Be! invests in young entrepreneurs in India’s slums and villages to pioneer enterprises that solve problems where they live
If you are 18-29 and live in poverty in India, you don’t get a chance. Often, you don’t have the right education, you don't speak English & you don’t have the right work experience. But what if you had a chance- a new source of finance to create & own a business that solves a pressing problem (water, waste, energy) where you live. Perhaps, you'd prove that unemployed youth are not a ‘problem’, but rather a solution to the biggest problems we face. Be! is an innovative mass media campaign that asks young people who live in poverty to define their own business solutions to solve local problems. By 2020, we'll invest in 1,000 young entrepreneurs, with risk capital, not loans - to prove a point, that young people who live in poverty are worth investing in to change the world.
About You
About You
First Name
Lisa
Last Name
Heydlauff
Facebook Profile
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Going to School
Organization Website
Organization Country
India
Country where this project is creating social impact
India
Is your organization a
Non‐profit/NGO/citizen sector organization
How long has your organization been operating?
More than 5 years
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Innovation
Entry Form title
Be! invests in young entrepreneurs in India’s slums and villages to pioneer enterprises that solve problems where they live
What change do you want to bring to the world?
If you are 18-29 and live in poverty in India, you don’t get a chance. Often, you don’t have the right education, you don't speak English & you don’t have the right work experience. But what if you had a chance- a new source of finance to create & own a business that solves a pressing problem (water, waste, energy) where you live. Perhaps, you'd prove that unemployed youth are not a ‘problem’, but rather a solution to the biggest problems we face. Be! is an innovative mass media campaign that asks young people who live in poverty to define their own business solutions to solve local problems. By 2020, we'll invest in 1,000 young entrepreneurs, with risk capital, not loans - to prove a point, that young people who live in poverty are worth investing in to change the world.
What are the primary activities of your project?
Be! creates beautiful movies and radio that will be aired across India to teach entrepreneurial skills and introduce new sustainable business models, in an engaging and practical way, reaching over 100 million young people and 600 million parents, teachers and decision-makers in their lives; creating massive public awareness about the power of young entrepreneurs to solve problems where they live, mass media will further help older members of the community see the value of young people choosing to become entrepreneurs
Be! creates 50 books for schools (each one teaches an entrepreneurial skill) and training programs for teachers so students can learn entrepreneurial skills in school – so they have better motivation to stay in school and more skills to use when they complete their education
Be! creates a relevant information portal for young people to access information in their own language about skills training, finance and employment opportunities where they live
Be! Provides a social investment fund through which individuals and institutions can fund young people from poor backgrounds to set up businesses that make their own communities better places to live
Be! Activities, used together will not just solve social problems in disadvantaged communities, but share the best practices on nationwide TV inspiring the next generation of young people to choose to become entrepreneurs
What is innovative about your initiative? How is it a new contribution to the field?
Be! mass media creates massive public awareness about young people’s entrepreneurial potential and introduces entrepreneurship education into schools, this same media drives young people to a new source of finance (risk capital) creating a new wave of entrepreneur role models from low-income groups in India. Currently, in India, young people are dropping out of school because education is not relevant to employment, which means the next generation workforce will be largely unskilled and the economy while growing, can never create enough jobs for everyone. At the moment, no other organisation in India targets children age 10-16 in government schools with entrepreneurial skills training. Further, social entrepreneur role models in India are most often from priviledged backgrounds and exist based on grants. Be! is different from current models such as Youth Venture, because we communicate through mass media and invest with capital up to US$10,000 in a young person from a low-income group to start a for-profit business that solves a local problem. This is also not microfinance, it is risk capital, a young person is not put into debt if we fail. Be! offers disadvantaged young people in India the required resources to start businesses of their own that will solve social problems in their communities. By bringing together skills, information, cultural change, and actual funding Be! provides a seamless model for encouraging social entrepreneurship, empowering young and disadvantaged entrepreneurs and ensuring access to the skills and funding for those who are inspired.
What stage is your project in?
Operating for less than a year
Tell us about the community that you engage? eg. economic conditions, political structures, norms and values, demographic trends, history, and experience with engagement efforts.
By 2020, there will be over 210 million unemployed people in India and 90% will be below the age of 30. While India’s economy is growing, it cannot create formal jobs fast enough, and current social structures mean that young people from low-income groups are often left out of India’s economic success. Today, 50% of children enrolled in school dropout, which means young people leave school without an education and join the informal economy, with its low pay, poor opportunities, limited job security and limited protection legislation where incomes average less than 1.5 Euros/day.. India has a culture of entrepreneurs, but no word or value for what they do. Currently, you don’t go to school to become an entrepreneur. You become an entrepreneur because you could not get a job, and for the rest of your life you feel as if you failed because you did not get that job. And, even if you wanted to become an entrepreneur, there are limited capital choices available to you – because you are age 18-29, you live in a slum or village and have no track record. So, micro-finance will support you for what you already do but cannot take a risk on anything new; and Small & Medium enterprise finance, well, that is way out of your league. At the same time, India has pressing problems of water, waste, sanitation and a lack of basic infrastructure, problems that are further exacerbated by the growing needs of over 1 billion people, 72% are struggling to survive, facing hunger, illiteracy, unemployment, discrimination, inadequate healthcare and a rapidly degrading environment.
