Red Dot Blog

What’s the big fuss about Data Science?

June 14, 2019June 14, 2019
by Noorie Karimbocus

You might be wondering what all the fuss is about with data science, constantly hearing buzzwords like AI and Machine Learning; your Analytics team is already doing really well. Your team very ably pores over databases worth of information, generates important insights about your business, and compiles dense reports regularly. You might even run some of these data analyses yourself.

Whilst these reports are important and support you in making business decisions, they tend to focus exclusively on the past (e.g. did I meet my quarterly budget?). The reports might also be largely descriptive, without any guidance on what you should do in the future. On the other hand, we all know how, in this VUCA environment, the ability to predict and prepare for the future gives businesses the upper hand.

The power of data science as compared to data analytics comes from its ability to forecast, i.e, in helping people make decisions about the future. Using “algorithms”, you can now look at what has worked about your business in the past, and know which knobs you must pull in the future for the optimal outcome that you want: both for your business and your customers. At its core, data science allows companies to better pre-empt their own resource needs and/or their customers’ needs. This could lead to budget savings, higher customer satisfaction and loyalty.

The UK-based retail giant Tesco tracks fridge temperatures across its thousands of stores to identify which ones will need servicing, allowing them to proactively engage maintenance services, thus minimising the time any fridge is out of use. In turn, this improves customer experience within Tesco.

It is all well and good that a giant like Tesco can do this. But, you might be thinking, what about my not-so-giant company in Mauritius? Is my data big enough to be as valuable?

It turns out that data science does not require Impossibly Huge Terabytes of Data to deliver results. Any hospital or clinic in Mauritius can use data science to improve its patients’ experience by monitoring their waiting time within different departments, and matching this to doctors’ and medicine availability. That way, the hospital’s operations are optimised.

A Mauritian retailer can achieve efficiency and customer satisfaction through data science by tracking the quantities and types of products sold to its customers, and linking this back to the associated inventories and delivery information. Even further, the retailer could use data science to personalise its services to each customer. By monitoring customer purchase habits, a retailer could send a family nappies before their baby cries, printer ink before the report is due, or even ice-cream when you’ve had a bad day (now that’s a little creepy, but possible).

At Red Dot, we firmly believe that data science is the next frontier of innovation. We are committed to helping organisations work smarter, and get smarter about better serving their customers. If you are excited about what data science can do for your business, and would like to explore how Red Dot can help you, give us a call!

In our drive towards building data science know-how on the island, we are also hosting Dr Ragu Bharadwaj from the MIT Sloan School of Management next month. Through data science, Dr Bharadwaj has helped Fortune 500 companies identify and solve high-value problems across sectors as diverse as banking, agriculture, pharma, logistics and aviation, helping them capture millions of dollars of value in the process. He is hosting a 1-day interactive workshop on data science on the 4th of July 2019. Find out more information about the workshop here.

Making sense of Design Thinking, Lean Startup, and Agile

March 6, 2019
by min lee

These days, it seems like everyone is talking about innovation and new ways of working. We hear of many organizations “going agile”, sending more people to “design thinking” courses, and trying out “lean startup” practices.

While we drown in these buzzwords, it seems like many people are confused about when to apply these methods. Where do these methodologies make sense? And how do they fit together? Let’s try to make sense of it all.

These modern innovation methods are part of human-centered innovation, which is the discipline of developing solutions in the service of people.

At its heart, the innovation sweet spot is to strive for DESIRABILITY (what customers love), VIABILITY (a sustainable business model), and FEASIBILITY (what is organisationally and technologically feasible), with the accompanying methods mapped as follows:

Design Thinking is a method that solves for desirability. By putting users at the centre of the innovation process, design thinking enables you to explore the opportunity space, and discover unique insights on WHAT will delight your users, so you can be sure that your innovation is going to be adopted.

But how do you know that your innovation will actually make money? This is where Lean Startup comes in to solve for business model viability. By testing various business models with real customers in rapid iteration, you quickly discover which business model survives, and become smart about what to actually build so that your innovation is financial sustainable.

