ACT For Education renews its support to Top Parent

Posted on June 16, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

As an ed-tech enterprise, Top Parent is emerging as a powerful force in the space of FLN (Foundational Literacy and Numeracy) – striving to revolutionise education for underserved children in rural and remote parts of India. A free mobile app that equips low-income parents, who have limited knowledge and resources, to support the early years of their children’s development – the newly launched Top Parent 3.0 is driven by an advanced Accelerated Learning Framework (ALF) that empowers children with self-paced learning, ensuring steady progression across key learning competencies.

Under the guidance of Dr. Ryan Baker – Director of the Penn Center for Learning Analytics – Top Parent has undergone a transformative evolution. Drawing insights from an extensive analysis of 1.5 lakh data points, Dr. Baker’s expertise has enabled Top Parent to develop 13 competency maps in the Accelerated Learning Framework across numeracy, literacy and logical reasoning. Through comprehensive assessments, the app identifies individual competency levels and tailors the content accordingly. This personalised approach not only fosters engagement but also provides children with appropriate support, thus fostering continuous growth mastery and preparing children for grade school.

Top Parent’s impressive growth trajectory – from 90K to 500K installations – has proved that a B2C (business-to-consumer) model can indeed thrive in Bharat. Remarkably, Top Parent achieved this milestone with a low CAC of just Rs. 7 per download. This achievement demonstrates the app’s sustainability and scalability, making it a strong contender in the ed-tech space that specifically caters to the Bharat audience.

Top Parent aspires to become the go-to platform for parents in small towns, addressing not only FLN but also expanding to cater to additional needs such as spoken English and 21st-century life-skills supplemented by add-on services like live classes. Expansion into new regions and languages based on demand, such as the recent venture into Marathi, further signifies Top Parent’s commitment to broadening its reach and impact.

ACT For Education is excited to renew its support to Top Parent with a follow-on grant and fuel their journey by investing in product development and leveraging deep user insights to develop more personalised pathways according to children’s learning levels. This grant will also aid the expansion and scaling of its user base to one million, as well as the exploration of additional services such as live classes and an AI-powered chatbot.

Green Startup Pledge: Enabling startups to take meaningful climate action

Posted on June 13, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

Since the signing of the Paris Agreement in 2015, climate pledges have gained considerable traction across the globe. Companies, as well as investment firms, have made significant commitments to achieve net-zero emissions by specific target years such as 2030, 2040, or 2050. These pledges demonstrate a growing recognition of the urgent need to combat climate change and transition to a more sustainable economy.

Closer to home, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has introduced the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) for the top 1000 listed companies. This standard builds upon the voluntary standards developed in partnership with the Greenhouse Gas Coalition in 2013. The BRSR ensures that these companies prioritise sustainability and transparency, thus aligning with global efforts to address environmental challenges.

In India, industry sources project startups to contribute 35-65% of the economic growth and create over 100 million jobs by 2030. But while startups are an integral part of the global and Indian economies, their dynamic nature and early-stage development present unique challenges. Existing sustainability frameworks and requirements are often designed for more established businesses with stable operations and profitability. Startups, on the other hand, require a tailored approach that considers their growth trajectory, financial dynamics, and evolving business models.

Recognizing the importance of startups as both the future of the business community and a major growth engine, there is a compelling case for developing a climate pledge and sustainability framework specific to startup operations.

This is why ACT For Environment, in collaboration with BCG, developed the Green Startup Pledge – the world’s first climate pledge that’s designed exclusively for startups and which aims to address the unique challenges and opportunities faced by them in their sustainability efforts. By offering a platform to commit publicly to sustainable practices, the pledge paves the way for a greener, more environmentally conscious future while helping startups future-proof their business by reducing switching costs when sustainable practices are adopted early on.

GSP acknowledges the unique characteristics of startups and embraces their staged and volatile growth. By adopting a phased approach, the pledge allows startups to progress gradually in their sustainability journey. Startups committing to GSP will benefit from frameworks that are flexible, streamlined and aligned with their business operations. Reporting will be streamlined and stage-relevant. A resource platform of tools, resources and reputable vendors will be made available to support implementation with the aim of building better from the beginning or transitioning economically.

