Drishtee is a rural based social enterprise that is committed for development of rural

communities. It facilitates support to rural micro-entrepreneurs and enables development and

implementation of sustainable rural enterprise models that can deliver economic advantages
and create livelihood opportunities.
It is a hubrid model established in March 2000 as a for profit company and then also
enhanced its scope of community intervention by setting up an NPO i.e. Drishtee Foundation in
February 2003. Drishtee therefore operates as a company, registered under the company Act
1951 and also as a not for profit Foundation, under the Societies Registration Act 1860, vide
Reg. No. S/45468 of 2003., in India with a collaborative capacity and legal status to operate
with partners across the globe.

Vision
Drishtee envisions a world where all communities are empowered to achieve shared prosperity.

Mission
To engage and collaborate with marginalized communities to develop and nurture 500,000 rural
livelihoods sustainably by 2020.

Presence & Working Areas:

Drishtee activities/ initiatives/ programs, aimed at benefiting the rural communities, are
spread across 13 States in India including Assam & North Eastern states, Bihar, Uttar
Pradesh, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa and Uttarakhand, etc). Main activities
are focused around inherent areas of work like Agriculture, Textiles, Rural Construction, local
production, new Innovative ideas that can add value.

Approach: The 4C Strategic Framework

For a solution to succeed, it must be integrated and comprehensive. Remote communities could
be economically sustainable if they could have a number of entrepreneurs, who have
1. Access & Market linkages to critical services & products (Channels)
2. Relevant capacity or opportunities to develop capacity (Capacity)
3. Capital or Credit to finance their enterprises (Credit or Capital)
4. Have the support of their local communities. (Community)
The 4C framework under which Drishtee operates comprises of:
• Community – Understand needs, Inspire, Induct &
Capacity
create joint ownership & synergies.
• Capacity – Build, Create or Enhance capacity relevant
to available opportunities
• Capital – Organize capital that may be required,
particularly for entrepreneurial ventures
• Channels – Create linkages (both Backward and
Forward) for aggregation & market support

Channel Capital Drishtee Foundation is working on the concept and piloting of

Community Model Villages presently and has the intent of replicating the
model on a large scale.

Drishtee’s strucure: how it is desgigned to go deeper

1. Within Communities, remote and rural – where there is a need for access to services and
products
2. Through rural Micro-entrepreneurs at different levels:
a. Licensees/ Franchicees with whom Drishtee has a service level agreement. Drishtee
commits backend service support to these entrepreneurs while they market as well as
deliver services like Education (Training), Health (care and awareness), Financial
products (microloans, banking, etc.) to the rural people;
b. Rural Retail Point (RRP) Owners who run their retail points (set up on their own) in the
villages and have a distribution relationship with Drishtee. Drishtee delivers variety of
products to these RRPs through its supply chain or distribution network, running through
deep villages.
c. Enterprise Owners : who are the small scale and micro level entrepreneurs in a village.
They are the borrowers of small (micro) loans from our Micro credit Franchicees.
3. Through Capacity Building & Community Hub Points

Drishtee in Operations

Drishtee's Rural Supply chain

Drishtee has over 15000 entrepreneurs linked on a network of supply chain routes (like milk-man
routes). Most of these entrepreneurs are small village stores. Inter-spaced with them on the
routes are entrepreneurs who provide services, including e-governance, health, vocational
education, banking and micro-credit. This is how Drishtee is linking up the entrepreneurs for
both products and services delivery to them. This integrated model of a supply chain carries Fast
moving consumer goods (FMCG) to the Rural Retail Points, and critical service delivery items like
books for education and money and documents for finance to the service Franchisees, making it
a viable model.

