Entrepreneurship and the Digital Divide

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okay well we have uh people slowlytrickling in but we’re gonna go aheadand startum out of respect for everybody’s timeum we’re really excited to be hosting aconversation today on social Innovationentrepreneurship and the digital dividein collaboration with our wonderfulcolleagues at Andy which you will learna lot more about shortlyum to kick to kick us offum I will uh go over the agenda we’regoing to start by having a quick uhfireside chatum to talk a little bit more aboutdigital Equity at the intersection ofEntrepreneurship what does that meanit’s going to set the tone for the restof the discussion which will Deep diveinto a more thorough understandingaround the entrepreneurial ecosystem andthe impact on Social Developmentspecifically the sustain sustainabledevelopment goals and other social andeconomic development objectives and feelfree to use the chat box throughout thisto ask us questions there’s a q afeature ask your questions in there andwe’ll try to get to those towards theend of the discussion but do use the theQ a feature to ask us questions and wewill also be sending resources out onthe chat box so please do keep your eyeout for thatto give you a really quick overview uhthis webinar is part of our digitalInnovation and social Innovation seriesthat really looks to highlight the roleof digital equity in the larger socialimpact ecosystem digital inclusion anddigital Equity are often buzzwords thatyou hear thrown around and we’re goingto unpack why they are not only morethan buzzwords but the critical rolethat digital inclusion plays in helpingus actually achieve the sustainabledevelopment agenda and then also otherdevelopment objectives which we’llunpack throughout this conversation aquick introduction to the digital Equityaccelerator which is one of theorganizers of this webinar we are aincubator for non-profit organizationsthat are really looking at creatingprogress on social and economicdevelopment challenges specificallythrough the lenses of digital inclusionand digital Equity this is our secondyear and we’re very proud to say that wehave thus far invested into 17organizations helping expand theircumulative reach and impact but alsoreally helping them think through how tosustain and grow and develop their worksand out of their work and outputfor the purposes of this conversation uhwe Define digital Equity as a not justkind of something that we hear aboutit’s great to have connections to theinternet or access to mobile phones butwe truly believe that without digitalequity and digital inclusion we limitpeople’s abilities to have full andmeaningful engagement in their societiesand thus we limit our ability globallyto actually achieve social and economicdevelopment objectives and goals andthat’s a lot of what we’re going tounpack here todayto quickly introduce myself my name ishazami brahmada and I’m director of thedigital Equity accelerator but I come tothis space from a InternationalDevelopment background primarily and Iam extremely honored to be uh here todayand have a fireside chat and then handover the reins to her to verywonderfully moderate the rest of theconversation but I’m happy to be joinedby rachando Van lewen who is theexecutive director of the Aspen networkof development entrepreneurs also knownas Andyum and rashinda has such a diverse andwonderful colorful background andexperience in executive management andInternational Development and I willhave her actually talk to you more aboutthe wonderful work that Andy is doingand without further Ado I’m going toactually dive straight into that sowelcome rashindathank you very much it’s a pleasure tobe here all right I’m going to kick offby asking you to introduce our audienceto Andyum and maybe those that are not as awareumwhat does it doso Andy um so as you mentioned the Aspennetwork of development entrepreneurs isa 14-year program of the Aspen Institutethat was set up in 29 2009 so next yearwe’ll be celebrating our 15th year ofthis workum and structured as a membershipnetwork of intermediaries and you’ll bemeeting some of them shortly in the nextuhum phase of the conversation that arefocusing on helping to support smallbusinesses in their growth and theirdevelopment and really looking at thingsholistically from an ecosis anentrepreneurial ecosystem helping reallyentrepreneurs to be able to succeed intheir local communities and their localcontext and part of that has been verymuch looking at overcoming some of thebarriers to growth for small businesseswhether it’s access to Capital whetherit’s access to markets whether it’s thetype of support that they need whetherit’s from incubation when they’re juststarting out or acceleration and helpingthem to to access financing to to beable to grow so today we’re a network ofum between two and three hundredintermediaries around the world andtoday you’ll be hearing from fromum colleagues from techno cell that’sreally operating globally as well ascolleagues fromum uh promo hair and Foundation Capitalwho work in the Americasum and they’ll be talking more abouttheir work in in their specific countryand contextum but uh this this group is a veryvibrant Network that comes together andreally focusing on what do we need whatdo we need to do to continue to addressum various for small businesses whetherfor male entrepreneurs whether forfemale entrepreneurs but for womenentrepreneurs particularly there havebeen a lot of systemic issuesum uh which mean that they don’t reallyhave the opportunity necessary early toto grow and optimizetheir ability to contribute to localsocial and economic development so overthe years we’ve really been focusing ina number of different areas access toCapital does remain a challenging one inthe sector we call it the missing middleof really looking at the the access tofinance that’s uhum available to to uh to these smallbusinesses and why is this importantwell small businesses actuallyconstitute 90 of the world’s business uhsector so when we