Unveiled at COP27 and Bengaluru Tech Summit last year as an example of India’s leadership in building the green economy, GSP will be initiated with Indian startups with the aim to scale globally with startups from around the world. Early supporters of the pledge include prominent VC firms such as Accel India, Peak XV Partners and Matrix Partners as well as unicorn startup founders like Deepinder Goyal (Zomato) and Nitin Kamath (Zerodha).

To begin with, a group of 6-10 startups will be identified for the purpose of developing, beta testing, and refining the implementation process. This phased approach ensures that the pledge aligns with the unique characteristics of startups, allowing them to make progress over time.

GSP aligns with ‘net zero by 2050’ goals along with feeding into the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR) and we’re excited to helm an initiative that will take startup-led climate action from India to the world!

Enabling India’s startup ecosystem to become WISER on women’s workforce participation

Posted on June 9, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

ACT for Women emerged from a pressing need to accelerate women’s workforce participation and make substantial progress towards achieving gender equity at the workplace in our lifetimes. Over decades, despite the gradual increase in literacy rates, women continue to remain significantly under-represented in the workforce. In response, ACT for Women has embarked on a mission to understand the challenges better through a collaborative study called WISER – Women in India’s Startup Ecosystem Report.

The intention has been to focus on employers as a lever of change (with an initial lens on startups) and gather customised, actionable insights. Known for their agility and bias for action, the startup ecosystem has already been a successful disruptor in multiple spaces and we firmly believe that it has the potential to contribute significantly towards helping India improve its female labour force participation as well.

WISER is the first and largest of its kind research study that is designed exclusively for Indian startups and aims to help them advance gender diversity and inclusivity at the workplace. It will look at understanding the drivers for gender diversity within the startup ecosystem by collaboratively assessing demand-side barriers to women’s representation across employment levels and spotlighting best practices that have helped improve women’s participation. A collaboration between ACT For Women and The Udaiti Foundation, with LEAD at Krea University, McKinsey & Co, and NASSCOM 10,000 startups as key partners, it aims to establish a baseline for women’s participation in the startup ecosystem while identifying enablers that reflect in better hiring, retention and advancement of women professionals. It will examine startups across various sectors and life-stages, allowing for a more nuanced understanding of the factors that can enhance women’s participation across all levels. Over the last 4.5 months, the WISER team has conducted in-depth surveys and interviews with founders and CHROs from over 130 organisations as well as with 500+ startup employees – the report is slated for public release in July-August 2023.

A key highlight of WISER is its commitment to providing tailored and actionable insights to participating organisations. Through careful analysis of the collected data, the report will offer specific recommendations to each participating startup which align with each organisation’s unique context and requirements. These insights will empower organisations to make informed decisions and implement effective measures to foster gender diversity and inclusivity. While the focus is on supporting participating organisations, we will also strengthen the big picture focus of this exercise by deriving separate insights for VCs/investors who are invested in gender diversity at the workplace and are looking for ways to enable their portfolios to do better in terms of women’s representation. Finally, the hope is also to show industry-level best practices as case studies to allow the larger ecosystem to learn from the tips and tricks that resource constrained startups across stages are already successfully implementing.

To us, WISER is just the start of the conversation on women’s workforce participation and we look forward to working with the startup ecosystem to take action and create lasting impACT!

ACT Implementers Network: Bringing private innovations to public healthcare

Posted on June 9, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

In September 2022, ACT For Health conducted a Needs Assessment study with medical professionals to understand their perspective on the healthcare innovations landscape. This study helped us identify and understand the broad categories of challenges faced by healthcare providers and assess where technology-based innovation can potentially play a role in improving healthcare delivery systems. A key insight that emerged for us was that the most critical need is to strengthen primary care centres with high-quality screening and diagnostic facilities along and to build the capacity of general physicians. This is how the idea of the ACT Implementers Network was born.

