President Clinton’s call for action over rhetoric and emphasis on the both the “what” and “how” of solutions, during his opening comments at the HultGCC final 2011, deeply resonates with me.

So now that you have designed your model, how does it go from theory to reality? What are the major steps on the path to execution?  Who are the key players in your model’s ecosystem?  How will you engage them?  What are the major investments you need to make?

While it is not necessary to fully detail your implementation plan for the first regional round of HultGCC, you should be able to at least discuss it at a high level.  Successful teams, however, should head to New York with a blueprint in hand.  We created “m.Paani The Handbook”, a guide to implementation and investment plan; in it we outlined key steps that need to be executed if any organization were to initiate the m.Paani model tomorrow.

Can you take your model to market tomorrow?

It is a great tragedy when good ideas are buried by weak presentations that lack imagination and…induce comas.

Run for the hills from anything that looks, smells, feels, sounds like a typical consulting/banking/industry PowerPoint presentation.  Run for the hills, fast.

m.Paani uniquely participated in all rounds of HGCC 2011 i.e. regional, online, and final in New York – and so we presented live, online, and made both videos and documents.  So HGCCers, here are some of my thoughts on presenting (warning: this is long!):

Tell a story.  Graphs, tables and bullets points don’t move me, how about you?  We all love a good story and the best presenters/presentations seamlessly weave content and narration.

Speak with passion.  Who speaks has a significant impact on how your idea is received.  The best presenters are those that engage the audience as if in a conversation.  They are genuine, clearly passionate, and need no supporting materials to captivate.  Pick presenters thoughtfully and keep it simple. (As far as I know m.Paani was the only team that had a single person present, myself; it was distracting when teams tried to use most/everyone on the team)

Images not words.  m.Paani materials are highly graphic, elegant and captivating.  They create a mood, an emotion, and are almost completely absent of text.

Less is more!  We had a total of 3 slides in our regional presentation and 9 in the finals.  Our primary goal was to convey how and why m.Paani works clearly, and not inundate listeners with every single thing we read and learned.   Data/research were set aside into detailed appendices ready to be drawn upon only if needed during the Q&A.

Manage your time.  I saw many teams use up all their allotted time presenting, leaving little or no time for Q&A to their detriment.  m.Paani allotted about 2/3 of time for presenting and left 1/3 for Q&A.

Be smart.  Identify and address any potential weaknesses in your model.  Strategize your Q&A so that you use it to raise additional supporting points about your model that don’t make it into the main presentation.

Finally and most importantly, believe in your solution because then we are all more likely to believe in it too!

You can’t serve a customer you don’t know, in a market you don’t understand.

Especially in the social innovation space, you need to understand and be connected to your market.  The BOP market is particularly unique in its structure, dynamics, and constituents’ needs and behaviors.  Those without real field experience won’t be aware of, nor grasp, these nuances.  Let me give you an example.

The Byrraju Foundation, an Indian organisation, aims to increase the availability of clean water at the BOP through their innovative model centering on community filtration plants.  Byrraju has been relatively successful.  However, a survey of non-users in Byrraju communities found that half of them preferred the taste of their unfiltered water, even though they had sampled the clean Byrraju water several times – 60% of non-users said they wouldn’t switch to drinking clean Byrraju water even if it was free!  In fact, customer research revealed that in the low-income segment considerations such as taste are more significant barriers to adoption than cost.  This finding is especially surprising to those from high-income segments/developed markets, who often take it for granted that the benefits of clean water are intuitive and known.

The m.Paani design team not only has individuals who grew up in developing countries, but two of us (myself included) have extensive experience working and living in poor rural Africa and India.  Thus HGCCers, if your core team does not include someone who has worked on the ground in BOP markets, get a hands-on mentor or advisor to fill that role.  The development space is littered with the failed models of those who were well intentioned but had poor grasp of this space.

Challenge yourself to solve the global problem and you are a step closer to designing a solution capable of actually doing so.

• Imagine beyond tried and tired models
• Design a solution that is relevant and feasible beyond the framework of just one NGO/organization – ultimately your objective is to address a global challenge, not solve the obstacles faced by a single NGO/organisation
• Identify and leverage nascent trends and behaviors across industries in developing countries and BOP markets
• Make self-sustainability and scalability your mantra!

m.Paani is designed to be an architecture that facilitates local solutions. It leverages existing and accelerating behaviors at the BOP and can succeed in any context where there is mobile penetration at the BOP and competition for the poor customer. At the same time, it is structured to allow for adaptation to the specific needs and desires of each local community it reaches.

Many of you participating in the competition this year have reached out to me over the past weeks and months with kind words of congratulations and LOTS of questions about how to compete in and win HGCC. I have tried my best to connect with as many of you as I can but am finding it difficult to respond to you all individually.

I want to be as helpful as I can. So in the coming days leading up to your first round, I will jot down my reflections on how m.Paani won HGCC 2011 and I approach innovating to solve a real global challenge.

So watch this space and follow us @mpaani!

Received an invitation to speak about m.Paani at TEDxOxford 2012! We are grateful for Chris Toumazis’, Founder and President of TEDxOxford, kind words describing m.Paani as a “truly extraordinary initiative”.  TEDxOxford is unique in that it is targeted solely towards high potential young people with the goal of inspiring them to do amazing things.  Akanksha loves engaging with younger audiences and hopes she is able to make it this year!

If you haven’t already, check out the m.Paani TEDxOxbridge 2011 talk featured on TED.com as part of TED’s curated selection of the best TEDxTalks.

Breakfast with Chuck Kane, One Laptop Per Child, in London, to chat about education innovations for the poor and explore opportunities to collaborate.  The beauty of the m.Paani model is that it will empower communities to be able to invest in development projects or products of their choosing, including education related investments.

Discussed m.Paani platform and possible technology partnership with Dr. Tim Murdoch, CEO of Iceni Mobile, out in Greater Chestorford.  Tim is an architect of M-PESA, the pioneering mobile money transfer system that led Kenya’s mobile wallet revolution; his guidance on the technology piece is incredibly helpful, as is learning about how M-PESA was piloted and scaled!

Marathon meetings with Philip Hult (the man behind Education First, Hult Business School and the Hult Global Case Challenge!) and Stephen Hodges, President of Hult Business School, in London, to discuss the Hult Global Case Challenge supporting us to realise a pilot of the m.Paani model.  Great to have them on board and feel the funding for m.Paani within touching distance.  Looking forward to getting our feet on the ground and making the concept a reality!