Sumitra Pasupathy, Global Partnerships Director, Ashoka
I am excited to welcome another special guest for you; Sumitra Pasupathy, the Country Director of Ashoka. Ashoka is legendary in the world of social entrepreneurship. Based on the idea that the most powerful force for good in the world is a social entrepreneur, Ashoka was founded in 1980 by Bill Drayton. The organisation started identifying and supporting the world’s leading social entrepreneurs and are well-known in the ecosystem for their rigorous vetting system, which hopefully we can talk a little bit more about with Sumi later in this episode.
Sumi is a social entrepreneur and the Co-founder and Director of Playeum, an innovative education content and service provider centered on creativity for children and families based in Singapore. Sumitra was most recently the Program Lead for The Changemaker Journey, a six-month capacity-building pilot program led by Ashoka and funded by Google.org, benefitting 28 non-profit organizations from India, Indonesia and Singapore, aimed at fast-tracking digital adoption and tech-based solutions as they pivot the way they work.
Sumitra Pasupathy
Global Partnerships Director, Ashoka
Episode Transcript
Amra Naidoo 00:04
Hi, and welcome to the doing good podcast. My name is Amra Naidoo and I'm your host. Together, we're going to speak to leading experts and changemakers in their fields, people who are doing their part to create a better world. We're going to hear more about the issues that they're working on, what drives them, how they got started, and what their biggest challenges. We're going to use our all access pass to understand what impact really means to them. Before we get started, I just wanted to say thanks to you. I'm so passionate about creating impact and leaving this world about better. And you must feel the same way which is why you're joining me on this journey. So thanks for tuning into the doing good podcast. Now let's get into this episode.
Hi, everyone is Amra here and welcome back to another episode of The doing good podcast. today. I'm excited to welcome another special guest for you and a very friendly face for me, and someone who I got quite a few years back with Sumitra, who is the country director of Ashoka. Ashoka is absolutely legendary in the world of social entrepreneurship. And it's based on the idea that the most powerful force for good in the world is a social entrepreneur. Ashoka was founded in 1985, Bill Drayton, and the organisation started identifying and supporting the world's leading social entrepreneurs, who are also well known in their ecosystem. And Ashoka is pretty well known in the ecosystem for the really vigorous vetting system that you have for the fellow. So hopefully we can talk about that and other things more in this episode. So that brings me to my lovely guests today. Sue me, welcome to the doing good podcast. It's really awesome to have you here.
Sumitra 02:07
Amra it's so great to be back. It's been so many years since we played together. during your time at UN Women, it was great, because we're both discovering impact together at the time. And yeah, to see how far we've travelled.
Amra Naidoo 02:24
It was about eight years ago when we first because that's when I first came to Singapore. So that must be when we first met. That's a very long time in the whole social impact world I think.
Sumitra 02:37
Yeah, absolutely. And we're still in it. So that's, yeah, yeah, that's great. So it's nice. So nice to see you. After all this time.
Amra Naidoo 02:46
Yeah, good to see you, too. And so now you are the Country Director Ashoka for Singapore and Malaysia. Prior to this, you were a social entrepreneur, I guess you still are a social entrepreneur. It's not something that ever goes away. You co founded a social enterprise called plan, which we can talk about a little bit later as well. And most recently, you're also the programme lead for something called the change maker journey, which is a six month capacity building pilot programme led by Ashoka and funded by Google. So we'll also talk a little bit more about that. But I guess let's start with basics. What is social entrepreneurship to Ashoka? What is what does it mean? And how do you kind of define that?
Sumitra 03:40
Yeah, so I think, you know, founder is Bill Drayton, you know, about 40 years ago, he was, you know, he was working with McKinsey at the time, he was a consultant at McKinsey at the time. And, and he was always passionate about the idea that individuals can take action to solve problems, right? So sort of around, you know, midway through his career, or sort of a third way through his career, he decided to leave McKinsey and to launch Ashoka. And he went off to India first, to figure out what is it, you know, to define what a social entrepreneur is. And basically, the idea was that individuals in society, so civil society members, civic agents, can take creative actions, to empathise with a problem and come up with solutions. And it's not just limited to governments, or large NGOs. And and this matters and he thought this was really very important because civil society you know, the everyday man on the street is closest The problem, and if he sees the problem first, and he comes up with a creative solution, society then becomes empowered to come up with solutions for itself. Right? So this idea that agency matters was a big idea that that bill championed. And so, and this is what we call a social entrepreneur, someone who sees a problem and comes up with a solution, we have quite a strict criteria, as you alluded to, earlier, and I'm happy to talk about it. And then we elected our first Ashoka fellow in India. And here's the fun fact that, you know, many people don't know, but it was our first country that helped us define the field. And the second country was actually Indonesia. Oh, wow. Yeah. And then the third is Brazil. And then after that was Thailand and Mexico. So you know, social entrepreneurship has had a long history in Southeast Asia and South Asia. So yeah, India, and Indonesia has been a big, big area of interest.