With 13 partners on board – eGov Foundation, Transforming Rural India Foundation, CureBay, Last Mile Care, Ambuja Cement Foundation, Mahan Trust, iKure, Karuna Trust, Parinaam Foundation, Swasti, Dvara Health Finance, FPAI & Clinikk – the network aims to strengthen the healthcare ecosystem by matching the tech needs of such social enterprises working among underserved communities with ACT supported innovations and launching pilot projects to address identified need gaps. Such pilots are co-designed with our partners based on their needs and our goal is to demonstrate evidence-based deployment models which can be further contextualised by other stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem.

An example of such a pilot is the one we catalysed between ACT For Health grantee Medprime Technologies and Mahan Trust – an NGO that works in the remote Melghat district of rural Maharashtra and serves the tribal communities in the area. With 70% of the region’s mortality rate attributed to treatable infections, a key challenge that emerged was the lack of trained microscopy technicians who could enable timely diagnosis.

“Currently, local lab technicians can only prepare the sample slides, which have to be transported to a pathology lab 4 hours away in Amravati. In fact, even the onus of transporting the slides is on the patients themselves – which often results in them refusing to go because of the costs involved. Even if they do go, it takes 4-5 days for results to come in – which often delays timely diagnosis. So more often than not, patients are treated on the basis of their symptoms which may not be accurate,” says Dr. Ashish Satav, Founder – Mahan Trust.

The Mahan Trust team leveraged the ACT Implementers Network to collaborate with Medprime, who is piloting Cilika – a digital microscopy solution that allows pathologists to remotely analyse test reports for patients living in low-resourced areas without the hassle of transporting or storing the sample slides. Ever since the introduction of the Cilika device in February 2023, physical samples are no longer needed to be sent to Amravati and they are able to get 5 samples a day, which are diagnosed by the pathologist remotely from Amravati.

“Thanks to ACT providing Cilika to us free of cost, we’re able to diagnose many poor tribal patients who would otherwise have received empirical therapy. This will improve patient management and reduce morbidity and mortality. Its successful implementation in MAHAN Trust will also help develop replicable models in other tribal areas of India.” Dr. Ashish concludes.
A similar pilot that we are currently running is with the Family Planning Association of India (FPAI), Bidar to establish their women’s cancer detection centre. ACT For Health matched their needs with Niramai and Periwinkle from its portfolio – Niramai’s affordable breast cancer screening device is portable, radiation free and non-invasive while Periwinkle’s AI-led Smartscope solution helps detect cervical cancer without the need for electricity and can be used by healthcare workers without extensive training.

Since the inauguration of the cancer detection centre in early May 2023, the FPAI team has been able to screen more than a hundred women for cervical cancer within their first month, and are slowly starting to screen for breast cancer as well.

As we explore more pilot engagements with other partners in our Implementers Network, an important learning for us has been the need to develop robust M&E frameworks and mechanisms to help measure the success of each such intervention. Simultaneously, we are also trying to engage with state governments to introduce such innovations in the public health system at scale.

Our hope is to create scalable models of interventions that use the power of technology and collaboration to improve health outcomes in our country.

If you’re a grassroots public healthcare organisation who could benefit from being a part of the ACT Implementers Network, download our Implementers Guide to know more.

What our ACT Fellowship experience was like as the very 1st cohort!

Posted on June 8, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

On September 15th 2022, six of us walked into Sequoia Capital’s (now Peak XV Partners) office in New Delhi for our induction into ACT’s first-ever Fellowship program. After a two day deep-dive into ACT’s journey, their venture philanthropy model and their beliefs around collective action, we immersed ourselves into our work.

And it has been one INCREDIBLE journey. Over the past nine months, we have met inspiring social entrepreneurs who are hungry to create meaningful change; learned from VCs and industry experts on what it takes to build successful organisations that can create impact at scale; played a major role in several first-ever initiatives that ACT was building and most important of all – became invested in and committed to the larger purpose of our work here.

As our Fellowship comes to an end, we wanted to give everyone who is curious about what went behind the scenes a sneak peek into our experience!