Finally, we have the help of Agile methods to launch an innovation in small and rapid increments. This mindset helps you bring an innovation to market in weeks instead of years, allowing you to get your products and services in the hands of customers faster, before your competition.

It is important to understand that while these methods are complementary, they solve for very different things. Here’s another way to look at these methods:

In the early days of corporate innovation, we observe many companies that adopt agile first, and agile only. They have the agile manifesto plastered on their walls, cross-functional teams that are disciplined with stand-up meetings, a grand KANBAN board, and finally launch a mobile app quickly (relative to corporate timelines), only to be disappointed that no one seems to be using it. This is a classic case of not discovering desirability.

We have also seen a few examples of companies who are supporting a sexy new digital service that is in fact haemorrhaging cash behind the scenes – this is often because their business plans are mere projections made in boardrooms, informed by high-level market trends, without ever going “out of the building” to test if these risky assumptions actually hold up in the real world.

And without agile, we see highly energised innovation teams coming up with the most remarkable prototypes, only to find them getting stuck in corporate bureaucracy, as operational units are too busy with “other priorities”. A couple months later, they see their competition launch something similar, which is a sure-way to kill their motivation to bring up anything new again.

But for companies that master human-centered innovation, the rewards are enormous. Here we see design-led companies outperform others on the S&P by over 200%. McKinsey also has a fantastic report on the business value of design. The best news is that these methods are simple, fun, and provide a framework for repeatable innovation. It has never been easier and more accessible to start investing in these new ways of working.

Confused about Digital Transformation? So was I.

October 8, 2018June 14, 2019
by Alam Kasenally

Digital Transformation is the order of the day.

Yet, we use words like “digitization”, “digitalization” and “digital transformation” interchangeably. Is “Digital Transformation” the new website? The Mobile App that the CEO has been asking for since the last board meeting? Or maybe even that expensive CRM that’s going to cost this year’s IT budget? Even within industry, there’s lots of debate, so confusion is no surprise.

We thought we might try and simplify this for everyone, so here’s how we see it:

Digitization is the process of going from analog to digital, and in the context of a business process, could be a synonym for process automation. So, for example, instead of manually issuing paper invoices, you might use Excel, or you might invest in an ERP to automate this process. Note that the customer isn’t involved here.

Digitalization goes a step further. This involves the use of digital technologies (and data) to change existing business models, thus unlocking new customer value. An example of this is a traditional retailer launching a new e-commerce offering, with targeted promotions based on data from a loyalty program. Note that while intimate knowledge of the customer is helpful here, you can get away without it (and some do).

The most challenging part of Digital Transformation is the Transformation piece. This refers to infusing a new set of values in the existing workforce, that enable the delivery of products that customers love. You might have heard of terms like human-centered design or design thinking, agile or lean startup methodologies which are common organizing principles in a digital transformation journey. Key features of such a way of working are: no-silo thinking (enabling innovators to work in cross-functional, high-performance teams), focus on the customer (through design thinking tools), data-driven decisions and speed-to-value delivery (or continuous customer delivery). What is called for is a fundamental change in leadership, culture, and the day-to-day running of the organization.

At Red Dot, we specialize in this transformation, and enjoy working with leaders who have the courage and ambition to lead this systems-level change. As those of you with Smartphones might know, if you don’t upgrade your mobile operating system regularly, you soon won’t be able to run more and more of the apps that you absolutely depend on. Transformation to the new company operating system is key for sustainable digital innovation.

And finally, a fun little digital story:

Dr Richard Earlham spent 5 very calm and serious minutes in his fine, wood-panelled surgery asking me questions about my symptoms. He then stood up and said “Very well, young man, I will now proceed with a digital examination.” Being a software engineer, I was thrilled and asked whether a computer or maybe a scanner was involved.

“No”, he said, as he put on a huge stretchy rubber glove. “Digitus is the Latin word for finger”.

So, what’s your understanding of “Digital Transformation?” And how has the experience been for you? We’d love to hear from you in the comments below!

Eski to ene JACK? Are you a Jack?