Amra Naidoo 06:09
Yeah, that's interesting, because I think, you know, especially when you look at a lot of "popular" social enterprise, social impact type organisations out there, the narrative seems to be really Western, like you see a lot of American or European type companies. But I would agree with you, I think there are a lot of social enterprises, or organisations that, you know, by nature of all the kinds of challenges that need to be felt in this region. Most organisations can be competitive social enterprises, if you're looking at a broad definition of what that means. So how, I guess maybe let's go into what does the definition look like for Ashoka? How do you? How do you decide one is a social enterprise and one isn't?
Sumitra 07:01
Right, so what Ashoka does is we pick the person, so we help find the person rather than the organisation. So we try and find the individual. And this individual is deeply passionate about solving the problem, the heart of the problem, and will not rest to get it done. Right, yeah. And we have a criteria and it took us time to develop this, we have a criteria that we looked at, which are four sort of four areas for sort of criteria, or areas. One is what is a new idea? You know, you know, what is the problem here that this person is trying to solve to is how creative is that solution. And this is really interesting, this is less about servicing an immediate problem, but really about empowering as many people to adopt the solution so that you reach a wide reach as possible, right? So how creative is a solution in allowing large scale impact? The third one is the actual social impact in itself. And the fourth thing is ethical and moral fibre. I just want to say one other thing. You know, where we're clear, we're getting pretty singly clear that our thoughts around the fellowship and electing these fellows are just to help society recognise really innovative pathways, right. And they're not the only ones to solve problems. And we hope that Ashoka fellows, inspire others, get replicated by others, and create new pathways for everybody. So that we create a world where everyone is driving change for the good of all, and we just why we've got this slogan, like, everybody's, you know, we are creating everyone that changed my whole world. I mean, that's how big a dream and aspiration, that everyone's taking action to solve problems as they emerge. So so they just really, you know, like, you know, like, sort of want to say, like, you know, light bulbs in the street so that you know, where you're heading and you can replicate it and you can move forward, you can collaborate with social entrepreneurs like Ashoka fellows.
Amra Naidoo 09:25
Yeah. I like that, like bulbs of the street. That's a really nice way of saying it. So I think one of the things I was thinking about, especially as you were talking originally about, you know, how social entrepreneurship is really embedded in this region. Do you think it's a growing trend, or do you think it's always been this way, you know, because obviously in the media, you see a lot more spotlights on different types of organisations doing different types of impacts. work, I guess especially in my industry, you see a lot of fun that are now, you know, impact focused and green focused. But I guess to what extent the depth is there is is another question. Do you think that things are changing? Or do you think it's just, you know...
Sumitra 10:18
Um, yeah, I think it's a really, really exciting time. So I think there are two things there. Right. That's a great question. I think on one side, we have had civil society take action to solve problems. We've had that for a while, right. Just from a historical context, you know, most of the region has emerged from poverty. You know, we're only maybe at best 60 years rich, you know, 60-70 years rich. So we've largely emerged from poverty, largely colonised region as well. A long history in the region. So I think civil society has always taken action to solve problems. But I think what you're also alluding to is this huge groundswell now that's emerging where there's a lot of capital now moving towards supporting social entrepreneurs, right. And 40 years ago, we didn't know what this field was known, you know, what, what this field was, I mean, we had private enterprise, we have big NGOs, and inherently some private enterprise were solving problems, but they were profit first. And they were fulfilling the old economic model. Right? I think what we're seeing now is, people are telling us everywhere, especially young people, that they don't just want profit, they also want purpose, and they, and doing good as we make profit. So so I think you're seeing a shift in public sentiment, but you're also seeing a shift in the capital markets. And some of our Ashoka fellows have been behind the shift. And there's a great Ashoka fellow, Mark Campanale, from the UK, has done a tonne of work around climate change in the carbon bubble. And and you know, folks like that, that have been really advocating very strongly to the resource in the capital markets to kind of say, look, it's not enough just to make money and to do good deals, all economic models don't work anymore. What would it look like? If you could do do good and do well at the same time? Right. And in that order, and Kate, Kate role was this really good at mapping that out? And, you know, your your fund, as well as doing work like that? So I think, I think that on the capital side, we are seeing, we're seeing more.
Amra Naidoo 12:45
Yeah. And so, I mean, well, actually got your your title wrong before that, you're Global Partnerships Director, what it what is your role look like? And how does this tie into what Ashoka does overall?