What was the common expectation that we all had from the Fellowship?

Most of us were curious to witness how the venture philanthropy model works – how the grant-making process happens from behind the scenes – since it’s such a new and innovative way of approaching social impact. This experience exceeded our expectations for sure – we saw how grant proposals are evaluated, how due diligence is conducted, what we need to look for in social entrepreneurs but most importantly, how to leverage the ACT network for support and collaborate with the ecosystem at large.

What did a typical day for us, as ACT Fellows, look like?

A very typical day involved a fair mix of conversations between external stakeholders like social entrepreneurs and inspirational founders and brainstorms with the ACT team as well as due diligence/evaluation of tech/innovation led solutions being built by such social entrepreneurs. One key function that remained standard for all of us was staying abreast of the current trends in the sector along with sourcing working models of innovations that are solving problems at a large scale – which we recommended to the ACT team for further action.

What was the most enjoyable and exciting part of working at ACT as Fellows?

Being a part of the entire grant-making process – from initiating the initial interaction to guiding potential prospects through the Investment Committee discussions for funding approval. There is simply no greater joy than helping mission-driven social entrepreneurs in their transformative journey. We also enjoyed interacting with varied stakeholders ranging from founders, VCs, scientists, NGO leaders and other ecosystem partners. Moreover, it always helps to work with a purpose-driven team who are trying to solve the big social problems in our country.

What stood out to us while interacting with passionate social entrepreneurs?

The capacity to tackle intricate challenges amidst uncertainty, coupled with the ability to maintain a long-term perspective towards present actions – it has been inspiring to see the social entrepreneurial ecosystem for Bharat and it has been our privilege to meet and work with them. Another big learning for us has been that the pathway for innovation for social entrepreneurs needs a lot of support. For an innovation to create meaningful change, there is a lot of work that still to be done to create a conducive environment for social innovators and risk-takers.

Did the Fellowship give us any leadership opportunities?

ACT is built on the principle of collaboration which means that a lot of our work involves working with a diverse set of stakeholders and aligning all of them towards a common goal. As Fellows, we were able to take a lot of ownership of our work and we did get the opportunity to lead specific project initiatives – which has been a game changer.

What is one skill that we Fellows definitely gained during the Fellowship?

By evaluating tech solutions through primary and secondary research, we definitely picked up extensive industry knowledge and learnings, which are vital for any development professional. We also became more confident in our approach when dealing with senior experts (because we did so quite a lot!) and learnt the value of going into conversations well prepared. As we got to lead initiatives and work independently, we learnt to take risks, make course corrections, and grow through failures.

What was one new learning about the social impact sector after coming to ACT?

The complex nature of creating impact at scale requires one to be on top of their game and to be updated with the latest industry trends. For example, AI is revolutionising everything – this is exciting but also challenging and there’s something new to learn every day. Another key insight we’ve had is that inherent collaboration within the space and cross-learning among individuals is much needed and can lead to newer possibilities.

What is our understanding of the team culture at ACT?

Agility and a bias for action are fundamental tenets of the ACT culture. We say this because everyone is very action-oriented and always trying to leverage their networks to make progress. We have inherited this culture to keep things moving and are going forward with a keen emphasis on swift action and decision-making.

What are some attributes that we feel every Fellow should definitely have?

Fellows should be excited to take responsibility, curious to learn, and be ready to fail and grow through it.

How has our experience as ACT Fellows influenced our long-term career goals and aspirations?

At ACT, we’ve all experienced what the power of collective action could do. We will always look out for ways where aspects of collaboration and cross-learning can be incorporated. Our journey as Fellows has leveraged our common curiosity to know more about venture philanthropy and development financing, solidified our knowledge of the space and fuelled our interest to work deeper in the impact space.

While we may have concluded our Fellowship, we’ll always be a part of the ACT collective and will continue supporting the organisation. We all plan to continue working in the social development space in some way, shape or form while keeping impact at the centre of what we do.

Would we recommend the ACT Fellowship to young change-makers?

