Enabling a culture change in rural government schools: Prasanna shares Sikshana experience

V R Prasanna was one of the panellists at the “Enabling a culture change” session at the Next Gear workshop on innovation leadership I facilitated in July. Prasanna is the CEO of Sikshana Foundation which was rated among the top three in India in education intervention by Times Social Impact Awards (Sept 2011). Prasanna moved back from the US to India in 2007 to help scale up the organization. In this interview Prasanna shares his experience in enabling a culture change in the context of rural government schools.

The interview explores following questions:

1. Can you please share a culture change story from Sikshana?
2. Why is change difficult?
3. How do you sustain ownership in change initiatives?
4. What role rewards play in change initiatives?
5. What happens to the change when Sikshana stops support?
6. How does Sikshana get teachers to experiment?

A sample question & answer is given below. You can find the complete interview here

Q: What roles rewards play in change initiatives?

Prasanna: In our case, we found that the easiest way to motivate a teacher is a pat on the back. They work in a system where nobody cares about them. One of our initial experiences was with a teacher in a remote school –  with 12+ years of service. When we asked him , “Sir, how are you doing?” The teacher almost had tears in his eyes. When we asked, “Did we say something wrong?” He said, “First time in 12 years in this school, somebody has asked me how I am doing” That is the simplest form of reward. On the other end, we send teachers to the US. Someone who might not have seen Bangalore goes to the US and spends four weeks there.

We find rewards play a similar role for a child to change. In rural setting, when children go back from school, they dump their bag and immediately run out. Because there is nobody at home to share their school experience. To sustain the change, something needs to happen outside the school environment. How do we do this? We can’t become the parents. But the child has to be rewarded at some basic level. So we introduced something called a “spot prize” in classrooms.

Every teacher is equipped with nominal amount with which they buy something and give it away. This is one of our most successful programs. We don’t spend more than Rs. 30 per child in the whole year. We have introduced stars which they can wear on their uniform. And once they collect ten stars they redeem it for something – crayons or pencil set or they can hold on till the next ten stars and get a geometry box.

This idea (of stars) came from a teacher. I had gone to a school near Hubli. We had given spot prizes to be awarded in the school. This teacher had written some names and some numbers next to it. I asked, “What are these numbers?” The teacher said, “I liked your idea. But I run out of prizes very quickly. Attendance is a huge issue. So I have to give them more. So whenever a student asks a good question or a correct answer I start writing points. This becomes more like a game and it is getting everyone to participate actively in the class.” The next question was, “How can we do this at a systemic level?” and the star system evolved.

So I feel rewards play a huge role in sustaining a change at least in our space.

Related articles:

“Showing the way: Sikshana is helping children stay in school and better their performance by developing all-round skills”, a cover story in Business Outlook, Sep 1, 2012

Dr. Gururaj Deshpande’s insights on entrepreneurship and innovation, Jan 30, 2012 (Desh praises the interventions of Sikshana) 

Two ideas that turned cancer research into a massive innovation sandbox

Pulitzer Prize-winning “The emperor of all maladies” by Siddhartha Mukherjee looks at the long drawn battle between man and cancer over the past 2000 years. The story has several twists and turns and Siddhartha has written it like a thriller. In this article I want to focus on two ideas from the book that occurred to a paediatric pathologist Dr. Sidney Farber. These ideas transformed cancer research from a “who-cares” situation to a massive innovation sandbox eventually creating modern chemotherapy technique. Let’s look at each of the ideas in brief.

Antifolates: In 1946 Sidney Farber was a reputed paediatric pathologist working in his fourteen-by-twenty-foot laboratory in the basement of Children’s Hospital in Boston. Aged 43, Farber had been a “doctor of the dead” for close to two decades. However, perhaps going through a mid-career introspection was itching to work with almost-dead – the cancer patients. Farber’s first insight was that he could actually perform “experiment” on cancer by focusing on blood cancer or leukaemia. Because, unlike other forms of cancer, he could count the change in cancer cells after an intervention.

Unfortunately, Farber’s first trial towards this direction turned into a horrible error. Based on the work by a British haematologist Lucy Wills in treating anaemia, Farber injected folic acid into leukemic children. Instead of slowing down the leukaemia, folic acid accelerated the process resulting in hastened deaths of the children. Paediatricians at Children’s Hospital got mad at Farber. Notwithstanding the ire, Farber went from the error to the next trial. He asked himself, “If folic acid accelerates the leukaemia, why not try anti-folic acid?” That indeed generated the first flicker of hope.