June 26, 2018June 26, 2018
by min lee

After publishing our last article on “How to Design a Culture”, the biggest reaction we got was this:

“I like what you’re saying, but it sounds so easy for you guys. You are designing a new culture from scratch! How do I build an innovative culture in a traditional organization, when there is a lot of resistance to change? You know, in Mauritius, there are a lot of people who are just working for a paycheck, waiting for pension payout, or who are so comfortable and set in their ways, that they just don’t want to change! Whereas others (like myself) understand that we really need to change, to be able to improve and stay competitive and even relevant, in our industry!”

Well first, congratulations, on wanting change. The good news is that it is possible. The even better news is that you can lead this change, no matter who you are.

The first thing to understand, is that in any organization, your entire population of employees will typically fall along this curve:

I know what you are now thinking. That in YOUR organization, it probably feels more like this..

The biggest mistake you can make, is trying to work on the majority, or even worse, the resistors. This completely drains your time and energy, and more critically, any sliver of hope you have left in your bones. Successful change-makers know that:
1) change starts small
2) change takes time
3) change begins with ourselves

The key is to first find the Innovators in your organization. These are what we call (in creole) bann JACK. They may sometimes be the CEO who has such a bold vision that nobody thinks it is even possible, or that manager who doesn’t toe the line and is often seen to take some personal risks, that millennial in your team who has somehow managed to introduce a small recycling program in your office, that front-line staff who found a better way to automate her workflow so she can do less admin and spend more time with customers, that technician dude who didn’t even complete Form-4 but somehow finds a way to fix everything that is broken (although not very beautifully!). These are all real people that we have met in Mauritius.

The JACKS are all around us. What we love about innovation, is that it is accessible and inclusive – education level or rank is never an indicator of our ability to innovate.

In general, we find that innovators have these qualities:

Joyful, optimistic and hopeful about the future
Activated, go beyond what you are “paid to do” and care deeply about something
Curious, not afraid to ask questions and challenge the status quo
Kind, shares and collaborates to help others grow
Solution-focused, comes up with constructive ideas and never makes excuses

Find them. And then create activities that get them WORKING together on something the group collectively cares about, and don’t just talk about it. Even without management support, this could start as informal activities such as creating a football team to promote a more healthy lifestyle, doing anonymous small acts of kindness to bring positivity in the office, participating as a team to a blood donation event, or starting a forum to share innovation successes and failure stories!

One of our favorite examples of this, is how a group of young civil servants in Singapore (who met at a Hackathon) felt so constrained by government bureaucracy, they started their own informal group called the under-gahmens (“under governments” in local slang, witty name!) as a magnet for other civil servants across various agencies, to work directly with communities in a more empathetic way.

If you have CEOs or managers who are also JACKs, you’re in luck! Take the opportunity raise a more formal project (e.g. digitizing core workflows to reduce paper and make your operations a lot leaner, or organizing a cross-functional group to tackle a strategic project to enter new markets, or create new products). You may even be able to negotiate a bonus for your group if you successfully complete strategic projects that affect the bottom line 😉

We found the JACKs in every organization we interacted with, and decided to bring everyone together, every month. We’ve had three Innovators Meetups, getting the JACKS across government, corporate, and social sectors.

Eski to ene JACK? (Are you a JACK?) Leave your email on the right to get updates, and come by our next meetup because there’s a community waiting for you!

How to design a culture

March 27, 2018
by min lee

A mentor once taught me that there are three levels of management:

人管人: People manage people
制度管人: Systems and processes manage people
文化管人: Culture manages people

There’s a full Chinese quote for this espoused by a Chinese company – “人管人累死人, 制度管人烦死人, 文化管人管灵魂”. Loosely translated, this means “When people manage people, people get tired to death. When systems and processes manage people, people get annoyed to death. But when culture manages people, it touches their spirit”.

The highest level of people management is through culture. Unfortunately, many companies leave culture to chance. Culture is one of those things in a company that are shaped very quietly but quickly, accumulating through every conversation, every decision, and what we unconsciously choose to put attention on. And culture is hardest to change once it is formed.

