Tech projects and social change

Companies should think of innovation not only as an act of creation, but also of inclusion. By Frances Ceryl

Though many organisations in Asia embrace the term “social enterprise”, few people associate it with tech companies. It promotes the notion that companies need to be founded from the beginning with social impact in mind in order to affect change. This worldview deters many tech companies whose solutions could help social causes from doing so.

One example is in energy access. One of the UN Sustainable Development Goals for 2030 is extending energy access to the 1.7 billion people living off the grid worldwide. But extending the traditional electrical grid to remote areas is expensive, owing to capital-intensive infrastructure costs.

What’s even sadder is that there are many tech companies whose products can help people who are off the grid, such as commercial renewable energy ventures, but these companies may not even realise how much demand exists at the community level.

As a tech community in Asia, we need to highlight the ways that some tech companies are lending their solutions to social causes as a bid to encourage others to do the same. Only by providing such examples will tech firms realise that they need not be founded as social enterprises in order to make a difference.

Even if the driving impetus in their organisation is tech-enabled innovation, they can still contribute meaningfully to social change.

BLOCKCHAIN FOR FARMERS

One prominent example comes to us from Singapore in Pundi X, the creator of blockchain-based point-of-sale systems that are already being deployed across the globe. Known as the Pundi XPOS, this system enables consumers to conduct transactions with cryptocurrency in-store with an XPass card. The company’s primary market is people who transact with cryptocurrency, or people who may want to.

Most tech companies would have a singular, almost obsessive focus on their primary market, but Pundi X — in partnership with the Indonesian blockchain startup Hara — realised that there would be value in their solution for an equally important, but commonly overlooked stakeholder: farmers.

In November, Pundi X announced it would provide 200 of its XPOS devices to agricultural communities in Indonesia, as the precursor to a wider roll-out.

The devices will extend financial inclusion to farmers and enable Hara to collect valuable data on farmers in exchange for incentives.

The Pundi X case is atypical, but a valuable one for tech entrepreneurs. We need more tech companies to rethink how their solutions can help beneficiaries, especially those at the bottom of the pyramid, in surprising but effective ways.

SOCIAL RECRUITING

Another example of this kind of creativity comes to us from Recruitday in the Philippines. It operates in the hiring business with what it calls a “social plus referral recruiting” model.

Initially, the platform enabled employees to refer people from their social network to open positions at their company.

Founder Joel Garcia has since opened up the Recruitday platform to anyone. This decision elevates Recruitday from a referral platform to a two-sided job engine: It helps place talent at companies, and it enables scouts to earn income.

In doing so, Recruitday achieves as much social impact as any social enterprise, contributing as it does to Sustainable Development Goal 8, which calls for decent work and economic growth.

It’s important to highlight companies like Pundi X and Recruitday because no journalist or analyst would ever classify them as social enterprises. Yet even as tech companies — which are often unfairly stereotyped as being designed for growth at all costs — they are managing to contribute meaningfully to causes that even the corporate world often overlooks.

Tech companies, then, ought to think of innovation not only as an act of creation, but also one of inclusion.

As much as we focus on what we can make, we also need to think deeply about how we can get what we made into the hands of more people who need them.

Frances Ceryl is an entrepreneur and co-owner of LipBurn, a Philippines-based clothing business.

We need more tech companies to rethink how their solutions can help beneficiaries, especially those at the bottom of the pyramid, in surprising but effective ways.