Sumitra 13:02
Yeah, so I think this is linked to the question before, right. So with all this excitement that is happening, I think, what we're trying to figure out, you know, how do we bring the best actors together. So, you know, we, for example, this partnership programme that we have with google.org last year, which was to support 30, social entrepreneurs, develop their system change plans. And, and, and bring them in to support to first put it was an accelerator programme that did three things. One is help them accelerate their systemic impact to is be mentored and supported by a bunch of, you know, astute industry leaders, and three is raised more capital and resources for them. So that's a good example of, you know, in my role, what I'm trying to do is really try and find partners out there because we can't track you know, what's that famous proverb if we want to go fast, go alone. But if we want to go far, you have to go together, right? Yeah. With the world and the pace of change that we're living in where like the pandemic problems are popping up all the time in an in a very short time affecting a lot of people and also affecting people in a very unequal way. Right. The poorest have been affected by the pandemic, the most, right? I mean, we sit in Singapore, I'd read today 70% have been inoculated, but the poorest and Indonesia and India have still not been so in this context. What we're looking for in my role in global partnerships. Ashoka fellows and social entrepreneurs are working on deep systemic impact, right and and they are very quickly citing the They can't travel alone, they need to travel with partners, and they need to bring others along. One is because of the resources they need to as they recognised in their solutioning, that they need other partners to, to mobilise their solutions. So I'm in my role in this role of partnerships, I'm looking to find other like minded partners that are willing to put the problem in the centre are passionate about systems change and solving problems, and are willing to collaborate to create that change.
Amra Naidoo 15:35
Yeah. Oh, wow what a nice role. You get to see, you know, all kinds of solutions happening all over the place and kind of match make them all together.
Sumitra 15:46
Yeah, I never looked at it that way, like, systems change. My job title just changed
Amra Naidoo 16:00
And so you mentioned this partnership with google.org. Can you talk a little bit about the programme, how you chose the participants, and I guess what the process was like?
Sumitra 16:13
Yeah, so um, you know, we were deeply grateful to Google for this large scale partnership with Ashoka last year, and it was right at the onset of the pandemic. And basically, Maria and Grace at Google were like, Hey, what do you need? How do we, how do we move forward? And what we recognised with our 30 social entrepreneurs in India, Indonesia and Singapore, their models had to change overnight. Everything shifted overnight, right? If your education provider kids were no longer going to schools, you know, what would you? What would you would you redo it? So the first thing we said was, well, can we first go through a systems change? workshop, like cat bring the participants together? to really say, what is the problem that we're trying to solve now under the current context? So we put them through an accelerator, a system change accelerator over a six month period, that covered topics around their model of operation, like the problem they're trying to solve? And what is their new plan of action? How do you incorporate technology? And you know, and how do you understand technology? How can technology become useful to you? We were all home bound overnight, right? And you couldn't, you know, you couldn't service you couldn't reach out to your beneficiaries the same way anymore. And the third thing we worked on is how do you bring more partners and supporters and advisors to the work that the 30 organisations were we're doing? So um, that's what we did for six months, we also released a knowledge report, which I think we've shared with you, which really looks at how technology and humanity coexist in Asia, and what are the needs of social entrepreneurs, as well as what are the opportunities for impact in the future. So we did that for six months started the accelerator. The organization's had five sessions of mentoring with Google employees and county employees, to review their business plans with them. And then they had a pitch session with philanthropist and impact investors to share their new models, I'm pleased to say for them raised significant capital for their philanthropic funding for their organisations. And one of them went on to go on and win the Google AI challenge, which was a global challenge. Great use AI. Yeah. Which is fantastic. And then many other organisations, you know, rebuilt their organisations rebuild their teams, you know, a large part of it was reorganising your teams because of the because of the COVID pandemic. So yeah, so so that was the programme. Yeah, that'd be
Amra Naidoo 19:09
I mean, I imagine, naive me didn't even think about that. Of course, they would have to rethink their entire way of delivering their services, their programmes, absolutely everything. And also imagine how especially using technology, there would have been a lot of issues and how do you actually get technology adoption in some of the places that they're working? Versus some massive challenges that just like a normal app, and things can't come fix? Interesting. And so you also talk a little bit about systems change. So I guess now would be a good time to be like what is systems change? Now, how does this relate to I guess everything that you've been talking about so far? Maybe we'll start with? What is system change?
Sumitra 20:08
Yeah, that's a great question. I'm not the expert, but I'll try.
Amra Naidoo 20:13
You know, you know, like system change is one of those things that you always hear about it. It's always spoken about. But when you actually ask the question, it's like, it's a little bit difficult to explain. Right?
