Live blogging first impressions - day one

Its been an eye opening conference in many ways, of course its only half way through the first day right now, not even lunchtime but we've already heard:

• an impressive presentation by Dr Prabhu Kandachar that I found to be comprehensive, holistic and took the entire ecosystem of users, business models, technology and social entreprenuership into account. Ethics stood out as a key point in the approach that both Delft and Helsinki are taking towards addressing the needs of the poor. More on this later.
• Rama Bijapurkar presented the challenges of lowering cost faced by consumer durable and FMCG brands when they target the BoP audience. One thing that stood out was her point that the poor don't want things like smokeless stoves, they aspire to LPG (liquid petroleum gas) just like everyone else. Cost of meeting the BoP consumer's expectations then becomes critical for companies then and requires new business models. There maybe a fortune at the BoP, she said, but the BoP is "collectively rich yet individually poor".
• Mika Skarp of Nokia Siemens Networks on the innovative business model and technology used for their Village Connection GSM model - franchising mobile services on a village level. His most insightful points I can't help but applaud since it echoes almost exactly what we've been saying here at the EFL for so long.
  
  • The BoP is a totally unknown market, he said, from his experience in this area over the past 5 years. What is critically needed were "best practices from around the world that businesses could then scale to different markets".
  • There was a dearth of experience in this area, that of successful business models that had worked in the BoP. He asked the audience to "study the dynamics of the BoP market" to find innovations that could be copied between industries wishing to serve the underserved. I, of course, nodded emphatically in agreement ;p

Oh, and I've been asked by Dr Kandachar to be one of the panelists who would conclude the program tomorrow with their feedback/impressions of the conference as a whole. Cool!

• Dr Helen Pates Jamet introduces us to an Innovative corporate project by Vestergaard Frandsen, inventors of the LifeStraw in collaboration with the Ministry of Health, Kenya. The whole company went down to participate last week - an innovative solution to public health addressing diarhea and malaria and HIV/Aids all at once. A package distributed consisting of nets, condoms and life straws. It was a CSR project by the company, more later.