Working on sustainable solutions, SELCO Foundation is a powerhouse that democratises the delivery of health, education and livelihoods with sustainable energy as a catalyst. With its roots grounded in multiple domains, the foundation has various teams working on these sustainable solutions. Thus, conversations are an integral structure, to encourage teams to work and learn from each other. 

But this can prove to be a challenge, especially with teams working in silos on overlapping problems and devising similar solutions from scratch. SELCO Foundation’s pace for problem solving and strategic planning was slowed with limited space to cross learn between teams and build on each other’s learnings. More time and capital were instead spent to reinvent the wheel in various ways. 

Fast forward to Apurva.ai in the picture, powering SELCO Foundation, where teams are able to seamlessly retain and work towards allied solutions for their overlapping problem solving from their conversations. The repeated reinvention of the wheel is being reduced with the platform, making way for better development and impact. 

Here is the transformational journey of SELCO Foundation with Apurva.ai, put together from conversations with
Harish Hande, Co-founder, Rachita Misra, Associate Director - Knowledge and Advocacy and Simrin Chhachhi, Senior Research Manager , of how SELCO Foundation broke the cycle of reinvention by adopting Apurva.ai! 

But what does Apurva.ai do in these conversations? The platform steers conversations in a more effective manner, exploring new possibilities which people may or may not be thinking during conversations from different perspectives of the ecosystem. These are done with questions and prompts, which help in designing solutions and programs based on the emerging collective wisdom. The platform keeps a consented record of these conversations, amassed across time and themes. SELCO Foundation was able to access the insights from these conversations despite changes in systems and people, and thereby reducing the cost of learning, meetings and implementation. 

Simrin Chhachhi, Senior Research Manager, described how SELCO Foundation as an ecosystem builder would like to present the knowledge they have curated to the world. But before that is done, the knowledge has to be organised and synthesised within the organisation. With Apurva.ai this is possible. Chhachhi says “Apurva.ai is like a buddy present, pushing us towards comprehensive conversations, which is the core of what we do. It offers more systemic thinking questions and inputs in real time conversations, more than I was able to.”

The collective wisdom curated within Apurva’s digital brain provides insights beyond the whats, whys and hows. In the words of Rachita Misra, Associate Director - Knowledge and Advocacy, it enables one to “achieve something more nuanced based on experiences, based on interacting with divergent views, and based on the instinct that has been developed.” The collective wisdom unearthed here includes diverse perspectives of different people, from the sector, community and the network. Misra adds how the multilingual feature opens access to more voices to provide answers from the ecosystem. 

Furthermore, accessing collective wisdom is made easier even with a set of loosely connected keywords while querying. Apurva.ai is able to understand the context of the question even without exact terms and provide relevant answers based on the curated knowledge.

Misra claims that she gets very excited when exploring the knowledge of ‘hows’ over whats and whys, especially aided by the prompt questions by Apurva.ai. She says that by asking how, one can understand strategies present across sectors, leading to better questions and consecutively, to better solutions. 

But what is the relevance of questions? Chhachhi, in reply to her views on before and after Apurva.ai, provided a significant perspective. She said that the SELCO Foundation had a lot of answers and only a couple of questions before. Now, they have more pointed questions. When questioned why ‘more questions’ are considered a positive step, Chhachhi said, “for me, analysis comes from asking the right questions.” As we say in Apurva.ai, right questions are half the solutions. Understanding questions and how problem statements are framed is essential before taking a stab at feasible solutions, else there are possibilities of problem-solution misfits. 

SELCO X Apurva.ai

By offering Apurva.ai a seat at the table, teams in SELCO Foundation are, instead of reinventing the wheel, building on each other’s work, faster and more efficiently. When asked about the journey of SELCO Foundation and Apurva.ai, Harish Hande, Co-founder, simply said “transformational”. He commented how the three major stakeholders of Samaj, Bazaar and Sarkar (Society, Market and Government), which have very few connections and loopbacks of solutions, powered by Apurva.ai can lead to better sustainable approaches and holistic societies. Now, systemic changes can be envisioned which cut across vertically, horizontally and diagonally through regions and socio-economic strata. He wishes to use SELCO’s experience with Apurva.ai as a needle mover in the development sector. 

Apurva.ai, as described by SELCO Foundation, is a one stop knowledge centre for the development sector, blurring the boundaries between stakeholders, domains and countries. The team from SELCO Foundation engaging with Apurva.ai are thrilled with the innumerable possibilities, in both the present and future, where inclusive participation of teams lead to co-created approaches and solutions.

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