It has been a little while since I last wrote, but now I have a lot to write about.  I had the great fortune of spending a week in Mysore, India as a TEDIndia fellow at the TEDIndia conference.  Generally wowed by the growing prominence of this thing called TED, and particularly by how the phenomenon has made it to people all over the place, it was a privilege to be there.

I also made a trip to the US for a couple of weeks, largely a personal one to visit family, but it gave me a real chance to talk in depth about what it is that we do at Sarvajal, the water enterprise, and served an interesting purpose as a way to figure out what engages people (outside those who talk about and live within social enterprise circles) and what doesn't on issues of social enteprise.

A decade ago, everyone was talking about microfinance as the social enterprise darling, icon, inspirer of the century.   It obviously deserves enormous praise, but seems to have become a hugely viable business opportunity as well, often now more business than social enteprise - perhaps an indicator of the future fate of the "social enterprise" trend as a whole. 

In recent times, I've heard more and more chatter about the telecom industry as an example of social impact - a notion that I would agree with in India - in terms of how competition and customer needs/demand can lead to democratized pricing and a powerful tool for income generation.  A business that has found ways to go further down the pyramid and has developed products that make a difference.

Both of the examples above continue to perplex my own notions of the spirit behind social impact and its intersection with business, a tension that has helped me grow like few things my recent history.  But one thing is clear, there are lots of things that have social impact and many more people engaged in social enterprise than we often think.

I'm going to try to spend the next few posts talking about the potential of some really powerful ideas I've come across recently - here are a couple I learned more about at TEDIndia that I will discuss in the next couple of post vis-a-vis how they have helped me think differently about my own enterprise:

Reuters Market Light - a powerful idea as an information service on markets and prices customized for farmers;  The impact on income is impressive, and the power to bring transparency to the market downright makes me drool.  They know what they are doing.

Husk Power Systems - people executing on something that many people have talked about for years, small scale power.  They build 50kw to 100kw power plants that run on rice husk in Bihar (one of the most difficult places to work on this in the country of India), and sell metered power to villagers.  They also can sell the silica and biochar byproducts, and are apparently able to break even on cashflow in six months.  Incredible, and run by really able and smart people.

Both of these, to me, are leading examples - in very different ways - of the emerging opportunities in social enterprise.  They are taking the problem really seriously and are creating truly practical solutions - an indication of the future of enterprise with impact as more and more people put their talent in the search of solutions.   I met dozens of uber-able people, just in the group of fellows at TEDIndia, engaged in some of the most creative social enterprises I have come across in a while, and was thoroughly refreshed by the power of what they are doing.