In short, YES! It is very different from other Fellowships and exposes you to how tech and innovation can create large-scale impact and how YOU can contribute to it. If you’re an aspiring social entrepreneur or someone who is keen to understand unique models of funding development, this is the place for you!

A note for the readers: all the responses are a culmination of the experiences of all Fellows. If you’d like to understand more, feel free to reach out to us on LinkedIn!

ACT For Environment welcomes Indra Water to its portfolio

Posted on June 5, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

Over 600 million people in India already deal with extreme water stress, and the country is moving towards becoming a water-scarce nation by 2030. This is exacerbated by the fact that over 74% of water in India is untreated, leading to almost 40 million litres of wastewater entering rivers and water bodies every day.

Indra Water has developed a decentralised point-of-source wastewater treatment system that has the potential to revolutionise the wastewater treatment industry. Founded in 2018 by two engineers, their patented and electrically-driven modular system is designed to treat water in a decentralised manner at the point of source, thus making it an ideal solution for both domestic and industrial water treatment. The company’s innovative design approach, which includes a structural flash reactor, enables the treatment of multiple types of wastewater, faster treatment time, higher throughput, reduced energy consumption, and lower overall treatment cost. Their enhanced water treatment efficiency would help reduce both freshwater extraction as well as the discharge of untreated water into our lakes, rivers, and water bodies.

With a mission to address the critical problem of hard-to-treat forever chemicals and promote wastewater circularity, one of the key advantages of Indra Water’s system is its modularity, which allows it to be 4x smaller, 30% lower in capex, and 40% lower in opex as compared to conventional chemical and biological wastewater treatment solutions. This makes it ideal for small and medium-sized businesses that cannot afford to invest in expensive wastewater treatment solutions. Apart from its cost-effectiveness, their system is also aligned with the government’s zero liquid discharge (ZLD) norms and adheres to the National Green Tribunal’s (NGT) guidelines.

Since its inception, Indra Water has already made a significant environmental impact, reducing 3200 tons of sludge, saving over 500 tons of GHG emissions, and preventing over 750 million litres of wastewater from entering freshwater streams. They have already successfully deployed its system for clients like Grasim (Aditya Birla Group) in Gujarat and Unilever in Indonesia with a total treatment capacity of 2.2 million litres per day, proving its effectiveness in commercial and industrial water treatment.

With support from ACT For Environment, Indra Water’s decentralised wastewater treatment system has the potential to treat approximately 7 billion litres of wastewater in the next six years and revolutionise the wastewater treatment industry in India!

ACT For Health supports Open Health Care Network to enable their journey from tele-ICUs to Smart ICUs

Posted on May 30, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

Recognised by the UN as the world’s 50th Digital Public Good, the Open Health Care Network (erstwhile Coronasafe) has been supported by ACT For Health since the early days of the Coronavirus pandemic.

At the time, the solution enabled the National Health Mission to manage 355K patients through 130K ambulance shifts and 200K tele-medicine calls between March 2020 to May 2022.

Last year, ACT expanded its support to help OHCN develop tele-ICU capabilities – a solution that’s being institutionalized in 7 states to cover 200 district hospitals. Today, our focus is expanding to enable their journey from tele-ICUs to Smart ICUs as a way to enhance its ability as a Digital Public Good that’s integrated with national healthcare programs.

What are Tele-ICUs and why are they important?

When the nation ran out of oxygen during the Delta wave, it was also realised that around 300 rural and remote districts out of 766 overall districts in India don’t have ICU beds with oxygen capabilities.

The 10BedICU project was born to fill this need with a goal to set up 3000 ICU beds in 300 district hospitals, and the original CARE platform was adopted as the solution to build the necessary tooling.

In rural and remote hospitals, there are barely any healthcare professionals who understand how to use critical care equipment and so, along with the supply of physical medical equipment, ACT For Health supported the development of tele-ICU capabilities which could ensure that medical professionals in rural areas could remotely leverage the expertise of critical care specialists anywhere in the country.

How did OHCN develop this tele-ICU capability?