Our research with over 1,000 children and 150 low-income entrepreneurs across India over 18 months have given us insight into the barriers young people face in becoming entrepreneurs. We know that young people need role models of low-income social entrepreneurs as well as tangible skills support to start businesses. And our eight years of experience in making books and movies for children in India’s slums and villages have shown us that stories have the power to change how young people see their lives (for example, our Girl Stars series about 15 women who changed their lives by going to school had a measurable impact on girls continuing their education in Bihar). Investment in business ideas alone cannot solve problems, we also need a large-scale mass media initiative to create a pipeline of young entrepreneurs—to inspire and educate them to choose to become entrepreneurs.
Share the story of the founder and what inspired the founder to start this project
Lisa Heydlauff is the director and founder of Going to School – a creative non-profit education media trust based in New Delhi, GTS makes magical stories (movies, books, radio) to inspire the poorest children and young people to use their education to transform their lives and create their own opportunities. Lisa moved to India 12 years ago to answer Oliver’s question. Oliver, age 7, asked Lisa, his teacher, “What is it like to go to school in India?” Lisa promised Oliver if she ever went to India she would find out. Going to School, the organisation has been working for eight years to create mass media education projects to change the way children and young people see their education. ‘Be! An Entrepreneur’, our current project responds to the issue of massive youth unemployment – by 2020, there will be over 210 million unemployed people in India, 90% will be below the age of 30 and currently, 50% of young people enrolled in school are dropping out. Lisa and the Going to School team wanted to create a project that linked education to enterprise, making education relevant to getting a job or creating a job, encouraging children to stay in school to learn relevant skills and creating a supportive environment for young people to choose to become entrepreneurs, once they have completed their education.
Social Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
Please describe how your project has been successful and how that success is measured
We had successful pilot of Be! in January 2011: 10 exciting radio dramas about young entrepreneurs solving problems in their communities were aired on All India Radio that invited young people to apply to the Be! Fund, a fun 3 minute muppet show inviting young people to applyto the fund was shown on local cable TV channels. The media reached five million people. Specifically trying to find young women entrepreneurs, we released another muppet show advertising a meeting to specifically encourage young women to apply to the Be! Fund. As a result of the pilot, we invested in Pravesh, age 19, whose business is already a success and seven women entrepreneurs are currently building business plans. Our radio reach extended to Bihar, and so three women are going through the process pioneering businesses: public toilets, waste, milk for government schools. Next, the fund will launch in Bangalore, reaching out to again, 5 million young people with an aim to invest in 10-15 young entrepreneurs. We measure success by the reach of our media, the number of responses we receive from young people from our target audience as a result of our media (2,000 responses in Delhi!). In terms of measuring the impact of Be! businesses, each business must be pioneered by a young person age 18-29 from a low-income group. Be! businesses solve local problems, generate income, create jobs and hopefully, returns to the fund. We have an innovative ibe! monitoring system that allows us to quantify social as well as financial change - happiness of individual, impact in other sectors other than the one we invested in. Our social impact monitoring system allows us to generate data communication graphs. In detail, we will measure:
o Monitoring # of entrepreneurs funded and the amount of funds invested – in total, in new entrepreneurs
o Actual repayments to the fund and amount of funds needed
o Tracking profile of entrepreneurs - # of years of investment, % women, age at time of investment, whether from slum or village, education, what their family income was before funding
o Tracking their growth as entrepreneurs – satisfaction, customers interest, repayment of funding, # of employees (female/male, local/not local)
o Tracking community perception of business – satisfied, dissatisfied; ripple effect of other entrepreneurs inspired to start businesses because of Be! Fund entrepreneur
o Tracking positive social impact in their community - on access, quality, security, price or policy for: education; water; energy; waste; environment; health; social mobility; governance; crime; transport; information/communication and/or housing
o Reviewing the evolution of the social investment fund and the efficiency of administration, monitoring and reporting
We then tell the new stories of these new role model entrepreneurs across India and cause a second ripple effect that we will also be able to measure.
In terms of the other parts of the project, we are finalising agreements with TV channels to air the movie series across India in a giant campaign. We are working with a state government to release Be! books in 26,000 schools reaching 5 million children and we will regularly monitor the number of activities completed by children which allows us to see what children understand of the skills. We will also measure reduction in the school drop out rate, and increased request for entrepreneurial skills books and new business models. The impact of the movies will be measured through TV viewership ratings. We will also measure the impact of our media programming through the number of queries to the portal and/or the fund by potential entrepreneurs (this number will increase if media is effective and will convert to funded candidates faster if they have learnt the basic skills from the media).
How many people have been impacted by your project?
Fewer than 100
How many people could be impacted by your project in the next three years?
More than 10,000
How will your project evolve over the next three years?
Will make Be! more accountable with an interactive website to show the changes our entrepreneurs are making in their communities, constantly updating and featuring their stories
Roll out Be! Fund to five more states in India and evolve the investment fund model to be more efficient, more accountable and more able to provide returns on investment, so it can operate across India.
