It's Electric

by Laura Kirkpatrick

Imagine you’re an MBA student at Columbia, one of the oldest of the ivies. Even in this uncertain economy, you could spend your summer with Chase, Goldman Sachs or Citigroup, in New York, Chicago or Bern – pick the cosmopolitan metropolis of your choice. But a handful of MBA students from Columbia’s Graduate School of Business Social Enterprise Program chose to forego the traditional cubicle- bound summer to work in some of the least developed places in the world, improving the lives of some of the poorest people in the world. These are not your typical MBAs, but people driven to lead corporate America towards a greater positive social or environmental impact as well as a greater bottom line.

Sandy Eapen, a dual degree recipient (MBA and MPH) from Columbia University chose this less traveled road in the summer of 2008. Traveling to Mwandama, Malawi, she worked with Dr Jeffery Sachs’ Millennium Village Project (MVP). With sites in 10 African countries, the MVP works directly with the respective communities, non-governmental organizations and national governments to show how rural African communities can lift themselves out of poverty – by gaining access to proven and powerful technologies that can enhance their lives in areas of productivity, health, education.

According to the CIA World Factbook, landlocked Malawi, a country slightly smaller than the size of Pennsylvania, ranks “among the world's most densely populated and least developed countries.” This is especially evident in Mwandama, located in southern Malawi. Nearly 90 percent of its people live below the poverty line—on less than $1 a day. This remote village lies quietly off the utility grid, almost seven kilometers away from the closest road. Its children have to travel that same distance to get to school and for water which is often muddy and undrinkable. Cooking, reading after sunset and other initiatives were all powered by kerosene; a highly explosive substance that caused 80 percent of New York City fires in 1880.

These conditions were less than ideal, even in Bear Grylls’ world. Eapen will be the first to point out, though, that unlike the villagers themselves, those working for the MVP could drive back to a hotel with all the modern conveniences at any given moment. The MVP itself is like the choices Eapen, and other socially minded MBAs make each summer – if not conflicted, then certainly multifaceted. Where the MBAs are faced with the choice between travel, amazing experiential learning and the ability to have direct impact on the one hand, or,on the other had work in an office, toiling long hours in the hopes of landing a really nice offer, the MVP is faced with trying to bring a business- like mindset to the areas of foreign aid and development. MVP’s creator – Dr Jeffrey Sachs – is an economist, an academic who is also a friend of Bono and Madonna. He argues that the MVP is the 21st century model of a vehicle for change - combining the theoretical leaders with people who have the power to reach the largest audiences.

Mwandama is still located 7 kilometers from the nearest road but thanks to the work of Eapen and the MVP, it now has solar lighting of the 21st century variety. Eapen assisted in the development of a business model for the sales of solar LED lanterns, and conducted market feasibility analyses through vendor interviews and local focus groups. By the second month of her internship, it was clear that there was both a strong demand for the lanterns, and a strong financial return. The lanterns drained less of the already impoverished villages’ resources, costing villagers roughly a fifth of the cost of the inefficient kerosene. Further, a cooperative had already been formed to manage the sales of two rounds of solar lantern deliveries.

One thing to be learned from the 20th century is that one tenet standing alone does not fully work, whether it is socialism, or an unchecked open market. Now is the time for forward- thinking people like Sachs, who can combine pop culture with economic development to reach the most people, both of those benefitted and the investors. And the time for emerging leaders like Eapen, who can combine two disparate degrees into socially conscious and impactful action, the kind which will lead the way to progress in the 21st century. These times call for people who can leverage all the available resources and assets to provide more than aid, creating not only short term impacts but also long term sustainable solutions.

 
 
Odom and the CCI group
Odom and MBAs

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