36 engineering students, who were selected and trained in a full-stack industry curriculum, worked under 2 senior software engineers at eGovernance Foundation to build the tele-ICU Capabilities. These students worked with Srikanth Nadhamuni, the founding CTO of Aadhaar, as well as intensive care doctors from Kerala to scope out the design requirements and engineer the feature set – which was piloted at KR Hospital in Mysore.

Today, the solution is deployed to manage 410 ICU beds in 41 district hospitals and has supported 4498 patients as of May 2023.

The road and the vision ahead

The most significant difficulty in creating Digital Public Goods has been the availability of software engineers. The full-stack developer curriculums supported by ACT are now approved as the National Model Curriculum. 18 institutions from 13 universities across 6 states have now adopted the curriculum that is creating a direct path for the industry to get highly skilled talent. The top students from this talent pipeline are being inducted to build and upgrade Digital Public Goods, post which they graduate into the industry.

Thus, by creating a scaling pipeline of high-quality engineering talent, the capability to build and upgrade digital public goods is being directly institutionalized into the nation’s higher education system.

The OHCN software has also completed 2 of the 4 milestones in integration with the ambitious Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) program. Once completed, partner hospitals will have the ability to create unique health IDs for patients, deliver care and get reimbursed under the PradhanMantri Jan Aroya Yojna public insurance scheme; thus streamlining the access and delivery of care for citizens depending on public health infrastructure.

The learnings from tele-ICU deployment indicate that regular ICU beds can also be converted into Smart ICUs i.e. empowered with a digital monitor for remote care. A smart ICU solution is a versatile system that can be seamlessly implemented in any hospital, offering a range of benefits. One of its key advantages is the ability to configure hardware, independent of manufacturer specifications.

This means that even low-resourced hospitals can integrate the Smart ICU solution with their existing equipment, regardless of the brand or model. Such hardware agnosticism ensures compatibility and flexibility and enables healthcare providers to optimize their ICU operations without the need for extensive equipment replacements. By leveraging this technology, hospitals can enhance patient care, streamline workflows, and harness the power of intelligent data analytics to improve overall efficiency within their intensive care units.

During our analysis, we conducted a comprehensive comparison of the development cost for the Smart ICU solution from various commercial sources. Remarkably, we discovered that the OHCN model offers a significantly more competitive option. Not only does it provide an affordable solution for hospitals, but it also addresses the education aspect by incorporating an industry-ready curriculum for training senior engineering students.

This dual advantage ensures that hospitals can adopt the Smart ICU technology without straining their budgets, while simultaneously contributing to the education sector by equipping future tech talent who are familiar with health-tech, ABDM etc. with the necessary skills and knowledge to excel in the field.

By merging cost-effectiveness with educational impact, the Smart ICU solution becomes a compelling choice for continuing our support to the Open Health Care Network and we can’t wait to be a part of their journey ahead, as it unfolds its numerous possibilities.

ACT Summit 2023: Leveraging the power of collective action to catalyse social impact at scale

Posted on May 18, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

We hosted the first edition of the ACT Summit in New Delhi, where a diverse set of stakeholders deliberated upon how technology, innovation and collaboration can help India address some of its most complex social issues across public healthcare, gender, education and environment.

Over 150 participants, including social entrepreneurs, impact investors, CSR professionals and sector experts, agreed that technology, data and platforms, when backed by patient and purpose-driven capital, can create sustainable social impact that can reach billions of people.

The day-long Summit featured multiple sessions designed to encourage dialogue, knowledge sharing, and collaboration among participants, some of whom included Ashish Dhawan (The Convergence Foundation), Rizwan Koita (Koita Foundation), Sandeep Singhal (Nexus Venture Partners), Mohit Bhatnagar (Sequoia Capital), Abhiraj Bhal (Co-Founder, Urban Company), Prachi Windlass (Michael & Susan Dell Foundation), Lathika Pai (Microsoft VC & PE), Supriya Paul (Josh Talks), Divya Jain (Seekho), Naghma Mulla (EdelGive Foundation), Aditya Shankar (Doubtnut), Mekin Maheshwari (Udhyam Learning Foundation), Mahesh Yagnaraman (Acumen), Shaveta Sharma-Kukreja (Central Square Foundation), Suman Gopalan (Freshworks) and Vishal Thakur (Nasscom Foundation), among others.

