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("Fight for the Unborn" by Jared Skaparas) [INTERVIEWEE] If you look at the history of economic development across the world, it's actually small and medium enterprises that form the backbone. If companies are able to increase their revenue, they will also increase employment. They'll increase their impact both within their company, within their community, and within their country. And that ability to take a 50-person company and make it into a 300-person company, that's actually the path to broadly shared prosperity.
[OLUFUNTO BOROFFICE] So I know at least in Nigeria, I think it's over 64 million tons of waste generated annually, and only 10 to 12% of that is collected or recycled, and then everything else ends up on the dump sites on the side of the road. [RAJASEKHAR PARCHA] India is a very large country. Now we have 650,000 plus villages in the country. And because the rural markets are smaller in size, some of the essential medicines are not available. As a consequence of this, some counterfeits seep into the distribution system. [PRISCA MUYODI] In Kenya, the government schools could have anywhere between 100 and 150 children in one room being taught by one teacher. And a lot of children with additional educational needs
tend not to be accommodated in schools. [MIR SHAHRUKH ISLAM] In Bangladesh, you will find a lot of companies still doing business without automating their process. They do a lot of manual calculations. They track informations manually, meaning the traceability of information and the accuracy of the data is very low. [OLUFUNTO BOROFFICE] Okay, there's a problem here. How do I provide solution? [RAJASEKHAR PARCHA] So that was a problem that we identified is something that needs to be solved.
[PRISCA MUYODI] Then we decided, hey, what's the one thing we're really good at? [RAJASEKHAR PARCHA] Through our digital platforms, we are able to connect with all the stakeholders to the last mile. More than 200,000 physicians who are on the platform, about 450,000 pharmacies. We believe that more than 400 million people are being able to get essential medicines, antibiotics, anti-diarrheal medicines, multivitamins for children.
[OLUFUNTO BOROFFICE] My company focuses primarily on plastic. We do close to 300 tons of plastic every month. We sort, we wash, and then we melt them down into resins. [PRISCA MUYODI] We're an inclusive school. One of the things we do differently is that we integrate the typical learners and the children with additional needs in the same space. [MIR SHAHRUKH ISLAM] We generate actionable intelligence by connecting assets to the internet. We track vehicles for different companies, taxis, trucks, ships, barges.
Just by gathering this intelligence of driving, we have had 60% less accidents on the vehicles. [STANFORD SEED REPRESENTATIVE] The model of Stanford Seed, it's about Stanford reaching out from Silicon Valley, building a bridge to other parts of the world, and really creating an ability for knowledge and insights to flow in both directions. [MIR SHAHRUKH ISLAM] Before going into the Seed Network, we were having a single-digit growth year on year. But once we moved into it, once my teams were a part of the Seed Network, we could convert this growth towards double-digit within just one year. We even secured a $1 million funding.
[RAJASEKHAR PARCHA] The mentoring and the framework of Stanford has been very, very remarkable. We were about 30 million. We are almost closed this year at $200 million, which was what we had actually put in the transformation plan. [PRISCA MUYODI] We've nearly doubled our enrollments since we went to the Seed program. And from 2021, our revenue has gone up By 40% year on year. [OLUFUNTO BOROFFICE] What we learned in the classroom sessions and online was a game changer. I think last year we did $500,000.
We're probably going to hit the $2 million mark this year. [STANFORD SEED REPRESENTATIVE] I think there were a lot of people who were skeptical. There's no doubt that a company in Nigeria, a company in a remote rural state in India faces a different set of challenges than a company based in Silicon Valley. And you might say, well, what does knowing how things work in Palo Alto have to do with knowing how things work in Ghana? And it turns out it has a lot to do with it. It reaffirms my faith in The idea that these general principles are powerful, they're useful, they make a difference.
[MIR SHAHRUKH ISLAM] How will the world look like 15 years down the line, 20 years down the line? That is very, very exciting and inspiring for me as well. If I can play even 1% role on shaping that future, I would feel lucky. [PRISCA MUYODI] I would like to feel that I would have helped entire communities to transform. [RAJASEKHAR PARCHA] No mother should actually feel the pinch of her kid's death just because the medicine is not available. That should not happen in this country. So it should be available. And if we could solve that one single problem through all that what we are doing, I think we would have certainly accomplished our mission.