In 1947, two year old Robert Sandler, the first leukaemia patient whom Farber treated with antifolates, showed improvement for a few months before the cancer relapsed. By summer of 1948, Farber had treated sixteen patients out of whom ten had responded and five had remained alive 4 to 6 months after their diagnosis. Farber published his results on June 3, 1948. Initial reaction was “scepticism, disbelief and outrage”. However, soon patients started pouring in from near and far. And Farber was forced to move out of Children’s Hospital to accommodate them.

Jimmy fund campaign: With more patients and more drugs Farber’s experimentation capacity increased. However, he realized how awfully limited it is for the enemy he was battling with. This is when he performed a totally different kind of experiment in collaboration with Bill Koster of Variety Club, a children’s welfare organization. Together they launched a Jimmy Fund campaign by making a patient in the hospital a mascot. In fact, the campaign was launched on May 22, 1948 through a radio show Truth of Consequences. The entire Boston Braves baseball team showed up at Jimmy’s room in the hospital and they together sang a song. The eight minutes show was ended with a plea, “Let’s make Jimmy and thousands of boys and girls who are suffering from cancer happy by aiding research to help find a cure for cancer in children.” Within a month more than a hundred thousand dollars had poured in.

Siddhartha writes: For any illness to rise to political prominence, it needed to be marketed.  If Farber’s antifolates were his first discovery in oncology, then this critical truth (about marketing) was his second. It set off a seismic transformation in his career that would far outstrip his transformation from a pathologist to a leukaemia doctor. This second transformation – from a clinician to an advocate of cancer research – reflected the transformation of cancer itself.

Together with a high-profile health activist, Mary Lasker, Farber managed to take cancer research in the US to a completely different level. Between 1954 and 1964, Cancer Chemotherapy National Service Center would test 82,700 synthetic chemicals, 115,000 fermentation products, 17,200 plant derivatives and treat nearly 1 million mice every year with various chemicals to find an idea drug.

In short, two things helped move a basement lab into an innovation sandbox: (1) Focused experimentation on solving a tough problem (such as cancer treatment) (2) Marketing “cancer research” so that many other labs can perform the experiments too. In some sense, it is like opening up the experimentation effort.

Photo sources: Book image (flipkart.com), Dr. Sidney Farber (wikipedia.org)

Two innovation sandboxes in Wright brothers’ experimentation journey

An innovation sandbox has 3 key characteristics: focus, massive experimentation capacity and ultra- low cost of each additional experiment. Wright brothers created two innovation sandboxes which were to play a significant role in their experimentation journey from 1900 to 1903 leading to their historic flight on Dec 17, 1903. What were these sandboxes? How did they build them? What role did they play in their success? Let’s explore these questions in this article. I will refer to the well-made documentary film "Wright brothers' flying machine" (embedded above) for you to see it visually. I have put the time in the film where the topic is discussed in brackets e.g. (11:18) meaning 11 minutes and 18 seconds.

Sandbox-1: kitty-Hawk:  Orville & Wilber Wright became serious about attempting to build the flying machine in 1899.  They knew they were entering into a serious game where experimentation would last several years. In fact, one of the serious players in the game, Otto Lilienthal had died in a crash during his flying experiments in 1896 (11:18). Wright brothers did extensive study of available literature. They had to work out all the 3 key sub-problems: lift, thrust and stability. However, their approach stood out for their focus on stability (16:11). For the other two problems, they had good starting points e.g. the lift tables published by Lilienthal and the propellers used in ships.

Wright brothers had to work within two serious constraints: shortage of money and ensuring safety. Following table shows how their experimentation capacity increased hundred-fold in the 4 years. Cost of each experiment was pretty low (29:55). Neither of the brothers suffered any injury due to a flight accident throughout these experiments. Their sandbox was literally in the sand dunes!

Sandbox-2: Wind-tunnel: While Lilienthal’s lift tables were a good starting point; they turned out to be inaccurate (12:15). What to do? Do you build a variety of gliders to derive a more accurate table? That would have taken several years perhaps decades. Instead Wright brothers built a wind-tunnel out of a wooden box in their Dayton workshop (13:15). It was 16 inches wide by 16 inches tall by 6 feet long. Their ingenuity was in designing an intricate aerodynamic measuring device using an old hacksaw blade and bicycle spoke wire. What could have taken years was achieved in three months period.  During October to December 1901, Wright brothers re-generated lift and drag tables over 200 experiments. This helped solve the "lift" problem.

