FACE TO FACE: Mr. Venkata Gandikota

| April 11, 2019 | Personality | No Comments
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1) Tell us a bit about yourself and your background 

I am Venkata Gandikota. I help organisations and individuals in changing their mindsets, adding new skill sets to realize the Sustainable Development Goals. I am a Founding Partner of Vault Impact, raising a 35M€ impact investing VC fund focused on Nordic startups; a Co-Founder of InnoFrugal ry (previously The Nordic Frugal Innovation Society) and the Lead Organiser for the InnoFrugal conference in Helsinki, Finland.

I am involved in helping to spread the conference editions. We now have an annual UK edition at the Judge Business School in Cambridge University and a soon to be annual German edition in Stuttgart with Fraunhofer Institutes.

I also help Finnish businesses in India as the CEO of Indianeer Consulting. I am a guest lecturer at JAMK University of Applied Sciences (International Business), Jyväskylä University (Business Program) & Aalto University Executive Education (MBA Program) in Finland. I have a Bachelor in Chemical Engineering from India and a Masters in Environmental Engineering from the USA.

2) Briefly explain on the Innofrugal conference, its focus in general and shed some light on the theme for 2019

When we started our nonprofit in December 2013, we wanted to get the word out about Frugal Innovations and how businesses can use less resources and deliver good quality, accessible, affordable and sustainable solutions.

Hence we started the InnoFrugal conference in 2015 as a 2 day celebration of case studies, thought leadership and a learning environment on how businesses can use aspects of Circular economy, Biodesign, Inclusive business, DIY/Maker movement, Design Thinking, Lean methodology to deliver Frugal Innovations.
Entering the 3rd edition of the conference, I was intrigued by how financing of businesses delivering these impactful solutions is such an important aspect. I realised, on the one hand, that the state agencies for innovation, funding, and aid are one avenue, but increasingly, on the other hand, in the startup space, a new kind of asset class called Impact Investing is putting money and helping scale these businesses.

So, from 2017 we added impact startup pitching contest and impact investing day as an integral part of the conference. This year on May 7-8, 2019 we have Day 1 (May 7th) designated as Impact Investing Day with startup pitching contest in partnership with Finnish Business Angel Network and Vault Impact & Day 2 (May 8th) is designated as Frugal Innovation day focusing on three main sessions – Advanced mobility & affordable electric vehicles; Affordable Healthcare; and Smart Cities & Smart Villages.

3) What are the challenges that you face during your journey promoting circular economy and SDG goals? How do you overcome them?

As someone with a Masters in environmental engineering and work experience on climate issues, my attraction to the theme of Circular economy was very natural.
What was important for me was also that both frugal innovations and circular economy rely of using less resources, and delivering accessible, affordable and sustainable solutions,be it through technical side of things like refurbishing, reselling, re-manufacturing or through innovative business models like product as a service etc.
The challenge arises from the fact that there is a lot of education that needs to be done to get policy makers, businesses and consumers to understand, implement and deliver these solutions.
The way to overcome the challenges is to consider strategies and roadmaps that need to be redesigned, business models that need to be changed, policy aspects, maybe even funding and some from of incentives that need to be put out to get behavioral changes.

We need the first set of trailblazers on both production and consumption side to take the steps in showing that this is a viable and profitable way for both people and the planet. This has started, but it is in desperate need of critical momentum as there is currently more talk than action.

4) What is the future of circular economy? What’s your message to startups in this space?

If we truly are to realise the SDGs, I believe circular economy is a critical aspect of delivering them, but we have to be careful as there is no one size fits all, i.e., we can’t expect to have the same circular economy solution implemented for example in Finland to work also in Singapore or India.

We need to see where the critical mass of acceptance is – is it in B2B solutions or B2C? Is it in developed economies or emerging markets? What does culture, geography and customer mindset play a role? I would urge startups to do this type of basic “market research” before going headlong with their circular economy solutions.

5) What is the role of The Nordic Frugal Innovation Society in adopting Circular economy?

We see it as a no-brainer in having circular product, service and business models as it also neatly aligns with our goal of delivering frugal innovations using less resources. I believe we are increasingly living in a world of “Value Conscious” and “Values Conscious” consumers and producers. We, at the InnoFrugal Association, will help educate, facilitate, accelerate and deliver these impactful changemakers.

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