On our second day of starting Red Dot, our core team had a conversation about our values and culture, which lasted 6 hours into the night. Before this discussion, we had done an individual reflection of our personal ways of working – identifying what makes us come alive, and what completely drains us of energy. And from that, we found common ground to honour each other’s working style so we can all be at our best.

We then did a powerful Culture Mapping exercise, with slight modifications. After mapping out outcomes and behaviors, we discussed various company practices we wanted to adopt based on these values, so that our culture is not incidental, or just something we put on a wall or talk about, but becomes intentionally lived.

Customers will never love a company until the employees love it first. -Simon Senek

What emerged was an exciting tapestry of 5 core culture values that now defines the essence of the Red Dot culture:

Positive
This was an interesting one that emerged after a lot debate. A couple of us had initially written “FUN” (in capitals) on the wall, as it was important to us that this journey was enjoyable and engaging, and ultimately fun. We then realized that “fun” is highly subjective, because different people find fun in different things – while our idea of fun might be to read a book or bring good people together, others might expect a party and booze.
Digging deeper, we discovered that what we valued was in fact, was Positivity – the practice of seeing the best in every person and situation, that invites possibility. Positivity is reflected in the energy we bring into the room, to the quality of our questions, to having generative conversations. Positivity is a stand we take in the world, and at its root is grounded in trust, caring, and gratitude.
Impact

Impact is the reason why we started Red Dot, and requires us to do what is right rather than what is easy. We like taking on bold projects, and enjoy working with partners with the same shared sense of ambition and integrity.
Impact might seem very exciting and loud on the surface, but in fact, requires a very quiet quality of inner cultivation and contemplation. For sustainable and meaningful impact requires deep personal and social awareness, to choose wisdom in our decision making, and to act from a foundational place of honesty and integrity. This might be the most difficult of all our values, but is what makes the journey most worthwhile.
Entrepreneurial
Entrepreneurship is in our blood, and this value surfaced early. We are energized working with others who are not afraid to take risks, who don’t ask for the rules but who make the rules, who challenge the status quo, and who are ruthlessly resourceful, finding many ways to get hard things done, and in a smart way, not just by working harder. Tip: this is something we test a lot for in our interviews.

We hire people onto the team who are, or would like to be entrepreneurs, and offer Red Dot as a stepping stone in their journey, giving a high level of ownership and mentorship to discover what it takes to be an entrepreneur, and to take ownership of a part of Red Dot that is in line with their personal calling. It energizes us to see people grow and flourish into their own.
Curious
Curiosity is the birthplace of insight. A beginner’s mind requires humility: questioning our own assumptions, discovering our blind spots, and always be experimenting and trying things out. In a fast-paced startup, we find ourselves short of time to ponder, reflect, and contemplate. What has been useful is practicing “reflection in action” – the ability to reflect on one’s thinking while acting. Doing this intentionally and sharing our learnings as a team, allows us to look for the larger picture that lies beyond our individual perspectives.

We take great inspiration in building a learning organization from The Fifth Discipline – “Learning in this context does not mean acquiring more information, but expanding the ability to produce the results we truly want in life.” It is lifelong generative learning, and learning organizations are not possible unless they have people at all levels who practice it.
Excellence
We expect every company to have a vision, but do we have a vision for ourselves? We ask for this personal vision at the start of every interview, because we believe it is important that we understand each other’s dreams and goals, invest in each other’s growth, and develop our own personal and professional mastery. We believe that a company only excels, when its people excel.

As a team, we implement the same practice of excellence using a system of Objectives and Key Results (called OKRs). This method was first practiced by Intel, popularized by Google, and is now the standard practice of many tech startups. We love it for its simplicity and agility (OKRs are reset every quarter with new information), and to communicate and monitor our goals and progress. Designing our own OKRs was a challenging but enriching process, as it forced us to think about high-value activities vs. just “checking off traditional KPIs”. It has helped us stay focused, be accountable, work smart, and get organized with a series of coordinated actions among us where the sum of our individual contribution is greater than the whole.

And yes, all our OKRs are fully transparent to everyone in the team, tracked on google sheets in real time, and it’s rewarding seeing our progress indicators turn from red, to yellow, to green!

