in stories, not just technologies.” – Javier Fernandez-Han, Youth Venture

More than even business cards, the most traded currency at Tech4Society in Hyderabad
was stories - stories of “eureka!” moments, creative flow, product launches, successful
partnerships, impact on beneficiaries, and more. We tell stories not just to inform and
entertain. We also use them to INSPIRE and to CONNECT. We use stories for the same
reason we use many of our most important technologies - to transform and be transformed.
The narratives constructed and discussed during Tech4Society enabled participants to
understand their work in new ways and to expand their work by inspiring others to join
them in specific ventures or in the broader work of technology as a force for social change.
The transformational power of narrative was most evident among the 13 young inventors in
attendance. Traveling from the U.S., Argentina, Mexico, and India, they are among the 50
invention ventures supported by Ashoka’s Youth Venture through its Lemelson-funded
Invent Your World campaign. The youth were invited to Hyderabad not just to immerse
themselves in inspiration, but to share their own inspirational stories.
Through a workshop, youth were encouraged to reflect on their own stories. Carlos
Llaytuqueo, the Argentinean teen who created a water turbine, said he used to only tell
people, “I make water turbines.” Now, he understands the story he needs to tell is how he
helped a rural community overcome its many obstacles to electrification. Similarly, Shailesh
Upadhyay and Ujala Shanker didn’t just focus their story on the Eco-switch they created that
allowed Indian villagers to use a tractor battery to power compact florescent light bulbs.
They framed their story as one about helping rural students succeed in school, despite
having no electricity. Facundo Ferreyra, the 16-year-old Argentinean youth who invented
Trici-X, shifted his story. Whereas at first he talked about the challenge of creating a tricycle
for a child with many disabilities, now he talks about the connection he established and had
to establish with the child he was trying to help. These new narratives will help to transform
the way these youth think about the role of the invention in social change.
Stories inspire us to do more and expand our impact. Javier Fernandez-Han, the 15-year-old
Excellence Award winner of the Invent Your World campaign, shared the story of how he
first became inspired to design for “the other 90 percent.” He had been interested in
robotics at an early age. But when he was nine, he happened to see a Lemelson Foundation-
funded exhibit at the Boston Museum of Science and it changed him forever. He was
especially drawn to the story of Dr. Ashok Gadgil and his UV water purifier. Javier
explained this was the first time he had come across someone who married the same two
passions he had: inventing and helping the less fortunate. Javier was so inspired that he made
a trip out to UC Berkeley to meet with his new hero. They spent an hour together and Dr.
Gadgil shared with Javier stories from his childhood – how when he was young, his family
instilled in him a strong sense of justice and compassion. He remembers vividly how his
family would share their food with those who otherwise would go hungry. “Take one
handful of rice for yourself, give one handful to the poor.” For Javier, Dr. Gadgil’s story
helped him understand not what to invent or what problems to solve, but what type of
inventor he should be. That knowledge became his inner compass.

Inventor-Entrepreneurs are, at their best, great storytellers. “What scales is narrative,” said
John Wilbanks. “A social entrepreneur’s toolkit must have an understanding of what the

14
 narrative is and how to get it out there. The grasp of how to craft narrative, to tell your
story, is critical.” A striking example came from Manoj Kumar of Naandi Foundation:
“Women are usually tasked with the ‘menial’ jobs. There is a well entrenched system, which
is more powerful than the cast system and difficult to penetrate. We stumbled on a new
solution. If we make a ‘menial’ job look sexy, men are silly enough to pick it. The container
designed for water was like an oil container. It had to be fetched, money to be traded. That
seemed to do the trick for men to come to the water center stores. If you can make it look
good, men grab onto it. Now women can go tell their sons, nephews and husbands to go
fetch the water. We need to figure out why men chose to do this.”

These kinds of stories enable inventor-entrepreneurs to both understand and communicate

the actual change they seek through their idea and with this enhanced ability to
communicate comes the potential to attract other partners and to increase impact.

15
 Collaborations and Networks
One of the most important outcomes of Tech4Society was the opportunity for Fellows to
build trust and empathy with each other, resulting in the seeds of potentially powerful
collaborations. In a world that is increasingly connected virtually and electronically, one
should not underestimate the importance of face-to-face meetings for building rapport and
creating trust. Some of the highlights of collaborations formed at Tech4Society are:

1. Gustavo Gennuso has started to implement Greg van Kirk´s MicroConsignment

model in Patagonia. Besides the fact that Gustavo´s social enterprise now has a new
skill and approach to distribution, this is a mutually beneficially partnership affording
both Fellows new products to distribute and, therefore, larger scale with which to
negotiate prices with suppliers, etc.
2. Juan Carlos Aguilar & Juan Carlos Calizaya are integrating their specific knowledge to
create a catalogue of technologies for rural housing. They are also developing new
technologies, starting with the creation of an eco-toilet that uses less than 2 liters of
water.
3. Ashoka-Lemelson Fellows from seven Africa nations established the “Africans
Without Borders” expert pool on social-technology innovations 2010-2020, which
will focus on developing a “social bank” (a sort of barter system) of expertise and
experiences to address regional challenges; their second meeting will take place in
Nairobi in May 2010 (see Appendix1).

