Diana and I recently got back from Austin, Texas, where we attended our second Dell Social Innovation Challenge finalist weekend. Although this time, we were sitting on the other side of the fence.

DSIC has a tradition of bringing back the previous year’s winner as a judge, and this year I was able to sit on the judging panel. It was certainly a change of pace from last year, when I was anxious about pitching as well as incredibly sick. This year I was way more relaxed, and I got to meet some incredible people who were judges with me. Although I was by far the youngest judge, I still felt like I got to contribute a significant amount to our discussions as someone who is currently immersed in all the trials and tribulations of starting a venture. Being a judge was a great experience, and I’m glad DSIC made it possible! Plus, I think I prefer sitting on the judges’ side of the room much better.

The next day, Diana participated in the Social Innovation Think Tank panel, and we later gave an update on Essmart and presented the Outstanding Innovation Awards at the DSIC awards show. Here’s a video of our segment:

Sometimes it’s easy to get bogged down in the details of what we’re doing on a daily basis. It’s even easier to get caught up in the very competitive environment that is Cambridge, Massachusetts, or even the impact investing space. But being in Austin and re-connecting with many people from DSIC and Dell was an incredibly positive and supportive experience, and we’re so thankful to be a part of this family!

During our weekend in Austin in June, Diana and Jackie tried to adapt to being followed around by video cameras. The video team was great, and some of the first videos have been posted! We’re featured throughout the DSIC overview video, and both Diana and Jackie have short individual videos as well. Check them out below!

Essmart took home the grand prize at the Dell Social Innovation Awards ceremony! We were honestly surprised and deeply honored. There were so many incredible teams and projects this year, and being selected to receive the grand prize is a true privilege.

Winning the Dell Social Innovation Challenge (DSIC) means a lot to us. Of course, the $50,000 will go a long way in India, where we plan to launch this summer. We need to rent out warehouse space, hire our first sales agents, and purchase inventory to move into stores. However, the money is only a part of what DSIC has been able to offer Essmart. We are now forever part of an amazing family that supports us through their many connections and resources all around the world. For example, immediately after the awards ceremony, Deb Bauer, Dell’s Director of Giving, put us in touch with Rajeev Kapoor, the Dell Finance Executive in southern India. It is partnerships like this one that will help us establish and grow Essmart as a sustainable company with scalable social impact.

This win also demonstrates that the problem of distribution – a traditionally “unsexy” idea in the field of international development – is rightfully gaining more attention. Many organizations have already created fantastic life-improving technologies. But if these technologies do not get into the hands of people who can benefit from them, then they are created in vain. Solving the problem of distribution will enable us to address many problems all at once, including lighting, clean water, breathable indoor spaces, and agricultural productivity. The distribution space requires much more innovation, which is what Essmart will practice through its on-the-ground operations.

Thank you again to the Dell Social Innovation Challenge (soon to be verb) family, Dell, and UT Austin for hosting an amazing experience. And thank you to our mentors, family, and friends who have supported Essmart since our humble beginnings. We are looking forward to this incredible journey ahead of us. This is just the beginning.

Whew, what a busy past few days. Jackie and I gave our pitches to the Dell Social Innovation Challenge judges yesterday, and we will find out the results in a few hours. We are up for a $50,000 grand prize. We will update soon, but do wish us the best!

Amazing news, friends! Essmart wins its largest check to date – $10k in the MIT IDEAS Global Challenge! This is hugely encouraging to us, as we’ve come close to winning competitions but fall just short of the monetary prize. We’re entirely thankful to the MIT community that has supported Essmart since its humble beginnings: Kate Mytty and Bina Choi who run the MIT IDEAS Global Challenge, Alison Hynd and Sally Susnowitz who work for the MIT Public Service Center, Laura Sampath from the MIT International Development Initiative who spends hours talking with us, Joost Bonsen from the MIT Media Lab who not only introduced me and Jackie but also gave us the name Essmart, Amy Smith and Saida Benhayoune and others from MIT D-Lab, and everyone else we’ve met along the way. MIT is a fantastic environment to start something in, and Essmart is a proud member of that ecosystem.

After the awards ceremony, one of our poster session judges approached us to chat. Something that I’ve been learning throughout this entire process of fundraising is that investors actually invest more in people than in ideas. The people sell the idea. Essmart has been blessed with a wonderful, well-balanced team that works together incredibly well. I am definitely thankful for my teammates and the unique talents yet united passion that they bring to Essmart.

