ASHWIN MAHESH
Target Population:
Mapunity
India,
Ashwin, an innovator and Public Policy professor at IIM Bangalore, believes that the value of one's thinking is best expressed by the service you render to others. In 1998, his exploration with social and development issues led him to co-found India Together, an online magazine that covers public affairs, policy and development in India. Ashwin discovered that most commercial technology companies fail to develop innovations that are affordable and accessible to the public sector. To address the need for technology to help the public with large scale and complex social challenges, he started Mapunity to deliver what the private sector did not. Regarded as an independent R&D entity, his company is reversing the trend of a government lagging behind technology.
This profile below was
prepared when Ashwin Mahesh was elected to the Ashoka Fellowship in 2009.
INTRODUCTION
Ashwin, an innovator and Public Policy professor at IIM Bangalore, believes that the value of one's thinking is best expressed by the service you render to others. In 1998, his exploration with social and development issues led him to co-found India Together, an online magazine that covers public affairs, policy and development in India. Ashwin discovered that most commercial technology companies fail to develop innovations that are affordable and accessible to the public sector. To address the need for technology to help the public with large scale and complex social challenges, he started Mapunity to deliver what the private sector did not. Regarded as an independent R&D entity, his company is reversing the trend of a government lagging behind technology.
THE NEW IDEA
Ashwin and his team at Mapunity build public facing technology that commit governments to certain standards merely by choosing to use the systems they build. Ashwin creates channels and spaces for public discourse to design applications for ... Read More [+] public needs. Mapunity is careful to select areas with a strong ‘public’ face (traffic information systems, public health systems, environment monitoring platforms, and so on). This means that everything they build also delivers value to the public, in addition to being useful to the government.
Mapunity does not operate as a technology vendor to the government or any other agency, it operates as a technology research cell where it independently identifies large governance, social and economic challenges and builds technology solutions for them. Unlike any conventional enterprise, Mapunity measures itself on two key parameters – (i) its ability to build technology in a way that end users do not have to pay a significant price for it and (ii) the number of users of their technology. They are building technology innovations that are meant to serve the larger public and meant to be accessible and available to a very large number of users.
Mapunity’s GIS, MIS and mobile technologies are used mostly by government departments and civil society organisations. Mapunity identifies problems that technology can solve. For instance Mapunity has led the development of the Urban Transport Information Systems for a number of cities – Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Delhi. These systems use several types of inputs – teledensity data from Airtel’s mobile telecom tower network, video and images from police cameras, location tracking of buses and taxis – to create real time knowledge of traffic conditions in cities. These are then made widely available through Airtel’s mobile telecom network to city residents and are also accessible online. Mapunity is working to put together simple information platforms for promoting public health. The first initiative in this effort is Vaccidate, a free online and mobile-based alerting service that reminds parents and guardians about the vaccination schedules for their children. The recommended vaccination schedule for any given date of birth is used to create alerts on both web and mobile platforms. In November 2008, Mapunity entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Manipal Hospital, Bangalore to test and deploy several health informatics products and solutions, with Manipal Hospital providing its medical expertise to these products. Mapunity also intends to make its public health information platforms available for use by government programs and initiatives. For Microfinance Institutions (MFIs), Mapunity is developing a hosted technology platform known as COINS, that integrate the various technology functions of a small loans program seamlessly. Numerous MFIs who need technology inputs to make their operations more cost-effective (and thereby lower the cost of lending to the poor) face significant obstacles in selecting and adopting the right software. As a hosted platform, COINS will greatly reduce their difficulties, and allow them to concentrate on their core mission while the data management elements are taken care by COINS.
THE PROBLEM
Governments and Public Administration Officials don’t have the skills or the expertise in developing technology solutions for large scale and complex social challenges. Very often, they also do not have the necessary resources to invest in these solutions ... Read More [+]
until these solutions have been proven to be successful and the price has become much lower. Too often, the use of technology in government is not properly measurable, because the functions served by such technology are entirely internal to the departments using them.
Most commercial technology companies have developed innovations but are unable to make these accessible and available like a ‘public good or service’ as they are constrained by their objectives which are to be profitable and hence earn revenues. These companies act as technology vendors to the Government and see the Government therefore as an important customer base. Their focus has not been to apply their technology and managerial skills in developing technologies to solve large scale and complex social and development challenges.