Sumitra 20:27
Yeah, yeah, no, it's a great question. And I'm glad you're asking it, because it'll, it ties so much back to, you know, problem solving, and doing societal impact, or being in the space that we're in. Um, I look at it really simply that systems change tries to get to the root cause of the problem, right? So you're really asking yourself big questions around why is this problem happening? And what is it causing it? You know, I've run workshops with teenagers, for young people on this, and I think the best way to do it is to ask why about five times? And why and why. You know, and we do it with the, with teenagers on this, and you get to the, to the root of the problem, right? My colleague who ci trains, this course, around Asia, uses this example of, you know, imagine you're walking on a beach, and you suddenly find a starfish on the beach, right? Now, if you're solving the problem straight away, you pick up the starfish, and maybe throw it back in the water. Right. But if you're trying to do systems work, you will be asking the question, why is it stuffed fish on the beach? You know, and ask it about five times, you know, like, what's caused it to be on the beach? Is it the water, is it the sea level is it, you know, the pH of the water, you know, so you try and get the underpinning cause of the problem. That is shoka, we see ourselves as a systems change organisation, an organisation that drives changes, we hope to it, we aspire to change systems, and, and also create new mindset and behavioural shapes. So when we do this work, we're trying to help out, we elect our social entrepreneurs on the basis that they have systemic solutions, so that the rest of the world can understand them even better. So you know, social entrepreneurs that can understand them, and maybe even replicate them. So we have more system leaders around the world. And we look at five, you know, we have a very base Sorry, I'm getting a bit technical, and then I'll stop. So we look at five things when we were inspired by a system scientists and change scientists donnatella matters. And she talks about five dimensions of a system, the results, you know, what results are you trying to achieve? What roles are different actors in the system playing? What relationships? You know, the different actors have? How are you changing the relationships? What rules a you shifting? And what resources are you using? So for example, in education, because that's my field, just to finish that off with an example. A classic example is you have the teacher sitting right in the front of the classroom, doing child can talk and writing stuff down, right? But in a world of change, where learning is changing so fast, what is the role of the teacher in that classroom? What, you know, if you're trying to prepare young people for the future? What you know, What, are you going to shift in the role of the teacher? Could the role of the teacher flip and become a facilitator? Rather than the provider of knowledge? Right, right. So so that's what we mean by working at a systems level, changing these five R's in the system. Yeah, Does that help?
Amra Naidoo 24:04
I actually, I think, I love this explanation. And it's probably the most easy to understand explanation because I think when people talk about system change, it's often very vague and overwhelming, you know, overwhelming when you think about oh my god, I need to change a whole system, you know, like a whole policy, you know, a framework or something like that, and, and then you get overwhelmed or you don't know where to start. So I also do like, the idea that, you know, you mentioned before, that these fellows are lightbulbs and so they are working examples that people can just kind of copy maybe in their home markets and and you know, get inspiration from as well.
Sumitra 24:49
Exactly, exactly. So I'll give you a good example. I love the fact that you said copy totally copies you know, because over 97 of our social entrepreneurs because you know you were you were talking about the show because impact, over 90% of our fellows are replicated. And we are measuring ourselves to that standard, like have we picked the right people that can be replicated. And here's a good example before Airbnb existed. There was an Ashoka fellow named Casey Fenton. And he started couch surfing. I don't know if you've heard of couchsurfing? Yeah, yeah. He launched it as a nonprofit almost eight years, I think before Airbnb. He launched it as a nonprofit in the Bay Area and allowed for people to go online. It was a trust based system where you exchanged vouchers and state.
Amra Naidoo 25:38
Long ago, I remember.
Sumitra 25:41
Exactly. But that existed way before Airbnb, right? Yeah. And now you've got this huge for profit enterprise known as Airbnb is also doing a lot of good in the sharing economy. So yes, absolutely see social entrepreneurs as the r&d, almost all solutions for society that can be replicated. Yeah, for the good of all.
Amra Naidoo 26:04
And so I guess talking about impact, then, how do you measure impact for systems change? It seems like a lot, a lot to think about. And especially I guess, with a shoka, you've got fellows working across all different geographies, all different industries, different types of models, as well with that organisation. How do you? How do you look at that and be like, this is the change you've made?
Sumitra 26:33
Yeah, I'll have to send you our report. So it's really good, so going just like left onto that in two parts in the programme, that, that we ran in partnership with google.org. On top of the systems change work, we did do impact measurement, I failed to mention that just now, we did technology, but we also did modules and impact measurement, which was delivered by our partner sattva in India, to help organisations measure their system change impact, and exactly for the reasons you've just mentioned, it's not easy to measure, you're not you know, going back to the teacher example, you're not measuring the number of kids you teach, right? Or the number of schools that you reach, you're measuring something more difficult and more complex than that. So for ashoka, to answer the question for ashoka, we measure a couple of things, because we want to create system change, we want to create a change in the system, we measure the number of fellows, you know about how many of our fellows what proportion of fellows are changing policy, national level policy, or even a lot wider than that. And that number is closer to between 65 to 70% of Ashoka fellows affect policy in some form. The other thing we look at is what I mentioned earlier on, what percentage of our fellows have models that can be replicated by others in their work. The third thing we look at is a lot of fellows and social entrepreneurs are also I want to say affecting the culture of the broader humanity in terms of helping them become more empathic, or working with children so that they're doing more creative problem solving, you know, and that sort of deeper fabric. Um, the fourth thing is, how many of them are affecting partnerships and collaborations with non civil society leaders. So with businesses, and government actors, so these are sort of some of the high level parameters that we measure with our social entrepreneurs?