16
 Reflections and Recommendations

1. Support the development and strengthening of the five core

competencies outlined in this report for future generations
The competencies described in this report do not reflect current course offerings in
business or engineering schools. Tech4Society participants developed these competencies as
they implemented programs and solved problems on the ground. Future generations should
benefit from this learning through course offerings, apprenticeships, mentorships and other
creative pedagogical tools.

2. Work to create and value networks of trust

To a surprising extent, participants emphasized the urgent need for trust-based networks as
the basis for both partnership and impact. The immediate trust built among Ashoka-
Lemelson Fellows at Tech4Society was striking and has obvious potential as the foundation
for future collaborative activities.

There need to be more opportunities for Fellows to share and benefit from other
engineering designs, products suitable for low income communities, and implementation
strategies. There also need to be opportunities for investors to interact with inventor-
entrepreneurs to understand the constraints and requirements of both sides and increase
invested funds and shorten the time needed for investment discovery and due diligence.

3. Create pathways for women and girls to become inventor-entrepreneurs

Few women attended Tech4Society, reflecting a global society that still finds more men in
fields of engineering and invention. One potential strategy: create stronger connections
between math, science and engineering and art, humanities and social sciences. In other
words, by bridging fields traditionally dominated by men with fields often more popular with
women.

Marketers tell us that we buy products often based on how we “feel” and the web of
associations of any particular product. When using invention and technology for social
change, feelings matter, cultural conceptions matter, and gender roles matter. And yet youth
are encouraged very early to choose between people or numbers, between art or science.
Eden Full, a Youth Venturer, is a freshman at Princeton University and is faced with deciding
between majoring in engineering or history of science. Eden sees the interconnections
between science and humanities and this is a false choice for her. We need to create
educational experiences that leverage the power these different fields can bring to solving
social problems.

4. Practice the art of storytelling and work to engage young people

Javier Fernandez-Han asked a very concrete favor of all of the inventors in the room: spend
one hour inspiring someone. "Think not only of investing in inventions, but also of investing
in people's lives." Inventor-entrepreneurs understand the power of stories to create
empathy, to create networks of trust as well as to inspire others.

17
 Appendix I: Africa Trends Roundtable

Resolution # 1
African Ashoka Lemelson team (7 countries) meeting in Hyderabad, India 11th-14th February
2010 during the Tech4Society conference, Hereby resolve to:
1. Establish the “Africans Without Borders” expert pool on social-technology
innovations 2010-2020, drawn from All Member Countries.
2. The team coordinated from Nairobi, Keny will Dialogue; Redesign and Establish a
social bank of expertise and experiences to address regional challenges identified
during the consultative panel discussions – Trends from Africa; and Round Table
discussions – Personal Challenges in Africa.
3. The Team has agreed to hold the 1st Regional Dialogue Session on April-May 2010 in
Nairobi, Kenya
For further details consult:

David Kuria,
Ashoka Lemelson Felllow
Schwab Fellow and CEO of Ecofact
kuria@ecofact.org

or

Douglas Racionzer
Douglas@racionzer.net
South Africa

18
 Appendix II: Agenda

Arrival
4:00pm-8:00pm Registration • Executive Housing Lobby, ISB
7:20pm Fellow’s Dinner • Mirror Pool

Day 1
7:00am-8:15am Breakfast • Hotels
8:00am-8:15am Shuttle to ISB • Hotel Lobbies
8:00am-10:00am Registration • Atrium
9:00am-9:45am Plenary Panel: Welcome Panel • Khemka Auditorium
9:45am-10:45am Keynote Address: Entrepreneurship, Innovation, and Pluralistic Networks
with the Power to Change the World • Fernando Flores • Khemka Auditorium
10:45am-11:15am Tea/Coffee Break
11:15am-12:30am Plenary Panel: The New Leaders: Serial Inventor Entrepreneurs and the
Lessons Learned • Khemka Auditorium
12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch • Atrium
2:00pm-3:15pm Breakout Sessions:
• Solar, Wind, and Biofuels: The Future of Alternative Energies • AC 3 Mini Lecture
Theatre
• Engineering Design for the Full Market • Khemka Auditorium
• Bridging to the Future: Building the Business Social Bridge • AC 7 Mini Lecture Thea-
tre
• Disaster Response and Rebuilding • AC 3 Max Lecture Theatre
3:15pm-3:45pm Tea/Coffee Break
3:45pm-5:00pm Breakout Sessions:
• Intellectual Property • AC 7 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Medical and Health Innovations • AC 3 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Climate Change: Coming Together to Address Planetary Issues • AC 3 Max Lecture
Theatre
• The Future of Social Enterprise • Khemka Auditorium
• Dialogue in the Dark • TBA
5:00pm-5:30pm Demonstration: Healthnet Medical Network • Khemka Auditorium
5:45pm Group Photo of Ashoka Lemelson Fellows • Mirror Pool
7:30pm-9:00pm Dinner • Atrium