Mapunity aims to serve this need and bridge the gap across the two sectors.
Most commercial technology companies have developed innovations but are unable to make these accessible and available like a ‘public good or service’ as they are constrained by their objectives which are to be profitable and hence earn revenues. These companies act as technology vendors to the Government and see the Government therefore as an important customer base. Their focus has not been to apply their technology and managerial skills in developing technologies to solve large scale and complex social and development challenges.
Mapunity aims to serve this need and bridge the gap across the two sectors.
THE STRATEGY
Ashwin has set Mapunity up as a techno-research centre that is independent of any external constraints either of a financial nature or of a political nature. Ashwin has always been very cognizant of the need for Mapunity to acquire a public positioning which ... Read More [+]
is that of a social technology lab. After a lot of lobbying and persistence, Ashwin got IIM Bangalore’s NS Raghavan Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning to incubate Mapunity which was instrumental in giving Mapunity a certain level of credibility and differentiating it from any other technology vendor.
Ashwin has also been very clear about the focus of Mapunity as that of building technology for large scale and complex social and development challenges which act as public goods and assets that are distributed by the government and other allied systems. His focus has not been that of commercial success as he fundamentally believes that Mapunity’s success lies in people acknowledging and believing that the work that they are doing is ‘valuable’. It is this focus and public positioning that has ensured Mapunity’s sustainability. In addition, Ashwin has used system friendly tools (e.g. city plans) to close loops of activism at the ‘public’ level.
Ashwin has sustained his organisation and built his team with the money that he and Mapunity have received through their goodwill. They have received government grants and have also engaged with corporations that think Mapunity is enough of a technology lab and they are willing to support it and then piggy back on the technology developed there (similar to investment in R&D). Corporations leverage their CSR spend for supporting Mapunity in return for capturing some of the intellectual property of the technologies developed by them. Mapunity also sustains itself be earning some revenue for the work that they do for other COs who need technology solutions and support. Given Mapunity’s vision of being a public interest technology firm, Ashwin has ensured that he recruits “systems activists” who are empathetic and keen to engage with these large-scale issues.
Ashwin has also been very strategic in the technology development frameworks that he has employed. He has focused on building a common platform of technology that can be adapted and leveraged to deliver value across multiple domains. This is also practical as it reduces cost by building redundancy and also creates a greater level of familiarity and comfort with the technology for all stakeholders involved.
Ashwin realizes that a lot of his work has many synergies with the public administration and government departments and systems. He has positioned Mapunity as a partner and expert (and not just a technology vendor) who willingly engages with the government to develop technology innovations for collective public good. He has leveraged the Government and has consciously built partnerships with them as the Government is responsible for managing and developing public spaces and systems. Historically, they have been behind the curve and not had access to cutting edge tools and technologies due to cost constraints as well as limited internal capabilities – Ashwin’s approach reverses this trend.
To ensure the growth of more public systems architects who will share his vision, Ashwin has many different roles and platforms through which he engages and inspires others. Mapunity and his team of empathetic professionals, his online magazine – India Together, as well as his role as a Public Policy professor at IIM Bangalore through which he engages with public service leaders, enable him to enhance the capabilities and engender fresh perspectives to issues of public interest and development.
Ashwin has also been very clear about the focus of Mapunity as that of building technology for large scale and complex social and development challenges which act as public goods and assets that are distributed by the government and other allied systems. His focus has not been that of commercial success as he fundamentally believes that Mapunity’s success lies in people acknowledging and believing that the work that they are doing is ‘valuable’. It is this focus and public positioning that has ensured Mapunity’s sustainability. In addition, Ashwin has used system friendly tools (e.g. city plans) to close loops of activism at the ‘public’ level.
Ashwin has sustained his organisation and built his team with the money that he and Mapunity have received through their goodwill. They have received government grants and have also engaged with corporations that think Mapunity is enough of a technology lab and they are willing to support it and then piggy back on the technology developed there (similar to investment in R&D). Corporations leverage their CSR spend for supporting Mapunity in return for capturing some of the intellectual property of the technologies developed by them. Mapunity also sustains itself be earning some revenue for the work that they do for other COs who need technology solutions and support. Given Mapunity’s vision of being a public interest technology firm, Ashwin has ensured that he recruits “systems activists” who are empathetic and keen to engage with these large-scale issues.