I don’t have any pictures of the team from tonight, but I will put them up when they come in. In the meantime, high fives all around, and go Essmart!

The past week or so has been quite busy for the Essmart team. We made it to the HBS Social Venture finals and had the opportunity to give a five-minute pitch in front of a great audience. Unfortunately, we didn’t take home a prize. One of our semifinal round judges came up to us afterward and gave us a much-needed pep talk. She said that the semifinal judges loved the idea of Essmart and saw it bringing huge, sustainable impact to the Bottom of the Pyramid. Janet – if you’re out there reading this, thank you very much for providing encouragement at just the right time.

On Friday, after a meeting with one of the HBS Social Venture winners and a quick pitching session with Bain Capital, we got to pitch at the MIT Sustainability Summit. It was a lot of fun. Jackie knows how to nail 60 second pitches, and she did a great job fielding the audience questions. In the end, through the texts of supporters in the audience, we took home the $500 cash prize! Awesome! Many thanks to the MIT Sustainability Summit for organizing the event.

On Monday night, we had had the opportunity to present our poster for the MIT IDEAS Global Challenge. Our four judges approached us early in the night. The conversation that unfolded was actually unexpected; IDEAS has traditionally been a competition celebrating innovation and community service. But the questions that were thrown at us all had to do with our financial model, which hadn’t been included in full in our written submission. Taylor did a wonderful job fielding the tough questions, though. At the end of our interview, one of the judges joked with us by asking how we would choose the most entrepreneurial student project. Jackie bantered back by telling him to invest in the team, not the idea. Obviously, the team should demonstrate passion, know-how, and commitment. And obviously, that team is who now? 😛 We find out about the results on Thursday night.

And tonight, we had a great talk with someone who stumbled upon Essmart through our online content. He works for the World Bank and offered great insights about marketing at the village level. Suhail, thanks for your input, and we look forward to bouncing ideas off of you in the near future.

Why does Essmart exist?

Why are we Essmart team members working on Essmart?

These important questions were posed to some of our team members today. We had a Skype interview with an MIT IDEAS Global Challenge judge, who asked us a series of great questions and gave us useful, thought-provoking feedback. I think that those of us who could make the interview had different take-aways, but I was particularly moved by this concept of starting with why. When we explain Essmart to potential customers, supporters, and funders, we must share our motivations, our beliefs, and our burdens before we get into the nitty gritty of what we do, which is distribute technologies to retail shops.

Our judge asked each of us to explain why we are working on Essmart. We all have a shared motivation, but I can only tell my own story in detail. This is how Essmart began for me:

MIT has a suite of classes housed under D-Lab, which introduces undergraduate students to grassroots international development through engineering. I took the introductory D-Lab course when I was an undergraduate. I ended up traveling to rural Western China and seeing how a innovative solar cooking technology could be helpful for Tibetan villagers. While the class was a great experience, I also completed it feeling jaded. My classmates were mostly concerned about technological innovation, not actual implementation.

I pursued my Master’s degree in international development to continue researching this topic of technology dissemination for community-level development. My geographical region of interest switched to India, where there are many more examples to study (India has historical leaning toward village level development, due to Gandhi’s ideal of self-sustaining villages).

I visited India multiple times, seeking out nonprofit organizations and social enterprises that were developing technologies for the base of the pyramid. I was saddened, though, because end users were not benefiting from these great technologies at scale! No one had figured out how to disseminate these technologies widely. Many nonprofit, donor-driven models were used, and they were financially unsustainable and geographically small-scale. Small manufacturers did not have the resources to devote to marketing and distribution. In a way, all of the excitement in the Western world around the next “world-saving widget” was just hype. Technologies designed for the other 90% were designed in vain because the other 90% was not using them.

I returned to MIT with a renewed sense of purpose. Why just research this problem when I could do something to address it? It was fortuitous timing – one of our team advisors introduced me to Jackie Stenson in Fall 2011, and Essmart was born through our independent experiences and shared motivations. Our team, similarly driven, grew over time. We’re now committed to changing the world through making these technologies – and others – accessible at the bottom of the pyramid.

Jackie Stenson (@JackieStenson) and Rob Weiss did a fantastic job presenting before the judges during yesterday’s Semi-Finals. We’re happy to have gotten through that round, and we’re looking forward to preparing for the Finals on Tuesday, April 24!