talk about privatesector you know often we think aboutGoogle and Walmart and these massivecompanies but actually most businessesare small businesses so if they don’thave the opportunity really to be ableto grow and meet the optimize theirability to grow then we’re actuallymissing out as a society so we’re allreally very much focused on how do wehelp to overcome those barriers how dowe help to support those entrepreneurs Imean My My ultimate vision is that youcould be an entrepreneur anywhere in theworld and have access to the businesssupport and access to Capital to helpyou grow your business wherever you areand even today we’re still a long wayfrom that and we’re working to addressit howeverum and it’s great to have so manymembers that we work with on a dailybasis to to realize that Visionum in their own contextum we’re also very much focusing onsmall businesses as an engine foreconomic development and particularlyfor jobs you know in some societies wehave very very high levels ofunemployment and particularly in partsof sub-Saharan Africa as much as 50youth unemployment and soentrepreneurship actually is one vehiclethrough which we can also help to createum new jobs decent jobs and particularlyas businesses formalize as they growthen they’re creating better jobs aswell for their local societies so that’sa key area of focus for us as well andthen I’ll just finish by saying that thethird area that we’re focusing onparticularly at Andy is also climateaction so we’re really also looking athow can entrepreneurship within thesmall business sector across so manysocieties help us with buildingresilienceum to climate change help us withaddressing some of the challengesum or through the ability to provideproducts and services through what wecall Green entrepreneurship that arereally helping to either decarbonize oraddress environmental challenges inthose societiesI want to unpack this a bit moreum because a lot of the work that you’retalking about which is part of how thiswebinar came about in engaging betweenboth of our initiatives it became clearthat digitization is something that wekeep hearing about the idea that oureconomy and our world is going moredigitized now what does that mean whatare the impacts to the business sectorbut what are also the impacts toentrepreneurs themselves in the productsthat they create so I’d like to ask youto maybe unpack from your perspectivewhy digital equity and digital inclusionis so important in the entrepreneurialecosystemyeah um it’s it’s important on twofronts um first of all uh we just wentthrough a pandemic that helped usrecognize thatum uh you know we all had to Pivotalmost overnight to being um digital I’msorry my video seems to have gone offbut from beingum offering Servicesumumin person to having to Pivot to digitalso one of the things that we saw waspre-pandemicum many of our members were offeringtheir services about 24 of them wereoffering um Digital Services before thepandemic and thenum by the end of 2020um about 72 75 percent of them wereoffering Digital Services so it’s notonly that it’s important for thebusinesses themselves but it’s alsoimportant for those organizations andyou’ll hear some examples shortly thatare offering those services to theentrepreneurs so uh we found that youknow when we used to haveum meetings in person now you know ithad to be online and in a way thisreally pushed the sector forward I wouldsay by by a number of years because itwas already going in that direction butthen it was a forcing mechanismum and now we see in through surveyingthat we’ve doneum that it’s about 62 percent ofservices something like that that areoffered digital so in person can bestill very much important you know veryimportantum but for the entrepreneurs themselvesum I mean you know we live in a we livein a digital world now so business somuch business is being done digitallythat you’re losing out in your Societyif you don’t have access to the toolsum that can be helping you either gainan advantage or if you don’t haveum uh a digital Marketplace then you maybe losing a large proportion of yourcustomer base if you’re not utilizingTools in your business in your businessthenum particularly just digital basicdigital Financial tools then it’s veryvery hard for you as a smallentrepreneur to be able to for exampleum uh be aware of your cash flow andcash flow management is a huge issuethat we’ve seen through microEnterprises as well as small businessesso there’s so much there’s so manydigital products out there now but theentrepreneurs may not know uh which onesare the right ones to use or which onesare affordable and so it’s helpful forthem to be able to look um and and seeyou know what’s what’s available andwhat’s appropriate to their businesswhich is where our members come in aswell particularly in helping guide thoseentrepreneurs in their own digitalJourneys and some of them it’s going tobe you know that their actual product isa digital product you know they they arean online business whereas other onesit’s really that they’re offering moreof a business or product or service thatis not online but they need to utilizethat digitalum uhsolution based in order to be able tooptimize their business and I will sayas well because I couldn’t resist sayingit having been um very much in thatworld we also still have many manypeople who don’t have access toelectricity so that digital world is ifnot completely out of reach it’s verydifficult for them so um it would bedigital uh through a cell phone and ifyou don’t have a smartphone then againit’s very difficult for you to be ableto take full advantage of of what’swhat’s on offer digitally and um westill today you know although we’ve madegreat strides on that in sub-SaharanAfrica for example there’s still about650 million people who don’t have evenbasic access to electricity so there’s adigital divide but there’s also thatthat that power divide that that thenexacerbatesum the digital inclusion piece as wellwell that brings me to a question I meanthis year 2023 marks the halfway pointfor