The Alumni & External Relations Students' Committee (AERC) of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad hosted the second session of its year-long speaker series— The IIMA Inspire Series— on February 28, 2018. This session saw the esteemed Roopa Kudva, the MD of the Omidyar Network India delivers a talk on innovating for the “Next Half-a-Billion” (NHB). NHB refers to the 500 million first-time internet users expected to come online via their mobile phones, over the next five years. Highlighting the fact that this population segment has largely been excluded, underserved and disempowered until now, Kudva articulated the need for purpose-driven innovators to build businesses that create opportunities to improve their lives.
Kudva mentioned the barriers that the NHB face in their digital journey such as the lack of confidence to transact online, user interfaces not adapted to the NHB’s social/ cultural context & the reticence in using the internet by women. She underlined the need for innovators looking to cater to this populace to address these barriers.
Over 40 students and members of the IIMA community attended the talk. Alina Almeida, a PGP student and coordinator of the Women leadership Society at IIMA said: “Roopa Kudva’s speech on ‘Innovating for the next half billion’ gave us interesting insights into how businesses today are venturing into and remodeling themselves to cater to the previously unserved bottom of the pyramid segment.”