Across participants, a resounding theme that emerged was that the persistence of social entrepreneurs accompanied by committed capital and the use of technology could pave the way for sustainable social change. Investing in capacity building at an organizational level, challenging conventional wisdom with regards to funding and forming strategic Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are critical steps required to accelerate the deployment of homegrown innovations and give rise to India’s next generation of social unicorns.

Key Insights

• Social entrepreneurs are an important part of the social change value chain, given their agility, bias for action and focus on innovation. But that ability to create change can become exponential through collective action. There are lots of deep-rooted beliefs in India’s social sector and they won’t change in our lifetime if we take only the traditional routes of change. When we bring innovation, challenge conventional wisdom and collaborate with each other, it can be a powerful catalyst for change.
• Technology has immense potential to achieve scale for social impact; it is the only thing that will help us reach millions and billions. But it needs both patient capital and impatient social entrepreneurs to drive it forward. Having a strong mix of traditional as well as impact investors can bring the required amount of capital to enable technology to deliver meaningful social outcomes.
• The integration of generative AI into ed-tech is one of the more recent global developments. But while it presents multiple possibilities for the growth of quality, affordable ed-tech, tailoring solutions to the individual and socio-linguistic needs of students is the need of the hour. A robust Open Digital Learning infrastructure can power diverse use cases, translation, and multilingual transliteration.
• Peer-to-peer learning between social entrepreneurs building solutions for climate action and healthcare as well as funders supporting them is imperative, since there are many intersectionalities between the two domains – such collaboration can have exponential outcomes and foster more innovation. It is imperative for stakeholders to : a) align on what success or impact would mean for them, b) facilitate peer-to-peer collaboration to improve outcomes, c) take a long-term approach towards funding and technology development.
• Increasing India’s Female Labour Force Participation can be made possible only if gaps in the existing data collection landscape are addressed. Currently, data on 80% of SDG indicators on gender don’t have any sources and while gender-related data is collected in the private sector, it is not published or used. The availability of exhaustive and pertinent data can drive informed decision-making and higher levels of accountability. The presence of granular meta-data will inform the policy-making process as well.
• Continued dialogue between social entrepreneurs and funders as well as the harnessing of patient capital are important to de-risk investments that are critical for bolstering R&D in healthcare solutions. There is also scope for philanthropy to help address the existing gaps in the healthcare value chain, like diagnostic care.
• The time is ripe for India to build more Digital Public Goods due to the rapid adoption of sophisticated open-source technology.
• The role of first generation startup founders is critical to reshape the ‘giving culture’ in India into something that goes beyond just funding and can truly help build the nation. Since most such founders have just begun their philanthropic journeys, it’ll be valuable for them to build their vision of a shared purpose by exploring collaboration avenues with the public sector; such pathways can potentially flow both ways.

The Summit also catalysed purposeful 1:1 conversations between promising social entrepreneurs within the ACT portfolio and funders looking to connect with founders building impactful tech-led solutions.

That every individual can be a co-founder of social change was the resounding message in each of the sessions and for Team ACT, the Summit’s big highlight was the meeting of many minds and ideas across such a diverse set of stakeholders. We’re inspired by all the areas of collaboration that have emerged and look forward to building these pathways further in our quest to catalyse meaningful change for Bharat!

ACT is looking for social entrepreneurs who are solving for India’s water crisis

Posted on April 24, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

Water is one of the most essential resources for human existence and yet, access to clean water is still a major issue in many parts of the world. India, in particular, is facing a severe water crisis. According to the NITI Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index, 54% of India’s districts are facing extreme water stress, and over 100 million people in the country live in areas with poor water quality.