Amra Naidoo 28:57
Yeah, I can, I mean, so, you know, at our organisation, we're currently developing our own impact measurement framework, and the idea that, you know, the depth that you guys are going into, frankly, just seems overwhelming to me. How do you even start with that?
Sumitra 29:17
Yeah. And you know, I think it all with us, you know, how, you know, we look at things like how many other people have you influenced, what mindset Have you changed? Yeah. How are people acting differently? Who are they involving, you know, trying to see how people's see differently so they can think and do differently? And I think, you know, the space for different levels of impact. So, you know, maybe just to give some framework to that, like, what we talked about is literally there are four levels of impact. The first level of impact is something called direct service, which is you see, you know, you're solving the immediate point problem that you see at hand is their children on the streets, street children, you support these children straight away, right? And you try and get them off the streets and educate them, house them, feed them, right. So that's direct service, solving the immediate problem hand or disaster recovery is another great one. For direct service work. The second level is scaling that so that you have wider reach. The third level is system change. And the fourth level is mindset and behavioural change. So we love to focus on three and four. But of course, you have to get one and two. Right, right. But there are many others who do work at the one and two level. Right? So we need people to play at all levels. And I think capital and what you measure would vary across all, you know, yeah,
Amra Naidoo 30:54
I'd be really keen to read your report. I guess. So back to the the work that you did with google.org. Can you talk a little bit about, you know, what, what was identified as part of this whole programme that were, I guess, some of the key issues that the entrepreneurs were facing? With, I guess, COVID, and also the adoption of technology and their line of work?
Sumitra 31:24
Yeah, sure. I think the one of the biggest thing with the, with the emergence of COVID, right, because the programme literally took off at the start of, of the COVID period. So the first thing was, how do they adapt with the emergence of COVID? Right? Well, you know, um, you know, how do they use, for example, technology? How would they be solving the problem that they need to solve, and we took the opportunity in that time for them to revisit their impact plans and their system change plans. So one was adapting to the emergence of COVID. Right. The second thing was their organisational development, like, so many of them got sick themselves, right, and their teams got sick. And suddenly, you know, they were all on zoom. And we'll talk about technology in a bit. But suddenly, the very nature of with your organization's had to operate had to catch a change. So it was a great opportunity for the organization's because we not only worked with the founders of the organisations or the leaders of the organisations, but many of them brought their next generation leaders with them. So we were coaching teams, rather than you know, we're running an accelerator for a team rather than an individual. And it gave the team time and space to actually take a step back and reflect what they were doing and how to move forward and to and to consider how to move forward. That was one of the main feedback that we got from the programme from the impact assessment was that it gave them time, a new collaborative learning space for systems leadership and entrepreneurs. Right, entrepreneurship, right. And the other thing that they said they got out of it was a new mindset and, and perspective and approach. So it gave them a good opportunity to press restart. And financial sustainability was very openly discussed as well. As you can imagine, that's another big area for many of the organisations to consider. So those are the three sort of immediate post COVID need areas in terms of how technology could be used. I think there was just at one level, with the Google Doc programme, we worked with the partner info exchange, actually, which is an Australian. Yeah, Melbourne based nonprofit, which helped basic tooling and skilling of using a technology. You know, for some organisations, even running sessions and Zoo was a new thing, right? Yeah. So just because we were running the sessions and zoo, their sessions with us were also we didn't realise at the time was indirectly an opportunity for them to use similar methodologies for them. Yeah. But info exchange also did provide more guidance around how do you fundraise using technology? How do you look at using deeper types of technology like AI and machine learning, but just you know, in a very, like, light touch sort of way, and how to use some basic collaborative tools. So one of the biggest areas of need as well as areas where technology was used extensively last year was collaborative tooling, right like Google Docs and Google meets and all of that which is available or on Facebook. via social media, etc. So they were very good at helping the organisations understand what was available to them, and how to move online using these different tools.
Amra Naidoo 35:12
Yeah, I can imagine there would have been a massive learning curve for many people.
Sumitra 35:17
Yeah, definitely including us.
Amra Naidoo 35:23
And from the reports, there were a few key insights that I was reading about. So apart from the the challenges that were identified, there was some opportunities as well to just deliver better support for scaling some of these solutions and supporting some of these entrepreneurs. Can you talk a little bit more about what the outcomes were?
Sumitra 35:51
Yeah, sure, um, some of the areas of opportunity was, you know, how do we, how do we draw by better partnerships with non civil society actors? Right. So in the report, when we talked about what are the needs, for for the field, one of the big area was a growing need of support for for new actors in the ecosystem, particularly in Asia. So this report was done with organisations in India, Indonesia, Singapore, and across Southeast Asia. And there's a real need, you know, because at the time, given the change how everything was shut down, there was an interesting growing need to have bigger participation of international foundations. Not only government, but also corporations, technology partners and corporations. So so I think that was one of the opportunities identified.
