Corporate vs Grassroots....Balancing act....!

It is certainly challenging how to justify the corporate tactics in the social (development) landscape, when the scale of operation demands complex engagements (especially in the developing country context).

Grameen Phone (http://www.grameenphone.com/) of Bangladesh, excited me too much recently when I saw their brand name parading from Dhaka Airport to the poorest villages all across the country....absolutely wonderful to see combination of Corporate engagement with Grassroots objectives.

Yet, when I go deep into the labyrinth of engagement....some questions kept coming out, indicating…how the politics and power battles of Grameen with Corporate partners (Telenoor) created fractures in the community hearts....!

‘Telenoor is pumping millions of Taka out of our country. This is not fare…! We are a very poor country..!’

But there is another side to the story as I visited one of the Grameen CIC (telecenter) with one of the recently recruited graduates to the Grameen telecom.

‘It is certainly a dream coming true to join Grameen Phone. Well – this is the dream I had when I was in the university…!’

Almost every young graduate of the country dreams to join the company, while their poor mothers at the rural villages are being benefited....by the mobile phones to engage in micro-enterprises!

Leave alone complex stories, is it possible to replicate the Grameen - Telenoor model....in another country context....whether policy and economic structures are much tightly fabricated...........well...probably…only the future can answer.....!

D.Net - Seeking sustainability

Selling information to the poor communities....!?! Well sounds impossible. But it is happening in the real world, with the mastery of D.Net (www.dnet-bangladesh.org) the Applied research based, development NGO of Bangladesh.

Pallithtaya kendra (telecentre) (http://www.pallitathya.org/), model of D.Net has so much to offer in the sustainability quest. They offer knowledge / information services, for a fee. Villagers visit these places to obtain agriculture, health and educational information which are made available in local (Bangala) language.

Taking Pallithtaya kendra as the ‘front end’, D.Net had invested substantial time and expert resources to build up a sound ‘back end’ support system which consist of a knowledge data base and professional help desk.

JEEON-ikb (Information and Knowledge base: file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Harsha%20Liyanage/Application%20Data/Microsoft/Word/www.abolombon.org/jeeon) is the name of the database carrying over 30,000 local language web pages, covering 9 thematic areas which include Agriculture, Health, Education, Human Rights, Job bank etc. D.Net interacts with over 100 institutions to update the data base and expect about 10-20% of the annual operational budget to be generated by the sales of knowledge products.

D.Net’s patient invesements over decade long journey since 1996, proving to be paying off. In addition to the Pollithtya Kendras, they are entering to the income generation of scale. Grameen CIC (http://www.grameenphone.com/), the giant telecom company who sets up a large scale telecentre network (500 Grameen CICs – country wide), is considering to build business partnerships with D.Net. The goal of the D.Net is to trade Local language capability, Research know-how & local need based knowledge products, in there negotiation tables.

'Though we have come long way developing our niche capacity on information informediary services, we are not comfortable about our present scale of revenue generation' - Dr Ananya Reihan, founding Director of D.Net.

But immediate future seems to offer many prospects as telecentres are mushrooming all across the Bangladesh landscape.

‘Our long term goal is to master BOI (Benefit on Investment) instead of ROI (Return on Investment), where we may capture profits from richer communities, to compensate the thin economic gains with poor segments’ – D.Net sounds very determined.

Sustainability 1st. What is this.?

Telecentre.org aims to support the telecentre operators to build economic sustainability of their operations. Knowing the magnitidue of the demands and challanges, telecentre.org has assigned a visiting fellow (Dr Harsha Liyanage) to engage in a research study, while engaging the services of NESsT Pvt Ltd (http://www.nesst.org/) to build the social enterprise capacity of the telecentre networks. This mission is named as 'Sustainability 1st', and this blog site is dedicated to share the findings with the interested wider audiance while engaging their participation in to the mission of 'Susatinability 1st'.