the sustainable development goals aseveryone knows in 2015 we launched youknow as a global Community this veryambitious roadmap to developmentum we are at the halfway point andunfortunately also due to covid uhsetbacks we were realizing that we’renot halfway to achieving some of thesegoals uh outlined in the sustainabledevelopment agendaI want to ask you specifically if we cankind of tackle the role of the digitaldivide you mentioned exacerbating anyqualities but also what is the role ofthe digital divide in preventing us frommaybe even achieving a sustainabledevelopment goals if it isn’t centeredacross the sustainable developmentagendayeah I mean I think that’s a greatquestion because I think as we said theworld is moving more digitally you knowthere’s so much that you can dosometimes it’s even with data managementand being able to measure what is neededso using again an example from from mywork in the renewable energy space whichcontributes to sustainable developmentgoal seven and and 13. um we actuallynow have sensors that you can put to beable to assessum what are some of the power needs orhow is the power working in a way thatwe didn’t 10 years ago and those haveactually been developed by smallbusinesses so there’s a great one onesuch business is one called smart meterthat puts meters on grids and and tohelp look at how how the power isFlowing now why is that importantum becauseum the small businesses need to be ableto access that they need to be able togauge what their needs are they can alsosee how much it’s costing them you knowwhat’s cost effective where they couldbe more energy efficient and providingthat data is just exceptionallyimportant in um in helping us to reallysee how we can focus and where we canfocus another example in the financialservices sector isum being able to useumuh large data sets in order to be ableto look at credit uh ratings insub-Saharan Africa for solar and otherrenewable energy entrepreneurs and seewho should actually be getting theaccess to the capital and there’s aagain there’s another early companycalled nissio that’s really been lookingatum utilizing data in a way to be able toprovide a credit scoring for companiessmall businesses to then be able to lookat um what their financing needs are andthese are and then and then being ableto direct investors to to support thosecompanies so these are all examples ofhowum digital is supporting us inum in different aspects of theachievement of the sdgs and I could saythe same in the health sector or ineducation or so many sectors so I thinkI think the answer really in short isthat you can’t look today at being ableto achieve the sdgs without withoutdigital so whether it’s digitization ofthe small businesses or just digitalproducts and services that they can useas well as that support base that Imentioned through all of theintermediary organizations that helpthose businesses succeed we have to beable to utilize uh different types ofdigital Solutionswhen you and you bring up a reallyimportant point which is also the roleof entrepreneurs and non-profits in thecase for example of our digital Equityaccelerator that are actually solvingfor this digital divide they are stopgapping what ordinarily people wouldthink is traditionally responsibility oflarge corporations telecommunicationscompanies and governments and you’reseeing increasingly small to mediumEnterprises that are starting to createSolutions in these spaces whether it’smobile apps for accessibility whetherit’s Healthcare Solutions through mobileclinicsum you know in our accelerator cohort wehave folks that are using Whatsapp chatBots for example for educational andcurriculum tools there’s a lot ofinnovation happening in the digitalEquity space and the digital inclusionspace alsoI’d like to ask you what yourperspective is on the role ofentrepreneurs and actually solving forsome of these very structural systemicinequities that we see in theInternational Development sectoryeah that’s a great that’s a greatquestion because I think uh one of theadvantages of small businesses is isthat they canum you know they’re not being offsetthey can be agile they can be Innovativeum and uh and they can bring new newsolutions to their you know whether it’sat the local community or often if theycan if they can scale you know which iswhat we’re really focusing on then itcan actually be you know at a nationalorum International level as well so I doremind people that even amazon.comstarted out as a small business insomebody’s garage so you know it’s it’sreally looking and not constrainingtheir growthum and really being able toum provide those those flexibleSolutions as you say you know that umthat are well tailored to their localcontext as well and again I don’t wantto sort of preempt the uh the paneldiscussion but you will be hearingexamples of that um from some of thepanelists shortlyum and I also want to say that umparticularly I haven’t mentioned yet yetthat it’s also very very important interms of gender Equity because there isalso a gender digital divideum and we do see and Andy’s done somework around this you know we’ve seenthat through acceleration Services whenoffered to men male entrepreneurs andwomen entrepreneurs that um the femaleentrepreneurs even though they’re goingthrough the same acceleration program donot come outum as far ahead as the maleentrepreneurs do and we’ve been sort ofdoing a deep dive around thatum and there’s there’s multiple reasonsit’s it’s it’s complex around that butthere’s definitely unconscious biasum and that’s something that we have tobe aware of also in digital is uh youknow as we begin to use these large datasets you know we we can be not onlyovercoming bias but we can also beintroducing new buyers if we’re notcareful but we did see during thepandemic that when we pivoted to onlinesome women entrepreneurs were actuallybetter able to access Us online classesand they would be able to do within-person classes because perhapsthey’re running their business part-timeand wouldn’t be able to take the timeout toum