Ashwin has also been very strategic in the technology development frameworks that he has employed. He has focused on building a common platform of technology that can be adapted and leveraged to deliver value across multiple domains. This is also practical as it reduces cost by building redundancy and also creates a greater level of familiarity and comfort with the technology for all stakeholders involved.
Ashwin realizes that a lot of his work has many synergies with the public administration and government departments and systems. He has positioned Mapunity as a partner and expert (and not just a technology vendor) who willingly engages with the government to develop technology innovations for collective public good. He has leveraged the Government and has consciously built partnerships with them as the Government is responsible for managing and developing public spaces and systems. Historically, they have been behind the curve and not had access to cutting edge tools and technologies due to cost constraints as well as limited internal capabilities – Ashwin’s approach reverses this trend.
To ensure the growth of more public systems architects who will share his vision, Ashwin has many different roles and platforms through which he engages and inspires others. Mapunity and his team of empathetic professionals, his online magazine – India Together, as well as his role as a Public Policy professor at IIM Bangalore through which he engages with public service leaders, enable him to enhance the capabilities and engender fresh perspectives to issues of public interest and development.
THE PERSON
Ashwin has been a brilliant student throughout his academic career. Being born a Tamil Brahmin, Ashwin was exposed to class and caste privileges and very soon realised that these were a burden because there were ‘automatic’ expectations from him around ... Read More [+]
academic brilliance. His academic performance assumed more importance also because he had suffered from a polio attack when he was 9 months old which prevented him from pursuing more physical activities such as sports.
Ashwin’s mothers’ side of the family are theosophists and laid emphasis on two things: (i) it was important to be a thinking person in the world and (ii) the value of ones thinking is best expressed by the service you render to others. Ashwin has always thought about what he wants to achieve and the purpose or application of that for public good. He has seen world open opportunities for him and affords him privileges because of his caste and because of his own academic achievements. Ashwin believes that the outcomes of these privileges are not measured by money but through application of intellectual achievement and application of one’s ability towards public good.
Ashwin embarked on his experiments with social and development issues and his own role in engaging with these issues when he started India Together, an online magazine, along with Subraminam Vincent in 1998. After having spent many years in the US pursuing his PhD and then working with NASA, he decided to return to India for good in 2005. The transition process had begun in 2003. On his return he explored work opportunities with IISc and ISRO but was unable to establish a part time arrangement with them. He then met Srikanth Nadamuni who headed eGovernments Foundation in Bangalore. This was an organisation that was supported by Nandan Nilekani. He started working with them and in about a year’s time realized that the constraints of eGovernments Foundation’s focus was limiting the application of the technology in other domains for public good.
Ashwin’s vision was to leverage technology as a force for public good and he left to set up Mapunity and pursue his own vision.
Ashwin’s mothers’ side of the family are theosophists and laid emphasis on two things: (i) it was important to be a thinking person in the world and (ii) the value of ones thinking is best expressed by the service you render to others. Ashwin has always thought about what he wants to achieve and the purpose or application of that for public good. He has seen world open opportunities for him and affords him privileges because of his caste and because of his own academic achievements. Ashwin believes that the outcomes of these privileges are not measured by money but through application of intellectual achievement and application of one’s ability towards public good.
Ashwin embarked on his experiments with social and development issues and his own role in engaging with these issues when he started India Together, an online magazine, along with Subraminam Vincent in 1998. After having spent many years in the US pursuing his PhD and then working with NASA, he decided to return to India for good in 2005. The transition process had begun in 2003. On his return he explored work opportunities with IISc and ISRO but was unable to establish a part time arrangement with them. He then met Srikanth Nadamuni who headed eGovernments Foundation in Bangalore. This was an organisation that was supported by Nandan Nilekani. He started working with them and in about a year’s time realized that the constraints of eGovernments Foundation’s focus was limiting the application of the technology in other domains for public good.
Ashwin’s vision was to leverage technology as a force for public good and he left to set up Mapunity and pursue his own vision.
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