Amra Naidoo 36:58
But do you think that is something that is new, though? I feel like partnerships and collaboration is something that has always, especially across sectors, has just always been something that needs to be worked on. You know what I mean? Like, I feel like everybody just works in their silo. And that's why I mean, roles like yours are really important and interesting as well, because you're kind of the connector between all the different industries. So I'm wondering if this is a new problem, or maybe the types of that's the way it's changing?
Sumitra 37:41
No, Amra, you're absolutely right. It's It's It's not a new narrative, right? We've had this for so long. I think what I learned from talking to these fellows, when I was doing the research was two things that I didn't really consider seriously enough. One is people talk about collaboration. But there's a hierarchy of power, right? Yeah a hierarchy of power. There is a grant maker, or the government or the funder that has really good intentions and aspirations. But they're really at the decision making level. Right? So what I was hearing from the social entrepreneurs, which are closest to civil society, especially at this time, and there's so much change going on is how do we get a seat at the table? Right? I'm in the CO creation phase, not and in the decision making phase of the process of the solutioning, rather than being downstream of that, right? So I'll give you a good example. Because you know, you you're passionate about women agenda topics on tech, and it's related to technology as well. So when everything went offline, and everything was on mobile phones, in India, governments were particularly good at going to civil society. So they were the net winners because they were desperate. They couldn't, you know, the school infrastructure was broken. There was no longer much access through schools. So they went to really many of the social entrepreneurs that was in our cohort, like Akshay from avanti learning to say, Well, can you help us out? Like, we need to reach these kids? Can you help us out? Um, so government was very good at building a bridge and collaborating in that way, right. Um, however, what we what they noticed when they were solutioning, and devising solutions for mobile phones is any very quickly you know, developed really great YouTube videos, you know, learning videos that could be distributed, etc. And they sent it out. But when they actually went and did the field visits, like four to six months later, even COVID abated for a bit. They actually found that in the most rural parts of India, which is like the bottom 30 35% You know, the the data card that's required is a daily wage, right? The the amount of funds required to buy a data card is a daily wage. And often the mobile phone belonged to dad, right. And so dad's holding the one mobile phone, he's also earning the livelihood for the family through that one mobile phone. Now it is up past funds to, to share the phone, it turns out, the male child in the household will be using the phone calls were more represented and farms, right. And they ended up going out and farming. So more gold went up, actually took steps back and went back to the fields. So so this is what I mean, like well intended solutioning may not necessarily result in is up in the desired outcomes. And how does that social entrepreneur feed in any future interventions and the decision making level because he's seeing that happen, right? And so that that feedback loop needs to move faster than this hierarchical one way flow, if you like, of decision making. So that's I think the next wave in frontier in sort of any forms of collaboration is, you know, as you're devising solutions, can we talk to funders and government leaders to co create and co lead and work with this feedback in designing solutions?
Amra Naidoo 41:26
I mean, that would be game changing, right? The not only the speed of which you're able to respond to something, but the effectiveness of it to have that response. And sorry, I interrupted you, when you were talking about the other opportunities, we'd love to hear some of those other insights that you you've got from the report, too.
Sumitra 41:48
Yeah. So I think that was that was a couple of that. The other thing we found for emerging insights, right, like an opportunities is this whole idea around agency. So that's, so much of the world has become, you know, pre COVID, if you think about it, and especially out in Asia, right, you know, over the last 3040 years, as we've got more developed, and a lot of it has been entrenched in rote and repetition, right? Doing things really well repeating them and producing them. changes come upon us in a in a very, very big way. So how do we empower everyone to take action to solve problems? So unanimously, in a lot of our solutions of this, you know, what social entrepreneurs are doing? Is there empowering other changemakers they're empowering other people. And technology has been able to do that, I think technology is most powerful when it allows for agency of everyone, like everyone taking charge, and when it allows for solidarity, when it acts for the good of all. So um, it turned out 23, or 30, organisations are working with young people, and children in different capacities, and many of them are putting young people in charge. Because if young people find their change, making power, their ability to do good in the, in their teenage years, then the chances of them having that efficacy and continuing to do good, you know, will go up. So that was another big, big area and opportunity inside that we that we saw. Um, there was some interesting things around data and data ownership and new collaborative models for data ownership.
Amra Naidoo 43:47
Yeah so on topic, globally.
