Anu Chitrapu, MBA '06

The cell phone can do it all!

I just returned from a trip to India and this time I had the opportunity to travel to a bunch of different villages in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. I had read about how cell phone usage in the villages in India had reached amazing numbers but was still taken by surprise when I saw for myself what this really meant. First pleasant surprise was that I was able to stay in constant touch with my family back in Boston. So whether it was from the train chugging along through small stations in Andhra Pradesh or from a hole-in-the-wall eating place along the road to a remote village, I was able to pull out my Blackberry and be greeted by 5 strong lines on the signal indicator. And my family sat in cold Boston and read my messages like "enjoying some really tasty breakfast and hot coffee for <50 cents in a little tea stall along the river..." or "got off at a pretty little station to stretch my legs but got to run back in as the train stops only for 5 mins". Quite different from when I look down at my Blackberry in the town of developed Belmont, MA and consider myself lucky if I can see 3 lines! Makes you wonder what developed really means!

When I got to the small village of Challapalli along the Godavari river I looked at the farm workers who had stopped by to say hello. None of them wore slippers, their hands looked like farm workers hands do, they wore simple, minimal cotton clothing but almost all the adults had a cell phone either in their hands or peeping out of their shirt pockets. With this phone they could make a call to Boston if they wanted - not that they knew anyone but me and they did not have my number. And I did not know how to tell them that if they called me on my cell phone chances were I would not be able to receive their call because of a weak signal in America - they would never believe me if I said the land of plenty had poor cell phone coverage! 

The villagers were using their cell phones for everything, and I mean everything. The house I went to was an old house that had no running water so I asked for a bucket of water to use the bathroom and sure enough someone pulled out their cell phone, spoke hurriedly into it and a little boy appeared with a bucket of water. News that we had arrived traveled to the paddy fields before we could tour the fields. I expressed a desire for a drink of tender coconut and it arrived thanks to the cell phone. If for some reason the cell phone tower went down, I have no idea how the villages would continue to function. Their dependance on cell phones is unimaginable.The funniest thing is in a lot of cases these people communicate without even answering their phones - just by letting the phones ring so the receiver could see who they had 'missed' calls from! I'm sure the operators are making only half the potential profits thanks to the missed call signaling.

What I saw was the cell phone becoming part of everyday living but what I heard was that it was a powerful tool for the farmers who could now increase prices as they received calls on increased demand, or the fishermen who would decide where to come ashore on the long coast based on local market demands for fish. But the sad part here is that fewer people are using their phones for matching supply-demand or profit increasing strategies and more are using them for mundane everyday things. I think what is now needed is not new applications for the cell phones but some simple classes or tips to these people on what their cell phone can really do for them. If that is not done quickly the power of the cell phone will stay at being just a simple communication tool.

Competition in the non-profit world - good or bad?

The good news is that this is a great time for the non-profit world. High calibre candidates are looking for jobs in the non-profit world and in general there is a lot of genuine interest in doing good for the world. Top business schools are offering courses in Social Entrepreneurship, Social Enterprise, Development... and the list goes on. And these courses are very popular and are very often oversubscribed!

With many top school MBA candidates choosing the non-profit world to work in, strong management has become part of the non-profit world. In addition to this, successful entrepreneurs are contributing capital and skills with several starting non-profit organizations targeted at helping a cause dear to them. With global boundaries disintegrating with the power of the internet, the footprint of non-profit organizations has expanded beyond imagination.

But with all this, and yes there is a but, the non-profit world is getting crowded and in some cases getting inefficient with several organizations going after the same cause. Not dissimilar to many for profit companies offering the same product to the same market. Competition has become so strong that you will find terms like "market size", "scalability", etc. making their way into the "business" plans for non-profits. Private funders are now demanding to see business plans that show scalability, sustainability and in some cases a path to profitability. So, at least in terms of management, best practices and jargon, the differences between the profit and non-profit worlds are slowly disappearing. 