If you want to solve a really tough problem, ask yourself, “How do we build an innovation sandbox around this problem? Which variable will we focus on first? How many experiments can we perform in a month/year? What would be the cost of each additional experiment?”

photo sources: Wright brothers (wikipedia.org), wind tunnel (solarnavigator.net)

Building experimentation capacity in rural schools in India: The Agastya way

“School in a lab” and “lab in a box” may seem paradoxical metaphors. However, Kuppam campus of Agastya Foundation has combined these two beautifully to create a rich learning experience for school children in rural India. In the process, Agastya has created a model which might create for the rural education what Grameen Bank has done to the micro-finance. What exactly has Agastya done? We got a glimpse of it during our memorable Kuppam visit earlier this month thanks to Dr. Shibu Shankaran and Ramji Raghavan. Here are three characteristics of Agastya-model that stood out.

Experience-first, explanation-next: Agastya has turned the learning process upside-down. How many of you remember anything about conservation of angular momentum? I don’t. However, when you sit on the swivel chair, hold the revolving cycle wheel in your hand and then turn it, you experience yourself revolving (see picture). This experience makes you much more receptive to understand the principle behind it. The whole of Kuppam campus is like a large laboratory where there are hundreds of instruments you can “play with” first.  However, what makes Agastya unique is that it has created a pedagogy (way of teaching) around it. When students come in the morning from nearby villages to the campus, they first perform experiments. Of course, you need to explain them enough for them to perform the experiment. 

Set-up without the kids 

Set-up with the kids

However, the major part of theory is taught after the experiment. On an average, a student within 30km radius of Kuppam visits the campus four times a year. And during each visit, he attends two sessions: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Isn’t four days a year too short a time? And what about the other students outside the 30km radius? Well, Agastya has thought about that too.

Agastya Hubli centre

Hub-and-spoke model: Agastya currently has 21 satellite centres spread across 10 states in India. In fact, when I visited Agastya’s Hubli centre last February I got to see the Bhishma’s chair and much more. Students in and around Hubli area visit the Hubli centre. Apart from this Agastya has created a “lab in a box” concept where instruments necessary to perform specific experiments are put in a box. And these boxes reach schools through 60+ mobile vans. Agastya is currently experimenting with a “lab in an auto” and a “lab on a bike” concepts. Making lab accessible to kids is just one part of the story. What about the teachers? Well, Agastya trains the teachers as well. However, what is perhaps even more impactful is the “young instructor leader” program. This program identifies bright students and trains them to become champions. What better way to learn than peers explaining it to you? You say, “Fine. But how is Agastya able to make scientific equipment available at low cost?” That leads to the third leg of Agastya’s model.

Build capacity to make low-cost instruments: When you are trying to reach millions of kids in several thousands of schools, cost of instruments matter. We visited the workshop in Kuppam campus where Agastya makes many of the student-friendly instruments. There were some which were made in Bangalore. Our 14 year old son said he wouldn’t mind doing an internship in the workshop.

Agastya is not claiming to be the “complete” institution. Currently, it is heavily biased towards hard sciences. Arts curriculum is just taking off. Theatre and music is nowhere to be seen. But, most importantly, Agastya is learning and innovating every day. Unlike most educational institutions in India its “idea box” is alive and breathing and language of experimentation is very much part of the culture. I wish Agastya a great future.

Lab in a box

Idea box at Agastya

Workshop for lab equipment

 Related article:

“Agastya is empowering rural India”, Ramji Raghavan’s interview at Education World, Mar 7, 2012. Ramji, the brain behind Agastya, explains the model and its impact.

Why does Galileo smile in spite of the telescope fiasco?

Last month I got an opportunity to watch Bertolt Brecht’s play “The life of Galileo” at Ranga Shankara, Bangalore. The play was directed by Prakash Belawadi. In one of the scenes, the curator (Director as we would call him today) of the University of Padua storms into Galileo’s house. It is night and Galileo and his friend Sagredo are watching the sky through a telescope. The curator is upset because Galileo had falsely claimed authorship of the invention of telescope and got his salary raised by 500 scudi. Now, the curator has discovered that telescopes made in Holland are available on any street corner of Italy for a few scudi. Galileo is not upset with this news at all. In fact, he seemed happy to hear it and smiles. Why did Galileo smile in spite of the fiasco?