Support teacher training in ten states of India, and the roll out of Be! skills curriculum into schools across India. Translate the portal into more languages so it can be of use in more states across India.
In just under three years, we hope to have all the evidence and interest we need to expand the approach to other countries such as Brazil.
Sustainability
What barriers might hinder the success of your project and how do you plan to overcome them?
Mass media does not reach/influence target audience of young people age 18-29: Going to School has conducted extensive research with children and young people to map the entrepreneurial skills they have and use in their lives, their perceptions of entrepreneurs, it is this research that Be! Movies, books, radio are based on, and extensive testing reveals that the media will have a positive impact. In terms of reach, Be! Movies/radio will be aired prime time, reaching the widest youth audience possible.
Media is released in parts, not in a coordinated effort: Be! Media will have the most impact when released together, GTS will try to make sure this happens by coordinating with all channels and agencies involved.
We receive more entrepreneur business plans than we can fund. We hope that with the publicity of sharing entrepreneur stories that we will raise funds for entrepreneurs who have been through the criteria and deserve to be supported.
More male entrepreneurs make it through the selection criteria than female, making the 50% goal of investing in women entrepreneurs hard to achieve. Specific women’s meetings and ‘business planning courses’ will be held for women.
Funding for all components of Be! is not realised. GTS will continue to seek new funders, investors and partnerships, but the coordination of the effort works best when all components are funded.
Tell us about your partnerships
Going to School works with non-profit education partners across India in 10 states to interview children and young people to be able to create our projects.
For the Be! Fund, GTS partners with Nidan for Delhi.
GTS has partnerships with television channels for airing our movies (free airtime) and publishing houses for publishing our books in trade editions (Random House).
Be! is supported by the Nike Foundation, Global Fund for Children, IFMR trust, Gray Matters Capital and individual investors. IGATE supports the creation of the ibe! Impact monitoring system.
In the past GTS has partnered with UNICEF, Government of India for the outreach of our programs.
Current annual budget of project, in US dollars
$500,001‐1 million
Explain your selections
Be! is supported by the Nike Foundation, Global Fund for Children, IFMR trust, Gray Matters Capital and individual investors. IGATE supports the creation of the ibe! Impact monitoring system.
In the past GTS has partnered with UNICEF, Government of India for the outreach of our programs.
How do you plan to strengthen your project in the next three years?
Be! will work with state governments to roll out the skills books, teacher training across 26,000 schools reaching five million children. Skills activities completed once a week allow for constant monitoring, both qualitatively & quantitatively. We will work to extend Be! skills content to as many states/languages as possible, so entrepreneurial skills are taught to children – reducing the dropout rate and making education relevant to employment. Working in the same environment that children are learning entrepreneurial skills, listening to Be! radio and watching Be! movies, Be! Fund will make investments, extending nationwide with both a proven success rate and increased funding. Stories of young entrepreneurs told across India will inspire more young people to choose to become entrepreneurs causing a nationwide ripple effect. Proven success of the integrated project in India allows for extension to South America to explore new models of media + finance integration for young people. Be! will change people’s attitudes towards entrepreneurship as a career choice. In the next two years, 100 young people from low-income groups will set up businesses that solve problems and their stories will reach over 100 million young people. With $50,000, Be! will launch in a state: Maharashtra. $50,000 will directly fund 15 young entrepreneurs across Maharashtra, providing them with skill support & monitoring across three years. 15 Be! businesses will create an estimated 100 jobs and provide 15 stories of young entrepreneurs who pioneered enterprises to solve local problems.
Challenges
Which barriers to employment does your innovation address?
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Lack of visibility and investment
SECONDARY
Lack of skills/training
TERTIARY
Lack of access to information and networks
Please describe how your innovation specifically tackles the barriers listed above.
Lack of visibility, investment - Be! mass media (movies, radio) creates massive public awareness and support for young people from low-income groups to choose to become entrepreneurs and pioneer enterprises that solve the problems they face in their lives. Be! Media creates a pipeline of entrepreneurs for the Be! Fund (a new investment fund, risk capital, for young people to be able to start enterprises). Skills - Be! books teach 50 key entrepreneurial skills and introduce sustainable business models to children age 10-16 in schools in India. Lack of access to information - Be! Portal provides access to new, relevant information about enrolling in skills training programs, accessing finance or getting a job in local areas.
Are you trying to scale your organization or initiative?
If yes, please check up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Grown geographic reach: Within host country
SECONDARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
TERTIARY
Grown geographic reach: Multi-country
Please describe which of your growth activities are current or planned for the immediate future.
Planned for the immediate future - extend Be! to five states, and across India. Improve program with multiple complementary services, and in the next two years, extend to other countries in South America.
Do you collaborate with any of the following: (Check all that apply)
Technology providers, NGOs/Nonprofits, For profit companies.
If yes, how have these collaborations helped your innovation to succeed?
IGATE has programmed our ibe! monitoring solution, we work with NGOS to interview children across India to make our stories and for-profit companies such as TV channels give us free airtime, support our initiatives.
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