Bringing private sector best practices to the non-profit world is definitely a good thing - it brings along with it accountability and demands solid, well thought out plans. But one could argue that forcing private sector goals on a cause related organization could negatively impact progress because progress itself has a different definition in the non-profit world. 

Competition is forcing several philanthropists to spread their money across several non-profit organizations. As a result many small organizations are not able to raise the critical amount of money needed to run their operations. So many well meaning non-profits are shutting doors, leaving behind broken promises and unfulfilled dreams. Wouldn't it be great if instead of competition there was collaboration between these organizations? Yes, it would but passionate, well-meaning founders of these organizations are not willing to give up their vision or change it to work with others which means collaboration will remain low.

I don't know how non-profits can take only the good from the for-profit world and leave behind whatever does not work. But I am sure we will eventually find the balance. Until then, we need to focus on making the non-profits we are involved in as successful as possible - and success can mean different things!

Ubuntu At Work

I recently joined a small group of folks who are making a big change in the life of women in developing countries. This group is called Ubuntu at Work and its mission is to transform women into entrepreneurs and escape poverty. The idea is simple but has large impact. One group of women in a village near Bangalore are being trained by experts to create silk bags that are then sold by us on their behalf. For every bag they make, they are given a few dollars and a few dollars are placed in trust in their name - they can use the trust money to purchase their own sewing machine or rent space for their work. It is amazing how talented these women are! Take a look at this mac sleeve that the women designed by themselves - all they were shown was the inside of a laptop and this is their interpretation!

Our founder, Vibha Pingle, is right now in Bangalore, getting several samples of bags made for me to market here in the U.S. The best part of the bags is that they are all natural materials, local to the area where the women work (read no fuel wasted to transport materials) and are designed by top designers who are giving us their designs for free! Some of our clients are companies that are giving out jute bags made by our women with their company logos on the jute bags. 

I can't wait to meet these women in person when I get to visit them later this month.

Pen Pals In The Internet Age

As President of a non-profit called Vision-Aid, an organization that helps visually challenged poor in India, I often get to read letters from people who are offering help and asking how they can help us achieve our goals. One recent email letter we received was from a teenage girl in the U.S. who said she wanted a email pal from India. She particularly asked if we could connect her with a blind girl who was her age. We forwarded her request to our center in India and within days a blind girl in India connected with a teenage girl from the U.S via email. One of our tutors at the center translated the email that came from the U.S. And within a week the two very different girls connected and exchanged stories of their lives and asked questions about each other, becoming very good friends! The most touching part was that while the girl from the U.S received pictures, via email, of her pal, the girl in India received a voice message from her pal and it was through that voice that she imagined her American friend, miles away from her, totally different from her, yet someone who had become her best friend and her window into the land she only heard about - America!

While we have been thinking about various ways to use the internet for our programs, this simple idea had never occurred to us! It took a girl, who had a mission in mind, to send us an email with her request to make this happen. Given how happy the girl in India is with her email pal, we are now creating a program with this idea!

Recession in India?

I just returned from a brief trip home to India. I had heard from some that signs of recession were evident in India, others claimed the recession had really not hit India hard. Needless to say I was on the lookout for signs that would indicate recession (or not). 

December is music season in Chennai, India. Every day there are several concerts, lecture demonstrations etc. attended by music enthusiasts from all over the globe. This year I expected to see the concert halls a little less full, perhaps with the more expensive seats being empty. But not a chance. Every hall was packed to capacity, especially when someone famous was performing. People stayed in hotels located close to the music halls and rental cars were impossible to get. Restaurants were crowded - I was unable to get a reservation for lunch at Taj Coromandel (one of the most expensive hotels in Chennai). Recession? Not. In fact, looking at all the cars lined up outside hotels, music halls, cinema theaters etc. I was beginning to think just the opposite.

I was curious to see how the IT Sector was doing so I spoke to some of my friends in the field. Business was still booming and most of the IT professionals I knew were still keeping late hours, in spite of the holiday season. As for entrepreneurs - some I knew were traveling to exotic locations in India to attend various conferences on entrepreneurship! 