Two months in, we’ve seen these practices go from our discussions and into our decisions, which is where these values really come alive – Do we take on this project? Do we hire this person? Can we find the courage to be honest with our client? These choices shape our culture, turn into stories that become baked into our institutional memory and legacy.

Also, little did we realize, that these five culture core values spell out the word “PIECE”, I guess that’s what it means to be a little PIECE of Red Dot! If you’d like to join our tribe, check out a few positions we’re hiring for.

MRIC Event: Promoting and Managing Innovation

March 15, 2018March 22, 2018
by Alam Kasenally

On the 1st of March, I was invited to present my views on Innovation at a panel hosted by the MRIC. I attended as coach and new Director of Turbine, and also co-founder of Red Dot.

Our guest of honour was Mr Jerry Godwin, whom I got to know over coffee afterwards. Our guest had spent five weeks in Mauritius, as part of the Fulbright program, and had been advising the University of Mauritius on the opening of a new Research Incubator in Ebene.

Drs Bissoonauth and Gopaul, chairs of the meeting, had prepped me before the event and encouraged me to choose a topic of interest to Entrepreneurs, Intrapreneurs and also SMEs. Having reviewed the slides from last year’s workshop, I noticed that the top answer to “Barrier to Innovation”, in the MRIC’s survey, happened to be cost. So, I called my presentation “How to Innovate on a Budget”.

The event was well-attended, with about 100 SMEs, Managers from larger companies and also Entrepreneurs in attendance. Of particular delight was Mr Chris Gunnoo, a high-school Computer Science teacher who was buying robots out of his own pockets to inspire his students. Mr Gunnoo is the reason that much innovation can come out of a high school, and the seed for a strong innovation culture in the first place.

My classmate, Avinash Meetoo had accompanied the Minister of Civil Service, who gave a speech before we did. Jerry opened, and told his amazing story of being an entrepreneur in Washington DC, which had no entrepreneurs when he started in 1999. Jerry explained how he built a local ecosystem, through systematic public-private partnerships, and a network of five incubators. Bruno Dubarry, co-founder of the Association of Mauritian Manufacturers (that owns the “Made in Moris” brand) presented some fascinating slides on how he got local manufacturers to chart a roadmap, through a Design Thinking Process. Anibal Martinez (founder of Careerhub) presented some fascinating statistics on the labour market.

In my 15-minute intervention, I had a vast topic to cover, so focused on stories that I thought might engage the audience. The book “10 types of Innovation” presented a great frame for the discussion (and for the panel later in the day). You can find the slides here:

Next, came a joint panel. Questions from the Audience included:

“How do you protect ideas from being copied?” (we all were a little stumped: Mauritian Intellectual Property Rights doesn’t cover patent IP but trademarks for the moment, though Jerry did mention that a framework was being developed for Intellectual Property)
“What if people don’t believe I’m making the right decision by becoming an entrepreneur?” (this question was asked by a former UoM professor-turned-entrepreneur)

The News on Sunday interviewed us, and published a nice piece. I believe I was so hungry at this point that I gushed out without much structure. There’s always a first time, I guess, even for interviews about Innovation.

The most exciting session was after lunch. Anibal, Jerry and I were each assigned a table, with about 20 attendees, and asked to run a forum. My table included 6 SME entrepreneurs, 10 company employees (including two thoughtful visitors from Air Mauritius and the UoM), students and managers.

Our theme was “Managing Innovation”, where we were asked to discuss “Planning Innovation”, “Managing Innovation”, “Innovation Teams” and “Tech in Innovation”. Quite a lot of touch points for 40 minutes! Fortunately, our forum “team” helped me. The 6 Entrepreneurs seeded a discussion, and finally most people at the table spoke up about their various interesting experiences, and these were the most memorable ones:

Our Big Company representatives noted that often junior employees are never solicited as a source of Innovative ideas, despite being close to the customer. Surprisingly, it was suggested that CEOs are afraid that their ideas might be “too expensive”!
Our SME members (three of them from South Africa!) felt that in Mauritius you had to be an accountant and a lawyer in order to hope to start out as an entrepreneur. Many agreed that a more frictionless experience (comparable to Singapore) would be helpful
I noted that setting up Red Dot needed about a month’s paperwork. An entrepreneur at the table mentioned that many aspiring entrepreneurs are discouraged by struggling with the paperwork for 6 months, and end up not starting up!
There was a passionate discussion about Labour Laws, which all agreed are a legacy of another era, and penalize inexperienced startup founders. Larger companies have strong HR expertise to allow them to navigate incentives without appearing in Labour tribunals
There was a lot of laughter about the use of Machine Learning in interviewing candidates, and queries about whether privacy law would allow scanning a candidate’s emotions. Turns out, privacy law doesn’t cover what you can and can’t do with a video, after the subject has given you consent to record her!

What made me most happy is several members of my table asking for us to be connected on email to continue the discussion. I commend the MRIC for bringing together a diverse set of people to discover and find solutions to a set of complex challenges. Bringing diverse experiences to one place, ensuring each voice is acknowledged, and respectfully considered, is the basis of good facilitation. Keeping the conversation alive, with concrete action, and elicitation of the right questions is the basis of good community. Bringing good people together is the basis of nation-building. Thank you MRIC.

Vive Moris!

March 12, 2018March 12, 2018
by Natacha Emilien

I am Mauritian. Mo ene morissienne. I know my country and its people, I know its limitations, but I also know its untapped potential. And this is precisely why I can talk about our need to innovate, as a country.

In Mauritius, when we think about innovation, we visualise a lone genius (a Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs type) coming up with an amazing idea out of the blue, which will completely disrupt the world and change billions of lives around the globe. We hear stories of young technology geeks in the US making significant discoveries or developing amazing new products and becoming billionaires after a few months, and we wish we could do the same. However, most of us Mauritians are working in private organisations or in governmental bodies where, well… (and it’s so unfortunate) we can look right, left and center, it’s difficult to see or imagine any of our current colleagues becoming the next Zuckerberg!

We therefore tend to see innovation flourishing in countries like Silicon Valley, China, France or Singapore, but we tend to stay quite pessimistic when it comes to rethink our own country in terms of innovation: “we need to take into account the local political/economical/social context of Mauritius”, “we need to be realistic, we are far from being Singapore”, “how do we even start?” or “let’s start with a first initiative by copying that idea I read about, then we will see if it works”.

Today, we are celebrating the 50th year of Independence of our country. We can choose to focus on the recent political scandals, or our slowing economic growth rate, rising consumer prices or pick any social and environmental issues we care about, but I hope we choose to focus differently.

The capacity of the human mind to build innovative solutions, that address human needs globally is endless. Think of the iPhone how it allowed the smartphone to create a massive impact on humanity. Think of inventions like Skype coming from small countries like Estonia. Invention needs no land, labour and capital, which are traditional constraints. Innovation’s only constraint is creative, and we as a nation are some of the most creative people on the planet.

Today, I see a lot of my compatriots claiming their love for our country and voicing out their pride to be Mauritian. And I hope that beyond today, we can continue to focus on what we love about Mauritius, all the inner capabilities of our people, and how blessed our country is. When we start to see these problems as opportunities, when we ask “why not?” and “how might we be part of the solution”?, we all become innovators.

Vive Moris! Happy 50th Independence Day Mauritius!

I can because I do

March 8, 2018March 8, 2018
by Alam Kasenally

In Season 6 of ABC’s series “Suits”, Jessica Pearson leads a battle to save what’s left of her gutted Law Firm. Flanked by her two male colleagues Harvey and Louis she leads the rebuild of the company through force of sheer will, and a determination to do what it takes, however unpalatable.

Attending my colleague (and Managing Director) Natacha’s speech Thursday at Ceridian, I was intrigued by one of her slides. Natacha remarked that since the National Code of Corporate Governance passed, she had been invited to serve as a female board member on public company boards. However, she asked, quite rightly, why she had never been invited before the Code of Corporate Governance was passed. She encouraged women to offer their services as Board Members, not because they are women, but because they are good, and can positively help Boards make better decisions. At Ceridian, this could mean capable female engineers providing boards with much-needed perspective on cutting edge technology and state of the art innovation.