maybe it’s because of child careduties or for some other reason wouldn’tbe able to take the time out to go andattend a full day session in person butthey are able as long as they’ve gotaccess to the internet they are able toaccess digital tools online sort of at atime when when they can do it themselvesyou know uh perhaps in the evening so soso there are you know there aredifferent mechanisms and ways that wecan address thisum but there is definitely still agender digital divide in addition to thethe overall digital divide so so part ofovercoming that is also helping us withum achieving sustainable developmentgoal five on gender equityabsolutely absolutely right and we oftensay also in the accelerator that weexacerbate existing inequalities thatexist and you see things like Miss anddisinformation uh lack of trust anderoding trust in in the public sectorand in some cases also the privatesector I know there’s a question in thechat box around corruption and duediligence and the role of smes andhelping manage you know corruption butthe online World oftentimes mirrorsum unfortunately thethey’re very uh struggle the things thatwe struggle with whether it’s racismmarginalization uh lack of accessibilityof Social Services or services ingeneral I don’t want to take from TheAmazing rare bus conversation that Iknow is coming so maybe Rosanda I willuh thank you for this amazing andthought-provoking uh fireside chatconversation and hand the reins over toyou to take this forward and really helpus understand and unpack uh theentrepreneurial ecosystem as it relatesto a lot of what we were talking aboutso without further Ado I am going topass over the hat to you and uh forSanta please take a take us awayterrific thank you so much and I willjust end by saying also thatum Andy does have a digitalizationprogram and so if you are a non-profitor if you are an intermediary that’shelping to support entrepreneurs andyou’re listening in thenum go to andyglobal.org because we havesome resources available we actuallyhave a digitalization handbook forbusiness development service providersis and a digital assessment toolavailable and I’m sure that there areresources available through ourpanelists as well so without further AdoI want to introduce our panel our panelum uh Carmen career is the CEO of promohair which is a long-standingum uh non-profit that’s been operatingacross much of Latin America for manyyears and Carmen has a distinguishedcareer based um in different parts ofthe world in Uruguay with Endeavor andin other parts of the world with theInternational inter-american DevelopmentBank and elsewhere you can read her heruh very impressive bioum on uh on the slide uh welcome Carmenthank you very muchand one navarrete is the vice presidentof fandacion capital and also has a verydeep background in financial inclusionum and uh also has a a deeper experienceacross much of Latin America and he willbe talking about their work on digitalinclusion and public private partnershipso welcome onethank you thank you and Juan Carlosum is listed here as a head ofEntrepreneurship but I will say he’s thevice president at uh techno serve um herecently had a promotionum and welcome Juan Carlos um technoserve I will say was a founding memberof Andy um and they’re really workingacross many countries around the worldum on a range of differententrepreneurship initiativesum and uh also is is has been veryinvolved in uh in Andy over the lastmany years so welcome one call us aswellthank your agenda for inviteand um so so for all of youum really want to just kick off theconversation you’ve heard a little bitthrough the fireside chat but in interms of your own experience in terms ofyour countries and contexts what do youseeum as being the some of the key issuesaround digital equity and digitalinclusionum and what’s what what is the long-termconsequence of not havingum digitalum small and growing businesses in inyour ecosystems in your sectorsand and if you just unmute and and justuh you know just uh when you’d like tospeak so one maybe you’d like to kickoff as you’re unmutedsureum I I think that it’s not a matter ofchoice actually to to to be digitaltoday the the economies are digital anduh for small and growing business andmicro and small entrepreneurs it reallyis a mustum I think that uh integrating intovalue chains is uh through digitalchannels uh you talked about access tofinance uh you talked earlier aboutaccess uh to acceleration to capacitybuilding to all sorts of services thatare needed uh to survive and to thrivein the economy so it’s not just a niceto have but a must and as we saw duringthe pandemic uh most uh small andgrowing businesses needed to Pivotovernightum and and start using digital channelsotherwise they would not simply surviveso uh I I believe that the consequencescan be uh enormous if if we do not uhkeep doing the efforts to digitalize uhsmall and growing businessesyes I couldn’t agree more we need tounderstand the magnitude of theTransformations we see in digitalMarketplace and I think that we have tobe very well aware that artificialintelligence is evolving at a very rapidPace we are the advancing on robotics weare actually seeing 3D printingthat you can where you can produce humanorgans so we are truly achieving anincredible thing and an incredibleadvancement but however this progressalso has not been Equitable and as itwas stated before on the contrarydigital divides are accentuatinghistorical inequalities so what we haveseen especially in Latin America is thatwe we have a a very big barrier rightnow with the the digitalization so it isthere is a clear negative impact onproductivity Latin America despiterepresenting actually 95.5 of businessesin the region small and growing businessgenerating only 25 percent of the GDPwhile in Europe for example they produce56 so I think the answer is clear thedigital divide among small and growingbusinesses as you were stating magandain Latin America puts them at acompetitive disadvantage decreases theiroperating actually efficiencies andmakes