Indian Social Enterprise Vembi among winners of Singapore International Foundation Grant

By Lee Kah Whye
Singapore, March 14 : Inspired by her own experience where she faced challenges in her learning and education journey, Vidhya Y who is herself visually challenged, co-founded Vembi Technologies to increase access to content for the visually impaired.
Vidhya was not only the first visually impaired student to study Mathematics and Computer Applications at Christ University Bangalore, but also graduated at the top of her class. She went on to work as a research fellow at Microsoft before founding a social enterprise, Vembi Technologies.
Last week, the company she helped to start was one of the six social businesses that were awarded a SGD20,000 (USD15,000) grant to help further their ambitions by the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) in the Young Social Entrepreneurs (YSE) Global 2021 programme.
Vembi was one of 12 finalists with teams comprising of 2 members each which had to present their social business ideas to a panel of judges. In the finale, called Pitching for Change, the six winners were chosen based on the impact and scalability of their business ideas, as well as the commitment level of team members.
The finalists - from Cambodia, China, Jordan, India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore - were shortlisted from a larger pool of 41 teams, comprising 109 youths representing 16 nationalities. They had taken part in the YSE Global 2021 Workshop from July to August 2021.
The other winning teams are AKYAS Sanitation (Jordan), Kanpur Flowercycling Private Limited (Phool.co) (India), Khmer Super Plant food (Cambodia), Sojourner Brother (Singapore), and TACT (Thailand).
YSE Global is an eight-month programme that inspires, equips and enables youth of different nationalities to start or scale up their social enterprises in the Asia region. It is opened to social enterprise entrepreneurs aged between 18 and 35 with a viable and innovative business solution to a social issue.
Since it started in 2010, it has successfully shepherded 12 batches of social entrepreneurs through programmes involving training in skills such as leadership, marketing, entrepreneurship, and business acumen. They also had the opportunity to be mentored by regional business consultants from McKinsey & Company, Temasek International, Bain & Company and established entrepreneurs and experts relevant to their sectors.
It has so far established a network connecting over 1,300 young changemakers from 42 nationalities and also enabled them to gain access to an international network of investors, industry experts, experienced mentors.
Although the programme that just concluded was held virtually, past events before the pandemic were usually held in-person.
In May 2019, 35 young social entrepreneurs from across India convened in Bangalore for a two-day workshop as part of the SIF's 2019 series of YSE Overseas Workshops in India. Over two days, these social entrepreneurs were equipped with entrepreneurial know-how, and the necessary skills to become successful social enterprise business people.
Companies from Indian that have participated in this programme in the past include MITTI Cafe which provides employment opportunities for adults with intellectual and physical disabilities, Canvas which empowers rural and underprivileged urban youths to make informed career decisions and create a better future for themselves, and Ruas a for-profit social enterprise that aims to transform the lives of traditional women artisans through the transformational power of co-design, sustainable livelihoods, and preservation of historic craft forms, allowing them to create new products and access wider markets.
Vembi Technologies which participated in the 2021 YSE event, realised that the biggest challenge faced by the visually challenged community in India is the low availability and inadequate access to braille books. The Hexis-Antara platform they designed combines a refreshable braille display with an accessible content management platform to convert content in certain Indian languages to braille on demand, thus increasing the availability of braille content.
The supported languages are English, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Punjabi, Odia and Malayalam.
The responsive nature of the Hexis-Antara solution allows users to read as well as make choices to create their personalised reading experiences.
Existing refreshable braille displays are complex to use and expensive, whereas Hexis-Antara was created to be affordable and allows teachers and students to access classroom content on demand.
The initial hurdles Vembi had to navigate include the lack of awareness and appreciation about the need for assistive technologies while catering to the needs of a price-sensitive market in the Global South for assistive technologies.
Vembisaid that as young social entrepreneurs, the YSE Global 2021 programme has provided them with the necessary exposure they required to confidently present their solutions to experts and peers. The structured approach of learning hands-on and scientific methodologies helped them assess their current financial condition and subsequently plan their future activities while mitigating the perceived risks.
In her closing remarks following last week's YSE Global event, Guest of honour, Singapore Member of Parliament Carrie Tan, who is a social entrepreneur herself said, "My experience has been that doing good at scale and in depth is really tough. Doing good while doing business at the same time is even tougher. Yet, it is possible, and people have succeeded."
She added, "I look forward to witnessing the growth of all budding social entrepreneurs here. I believe that the valuable insights you have gained, and networks built during this time will put you in good stead for your journey ahead."