In my career, I’ve had both male and female bosses, and today at my startup, I work for two female bosses. Since I begun, I’ve become humble, and learned my g**m place. I’ll never know what it’s like to have to protect an entity in its infancy with all the resources ones has, than two women might do.

Listen to Jack Ma. But go much further: get a woman who’s much better than you to lead. It might just save your firm.

Happy Women’s Day.

Why we started Red Dot

March 3, 2018March 6, 2018
by min lee

After living in Silicon Valley for seven years, I was faced with a tough choice — to move back to Singapore where I am from, or to Mauritius, where my husband’s family lives?

I chose Mauritius. Beyond its postcard beaches, I saw the beginnings of an innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem that reminded me of Singapore 15 years ago, and felt a timeliness to be able to contribute to the development of the country in exciting ways.

On panel discussing the Mauritian Development Model in view of 50th years of independence

Here were some of my seed observations:

In almost every business, government agency, or social sector, I always meet one or two “bright sparks”. These are incredibly talented individuals, despite all odds, who are purpose-driven, optimistic, who take risks, and are doing small things to slowly chip away at the status quo. We always have a choice – do we give our attention to what is not working, or do we focus on amplifying this “positive deviance” so that we change the norm? I have been holding this question — How might we support and amplify their efforts, and help them succeed? Because what we appreciate, appreciates.
I say with much confidence, that Mauritians are naturally enterprising. With 125,000 SMEs, that is 1 SME for every 10 people! However, 48% of SMEs have a turnover of less than 2M Rs with little assets, and many embark on “me-too” ideas, which are skewed towards low-value sectors with severely constrained prospects of adding jobs or growing the economy. How might we channel this same entrepreneurial drive, towards creating high-impact businesses and high-value jobs?
And then there are millennials. I absolutely love what millennials stand for, and are excited to see how organizations will evolve as millennials grow to become the majority of the workforce, and the predominant consumers in the economy. Hiring remains one of the biggest headaches for every Mauritius organization. What I know for sure, is that the organizations that are setup for digital natives, that offer meaningful and engaging work, and that provide opportunities for impact, are the ones that will succeed in attracting and retaining young talent. How might organizations reimagine their work culture and policies to better attract engage young talent?
Finally, I observed that the business climate is shifting under our feet. The Mauritian economy is quickly opening up, which brings new types of competition, but even more new opportunities to connect to a global playing field. Businesses that are based on “policy-driven” opportunities will gradually find their competitive advantage eroding. How might we help organizations reflect on their purpose and leverage their assets, to create new value that is closely connected and responsive to dynamically changing customer needs and preferences?

Over the year, I tried a variety of small experiments to explore these questions. From mentoring entrepreneurs, to designing a 12-week innovation module at the African Leadership University, to being part of consultative governmental workshops on digital innovation and FinTech.

Designing and facilitating a 12-week course: Employability, Enterprise and Entrepreneurship (EEE) offered at the African Leadership University, where students worked on helping social organizations innovate on real projects!

I also saw how it was possible to empower a small group of junior employees in just one year, to transform the culture within a traditional Mauritian SME towards greater ownership and customer-centricity. From a workshop in partnership MRC, I saw how real social innovation experiments could be catalyzed simply by bringing diverse stakeholders together through a process that builds trust, and giving them a shared innovation framework that facilitates a cross-pollination of ideas. These small wins showed me that change was possible.

And then I met incredibly talented and like-minded individuals. Together with my co-founders Natacha and Alam, we decided that it was time to launch a platform to organize our collective energy, and to scale our efforts to play a small part in transforming Mauritius to becoming a true knowledge economy.