them much less resilient to crisisso we have to be very well aware that ofcourse this is going on this ishappening we are in Innovation ishappening happening but we have to bevery very well aware on how we don’tleave anybody behind because the thebarriers are much bigger right nowthanks and Juan Carlos um from a GlobalPerspective what are you seeing um someof the challenges globally and we’llcome on to some of the solutions uh inthe next roundyeah look I mean I I couldn’t endorsemore what what fine and Carmen just justsaid uh we in funny enough in 2017 wepresented a study in partnership withthe golisota business school thatdemonstratedwell before kovid how how important wasthe adoption of these digitalTechnologies for for SUVs uh well thestudy reflected that companies that thatincorporated Technologies in theirbusinesses uh kind of were way more moreproductive more effective they grewfaster imagine fast forward five yearslater after kovid how how if we run thesame study again how that that wouldlook like uh so now it’s a matter ofsurvival uh and it’s a matter of of alot of opportunity as well so uh sothat’s um that’s one quick quickreflection the the second one I wouldsay is is Tech uh can mean manydifferent things in different contextsso it’s easy to get branded by by thelatest technology artificialintelligence uh uh you know blockchainsand and so on and that may make sense inin many cases but but in others it maybe something as simple as as WhatsApp soduring during covert uh we saw wesupported many many business modelstransitioninto uh the new way of doing businessesand and I can I remember I’m fromChilean uh a small business we supportedin Concepcion that almost went intobankruptcy because they they theyprovided uh in-person education onlanguages uh to people in Concepcion uhof course they couldn’t host more uhcouldn’t host people in in the roomanymore but uh by incorporating anonline learning platform they managed togrow their business actually uh byproviding uh uh training uh uh Vitaly onthe other side of the world uh in Penanguh an entrepreneur selling full in thestreets basically created a WhatsAppgroup uh something as simple as that andand and so his business growing by uhsaying the Italy as you will you willcall it so it’s very important toacknowledge that technology maybe uhsomething different uh in in differentcontexts and and not to get in love withthe latest and the greatest but but withwhat makes sense in the particularcontext last thing I will say is is alsoconsider that uhum The Gap may be different uh fordifferent entrepreneursum and uh and it’s very important tohave that into consideration and andmeet people where they are um so uhbefore kovid we used toum uh classify our programs by Targetsegments of of entrepreneurs uh lookingat where they were in the stage of thebusiness cycle or how much growthpotential they have or things like thatnowadays we need to consider where theyare in their in their digital Journey uhbecause it can make a very importantdifference uh in the growth postProspect and their needs for for supportsoI hope that that helped complement thethe great thoughts of Michael this yearJuan and Carmen yes I I would like tovery briefly compliment with with someacroeconomic data about the potential toum uh uh to on top with digitization inMexico for example we would be adding 65billion to the economy fully digitizeduh and uh from a micro perspective uh wehave been working with a universe ofover 65000 micro and small entrepreneurs inColombia Peru and Mexico and we haveobserved that uh those entrepreneursthat successfully adopted digitalpayments tools for example uhsubstantially increased uh their saleson a monthly basis and the survival rateso we have statistically significantevidence that uh the untapped potentialof digitization uh is is enormousno that’s great great for for pointingthat out it’s always helpful to bringthat data in common specifically to youbecause promo hair really is working alot with marginalized women how do yousee the gender digital digital divideum in your community and how are youseeingum whether the impacts of that um on uhon the communities that you work withum and then we’ll come maybe you canstart to talk about some of thesolutions that you are seeing in termsof how you’re supporting the the womenentrepreneurs yes of course andbasically I don’t want to sound verynegative but the reality is that it iscritical to remember that the digitaldivide is closely tied to genderinequality so the digital divide inLatin America most significantly impactswomen according even to the economiccommission for Latin America in theCaribbean there is a gap in thepercentage of women and men who reportedbeing internet users and who own amobile phone and this disparityincreases when it comes for example towomen living in rural areas making themthe least connected people or group inLatin America so we have to be very wellaware of this the digital divide betweenmen and women is seen around the worldnot only in Latin America itself tomention just one example for examplewomen’s and girls are 25 percent likelythan men to have sufficient knowledgeand digital skills so and to leverageactually the digital technology forbasic purposes so we have to take thisinto consideration and yes although thedemocratization of new technology hasthe potential to offer Solutionsactually that will have an ongoingimpact on the future of Latin America weurgently need to include a genderperspective across the entire spectrumof our initiatives otherwise we willkeep living women especially behind theaccessing the technology we will allbenefit if we succeed in closing thisdivide and basically from pramukhar whatwe have learned actually we we put inplace different strategies that theyhave very good results the first one iseducation we need to support educationwe need to trainfor leaders especially of small andmedium and growing businesses and weneed to provide them with the tools theyneed to transform their businesses andto stay competitive this can alsoinclude everything from using using thedigital tools very basic uh knowledge onhow to use those this is the tools tomanage for example e-commerce platformsand also artificial intelligence also weneed to establish networks that allowsmall and growing businesses to connectthem with experts in technology digitalmarketing e-commerce and other relatedfields for guidance and also advice isessential and we also believe that it isfundamental and highly encouragedisso we’ll come back to Common we’rehaving a little bit of a internet adigital challengeum through internet but coming to toJuan Carlos and and one maybe you couldsay a little bit more about some of thework that you’ve been doing through yourorganizationsum to um to supportum small and growing businesses and andand are they wanting this kind ofsupport are they are theyum are they asking for it and sort ofwhat programming have you seen that isum most uh applicable and successfulum in in the in the areas that you worksorry I wasn’t muting yes I I think thatuh the targeted populations that we workwith uh have been very open uh theprocess of digitization it is not binaryit’s not whether you are digitized ornot digitized there really is a very uhwide spectrum of of of of elements therein the quality and in the depth ofdigitization uh in in the context of ourown work we have always mixed the techand the touch so we don’t only workthrough digital channels but we also goand have face-to-face interaction ofcourse during the pandemic it was moredifficult and it was different but webelieve that especially for thosebusinesses that are at the bottom of theincome pyramid it is crucial to createtrust in in the digital ecosystem uhtherefore to the extent that you canreally integrate creatively the techwith the touch you can really approachdifferent segments of businesses andreally cater to very different needs inthis process of of digitization uh forus it’s always a matter of reallydiagnosing in the very first place thesegment the type of business that we areworking with uh the constraints and thechallenges in terms of capacities tonavigate the digital ecosystems uhattitudes towards digital ecosystemsbecause there’s also some effort thatneeds to be done in terms of changingbehaviors towards how businesses can cansee uh digital ecosystems there’sthere’s uh some processes of stealthexclusion sometimes business especiallywomen-led businesses do not necessarilyhave the confidence to say okay I amgoing to start working with this digitalpayments tool or really going intosocial networks to do my marketing viasocial networks so approachingbusinesses in very different ways andcreative ways mixing the tech and thetouch has been very effective to usgreat thank you we’ve got some greatquestions coming in um from uh from theaudienceumum so maybe Juan Carlos as you talk alittle bit about your experience as wellyou could you say a little bit moreabout the types of businesses that youwere supporting through techno servebecauseum one of the questions is as are AndyAndy uh supported entrepreneurs orthrough through our members um at thestage of managing shareholder agreementsand equity and I think the answer is isin some contexts yesum and in others you know others aresupporting um very early stage uhEnterprises so maybe you could just saya little bit more about the types ofbusinesses that you are supporting aswell through techno serveif you can unmuteif if the host could unmute youyeah thank you thank you it seems to bea little problem we can not unmuteourselves or at least I can’t unmutemyself so so but uh yeah retender so alittle bit of of what technosphere doeswe in on the entrepreneurship side ofthings we we support uhum small growing businesses acrossaround 25 countries in Latin America inAfrica and in India and and we some ofour programs are are targeting differentdifferent segments uh from the tinybusinesses that may be a self-employmentopportunity to to one person to moresophisticated ones that may receivepriority with the Investments of coursefor those more advanced uhum the the level of governance and thelevel of uh their their profileum uh allows for for receiving equityfor the diamonds ones is not somethinguh that they could afford and andprobablya private Equity investment uh wouldn’tbe the best source of funding for themany anyway so how happy to dig more ontothat uh if if useful uh but uh wouldlove to would love to compliment on onthe great uh Lessons Learned uh thatJuan just just mentioned on on ourjourney to support uh entrepreneurs uhdigitallyumand I think I think it’s important tokeep in mind that that uh as we discussdifferent segments uh maybe uh at adifferent stage in their journey and andto keep that that in mind uh as one onementioned also uh I think understandingthat uh we as uh esos canum can use technology for differentpurposes we could we could uh usetechnology to to to increase scales toreach the unreachableum for example uh I know Carmen hasmentioned the the challenges of of thelead they’ll divide uh uh between menand women but also there are someopportunities as as you return thementioned before uh we have seen thatwomen canum basically women that have some basicaccess technology can be benefited if weuse that technology smartly because theycould better balance uh the different uhtasks that they carry out betweenrunning the business taking care of thekids and and things like that so thisthere it comes with challenge which Iagree with Carmen but also comes withwith important opportunitiesuh technology you can help us lower thecost uh and improve uh programEffectiveness uh cost Effectiveness soit’s good to keep in mind what your uhuh why you’re using technology as an ESOand and and and and design design forthatum I was going to come to that one oneCarlos and maybe Karma and we can bringyou back inum on on this one and I hope you canunmute as well what about your ownJourney as an entrepreneur supportorganization how how have you seenum your own work develop and your owndigitalization journey and and one ofthe questions