2011 Ramon Magsaysay Awards: Harnessing green technology for the poor

MANILA, Philippines - As a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts, Indian national Harish Hande had an epiphany.

During a visit to the Dominican Republic, he was moved by the idea that a decentralized approach to the spread of solar application – using small scale, stand-alone installations instead of large centralized thermal stations – was more effective in reaching poor, remote villages where life is backward and technology is most needed.

He realized that it doesn’t take a lot of money, doesn’t take big ideas to use green technology to better the lives of the poor.

At that moment, he thought of his fellow Indians in far-flung areas who live in the direst situations, without electricity because they cannot afford it. Hande believed he could apply the technology in these communities.

After getting his engineering degree, he turned his back on a lucrative career in the West and went home to India to live in an impoverished village to better understand the villagers’ plight.

“I was convinced that in diffusing technology, it is not just the product that matters but also the social realities that technology seeks to change,” Hande says.

In 1995, Hande established Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO) India in Bangalore and offered solar PV lighting systems, water heating systems, and cooking stoves designed to help impoverished families in rural areas meet their daily needs.

By year 2000, after a lot of challenges, the company started to become proftable. That was when problems began as investors forced the company, against Hande’s wishes, to expand through a franchised dealer network.

The expansion, coupled with rising world prices in solar equipment, affected the company’s finances and diverted it from its social mission of helping the poor.

The expansion was painful but it taught Hande invaluable lessons. Instead of closing shop, Hande repositioned the company, ditched his business partners and with the support of the International Finance Corporation and new, more socially-minded investors, restructured the company and refocused its social mission.

Although SELCO remained a business, it strengthened its purpose as a social enterprise, that money from sales of their products would be used to improve the lives of the poor in India. It would not just be business for profit.

For the past 11 years since it was restructured, SELCO has proven that indeed the poor can afford sustainable technologies and maintain them and, more importantly, social ventures can be run as successful commercial entities.

Part of its being successful is its triple strategy of reaching the poor, a strategy of customized products, doorstep financing, and doorstep service.

SELCO designs and installs solar technology applications based on each ustomer’s specific needs, whether two- or four-light system for the house, head lamps for night workers like midwives and rose pickers, or electricity for sewing machines.

To enable the poor to access this green technology, SELCO has pioneered in linking the sale of solar technologies with credit institutions like rural banks, cooperatives, even self-help groups.

Over the years, SELCO has been more than just a technology provider. SELCO took the poor people in India as partners instead of mere consumers and aided them in accessing and using technology to improve their lives.

“Poverty reduction is our central goal. Until the poor become asset creators, we are not empowering them,” Hande said.

SELCO has reached more than half a million people by installing solar lights in 120,000 households, micro-enterprises and community facilities.

It is also one of the world’s largest solar technology providers to the poor and still sees a huge market for expansion.

Hande is more resolute than ever in his mission and vision that technology should serve the poor.

Lessons of the past taught him not to sacrifice his social mission for profit.

“India has a fantastic opportunity to solve two huge problems – reduce poverty and combat climate change. This is India’s chance to combine and address both issues in a holistic way,” Hande said.

In electing Harish Hande to receive the 2011 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the board of trustees recognizes his passionate and pragmatic efforts to put solar power technology in the hands of the poor, through a social enterprise that brings customized, affordable, and sustainable electricity to India’s vast rural populace, encouraging the poor to become asset creators.