MLC Event: Going Beyond the One Million
MLC Event | April 13th 2022
Reaching one million lives is without doubt a challenging endeavour - yet one that many Million Lives Collective Members have pioneered worldwide. While many remarkable innovations have managed to reach this milestone, there is an increasing thirst for knowledge on how to go beyond the one million. To pursue this quest for knowledge, MLC Members came together on April 13th to showcase and reflect on approaches to scaling adopted by innovations that have impacted multiple millions of lives. Three MLC Members, namely VisionSpring, Delft Imaging, and SolarAid, contributed reflections on their successes, scaling barriers overcome, and other contributing factors to reaching significant scale. The meeting, chaired by Adetunji Eleso, Director of Scale and Sustainability at Grand Challenges Canada, focused on the inflection points between three main aspects of an innovation’s scaling journey: financing, partnerships, and innovation design
Ella Gudwin, CEO of VisionSpring kicked off the meeting by presenting VisionSpring’s work: a social enterprise providing affordable eyeglasses, vision screening, and training to people living under $4 a day. Globally, nearly 1 billion people do not have access to the eyeglasses needed to see and do well - and VisionSpring aims to tackle this problem by upholding the belief that eyeglasses are a driver of multiple Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
However, while VisionSpring today provides eyeglasses to over 8.7 million people and unlocks 1.8 billion in income earning potential, it took them 10 years to reach their first 1 million customers. It also took multiple evolutions of their model to arrive at where they are today.
Ella explained that amongst the fundamental questions VisionSpring asked throughout its scaling journey included: “is the problem and its customer segment big enough?” And “is the model simple enough to replicate?”. During the replication phase, Ella highlighted the importance of rigorous evidence to support the innovation and whether the product and service delivery are cheap enough to sustain. To address these questions, Ella emphasised the importance of referring back to an innovation’s theory of change and building on the segments that lack evidence. VisionSpring specifically conducted Randomised Control Trials substantiating the high social return on inventing in eyeglasses and the increase in productivity for those wearing eyeglasses. This ultimately led VisionSpring to their“a-ha” moment; realising eyeglasses are an input not only to health but also to other SDGs including gender equality, access to banking, education, and road safety. VisionSpring now builds partnerships both with government ministries and national offices to drive down the price of eyeglasses through subsidies, and catalysing collective action that has resulted in scaling to over 8 countries.
“Is the problem and its customer segment big enough? Is the model simple enough to replicate?”
Guido Geerts, CEO of Delft Imaging, contributed to the discussion by recounting the scaling journey of Delft, a B-Corp that focuses on providing affordable and innovative diagnostic technology with the aim of strengthening health care systems in vulnerable and developing communities. Their MLC-recognised innovation, CAD4TB, is an AI algorithm that uses machine learning to screen for tuberculosis. Delft’s technology managed to bring a disease originally only detected by doctors in high-resource settings in the hands of under-resourced workers. This has resulted in an overall screening of over 10 million people.
Guido described one of the most crucial moments in the design of CAD4TB’s model was the process of obtaining data. Indeed, data was key for fast and agile product development made possible through Delft’s direct contact with end-users. Guido also highlighted their decision not to patent their technology and make their research publicly available to stimulate social impact and encourage the development of similar models. From a financial perspective, Delft was initially supported by the Dutch Government before transitioning to a ‘pay-per-use’ model where the money obtained from using their product was reinvested into their product development .In his closing remarks, Guido echoed Ella’s words on the importance of partnerships, especially with academic and research institutions when aiming for an evidence-based solution.
“When you have your first prototype, go as soon as possible into the field”
Jamie McCloskey, Director of Development at SolarAid, and Brave Mhonie, General Manager for Malawi, concluded the conversation by presenting SolarAid’s scaling journey, a charity with a mission to light up every school, church, or house in Africa by 2030 using safe and clean solar power. SolarAid is trying to solve the problem faced by 550 million people without access to electricity in Sub-Saharan Africa by creating affordable and portable solar lights that, to date, have impacted over 11.9 million people. Through multiple iterations of its model, SolarAid created SunnyMoney, a social enterprise that works with schools and entrepreneurs to distribute portable and affordable solar lights and seed energy businesses tailored to specific territories.
Similar to VisionSpring, SolarAid adopts a hybrid model financed by both philanthropy, reinvested sales revenue, and multiple types of public and private partnerships. Jamie explained how their number one differentiating factor from its competitors is SolarAid’s focus on accessing last-mile communities, which is what ultimately led them to achieve such significant scale. The focus on reach rather than volume is implemented through an inclusive business model that addresses accessibility, affordability and sustainability, and is sustained through various partnerships with ministries of education. This allows their model to tap into existing local governmental and educational structures, emphasising their focus on sustainability, and building on the inflection points between partnerships, financing, and model design. This recipe is what ultimately led SolarAid to develop a series of projects including ‘Light Libraries’: a model where students can borrow a solar light along with a book from schools for a very small fee per night. Another project, the ‘Light a Village’ service model, allows customers to pay for the electricity rather than the hardware itself, ultimately reducing the cost of accessing electricity in rural areas. By bringing communities together to understand the importance of solar lights, SolarAid ultimately aims to increase awareness and market demand that generates successful adoption and scale.
The event concluded with a networking session where attendees could pose questions and raise their own scaling challenges in smaller groups. We look forward to learning how the new connections from the networking session develop! Thank you to all the participants, speakers, and to the thoughtful moderation from Adetunji.
