Hi Guys,
How many people have criticized
the presence of slums inside the metro cities? How many people have wanted
those areas to go away of the city? But, how many of us have considered a real
solution for those people? We have Slum Clearance Boards. But, have these boards
done something useful across the years? Either they plan for poor quality homes
or unfeasible plans and the slums have stayed across the years. There is a huge
bunch of people who do not have any shelter to stay too.
A few people in USA started to
dream on the possibility of a low cost house for these type of people and their
dreams have come true to a large extent. Christian Sarkar, a marketing
consultant in USA started the concept. His idea was based out of the people in Haiti, who do not have
proper shelters to live. He approached Vijay Govindarajan, who is a professor
at Tuck School of Business. Together they started the $300 House Project.
‘90 percent of the
world’s designers spend all their time working on solutions to the problems of
the richest 10 percent of the world’s customers’ – Paul Polak
Christian Sarkar explaining the concept in TEDxGateway Mumbai 2012 partnered by Franklin Templeton Investments. To see the video in Youtube, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=haMM-hiG6k4
The aim was to build a house with
basic facilities that can provide the poor people a safe place to live in. They
announced a contest and received exactly 300 entries. Together they built a
community. A community that was committed to the development of the society. A
community that wanted other Human beings to safe. Together they developed
prototypes in different places. As Christian Sarkar describes, they might not
have built a house for $300 (currently they have houses built for as low as
$800), but they have created the energy, passion and platform for others to
work.
This project is being pilot
tested in Haiti and certain parts of India. In India a team from Mahindra and
Mahindra has built the cheapest home and they have built communities in Bihar
for flood affected people and in Pondicherry for Tsunami affected people. What
an effective way to create innovation? They call it as Reverse Innovation. When more and more people come in with
better inputs, the cost will go down. The possibility of a self-sustainable
house for the poor could become reality.
For companies, it’s a great way
to go forward with the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) as Christian
Sarkar says. Being a student of MBA, CSR is a topic that is discussed in classrooms quite often. Whenever the topic of CSR comes, many of my classmates come up
with questions like how can a company really concentrate on something like CSR.
We have to give 2% of profit and that’s it. As the people from M&M have
shown, it’s more than that. When the society has given so much to you, you need
to put in your physical efforts and not just money.
‘Companies that are
not good corporate citizens – those that… allow the environment and the
community to suffer- are really criminals in the today’s world’ - Ratan Tata
One of my friends was saying that
the Government should actively participate in the project. The slum clearance
boards are finding it difficult to find solution and these type of efforts can
be so efficient. It’s difficult to figure out why the Government is not taking
any efforts to contribute to these type of initiatives.
Looking across the various videos
regarding $300 project in Youtube, you are really impressed. There is a huge
bunch of team working selflessly for the project. As Christian Sarkar
concludes, you are much better than many people in the world. Help those people
those you are below you.
Happy Reading!!!
P.S: This Post is written for ‘The IdeaCaravan’ contest conducted by Franklin Templeton in association with
Indiblogger.