that has come up as wellwhich is more about the transparency andwe all think of transparency as being umusefulum but it can create challenges as wellif if uh if you’re actually showing umthrough through the digital work thatthat in fact there’s um there are issuesum governance issues perhaps in in thelocal Society certainly we’ve seenum I know issues with uh data revealingthings that perhaps uhum people would rather not uh not beknown so so Carmen how how have you beenseeing that in your own Journey at promohairyeah thank you very much Richard and andI’m sorry I’m in Brazil and theconnectivity here is not very stable butit is critical to as an organization beadapt in also ourselves it is criticalto design Taylor Made Solutions actuallywe did recognize that notare the same we look very much into theand interestwe we were able to deploy actuallydifferentfrom her our digitalplatform that offers Dynamic andstraightforward content for each stageuh often the entrepreneurial Journey butitsectionality perspective is is key isfundamentalyou have to be very well aware thatLatin America is a multicultural regionand actually is home of Multiculturalethnic groups and it’s very complex anddiverse political social economic so wehave to design programs that actually weneed to adapt depending the reason orwhere you want to be implementing thesame for example in the southeast ofMexico and in Central America theplatform in Brenda it was adapted intoan evil program so because we understoodthat that digital education or thosedigital skills were not there yet to beable to use that platform itself so weneeded to put in place and what we callaccessories and supporters that actuallygo into the community and the firstthing they do is to teach on the use ofthe digital devices digital tools toaccess the platform so we need to keepthat adapting ourselves and of course weneed also to Advocate with theauthorities in some cases to secureinternet connectivity in some cases towork with them in how to bring togetherdifferent group of people andbeneficiaries that can actually accessbut in a much more easiest way thetechnology and access the educationalprograms because education for us is keyand it’s something that we are pushingvery much forward togreat thank you and and one maybe youcould you could say a little bit moreabout your own your own Journeyum at Foundation Capital as well in thisareayes I I think that uh and going back tothis question about the institutionalresistance to the digitization uh it itcan be there you know most of thebusinesses we work with in Latin Americaare in the informal sector so a lot ofthem uh may be afraid uh that being moredigital uh translates into being morevisible to the tax authorities forexample but to me it is very much amatter of giving uh information to thebusinesses and really having a dialoguewith the businesses in terms of uhensuring that they know what are thepros and consof of being digital and the return oninvestment of digitization is probablymuch higher than uh the tax that theymight be paying if they eventuallybecome uh formal so I think it’s amatter of communication information andalso capacities for them to be able tonavigate digital ecosystems safely andhave digital Journeys where trust isthere on a permanent basis if there isno trust in digital ecosystems it’sgoing to be impossible to really ensurethat there is an appropriation ofdigital tools and a continuous use ofdigital channels from uh the migrantssmall entrepreneurs that that we workwith so uh we have created chat Bots toreally have this continuouscommunication uh with the businesses weknow that there might be some capacitiesto build that can actually be sorted outthrough chatbots very simple and verypractical capacities all sorts of teamand informational content is sometimesmore relevant and more impactful thatthinking in over complicated capacitybuilding programs right so we always mixcommunication uhum with with with with capacity buildingin platforms but I think it’s really amatter of of being absolutely open andtransparent about the implications ofbeing digital the implications of beinguh informal versus uh the prospect ofbecoming formal you know it’s it’s amatter of of of of growth of of ofdevelopmentthat’s that’s great thank you and whenyou mention chat Bots you know I thinkthat’s super interesting during thepandemic we actually heard aboutum one of our members in Nigeria who wasworking with farmers who did not havesmartphonesum but they adapted their curriculumcontent to a a tech space because thefarmers could receive texts even thoughthey didn’t have smartphones and theywere able to deliver the content viatext to train the the the the farmingentrepreneurs so so you’ve got a veryhigh-tech solution um in the chatbot youknow very very much up to the minuteum and then also just a very low-techsolution so digital you know can meanmany things and and clearly you know wehave ways to do it inum in a way that meets where the digitaljourney is of of the of the people thatthey’re working with so Juan Carlos umwe’ve just got a couple of minutesremaining but do you have any favoritesuccess storiesum you mentioned a couple ofentrepreneurs earlier but anything elsethat really shows what you think is thepower of digitalum bothum for techno serve and for the the thethe the the entrepreneurs that you’reworking withyeah and look I I think I thinkumto be honest we were slowly adoptingtechnology before kovid and thewhen when Kobe hit uh we we starteddoing it with with a lot of care becausewe thought uh many things we could do uhwe we were used to do in person willnever been able to to translate it tothe digital world uh when Kobe hit wehad no choice and we were forced to moveinto into technology uhand we had to do it overnight uh butwith a lot of experimentation and careand and andco-creation among our teams around theworld I’m very proud on how we managedto to createuman offering that helped many of ourentrepreneurs become resilient duringtheir doing the pandemic and create uhum growth I