19
 During Breaks Interactive Booth for Photos with White Boards • AC 4 Board Rooms

Day 2
7:00am-8:15am Breakfast • Hotels
8:00am-8:15am Shuttle to ISB • Hotel Lobbies
9:00am-9:15am Emcee Recap and Announcements • Khemka Auditorium
9:15am-10:30am Plenary Panel: The Future of Innovation: Young Inventor Entrepreneurs •
Khemka Auditorium
10:30am-11:00am Tea/Coffee Break • Outside Auditorium
11:00am-12:15am Breakout Sessions:
• Regional Trends from Africa • AC 3 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Not a Drop to Drink: The Global Clean Water Challenge • AC 7 Mini Lecture Thea-
tre
• Reaching for Economies of Scale: Mass Production • Khemka Auditorium
• Innovations in Payment Systems • AC 8 Board Room
12:15pm-12:45pm Demonstration: Mobile Science Lab • Outdoors
12:45pm-2:15pm Lunch • Atrium
2:15pm-3:30pm Breakout Sessions:
• Information Explosion: The Power of Information in Deploying New Technology •
AC 3 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Engaging Government as a Stakeholder and Change Agent • AC 3 Max Lecture Thea-
tre
• Reaching Remote Populations: The New Distribution Highway • Khemka Auditorium
• Sanitation: Moving Up the Importance Agenda • AC 7 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Dialogue in the Dark • TBA
• Open Space • AC 8 Board Room
3:30pm-4:00pm Tea/Coffee Break
4:00pm-5:15pm Breakout Sessions:
• Investment Readiness: Lessons from VCs and Other Investors • Khemka Auditorium
• Regional Trends from Latin America • AC 3 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Personal Challenges and the Life of the Innovating Entrepreneur • AC 7 Max Lecture
Theatre
• Half the Sky: Women and Girls in Science and Invention • AC 7 Mini Lecture Thea-
tre
• Dialogue in the Dark • TBA
• Open Space • AC 8 Board Room

20
 6:30pm-8:30pm Marketplace Evening • Mirror Pool
8:30pm Dinner • Atrium
During Breaks Interactive Booth for Photos with White Boards • AC 4 Board Rooms

Day 3
7:30am-8:30am Breakfast • Hotels
8:00am-8:15am Shuttle to ISB • Hotel Lobbies
9:00am-9:15am Emcee Recap and Announcements • Khemka Auditorium
9:15am-10:45am Plenary Panel: Cultivating the Next Generation of Leaders: Innovations in
Science, Technology, Engineering and Math Education • Khemka Auditorium
10:45am-11:15am Tea/Coffee Break
11:15am-12:30pm Breakout Sessions:
• Engineering Challenges of the Next Decade • AC 3 Max Lecture Theatre
• The Ever Green Revolution: Trends in Agriculture • Khemka Auditorium
• Cell Phones and the Future of Mobile Technologies in Social Change • AC 3 Mini
Lecture Theatre
• Innovative Pricing: The Case of Aravind • AC 7 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Open Space • AC 8 Board Room
12:30pm-2:00pm Lunch • Atrium
2:00pm-3:15pm Breakout Sessions:
• Tipping Point: Elements that Help to Spread Social Impact from Local to Global • AC
3 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Mind the Gap: Financing Strategies for the Future • AC 3 Max Lecture Theatre
• Changing Visions: When Your Mission Shifts • AC 7 Mini Lecture Theatre
• Open Space • AC 8 Board Room
3:15pm-3:45pm Tea/Coffee Break
3:45pm-4:15pm Keynote Address: Our Unique Moment In History: Building an Everyone A
Changemaker™ World • Bill Drayton • Khemka Auditorium
4:15pm-5:30pm Plenary Panel: Global Trends in Social Innovation and Invention • Khemka
Auditorium
7:00pm-10:00pm Gala Dinner • Kemka Auditorium and Mirror Pool

21
 Appendix III: Fellow Participants
A. H. Md. Maqsood Sinha • Bangladesh
Developing community-based, high-tech, low-cost composting plants to convert organic
waste into income-generating fertilizers

Abhijit Bardhan • India

Launching a grassroots movement to train teachers to change the way science is taught in
government-run schools

Abhishek Ray • India

Drawing on the emerging field of Universal Design to create affordable, barrier-free
environments that are highly functional for all people—regardless of age, ability, or situation

Agus Gunarto • Indonesia

Creating the technical design for the construction and operation of community-financed and
managed
mini-sewage treatment plants

Albina Ruiz • Peru

Working with Lima’s waste management workforce to design products that improve their
work flow—custom tricycles and a variety of trash collection and composting tools

Amol Goje • India

Developing user-friendly and low-cost IT tools for farmers to increase productivity and
stimulate economic growth

Ana Luisa Arocena • Uruguay

Creating new technologies to recycle and dispose of hazardous materials in responsible
ways while promoting transparency, spreading environmental and public health awareness,
and creating decent jobs for waste management workers

Andres Martinez Fernandez • Spain

Designing and testing technologies—video microscopes, long-distance stethoscopes, and
other diagnostic and treatment tools—to save lives and increase efficiency of rural health
centers in Colombia, Peru, and Nicaragua

Andrés Randazzo • Mexico

Incorporating appropriate technologies—cisterns, ovens, and houses—into the existing
health infrastructure of Mexico’s poorest rural areas to better basic living conditions

Anil Chitrakar • Nepal

Bringing together financing, simple and sustainable technologies, and marketing to support a
range of socially-useful technologies, including water purification and solar tukis

22
 Anna Alisjahbana • Indonesia
Developing new practices and technology that have changed the face of early childhood care
and development throughout Indonesia

Augustin Woelz • Brazil

Reducing the inefficient use of electricity for hot water heating through a do-it-yourself
system disseminated by young people

Babu Raja Shrestha • Nepal

Replacing traditional kerosene lighting sources with solar-powered tukis, assembled and
serviced by local people

Balaji Sampath • India

Revolutionizing the way science is taught in India through low-cost materials that promote
hands-on learning and incorporate creative dissemination techniques

Bernard Amadei • United States

Transforming the field of engineering by revamping the traditional training model and
establishing professional standards to integrate the field more closely with global issues such
as poverty alleviation, hunger, and disease

Bindeshwar Pathak • India

Introducing an eco-friendly, twin-pit, compost, pour-flush toilet technology for
households—an alternative to the cost prohibitive sewerage or septic tank-based systems of
waste disposal

Bir Bahadur Ghale • Nepal

Constructing micro-hydropower plants and linking them to industrial and commercial
ventures to manage the system

Bright Simons • Ghana

Combatting fraud in the pharmaceutical industry by creating a SMS-telecom solution that
allows consumers to verify pharmaceuticals at the point of purchase

Carlos Simão • Brazil

Adapting new shallow tube wells for Brazil’s semiarid regions

Collins Apuoyo • Kenya

Protecting the environment by safely collecting, storing, and reusing spent oil that is
otherwise dumped into rivers or uninhabited land in Kenya

Cosmas Okoli • Nigeria

Manufacturing special prostheses, manual car controls, and sports equipment for the
disabled so that they may lead full lives and have pride in themselves

David Green • USA

Producing and disseminating socially useful products—including affordable hearing aids and
intraocular lenses—using a tiered pricing structure

23
 David Kuria • Kenya
Designing technology-enabled sanitation “kiosks” that halt environmental degradation and
promote health and social cohesion in Kenyan slum areas

Dipendra Manocha • India

Using an open source approach to creating screen reading software for Hindi and other
local languages and low-cost playback devices for disabled persons, particularly the blind

Douglas McMeekin • Ecuador

Developing a rural education model that integrates academic study with practical experience
in microenterprise so that students are prepared to resolve the social, economic, and
environmental challenges in the Ecuadorian Amazon

Douglas Racionzer • South Africa

Transforming existing, small, technology-focused businesses into successful enterprises that
deliver of community services

Elizabeth Hausler • USA

Changing practices of home building in earthquake-prone regions to engage citizens and set
in place new and lasting practices to ensure that earthquake-resistant construction becomes
common

Enrique Gustavo Gennuso • Argentina

Designing and distributing appropriate tech-nologies for low-income communities, including
a manual rope pump for water extraction, and battling unemployment among Argentina’s
young people by enabling and inspiring inventors and entrepreneurs

Fábio Luiz de Oliveira Rosa • Brazil

Bringing electricity to the rural poor through low-cost electrification technology

Francisco Javier Arroyo y

Galván Duque • Mexico
Devising an urban food production scheme which simultaneously improves low-income
familiial nutrition and moves Mexico City’s marginal neighborhoods toward taking
ownership of their own development

François Marty • France

Inventing construction tools that enable the building of ecologically-sound, energy-saving public
housing on a large scale and in ways that mobilize and employ France’s poorest residents

Gregory Van Kirk • USA

Engaging rural entrepreneurs in distributing essential
products through a “micro-consignment” approach

Hamzah Harun Al’Rasyid • Indonesia

Raising agricultural productivity through new farm products and a drip irrigation implement
he invented, benefiting farmer cooperatives and markets

24
 Hamzah M. • Indonesia
Introducing technologies that improve the quality of water and sanitation in Indonesia

Hany Hassan Mahmoud El Miniawy • Egypt

Developing eco-friendly methods of home construction that incorporate local materials and
create jobs

Harish Hande • India

Uplifting underserved populations by selling, servicing, and financing clean energy that
improves quality of life

Heike Schettler • Germany

Spreading bottom-up, child-centered Science Labs and curricula throughout primary schools
in Germany

Hilmi Quaraishi • India

Using mobile telephony to bring important public health messages to the masses

Howard Weinstein • Brazil

Manufacturing and distributing low-cost hearing aids with extended battery-life options
allowed by solar-powered batteries

Iftekhar Enayetullah • Bangladesh

Developing community-based, high-tech, low-cost composting plants to convert organic
waste into income-generating fertilizers

Ingrid Munro • Kenya

Creating a microfinance organization that provides business and housing loans, health and
life insurance, and business education to the urban poor and slum dwellers of Nairobi

Isaac Durojaiye • Nigeria

Creating Nigeria’s first mobile toilet initiative to remedy rampant urban unemployment and
poor sanitation conditions

Jack Sim • Global

Revamping the field of sanitation worldwide by bringing technical, financial, organizational,
and market-related strategies to citizen organizations working on sanitation

Joachim Ezeji • Nigeria

Building and training a network of ‘water entrepreneurs’ to manufacture, distribute, and
service basic water filters that use local plants as bactericides in lieu of chlorine

Jose Dias • Brazil

Empowering small farmers in northeastern Brazil to collectively manage and appropriate
resources for drought-resistant technologies

Jose Raúl Moreno • Colombia

Increasing the availability and affordability of housing in low-income communities in

25
 Colombia by developing and disseminating new earthen construction technologies that
boost the local economy and are environmentally friendly

José Roberto Silva • Brazil

Enhancing small-scale farming with a solar-powered micro-irrigation system of production,
marketing, and commercialization that makes farming profitable for poor farmers in Brazil’s
northeast

Joseph Adelegan • Nigeria

Developing a commercially viable system that uses a fixed filter anaerobic biogas converter
to clean air and water from slaughterhouse effluence

Joseph Sekiku • Tanzania

Improving economic possibilities for small-scale farmers by giving them greater control over
their products after production and opening access to a global markets

Juan Carlos Aguilar Macizo • Peru

Encouraging aspiring young inventors to use local materials and their own creative talent to
improve living conditions among the poor

Juan Carlos Calizaya Luna • Peru

Installing environmentally friendly sanitation systems at the household and community level
and building the social infrastructure needed to support them

Juan José Oña • Uruguay

Engaging community and youth groups in a comprehensive multi-media documentation of
native fauna and flora, establishing the Uruguayan environmental conservation movement

Juan Rivera • Peru

Improving the productivity and quality of impoverished, small-scale coffee producers in Peru
by teaching them sustainable coffee production methods and giving them access to more
efficient, affordable, and environmentally-friendly technologies

Jyoti Sharma • India

Combining technological interventions with a community governance structure that makes
citizens responsible for water consumption decisions

Kalyan Paul • India

Providing local communities in the central and western Himalayas with the organizational,
technical, and managerial skills to effect ecological restoration of their area

Kongkiat Kespechara • Thailand

Developing an open source technology that is enabling hospitals to use their limited
resources more effectively and to design new and improved services addressing the health
needs of disadvantaged populations

26
 Kovin Naidoo • South Africa
Providing access to eye care through technological innovations that reduce lens costs to
$1.50

Lalith Seneviratne • Sri Lanka

Bringing sustainable electricity to rural Sri Lanka, and building the components that allow
community members to maintain and finance small-scale biomass generation

Lazaro Cunha • Brazil

Popularizing scientific knowledge in order to strengthen the black movement within the
knowledge society, while also increasing the country’s potential for technological
development

Leonora Mol • Brazil

Stimulating the local economy and increasing the quality of life of people living in low-income
residential communities through housing loans, participatory governance structures,
technical assistance, and the incorporation of clean technologies

Luis Orlando Castro • Colombia

Inventing technology that turns organic waste into fertilizer that is better, cheaper, and
greener than conventional alternatives, and is deploying the technology widely to maximize
the number of quality jobs it can create in waste collection, fertilizer production, agriculture,
and marketing of produce

Lynn Freiji • Egypt

Improving the way science is taught by introducing an effective outdoor educational
platform where children can experiment with the concepts they learn about in their
classrooms and science labs

Madan Mohan Rao • India

Refining a nearly extinct technology—the party line system—to provide connectivity to
villagers living in rural areas unable to attract mobile phone service providers

Mahabir Pun • Nepal

Using solar power, tree-based relay systems, and adapted technologies to create wireless
networks that are suitable for the remote mountainous regions of Nepal

Maher Bushra • Egypt

Fighting to establish legal, social, and economic protections for neglected workers as a first
step toward guaranteeing basic rights to all the workers of his country’s informal economy

María Ferro • Argentina

Improving the quality of life and social integration of marginalized communities such as the
elderly and disabled people by enabling them to access new technology at reasonable prices

27
 Mathias Craig • USA
Developing a community-based clean energy model dependent on local manufacture and
maintenance of a specially designed hybrid solar/wind turbine along the impoverished
Caribbean coast of Nicaragua

Maxwell Marshall • Nigeria

Widening access to housing for Nigeria’s urban and rural poor through the introduction of a
new building technology that is low-cost, sustainable, and attractive

Mohammed Abba • Nigeria

Creating economic opportunities for Nigerian farmers through a system that naturally
refrigerates fruits and vegetables

Moses Kizza Musaazi • Uganda

Reducing the rate of absenteeism among school girls in poor urban and rural communities
by increasing access to affordable sanitary pads

Muthu Velayutham • India

Pairing rural farmers with engineers to design products and distribute them through rural
citizen networks

Narcís Vives Ylla • Spain

Developing Atlas of Diversity, a new education model that makes learning fun and effective
while also closing the digital gap between those communities who proactively use new
technologies and those who do not

Narong Patibatsarakich • Thailand

Putting together classes of disabled people to challenge the age-old belief that disability is a
matter of dharma and seeking to ensure each person an equal opportunity to contribute

Nawee Nakwatchara • Thailand

Empowering small farmers to make their own informed decisions in pursuit of decent
livelihoods and enabling them to break the cycle of debt and dependency on inviable farming
practices

Omar Azad Chowdhury • Bangladesh

Advancing a new model of science and invention learning in Bangladesh

Onno Purbo • Indonesia

Building Indonesia into a knowledge-based society by bringing low-cost Wi-Fi Internet
access to communities and schools throughout the country

Patrick Gathitu • Kenya

Empowering the people of Kenya to make good choices about what technologies to buy and
how best to use them on their farms and micro-enterprises

28
 Paul Basil • India
Developing promising rural technological inno-vations into successful commercial
enterprises

Pedro Serrano • Chile

Employing a holistic approach that combines energy-saving technology, education, and
political action, to introduce new energy technologies that will reduce pressure on Chile’s
scarce firewood resources

Pradip Sarmah • India

Distributing safer rickshaws with improved ergonomic design through Rickshaw Bank loans
geared towards ownership

Prema Gopalan • India

Training rural women to identify community needs and design, build, and operate water and
sanitation systems

Ramji Raghavan • India

Working to provide teachers and out-of-school, at-risk children access to hands-on science
that arouses curiosity

Randolph Wang • India

Matching high-quality pedagogy with low-cost technology to link quality teaching in urban
schools with poor rural schools, and to do it cheaply and on a large scale in order to
overcome the shortage of qualified teachers in rural areas

Ravindranath • India
Mitigating flood disasters by introducing—through an active citizen network—life-saving
technologies such as modified tube-wells to keep drinking water safe, quick-assemble toilets
for use in floods, and stilt designs to elevate homes

Rebeca Villalobos Vargas • Costa Rica

Developing a participatory system of eye care that enables Costa Ricans of all classes access
to affordable medical services

Roshaneh Zafar • Pakistan

Introducing solar technology to Pakistani homeowners through the national financial tools
network she has built

Salah Arafa • Egypt

Creating a model that combines local resources with rural civic engagement to promote
social advancement and modernization while preventing rural migration to urban areas

Sameh Ghali • Egypt

Disseminating a new community-based latrine system and producing a water byproduct
clean enough to use for irrigation

29
 Sanjeev Arora • USA
Using communication technologies to dramatically reduce disparities in care in the United
States for patients with common chronic diseases who do not have direct access to
healthcare specialists

Satyan Mishra • India

Building service kiosks in countryside villages to bring internet connections and ready,
affordable access to information

Sergio Oceransky • Mexico

Democratizing the future of the energy economy by making it possible for local and
indigenous communities to participate in, and benefit from, their own grassroots renewable
energy projects

Simón Parisca • Venezuela

Sustaining social innovation in Venezuela and, in the process, developing a new kind of
leadership capacity for long-term development

Sonam Jorgyes • India

Empowering the Ladakh agricultural community to use outside technological innovations and
local resources in a sustainable manner to foster rural economic development and expand
rural farmers’ market reach

Souleymane Sarr • Mali

Creating “the new generation” of artisans in Mali by training artisans, unemployed school
graduates, and street youth to create and produce consumer goods services in clear market
demand

Sourirajan Srinivasan • India

Promoting the production and distribution of essential drugs at affordable rates to the poor

Stanley Zlotkin • Canada

Manufacturing and distributing affordable iron and nutrient supplements to combat “hidden
hunger,” the debilitating vitamin and mineral deficiency experienced by millions of women
and children in developing countries

Toto Sugito • Indonesia

Bridging the gap between public issues, such as pollution and health problems, and individual
lifestyles, encouraging people to recognize their individual role in larger social problems and
participate in collective action towards solving them

Tri Mumpuni • Indonesia

Tackling challenges of rural electrification and economic development by creating
community-owned, micro-hydropower systems throughout Indonesia

30
 Vibha Gupta • India
Training rural women to use scientific skills and technologies to create economically
productive enterprises

Victoria Hale • USA

Building the first non-profit pharmaceutical company to work with the mainstream pharm-
aceutical industry in bringing new drugs to the world’s poor

Vijay Pratap Singh • India

Creating new access platforms—software and manual—to benefit rural Indians

Vineet Rai • India

Providing venture capital financing and management support to socially conscious and
environmentally friendly ventures with limited access to capital

Willy Foote • USA

Financing developing-world rural business entre-preneurs and technologies that boost
agriculture production and protect the environment

Willy Pessoa • Brazil

Designing an integrated, holistic model combining technology, low-cost, and community
involvement in planning for small-scale agricultural production

Wilson Passeto • Brazil

Helping design and market technological innovations aimed at improving efficiency and
reducing water waste

Willy Smits • Indonesia

Finding ways to re-grow clearcut rainforest in Borneo, saving local orangutans and creating a
thrilling blueprint for restoring fragile ecosystems

Yohanes Surya • Asia

Transforming the way children are introduced to, and engage with, science and math learning by
creating new materials, science comics, and national and international competitions

31
 Appendix IV: Other Participants

Karabi Acharya Valeria Budinich

Ashoka Ashoka

Geovanni Roblero Adorno Paula Cardenau

Solar Pyramid Ashoka
Youth Venturer
Bill Carter
John Anner Ashoka
East Meets West Foundation
Dean Deepak Chandra
Ali Ansari Indian School of Business
Muffakham Jah College of Engineering
Mark Cheng
Phil Anerswald Chelwood Capital
Innovations
Yu-Ling Cheng
Ken Banks University of Toronto
Frontline SMS, Kiwanja.net
Ali Cherry
Hanae Baruchel GreenMango
Ashoka
Paroma Roy Chowdhury
Dheeraj Batra Google India
Innosight Ventures
Kevin Cluff
Krista Bauer H2OforHumanity
GE Company
Barrett Comisky
Orazio J. Bellettini E-Ink
Gupo Faro
Lee Davis
Daniel Ben-Horin Nonprofit Enterprise and
Techsoup Global Self-sustainability Team (NESsT)

Sohini Bhattacharya Carolina de Andrade

Ashoka Artemisia

Svati Bhogle Danielle Dumm

TIDE Ashoka

Ron Boehm Ana Estenssoro

Boehm-Gladen Foundation Ashoka

Mukti Bosco Sandeep Farias

Healing Fields Elevar

Jennifer Bruml Javier Fernandez-Han

The Lemelson Foundation Inventors Without Borders
Youth Venturer

32
 Facundo Imanol Ferreyra Chloe Holderness
Trici-X Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation
Youth Venturer
Juli Huang
Terry Ferris Artemisia

María del Pilar Ferro Patrik Huber

CARE - Centro de Asistencia y responsAbility Social Investments AG
Rehabilitación Especial
Richard Jefferson
Lani Fraizer Cambia
Synergies in Sync
Mark Jeunnette
Eden Full International Development Enterprises
Princeton University
Youth Venturer Paneet Jhajharia
Grassroots Business Fund
Ashok Gadgil
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Jai Kishan Jhaver
Jhaver Group
Vikas Goswami
Microsoft B.K. Jhawar
Usha Martin Group
Justin Guay
Sierra Club Elizabeth Johansen
Design that Matters
Anshu Gupta
Goonj Lorie D. Jackson
Women’s Economic Opportunity Initiative
Keith Hammonds ExxonMobile
Ashoka
Amit Jain
Peter Han HealthPoint
Inventors Without Borders
Gautam John
Tarcio Handel Pratham Books/Akshara
Agência Mandalla DHSA
Lakshmi Karan
Elliot Harmon Skoll Foundtion
Techsoup Global
Pascal Katana
Sanjana Hattouwa
Ground Views Robert (Bob) Kennedy
University of Michigan / Davidson Institute
Elizabeth Hausler
Build Change Susannah Kent

Aji Hermawan Anand Krishnaswamy

RAMP-IPB
Chandra Kumar
Leila Hoballah Nacks Ventures
ESCP EUROPE

33
 Catherine Laine Devashri Mukherjee
AIDG Ashoka

Eric Lemelson Carl Munana

The Lemelson Foundation Ashoka

Linus Liang Hari Nair

Embrace Innosight Ventures

Carlos Llaytuqueo Shoba Narayan

Aquaturbi Knowledge@Wharton
Youth Venturer
Sarath Naru
C.V. Madhukar Ventureast
PRS Legislative Director
William Nitze
Anurag Mairal
Stanford Bio Design Elizabeth Nitze
Ashoka
Sachin Malhan
Inclusive Planet Ricardo Ordoñez
NESsT
Umesh Malhotra
Hippocampus Mauricio Osorio
The Lemelson Foundation
Patrick Maloney
The Lemelson Foundation Rakesh Pandey

Jaydeep Mandal Mayur Patel

Renaissance Consulting/IWSB Incubation Knight Foundation
Centre
Upmanyu Patil
Mariana Mazon Sakhi Rretail
Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy
Lily Paul
Debbie Menaged Ashoka
The Menaged Foundation
Roshan Paul
Mitch Menaged Ashoka
The Menaged Foundation
Hsun-Chin (Kevin) Peng
Zachary Menaged The Big Question, Ltd.

Jane Meseck Aaron Pereira

Microsoft Vartana

Murray Metcalfe Maria Clara Pinheiro

University of Toronto Ashoka

Luciano Moccia Santiago Ponce

East Meets West Foundation BIOCALEFON
Youth Venturer
Anita Moura

34
 Andy Pradjaputra Gonzalo San Martin
Inotek/Yayasan Inovasi Teknologi NESsT

Solomon Prakash Sanjoy Sanyal

Ashoka New Ventures

Timothy Prestero Miguel Saravia

Design that Matters CONDESAN

Subhi Quraishi Abigail Sarmac

ZMQ Software Systems The Lemelson Foundation

Sriram Raghavan Eric Savage

Comat Technologies Private Limited Unitus Capital

James Rajanayagam Beverly Schwartz

Villgro Innovations Foundation Ashoka

Prasad Ram Pedro Serrano

Google Inc. Fundación TERRAM

Anuradha Ramachadran Karon Shaiva

Ventureast Idobro Media & Marketing Services

Sreekanth S Rameshaiah Ujala Shanker

Mahiti Infotech Pvt. Ltd. Tractor-Factor
Youth Venturer
Thulasiraj Ravilla
LAICO - Aravind Eye Care System Willie Smits
Masarang Foundation
Regula Ritter
responsAbility Social Investments AG Tyler Spalding
Ashoka
Erin Rogalski
Indian School of Business Alan Spybey
KickStart
David Roll
Lex Mundi Pro Bono Foundation Hanumappa Sudarshan
Karuna Trust & VGKK
Amitabha Sadangi
IDE-India Vishnu Swaminathan
Ashoka
Hemant Sahal
CALLMAT Roswitha Swensen
Youth Venturer The Lemelson Foundation

Varun Sahni Krishna Tanuku

Acumen Fund Indian School of Business

Ambika Sambasivan Ka Chun To

Villgro Innovations Foundation
Carolina Tocalli
Ashoka

35
 Erin Tochen Alok Vajpeyi
The Lemelson Foundation
Philip Varnum
Charles Tsai The Lemelson Foundation
Ashoka
Ravi Venkatesan
Jill Tucker Microsoft
The Lemelson Foundation
Rosa Wang
Shailesh Upadhyay Ashoka
Tractor-Factor
Youth Venturer Logan Ward
Popular Mechanics
Shalini Urs
International School of Information Phil Weilerstein
Management NCIIA

Tina Vajpeyi John Wilbanks

The Akanksha Foundation Creative Commons

36
 This report was prepared by the Tech4Society Knowledge team of
Ashoka including Karabi Acharya, Hanae Baruchel, Paula Cardenau, Keith
Hammonds, Roshan Paul, Charles Tsai, and Rosa Wang. It was designed by
Rai Land of the Global Marketing Team and benefited from comments by
Julia Novy‑Hildesley and Abigail Sarmac of The Lemelson Foundation.