So was there any particular sector or segment of people that were affected by the recession? Maybe, but I sure could not find any evidence of it. I had a theory that the lower economic strata might be affected but after several conversations with drivers and maid I dismissed that theory. Maids were in short supply in the cities and drivers were demanding way more in wages than ever before.

However, things are not that rosy in India. Unfortunately, the big problems in the country are self-created. They are not related to economic recession. The large state of Andhra Pradesh is slowly shutting down for business as chaos is spreading in the state due to some wanting to split the state into two separate states. IT companies that chose Hyderabad are rethinking their investments and the city has been declared unsafe for travel. I can only imagine the repercussions of this - a few months down the road I think the state will face economic problems and worldwide recession cannot be blamed for it. I hope I am wrong and I hope things improve in Andhra Pradesh.

MIT Alumni Create Companies With Combined Revenues of $2 Trillion!

I was just reading the articles from the Sloan newsroom and found some information, related to entrepreneurship and Sloan, that is truly amazing.

According to Professor Ed Roberts, "Estimates based on 2006 data revealed that living MIT alumni have founded or cofounded 25,800 companies that today employ 3.3 million people worldwide. The annual sales of these companies add up to about $2 trillion--the equivalent of the 11th-largest economy in the world." A lot of inferences can be drawn from this study but the most obvious one (obvious but which I will still point out!) is that if you are planning to go to Business School and entrepreneurship is your chosen goal then MIT Sloan is definitely the school for you. 

Dutch Auction for Jasmine Flowers in Chennai

I am in Chennai, India enjoying a few weeks of vacation with family. Chennai is now a totally different city from the one I grew up in - including the name itself. The city known as Madras before decided to shed the name given by the British and go by its original tamil name of Chennai.

It has been an interesting trip so far. Yesterday I was talking to a flower woman who buys jasmine flowers in the wholesale market every morning at 3 am and then sells it in the city in small quantities. She told me about the predictable but changing prices of flowers - the flowers were most expensive on Thursdays as the demand for them exceeded the supply on Fridays. But there was no way she could avoid paying the high prices on Thursday as they would wilt and get brown if she bought them earlier. I told her about the tulips in Amsterdam and explained the Dutch auction and how it worked. "Oh that," she said non-chalantly. The sellers use that when a large truckload of jasmine flowers arrive and they need to get rid of them quickly. They set it at 500 rupees per bundle and if no one buys them they reduce it by 25 rupees till someone like me buys them. Flowers sell very quickly that way, she explained.

So much for my detailed explaining! The flower sellers in Chennai probably never heard of tulips or Dutch auctions but are using the same method whenever appropriate. This is one case when recreating the wheel is not a bad thing. Each one creates a wheel to their specific needs. Dutch auctions in Chennai - what an awesome concept!

TiE Conference & Tom Ashbrook

I was hoping that by June I could write about how the economy is recovering and things are looking up all over the world but I am not sure we are there yet. Every article I read seems to have a different take on the economy but I do think we have touched the bottom and from here there is no place to go but up. I am so confident of this that I am crossing my fingers and toes!

Last week I attended the annual conference organized by TiE (The Indus Entrepreneurs) of which I am a charter member. Entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, business leaders and students gathered for a couple of days to attend panel discussions on hot topics ranging from cloud computing to social entrepreneurship. My favorite part of the conference was the banquet where Tom Ashbrook, of NPR fame, conducted a fireside chat with Jonathan Bush, founder & CEO of Athena Health. The young CEO was funny beyond words and narrated incidents from his entrepreneurship journey that had us laughing all the way. If only building a company involved so much laughing there would be many more entrepreneurs! As for Tom Ashbrook anyone who has heard him on NPR knows he is amazingly articulate, but what one finds in person is that he is extremely personable too. I grabbed the chance to chat with him after the event and was thrilled beyond words when he spoke to me in Telugu, my mother tongue! Tom was always my favorite reporter but after that chat with him, I now think of him as a friend. 

In the non-profit world, the organization I am involved with, Vision Aid, is getting ready for its annual event so I am immersed in the world of flyers, brochure designs etc. We were very lucky to find an excellent designer who is designing all our marketing materials for free. Through Vision Aid I have met several such people who strengthen my belief that in spite of all the things we read about everyday, the world is a good place with people who care about each other.

Happy New Year!

What a year 2008 has been! Unprecedented activity in the financial services shocked us, rocked us and now has left us at a point where nothing can be a surprise anymore - in some sense, I feel like, we have seen it all. 2008 will down in history as a year of redefining Wall Street and we can all talk about it for the next several years - unless 2009 beats 2008!

It looks like the number of applicants to Sloan (or all B-schools for that matter) has gone up this year. I have had the pleasure to talk to several potential applicants and have to admit I am always envious after chatting with them - it feels like there are so many new courses and new opportunities that students at Sloan have now. I wish I could go back to Sloan and soak up all the new stuff. I have spoken to applicants from HongKong, India and of course U.S. While their backgrounds are very different and they come from different cultures, I see one thing in common - the desire to get an MBA from Sloan.

It's not just applicants that are all around the world - Sloan alumni are everywhere! I go to a kids soccer game in Belmont, MA and there I meet a Sloanie, I get into the pool in a resort in Cancun, Mexico and there I see a Sloanie in his bright red Sloan T-Shirt! I am waiting in the airport in Atlanta and a Sloanie comes by to say hello, I am driving down a road in Chennai, India and the car in front has an MIT Sloan sticker...the list goes on. Talk about a global community!

2009 brings a new role for me at work. I am now the Business Manager for the CIO Technology Council. The council basically decides the technology strategy for the bank - it is very exciting to sit at the table with our super-smart CIOs. I'm hoping some of their skills will come to me by virtue of being in the same room!

Like everyone else, I am wishing for a 2009 where the credit crisis will pass, housing prices will reverse in direction, the recession will end..but most of all I am wishing for a 2009 where we won't have to deal with war, terrorism, hunger and poverty.

Summer is gone; so are some major players in the financial services sector!

What just happended to the financial services industry? The good news is that 20 years from now, I can talk about how I lived through this historic period. The bad news is that I aged 20 years in the last one month. The one positive outcome of all the drama in the industry, is that, I no longer feel bad about how my head used to spin in finance class. Added to that is the benefit that all those financial instruments that caused me so much grief, are probably no longer relevant.

While the financial services industry is being redefined, there is a lot of good work going on in the social enterprise. I recently attended a gala for an organization called Akshayapatra. The chief guest for the evening was Narayana Murthy (yes, the one and only). Not only did Narayana Murthy achieve phenomenal success in the IT world, he has also transformed the futures of >1Million children in India by providing lunch to underprivileged school children. Thanks to the nutritious lunch offered at school, more parents are sending their children (both boys and girls) to school. So through one initiative Akshayapatra is taking care of both education and nutrition.

Speaking of India, this is festive season in India which translates to party time for us Indians in the U.S. A bunch of us in the diversity group at work, are planning some fun events around Diwali, including some Bollywood style dances. The only problem is my two left feet so I am sticking to organizing and leaving the dancing to the others - I believe in each one sticking to their core competence. Happy Diwali!

Working With Vision Aid

For the past one year, I have been serving on the board of a non-profit organization called Vision Aid. This organization provides computer skills and tools to the visually challenged, low income people in India. The demand for Vision Aid's services far exceeds the supply. Our single center in India is not able to accomodate all the applicants who come to the center seeking training. In order to raise funds for a new center we ran our first ever fund raising event "Ramayana - A Visual Journey", a solo dance drama in a traditional Indian dance form with English narration. The event was held at "The National Heritage Museum, Lexington" and was completely sold out! It was an awesome feeling to realize that the proceeds far exceeded our expectations. I am particularly excited because we now have enough money to provide early intervention programs for children - a few dollars can help detect visual problems early enough to prevent low vision or even blindness later in life.

This year I will be serving as President of Vision Aid and along with the title comes the responsibility of creating a plan for the year that will help us set up a new center, work with more children and raise funds to implement all the ideas!