Sumitra 43:53
Yeah. And it's so exciting to see that some of these solutions already exist, right. And Indonesia on day of the Lapa has this amazing model where farmers historically, you know, because he was really restless about deforestation in Indonesia, however, it was a big chicken and egg problem, right? You can't tell farmers to stop chopping trees down when they're trying to feed their families. And the big pulp and paper companies are thriving, right? It didn't seem balanced for him. So he said, Well, what would it look like if I built a new a new model for collaborating, and so he empowered the model that he came up with is to empower the farmers to collect the data about the trees that belong to them. And tracking every single tree using data and mobile, right. And the farmers then own that data and they belong to a cooperative and the cooperative belongs to their data. And so the history of the tree is tracked and they can decide You know that the number of trees that are growing and the growth of the tree and and the farming principles around that. So that cooperative then works with the FSC with the for forests FSC, who certifies sustainable forestry in terms of supplying, you know, pulp and paper, or sub supplying wood for pulp and paper. So that's a good example where technology has been used the data data belongs to the farmers, it belongs to the cooperative of farmers. And that data stays with them. And they use that data for the good evolve. Same thing with reggy, around farming products in Indonesia, uses blockchain for farmers to exchange data about their farming techniques. And these are tier three tier four cities. Right?
Amra Naidoo 45:51
Yeah. Wow. Yeah, amazing.
Sumitra 45:55
Yeah. And and just so that, you know, in those two examples they have for profit or not for profit entities to write, to achieve different parts of their mission, which is, which is great.
Amra Naidoo 46:09
So I mean, definitely ideal example. Right, you know, combining so many different parts of, you know, industries and ideas. Exactly what I guess, partnerships, you know, and collaboration side of things is all about is bringing the best parts of different different people's ideas and putting them together in this one. solution. Interesting.
Sumitra 46:34
Yeah, and, you know, just one other thing about one other opportunity that I learned from this is a lot of, there's a lot of opportunity with technology to that we captured in this report around driving large scale systemic impact using technology. So one of the organisations that we had, for example, pratham books, open sources, and open licences, all their content that they create for books around the world, right, wow. Yeah. And they empower the district distribute the ability to create, solve and make books to other writers and authors around the world. So that's another good example, where technology can go further in driving systemic impact, and driving change, because they were very passionate around, making sure there's a book in every child's hand, but after so far, you know, pratham books themselves cannot reach every child. So then the next question was, how do they empower every book writer author around the world to do that. So that was when they open sourced an open, distributed solutions. And then about four years ago, they used AI to allow for own language processing. So book writers and authors around the world could publish those books in their own languages. So they just download it and do it in their own language. And now they've got books that cross with, you know, over 300 different languages, etc. Again, that's a good example of technology driving large scale impact. Yeah.
Amra Naidoo 48:13
And I think this all comes back to what you said, I think you're a second point was about human agency. Because in all of these examples, it really seems like, you know, the people who are benefiting it from from it the most are also the most empowered to kind of make those decisions and be really involved. Yeah, and so I guess, you know, on that note, you've had quite a journey and getting into, you know, Ashoka or the the social entrepreneurship space I mentioned that we'd met eight years ago in another life. You know, and when we're talking about human agency, and empowering others to create change, how, how did you get started in all of this, you know, what was your journey in getting to this stage where you're at right now?
Sumitra 49:05
Yeah, um, that's a great question. So, um, I, it's a deeply reflective question, actually. And I know we always ask people in interviews and stuff this question, but I think it's, I always keep thinking back, when did I first start and I have to say that I did small things as a young person, and I think we are all dead. You know, I remember my first moment of creating change was actually in school. And I used drama. I always thought it was when I started playing the organisation in Singapore, which you remember, but actually, when we before that, I was very passionate about at 16 years old, very passionate about intercultural understanding and so we didn't do theatre and drama. And then my first employer was actually in the private sector. I actually was For Procter and Gamble in the beginning, and I did do some in the team within r&d, we did do social innovation back then around better actives and stuff like that for laundry products. So but I think where I really found my voice was in, was in plan, were very single mindedly the problem that I was trying to solve was, together with my co founder, Jennifer, was agency of young people have children, right? We were both very passionate. We both had our first kids, Rowan was was now 16. And he was at the time one years old. Yes, yes, he was 16 years ago, my dog. Yeah. Yeah, 15 years ago, and I, you know, and I studied in the UK. And Ron was actually first born in the UK and I was heavily pregnant with actually my second son at the time, who's now 15, turning 15 soon. And we found that relationships between parents and the status of children in communities and in the region generally was very different from what we had observed overseas. And we felt genuine, I felt quite strongly around the idea that children are powerful. How do we shift the way we see children? And how do we use play and creativity to unlock the voice? Every child? Right? So that's when we created plan? In 2008?
Amra Naidoo 51:41
Yeah, and the rest is history
Sumitra 51:44
So Charlotte, Goh now runs Playeum, I still still sit on the board with the founding board members. Yeah.
Amra Naidoo 51:52
Which is funny because I know Charlotte too - very smallworld.
Sumitra 51:58
Yeah, Charlotte's awesome.
Amra Naidoo 52:00
She is she is I have to talk to her soon on this podcast. And I guess, you know, part of the reason why I asked that question, and, you know, I think we've talked a lot about a lot of big things that entrepreneurs are doing out there around the world to create change. But, you know, for someone listening to this podcast, who maybe hasn't started yet, or is thinking about something, you know, do you have any words of wisdom for them? Well, as they're thinking about this journey, I would love to attract more people to think about impact in different ways.
Sumitra 52:38
Yeah, I think, you know, the tendency sometimes is to be I think you hit the nail on the head earlier on is to kind of say, Oh, my God, this is too big a problem, or, you know, too many people need to be involved to solve a problem, right? And oh, it'll never change, right? The barriers, the sort of inner voice that stops you can be quite loud at times, right? Um, so my thing would be one, just take baby steps, like the small steps matter. Just doing something small. Without overthinking it, is probably the best thing that we did in the first few years of play. And we just went out and ran activities, ran programmes and just learned, you know, so that's, that's one second is being truly empathic, I had to learn that, in this field, it didn't come naturally. To me, I mean, to be honest, I mean, we're so used to, at least I am, I grew up so used to, like, we learnt this, if we think this is a good idea, we just roll it out, right? And push it out. Right? The best thing about this field is, you know, it really helps you learn to listen very, very deeply into what's happening in the field. And, and to be asking some really big questions. I think we often don't give enough time for the big questions, like, why is this happening and what might be behind it, you know, um, so I think that would be the second thing. And the third thing is just enjoy yourself through it. I think, you know, just like, like I said to you when I first saw you, like, you look younger than I remember years ago, and I think it's the genuine joy and your passion for the work that you're doing. I mean, this work is hugely rewarding, as much as it's wearing at times. Because it's so uncertain and Uncharted, it can be, you know, incredibly rewarding when you are serving people for the good of all, you know, and so I think really enjoying yourself doing that. I think is is really cool. So if you're bored and listening to this, I You want something different come into our space.
Amra Naidoo 55:04
There's always something exciting going on in this space. I feel like it moves so quickly. It's. So I mean, we are coming to the end of the interview today. But before we wrap up, there's something that I usually do with my guest is called three things. It actually started with a really good group of friends that I have. And, you know, we always found that, you know, sometimes it's too much to catch up on what what someone else is doing. So how we simplified it is, you know, what are three things that you would like to share with people who are listening today, it could be absolutely anything, something completely superficial, like, you know, what you had for lunch, or you know, what you're thinking about doing straight after this interview, or it could be a problem that you're trying to solve? Maybe it's an opportunity to call out for some kind of support on the podcast. Yeah, anything. So three things that you would like to share with the people listening today?
Sumitra 56:07
Okay, let me let me have a go with this, I think the first thing is to look after yourself, really, really take time to self nurtures self care, and, and, you know, engage in in a discovery and in a work, that's my personal pet passion right now, we are in very, very difficult times. So we're all in different boats, you know, but weathering a very similar storm. So So one is self care. Two is I'm deeply passionate about wicked problems and systems change and innovation and solving wicked problems. So if anyone's out there wanting to do something really difficult. For you know, some of our social entrepreneurs or you know, really want to think differently, and how to create impact and make impact and love to hear from them. And the third thing would be to hug you know, so when you really care about in love in your lives, whoever that might be a beneficiary of a child, your child, children, boyfriend, girlfriend, whoever, so sweet.
Amra Naidoo 57:29
I love that. I love that last. I'm gonna go out to this and hug my husband and my dog.
Sumitra 57:42
I don't know why I got all loved up, I think it's looking at you. You look so Zen
Amra Naidoo 57:52
Okay, so that that is all the time that we have for today. But before we wrap up, I'm just gonna do my little spiel. So if you're listening, and you haven't already, please subscribe to the podcast on your favourite app. And while you're there, make sure you give us a little rating or a review that would be really awesome. And, you know, we've talked a little bit about how impact happens, we all know that our awareness is often the first step to creating change. So don't forget to share this episode with your friends or anyone that you think might enjoy listening. You can also check out the doing good podcast comm for show notes and more information about each of the guests that are featured. And if you've got any topics and guests that you'd love to see on the show, head to the website and let me know. And you can keep up to date with Sumi. How can people follow what you're doing and the work of Ashoka?
Sumitra 58:53
Yeah, um, I think the most updated is two places. One is my own personal LinkedIn page, which is Sumitra.pashupati, on LinkedIn, so do reach out and the other places on Ashoka is www.ashoka.org. And you'll be able to see the information about Ashoka as well. Ashoka is also on Facebook and LinkedIn. So those are the best platforms
Amra Naidoo 59:26
Awesome, on all the socials. So I will share all of the links in the show notes as well as information about all the different resources have spoke about today and links to some of the reports and other things. But in the meantime, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. And for me, thank you so much for your time. It's really nice to catch up again.
Sumitra 59:50
Yeah, thank you Amra. This is super fun. We got to grab coffee.