The problem is only going to get worse with climate change, which is expected to exacerbate the water crisis and have a significant impact on food security, health, energy as well as the economy. It is clear that something needs to be done to address this issue, but the question is, where do we start?

Segmenting The Problem

To tackle the water crisis in India, it is important to segment the problem into different categories. The consumption of water in India can be broken down into three main sectors: agriculture, domestic, and industry. Agriculture is by far the biggest consumer of water, accounting for 91% of the country’s water usage, followed by domestic (commercial and residential) at 7%, and industry at 2%. However, industry’s water usage is rapidly growing, and it is causing severe pollution in the country’s water bodies.

Hypotheses On Possible Solutions

Water Monitoring & Analytics: Monitoring and analysing water usage can help identify inefficiencies and areas where water can be conserved. This can help in reducing water wastage, especially in agriculture and industrial sectors.

Water Treatment & Reuse: Water treatment technologies can help clean up polluted water and make it fit for reuse, especially in the industrial sector.

Water Saving & Management: Implementing water-saving techniques and managing water usage can help reduce water wastage and increase water efficiency, especially in agriculture.

Water Storage & Recharge: Storing water during the rainy season and recharging groundwater can help ensure a steady supply of water during the dry season.

What We’re Looking For

As a venture philanthropy platform, ACT is looking to prioritise water security as a key focus area under ACT For Environment. Given the scale of potential impact, we want to focus on 3 key spaces:

Water-saving, management, storage, and recharge solutions for the agriculture sector. Agriculture is the biggest consumer of water in India, and implementing water-saving techniques and managing water usage can have a significant impact on the country’s water crisis.

Water treatment, reuse, saving, and management solutions for the industrial sector. As this sector’s water usage grows, it is causing severe pollution in the country’s water bodies. Implementing water treatment technologies can help clean up polluted water and make it fit for reuse.

Partnering with the government to find innovative business models to scale up municipal water management solutions. Because at the end of the day, solving the water crisis in India will be a collective effort; requiring the government, NGOs, businesses, and individuals to come together to scale sustainable solutions.

If you’re a social entrepreneur working on an innovative solution in any of these areas, we want to hear from you! Submit your grant application at https://actgrants.in/as-a-grantee/ or write to us at environment@actgrants.in.

ACT For Health and India Health Fund collaborate to support Salcit Technologies

Posted on March 23, 2023February 28, 2024 by admin

India continues to be the tuberculosis capital of the world, accounting for every 1 in 4 TB cases worldwide. Although we have made great strides in identifying and treating TB patients with innovative policies and aggressive testing, we still miss millions of TB patients who are not caught by the public healthcare radar. Because while active case finding (ACF) is an established measure for the systematic screening of TB in high-risk populations, there has been a lack of affordable, rapid response and sensitive screening tools that can help find undiagnosed active TB cases.

Addressing this need, ACT For Health and India Health Fund (IHF) are co-funding the development of Swaasa® – a mobile app by Salcit Technologies that records cough sounds from suspected TB patients using a phone’s microphone and analyzes them to decode unique cough signatures to detect the possible presence of pulmonary tuberculosis using a proprietary AI algorithm and give a report in just a few minutes.

Salcit’s non-invasive innovation can run on any smartphone, requires no additional equipment/consumables and offers the key advantage of being used by patients themselves in the confines of their households, without the risk of infection spread or the need of trained staff. It can also be easily used by frontline health workers in low-resource and remote settings and thus, promises to be easily scalable to enable early detection of the disease.

The co-funded grant will aid Salcit Technologies in the technical validation of the Swaasa®’s AI algorithm – the six-month long project will include the collection of cough sounds from about 5700 subjects (TB and Non-TB), the technical validation of the platform across 6 public health centers and the enhancement of the platform to reach an accuracy of 90% for detecting the likely presence of TB.

We believe that our support will help Swaasa® emerge as a gold standard TB screening tool that could supplement and strengthen existing Active Case Finding (ACF) in low resource settings and herald a new era of cutting edge technology being deployed for tackling the public health problems at scale to create a playbook for AI based mobile health solutions!