Did Galileo really lie? Yes. He falsely claims that the telescope is the fruit of his seventeen years of research. He had heard about the basic idea of telescope invented in Holland. He improves upon it and claims authorship. After the curator leaves Galileo explains to Sagredo, “Virginia (his daughter) will soon need a dowry. She is not intelligent. And then, I like to buy books. And I like to eat decently. It’s when I am eating that I get most inspiration.” Galileo wanted to savour a good life and he chose to capitalize on the telescope idea. Did Galileo smile because he could fool the authorities and get his salary hiked? Nope. Then what was it?

By 1610 (this Galileo incident), Copernicus’ mathematical model of heliocentric system (Sun at the centre) was 60 years old. However, it had not gained support from Astronomers because it clashed with the Church view that the Earth is at the centre of the universe and there was no evidence to support it. In 1600 (10 years earlier), Giordano Bruno, another Italian astronomer was burned to death by the civil authorities because he had supported Copernican view. Opposing Church was a game with high stakes.

With the help of telescope, Galileo had been able to observe the sky in more detail. For example, he studied four smaller planets near Jupiter one of which vanished after a few days. That concluded that the planet was revolving around Jupiter and not around the Earth. There was no scaffolding that was holding the universe up as the Church claimed. What was even more significant was that with telescopes being sold at street corners in Italy, anybody could verify what Galileo was observing. In Galileo’s words in the play, “The temptation offered by such a proof is too great. Most succumb to it, and in the long run-all”.

In other words, telescope had taken the experimentation capacity of average people to a completely new height. Unlike Bruno, Galileo can make claims which anyone can observe and check it for himself. This idea perhaps tickled Galileo and he smiled.

You can also watch this scene in the 1975 movie “Galileo”. It begins with the song:

No one’s virtue is complete:

Great Galileo likes to eat.

You will not resent, we hope,

The truth about this telescope.

Your hand is wiser than your head ever gonna be

Is thinking overrated? The core message from this movie, "The legend of Bagger Vance" which is loosely based on the dialogue between Arjun (Junuh here) and Bhagvan Krishna (Bagger Vance) in Bhagavad Gita seems to say so!

Junuh was a rising golfing star from Savannah Georgia

After a defeat in the World War I, Captain Junuh is traumatized and loses his swing

Junuh is coaxed into playing an exhibition match. During the match when Junuh is losing badly, he gets advice from his caddie, Bagger Vance, "It's time for you to see the field."

"Alright, what is the field?" Junnuh asks Bagger Vance

"You seek it with your hands"

Why seek it with hands? Because, "Your hand is wiser than your head is ever gonna be"

You can watch the scene on YouTube.

Managing a big bet: Dr. Ashwin Naik of Vaatsalya shares his experience

In the innovation leadership workshop I facilitated last month, we had a panel discussion on “Managing big bets”. During this discussion we got an opportunity to listen to Dr. Ashwin Naik, CEO, Vaatsalya, Dr. Ishwar Parulkar, Chief Systems Architect, Cisco and Jayesh Badani, CEO, Ideaken. Here is a summary of our discussion with Ashwin. I will summarize the other two discussions over the next few weeks.

Dr. Ashwin Naik (second from the left in the photo) is the Co-Founder and CEO of Vaatsalya, India’s largest hospital network catering to tier-II and tier-III towns. Started in 2005, Vaatsalya hospitals today are in 17 towns in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. He shared his experience from starting of the itch to scaling the business and his guiding philosophy in working through the challenges.

You can find the interview here.

The questions that got discussed were:

1. Where did the itch begin?

2. Did you see it as a big bet right from the beginning?

3. Did you visualize that you will be in 50 towns?

4. What happened in the early phase – say in the first six months or a year?

5. Did the image of who your customer is undergo any change? If so, what change?

6. What kinds of attributes do you use today to define your customer?

7. Why do you need to segment market in healthcare? Like you said, why can’t anybody be your customer?

8. What would be a couple of turning points in this journey?

9. How did you get local practitioners to join you in a place like Hubli?

10. What are your fears?

11. Vaatsalya has innovated on the business model. But once the business model is established, does Vaatsalya have to innovate?

12. How about innovation from the customer experience dimension – from the time customer enters to when he leaves after treatment?

13. Do you ever feel like quitting? How do you handle it?

14. What are your insights on building champions in the organization?

15. Suppose an idea comes from a housekeeper. How do you ensure it is not getting killed?