After two weeks of field visits, we began the first day of the 2014 Acara Summer Institute at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements.
The purpose of the institute is to choose a problem we learned about in the past two weeks and develop a solution in the form of a business model.
Today we spent the majority of our day focusing on our problem statement and value proposition. I think the entire class learned how crucial it is to form a problem statement around what your customer values, not necessarily what you think is the problem.
In order to get in the minds of our customers, we used sticky notes to complete empathy maps. We answered questions such as "How does our customer feel about this issue?" and "Will our product and service meet our customer's criteria for success?"
After our brainstorming activities, one of the founders of Sattva, a company that helps social enterprises with strategy and execution, came and gave an interactive presentation about what the company does and where he sees the social impact industry going.
I was excited to hear that he believes more and more companies will be converging into the social impact space in the future.