mean resilience when youlook at the stats of people uh thatmanage to keep their business alive itwas it was truly impressive and alsoumuh how some of them pivot and andmanaged to grow their businessesum so I’m I’m very encouraged by thepower of using technology uh and by thepotential that it has now we’re in ajourney where we think we’re thinking onhow we incorporate those Lessons Learnedand come up with new models of newoperational models so for example uhbasically we keep having a team base inwe have a team based in Nairobi trainingmicro retailers uh to a digitalapplication uh that you can use in thesmartphone we do it because basically webrought digital technology into uh aprogram that was designed for for to bedelivered in the real world but now thepossibilities I mean there’s no waythere’s no reason why this team is notgoing to be training micro retailers allacross anglophone Africa so I’m veryexcited about the possibilities of of ofincorporating uh those Lessons Learnedin in into uh what can be uh a new modelof operation uh for us same thing forfor the entrepreneurs in the cases we wementioned before this uh business typeto people into a can an online trainingmodel or a tiny uh business uh thatstarted selling food through a WhatsAppgroup so plenty plenty of success casesboth for tennis here and for forentrepreneursgreat well thank you thank you all verymuch and I will say on a final note aswell that uh we’re all here today fromdifferent parts of the world thanks tothanks to digital and even if theInternet isn’t perfect I think that saysthat we still still got some way to goum but as an as a network Andy was onlyable to operate through covid because wewere all able to Pivotum digitally as a network as well so Ithink for us as a network it’s it’s soimportant also to be able to to talkwith all of youum through uh through Zoomum and through other channels as wellum so without further Ado I want to saythank you very much uh to Carmen to oneand to Juan Carlos for you all yourinsights if we haven’t answered yourquestion then please feel free tocontact the digital Equity acceleratoror contact Andy afterwards and would behappy to try and make sure that we canum answer your question so a big thankyou again to all our panelists and Iwill toss it back over to his armythank you very much for such a robustand fruitful conversation I think it’svery clear that we have a lot to discussuh you know both with all the you knowall the people on here but in generalthis is a conversation that is on theForefront of a lot of people’s minds andI encourage you all um you know I knowthat there’s a lot of folks who postedquestions around the work that you’redoing I do encourage you to startadvocating for this at a global scalebecause it’s rashinda and all thepanelists spoke to this requires Capitalit requires changing and Shifting thestructures that exist around access tofinance access to opportunity uh youknow there was questions around digitalliteracy and digital skills and thereare a lot of resources out there but wereally want to Center the importance ofdigital inclusion in conversations thathave to do with social and economicdevelopment across the board not justkeep the digital inclusion conversationseparate and it’s in a little site inits own little Silo because it does notlive there as you’ve heard through thisconversation it impacts every part ofour larger Global development ecosystemso with that I would like to thankrichenda and the panelists for joiningusum and uh very very uh fruitfulconversation please do stay in touchum and for our audience that isinterested in in uh additional events wedo have one finalum conversation as part of the thoughtleadership series that will take placeduring the UN General Assemblyum online also on technology and thesdgs um so please be on the lookout forthe announcement for that and we inviteall of you to attend our 20 uh 23accelerating digital Equity GlobalSummit that will take place the 17th and19th of October please do sign up forfor more information on our website anduh if you would like additionalinformation on Andy or any of the workthat we’re doing we encourage you to goto both websites look us up look up theAspen Institute and the programming thatwe’re doing across the board there’s alot of additional opportunities for uhengagement and with that thank you alluh very much again and and please joinme in virtually giving a round ofapplause to to our panelists but inrashinda obviously for not only yourthought leadership but also the workthat you’re doing to enable a lot of theentrepreneurial ecosystem to thrive andgrow around the world so thank you againto everybody for attending and we hopeto see you again and stay in touch

Small and growing businesses (SGBs) are an engine for developing countries. They are job creators and drivers of the economy, and they are changing the nature of work. COVID-19 has taken a painful toll on the SGB sector, and though virtual programming has been a means for entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs) to support SGBs, entrepreneurs are disproportionately left behind in terms of access, inclusion, and engagement in digital economies. 

On Wednesday, 30 August 2023, the Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs (ANDE) and the Digital Equity Accelerator hosted a conversation exploring the state of digital inclusion for entrepreneurs, opportunities for increasing momentum on the Global Goals, and to hear from innovative leaders around the world that are building the next generation of leaders in digital equity. The conversation explored: 

• What needs to be done to remove barriers to digital inclusion for entrepreneurs? 
• How do we innovate and design in ways that move entrepreneurial support systems? 
• What are small and growing business leaders themselves saying are the most pressing digital needs? 

Related Research: 

• Going Digital: Exploring the Value of Virtual Entrepreneurship Support in Africa
• Decent Work and Economic Growth in the SGB Sector, an ANDE Issue Brief