Research & Need Assessment

Drishtee understands and aggregates the demand within the community and analyses the various
resources for designing the suitable solution. The rural and BOP segment has a typical way of
managing the needs and therefore need the solutions to be well customized, especially to suit
the affordability and reach scenario. Drishtee has the background understanding of the segment
on the whole and operates within the communities to best evolve and design the solutions that
are sustainably possible to implement. To ensure the viability at all the levels – community (or
possible customers); partners; indirect stakeholders as well as implementation agency, Drishtee
takes it through a process-based piloting or testing phase, before finalizing on the shape and size
of the proposed solution.
Drishtee & Community Engagement (evolving into a SOCIAL IMMERSION APPROACH in
partnership with the outside stakeholder and the local community)
The need understanding of the community brings in a certain level of consiousness and sense of
deeper relationship within the Drishtee team.
A variety of activities and programs have been designed by Drishtee's field teams to enable a deep
community enegagement in various geographies of operations.

Purpose of Community Engagement mainly is to:

Ø Build a relationship of trust and comfort for evaluating the various socio-economic
factors within the target community.
Ø Be a part of the target community for a long term more sustainable relationship and
possibility of partnership in variety of programs and projects
Ø Help communicate with the target segment and send out messages needed to be placed
with the community ; this also helps build awareness at various level while also bringing
sensitization towards various issues and services
Ø Understand the growing needs and changing scenarios so as to continuously add value to
the community as well as the stakeholders in BOP market and sustainable development

Drishtee Franchisee based Rural Services

Drishtee supports rural Service delivery points, owned and managed by the rural entrepreneurs –
for Services like Education, Financial Services, Banking and Health (Planning for roll out after
pilots). Service design and its content has been developed by Drishtee supported by its partners,
especially customized for the needs of the target communities – the BOP communities.

Key Values of Drishtee Services

ü affordable
ü available at their door-steps with relatively good quality,
ü suit the rural community needs and capacity,
ü brings clear value of the price paid : with reasonable quality, savings on time and
money,etc.
ü creating livelihood, employment or safety (financial, social or health security).
ü run by a local entrepreneur through a low-cost infrastructure set up (to ensure
affordability and long term sustainability)

Services and Programs:

v Agri-based micro-enterprise solution development & Implementation

v Textile based rural micro-enterprise solutions development & Implementation. Women
based organization, DRAP, Drishtee rural apparel producer company, has been
established with Drishtee’s support
v Rural Distribution: Supply-chain management
v Education & Skill Development: (Training & Capacity Building) for rural youth
v Financial Inclusion through Banking, Micro-credit and Literacy campaigns (largest Public
Sector Bank, State Bank of India, as partner.)
v Engagement for Citizen benefit to Governance & e-Governance to deliver citizen services
v Market Research (Field Surveys/Action Research)
v Product / Service Development & Piloting
v Entrepreneur Support Programs & Models (Women to Women Retail model)
v Piloting & Evolving Sustainable models, like in Health: through Women Health
Entrepreneurs
v Samaahit Immersion or Rural Immersion leading to HR, CSR, or Social Business
Collaboration
Evolving approaches for a scalable sustainable business
Drishtee's 4C Approach culminates into a vision village – model village where all communities are
empowered to achieve shared prosperity. Various tools are utilized to enable a deep and inclusive
enagagement with the Communities, understand the need and opportunities of creating value chains
and build Capacity accordingly. The core focus is to develop and nurture local enterprises and for
this Drishtee plays the role of a facilitator and a catalyst. These rural microenterprises need Capital
as well as market linkage support through a strong inward and outward Channel to sustain and grow.
These local enterprises are as a matter of fact modeled around the local value chain and therefore
have immense capcity to engage most of the local resources, including human, and provide
opportunities of local economic and social growth, leading to cultural sustainance.

The processes and approaches that can make this model village or 4C concept work, demand an
inclusive approach and therefore Drishtee is engaged in building multi-layered stakeholdership and
partnerships with various corporates, government, local farmers, producers, banks and various other
organisations being a part of the value chains.

Social Immersion as an approach

‘Social Immersion’ would aim to provide product manufacturers and other urban stakeholders an
opportunity to get a clear understanding of rural needs directly from the community. Many
established corporations, non-government organisations and even start-ups have traditionally taken a
top-down approach to developing products and services, driven by an organisation-centric
perspective. Most have tried to customize existing urban products by slashing features or size and
reducing cost to meet the budget of economically marginalized communities. This leads to a
mismatch between community needs and product or service offerings, hindering meaningful
economic development. The goal of ‘Social Immersion’ is to create a program that will facilitate
understanding of needs and develop real empathy between providers of products and services and
rural communities.

Drishtee’s Co-Founder Satyan being an Ashoka Foundation Fellow (2004), the concept also leverages
extensively on the knowledge
contained within the Ashoka Fellows
network. The program draws insights
from a local rural community where
the team works together to co-create 2014
a model,distribution platform and 2013
integrated networks for replication en-
mass in India and around the world.
Support to stregthen the model of
Social Immersion
Drishtee’s “Social Immersion”, is one
of the Winners of Economic Inclusion
Ecosystem Grant Award by eBay and
its partners. “Social Immersion” has
been recognized as a bottom-up
process sourcing the real needs of low-
income communities injecting them
directly into the design process of BoP
products and services of
MNCs/NGOs/Social Enterprises.
Drishtee team has implemented the
basic version of the same model on
grounds with few partners in the last 2
to 3 years.
Awards & Recognitions
Economic Inclusion Ecosystem Grant Award by eBay, supported by GIZ
National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC) partnership
2011
Centennial Grant Award by IBM
2010
1. Ashoka Changemakers Award
2. Invitee Clinton Global Initiative
2008
· Invitee Clinton Global Initiative
2007
1. Technology Pioneers- World Economic Forum
2. Citation by Dalberg Consultants consulting for IFC Washington
2006
· Red Herring “100 Asia Award”
· Zdnet “Technopreneur of the year Award”
· Deloitte Winner, Top 50 Companies
· Invitee at Clinton Global Initiative and Citation
2005
· Schwab Foundation- “Social Entrepreneur of the Year Award”
2004
· Ashoka – Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship
2003
· World Bank” Development Market Place Award”
2002
· Digital Partners “Most Promising Social Enterprise
2001
· World Bank Infodev’s “Best ICT Stories”
2000
Founders of Drishtee
Drishtee was co-founded by Satyan Mishra, Nitin Gachhayat & Shailesh Thakur.
Satyan Mishra, who is also the Managing Director, is an Ashoka Foundation Fellow, of year 2004.
Team @Drishtee
Drishtee has been fortunate to attract several professionals who have forsaken their corporate sector
jobs to work in the Rural sector. At the same time, Drishtee also has in the team, passionate young
people mostly drawn from the local small towns and villages, having deep understanding of the local
needs. These teammates are effectively making impact at the field positions. In all this, Drishtee
gets valuable support from Volunteers from across the world who spend their time and energy mostly
on a voluntary basis.

Drishtee's Partners
Drishtee has been also been fortunate in the support and work it has received from Several Partners.
Notable amongst these have been Acumen Fund, Microsoft, Halloran Philanthropies, IFC, ACC, IBM,
Novartis, Merck, Pfizer, Nestle, Nike Foundation, IDRC, Amar Raja Batteries, Philips, Oiko Credit,
State Bank of India, Ashoka, Clinton Global Initiative, World Bank, Ministry of Rural Development,
Government of Bihar, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Central Information Commission, Micro Save, Shell
Foundation, Japan Research Institute (JRI), Ricoh, Sumitomo Chemicals, SMBC, Hub Tokyo, Cdot,
Greater Impact Foundation, Godrej Industries, TVS Motors, and many others.

However, the biggest supporter of Drishtee remain its entrepreneurs and the communities it works
with as partenrs.
DRISHTEE; Knowledge Boulevard, Tower B, 8th Floor; Sector 62, Noida - 201301; NCR; UP, India
Office: +91-120-4661000 | Mobile: 9910220099 | Fax: +91-120-4661002
www.drishtee.com, info@drishtee.com