Projects for the disadvantaged

During my quest for looking for collaborating institutions who would help identify entrepreneur minded poor communities be they in the rural or the urban area, I am facing a whole range of challenges. Reaching out to the right community set is perhaps the biggest of all. There are too many do gooders in between the entrepreneur like me and the community. Each intermediary seeks to have a bit of the pie for themselves.

Political leadership is not adequately internet savvy to take advantage of opportunities that are presented on social networking sites like linked in. Inspite of the global diffidence on the political leadership of a country, this the group that the world has to live and work with. Its evolution into the world of internet is happening and I hope that in the future we can reach and connect with them to work with their constituents. Not only this will give us return in financial terms on the money that is deployed but there is an added attraction that somehow somewhere we have made a bit of a difference to the lives of the poor.

Community development

Most community development models have been developed by government agencies, charity groups, not for profit entities, corporate social responsibility providing corporates but rarely by communities themselves. Project development and financing institutions view communities and the poor as a group who require to be uplifted from penury. The relationship between the two is that between a giver and recipient.

On the other hand business organizations build businesses and prepare business models with a view to generate ever increasing wealth. The original equity or debt gets quickly paid back by the company and the company becomes self sustainable.

The question then comes to mind is that why can we not undertake community development on business lines. After all many communities have assets in the form of land or could own rights over forests or have certain skills in arts and crafts etc.

Development professionals need to re-look at their project development models and perhaps unlearn some of their methods and look at communities as productive assets who can generate wealth just like any private business.

We are in the process of development projects on these lines.

It is becoming increasingly clear as the global recession plays itself out that the balance of economic power is slowly but surely shifting towards Asia. US and Europe will however continue to dominate in technology and research. Two way business growth between the developed countries and India and China will get stronger. Companies in the US and Europe behavior will follow the classic pioneer innovator, follower and laggard model while looking for collaboration and new opportunities in the fast growing Asia economies. It will not be too far in the distance that the followers will join the pioneer innovator clubs and the trickle will turn into a flood.

I am seeing this play out in my business where I see pioneers collaborating with us in entertainment, finance, healthcare and education. The pioneer innovators who are building these collaboration based business with us are all from USA. The Europeans are still too waiting on the sidelines.