Early beginnings, brainstorming on our “lean whiteboard” during the cyclone season

We thought long and hard about our theory of change:

To cultivate the innovation mindset: By broadening an understanding of innovation beyond “technology”. At its core, innovation is a mindset that can be applied to tackle unmet needs not only in business, but also in society, and in daily life! By providing innovation training that is fun and highly experiential, we can unlock creative confidence, build empathy, and the ability to ask better and more generative questions. Starting with organizations, we hope to identify and amplify enablers of innovation, and build this kind of innovation thinking internally.
To bring best practice: We have met many organizations who have “innovation” as a core value on the wall, but few organizations actually know where and how to start so that it is lived. The good news is — there are proven innovation best practices like human-centered design and lean agile startup methodologies, that involve cross-disciplinary teams, and that can be easily applied in any organization. Innovation can now be done under a budget in sprints, these are very rapid cycles (think 3–5 days) to dramatically reduces time and risks in going to market.
To build leverage in organizations: The biggest learning we took away from Silicon Valley, is a deep understanding of leverage — it is also the only way that small innovation hubs today (think Israel, Singapore, Silicon valley) are punching above their weight. We hope to demystify digital transformation, and go beyond business process optimization, to really harness the gift that technology presents in terms of data and network leverage, which is what enables a small group of people actually achieve exponential scale and impact.
To catalyze an ecosystem: Finally, innovation cannot happen in isolation, and we cannot do this alone. We see it as our responsibility to connect the dots within Mauritius, and to connect Mauritius to other innovation hubs like Singapore and Silicon Valley to catalyze the flow of ideas, talent, technology, capital and markets. Two community projects we’re embarking on, is a series of Red Dot Calls — a monthly innovation call with global experts, and a Red Dot Network — a diaspora program for overseas Mauritians to contribute their talent and networks meaningfully to the country, especially where deep expertise cannot be found locally.

A dinner conversation that brought together prison welfare officers, non-profit leaders, and a business owner to learn from each other and discuss new experiments for the social integration of ex-offenders.

At its heart, the mission of Red Dot is bigger than any one of us. As a purpose-driven company, we see innovation as a platform for growth, as it fundamentally “grows the pie” for everyone. We see innovation as a way to create new products, services, and programs that are good for business and good for the world; and we see innovation as the platform to connect the dots between the change-makers within government, corporates and the social sector who are taking risks, and challenging the status quo, because innovation happens in between these spaces.

If this mission lights a fire in your heart, we’d love to hear from you. Drop us an email. Join our community and subscribe by leaving us your email, and get updates of our ongoing reflections and upcoming events, straight to your inbox!

Social Innovation Workshop with MRC

December 1, 2017March 5, 2018
by min lee

On November 30, the Mauritius Research Council (MRC) brought together diverse professionals from the public, private and NGO sectors for Red Dot’s inaugural event, a one-day Workshop on Social Innovation, which is a topic close to our hearts. And we came in to a full house!

Lots of laughs to kickstart our first exercise about unlocking creative confidence!

Innovation isn’t just about technology, mobile apps, or AI. It is in fact a mindset and process of creative problem solving, that can also be applied to tackle the unmet needs in society. We were also pleased to hear that MRC was announcing a new social innovation grant scheme to support innovative social projects!

In the iconic Red Dot approach to experiential learning, participants engaged in a series of fun and interactive activities, learning about creative confidence, the mindsets required for social innovation, as well as a condensed cycle of the design thinking process. Participants also teamed up in groups, to build personas, frame problem statements, and worked on tackling complex problems such as poverty, youth unemployment, gender-based violence, as well as public health.

A team in deep discussions while building up their target audience persona

One profound moment happened just before lunch. After an emotionally-charged conversation, there was a collective realization of how much we naturally and unconsciously stereotype and judge others.

We were proud of the way groups held space for each other, where no question was too silly, and no idea too far-fetched. Participants called upon each other to share experience and wisdom, and built on each other’s insights to approach problems in a spirit of empathy. The goal was to shift from a more “policy-centered” solutions, to explore the surprising solutions that would emerge when we take a more “human-centered approach”.

Final remarks from the group as we shared our individual AHA moments

Social problems are complex, and solving these problems can no longer only be the job of government. Every individual’s role in society — whether a policy-maker, a teacher, a parent, a daughter, a neighbour, or a citizen, lends itself a unique perspective that can contribute to an innovative social solution, if only we learn the right mindset and process for creating innovative solutions.

It is up to everyone, to be a change-maker.

Here are the slides from the morning presentation: