An Invention that addresses Water & Food Security
Change Maker of India, Founder & Innovator Biplab Ketan Paul
Ahmadabad, Gujarat

MOSAICQUE Magazine in its August 2015 edition is honoured to feature an ASHOKA INNOVATOR, the “Change Maker of India” Biplab Ketan Paul, whose invention “BHUNGROO” addresses the water and food security issue in the most economical and ecofriendly way. The word “Bhungroo” literally means “a straw” in Gujarati – is a water invention that assists in safeguarding the underground water reservoir table by storing excess rainfall water, lessening the damaging effects of salt deposits on soil, frees land of water logging and provides access to fresh water. Enclosed is the write-up about the innovation and the inventors view points for your reading:

1. How did the idea of Bhungroo came about?
In my childhood, in West Bengal I saw devastation of flood and in my late twenties I observed the issues related to paucity of water and severe drought in Gujarat state. These two diametrically opposite phenomenon convinced me the strength and power of water. It was also an eye-opener for me to understand the human follies and its impact on nature.
In that context, I endeavoured to find a solution which can assist mother earth to help her children. And in that process I have followed simple principle of nature to learn basic natural science (I am a student of Humanities) more and design new methods. The output is the unique irrigation technology named as Bhungroo. Now nothin

Kristine Oustrup Laureijs
Co-Founder, Innovation Network & Director, Business Innovation Culture (BIC)

Kristine Oustrup is a creative and dynamic woman, a Goodwill Ambassador of Copenhagen that is committed in using design and fashion in a responsible way on open innovation models, for midsize and large companies. MOSAICQUE magazine was privileged to interview Kristine in regards to her achievement and her future aspirations.

According to Kristine being creative is at the core of being human. And so, she inquires into a most challenging question, if Technology can do pretty much anything in the world, can technology be truly creative? So to address this, BIC tested out an idea called the ICoNS, to see if different people innovate differently.

She co-founded Qi Global to incite such change and believes that innovation happens when there is cross-pollination of knowledge, hence their approach involves reaching out to individuals and organisations from diverse industries. Ideas are the seeds, but we also need passion from the community, and resources from the corporate world to nurture a meaningful space that can allow these ideas to come to fruition. By bridging people from these different backgrounds together, synergistic encounters are engineered, and innovative projects are formed as a result of their collective effort to be architects of a different future.

One of Qi-Global’s current project is the Rainforest Cuisine brand intends to protect the depleting rainforest of West Kalimantan by providing the local tribes an alternative source to livelihood rather than taking part in the oil palm and timber industries which is the cause of Borneo’s rapid deforestation. Encroachment from palm oil plantations was rapidly transforming Borneo’s rainforest, possibly the world’s most magnificent example of biodiversity. Borneo’s primary rainforest is 130 million years old, making it the oldest in the world. There are over 15,000 unique species of flowering plants making it one of the most bio-diverse places on earth. In order to support and develop a long term relationship with local tribes, Chef Andre and Kristine aimed to establish a supply chain for sourcing produce from the rainforest in a responsible and sustainable manner.

With Cathy Henkel, the Director behind “The Rise of the Eco-Warriors”, and Andre Chiang, one of Singapore’s top chefs, they have started an initiative that tackles deforestation in a novel way. The destruction of rainforests stems from the fact that the new forms it takes – such as timber and fertile agricultural land – are far more than profitable than its original state.
Our solution, hence, is to monetise the rainforest as it is by supplying haute cuisine establishments with rare, original and natural rainforest ingredients. The sustainable, fair-trade supply chain they are developing allows the rainforest to continue flourishing, bring equitable returns to the local communities and, on a larger scale, generate interest in protecting rainforests by showcasing its beauty and diversity to the rest of the world. Kristine’s role is to inspire, incubate ideas and help make the impossible happen.

Profile:
Kristine “Kiki” Oustrup Laureijs, is a contemporary visual artist exploring new frontiers.
Using visual and multimedia art installations, her works offers both visionary and sometimes provoking commentaries on contemporary social, political and cultural issues.
Currently she is exploring multicultural identity in a globalising world for FACES of the FUTURE.
A graduate in International Business & Marketing, she originally joined the Scandinavian fashion group METROPOL (St. Martins) in Denmark, before moving to Hong Kong as Head of Innovation for global lifestyle brand DIESEL.
After a move to France in 2001, Kiki became the co-founder of the French trend agency Style-Vision, where she consulted several global luxury brands and initiated the Style-Vision Round Table events, supported by the Financial Times.
In 2009, Kristine arrived in Singapore to establish Qi GLOBAL, an open innovation platform for sustainability, with the mission of “Human Progress in Harmony with Nature”.
During 2012-2015, she pivoted the online platform into Business Innovation Culture, a change management company, served on the advisory board of the Singapore Institute for Innovation & Productivity (SiPi) and as the Chairwoman of the growing CEO Innovation Network.
With her innovative ideas gaining continuous recognition, she has been appointed “Goodwill Ambassador of Copenhagen” under the patronage of His Royal Highness, Prince Joachim of Denmark, to represent and promote the country of her birth.

Dorjee Sun
CEO, Carbon Conservation

MOSAICQUE magazine takes privilege in featuring in its August 2015 edition Dorjee Sun – the trailblazer Australian, the unstoppable, kind-hearted, green entrepreneur who is passionate about saving the earth one step at a time, through his company Carbon Conservation.
Carbon Conservation grew out of Sun’s concern for the millions of hectares of rain forest destroyed each year in Indonesia. He knew that nonprofits alone weren’t going to stop tropical deforestation, which contributes as much as a quarter of the world’s carbon emissions. According to Dorjee, deforestation would only end when it becomes more profitable to keep forests than to turn them into logs or farms. The Kyoto Protocol doesn’t yet recognize avoided deforestation and Sun literally had to force himself at Thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties (COP13) held in Bali, Indonesia to put his business on the map.

In April 2008, Sun brokered the world’s first commercial avoided-deforestation project, in the war-torn Indonesian province of Aceh, with Merrill Lynch stepping up to pay its villagers to protect 1.9 million acres (770,000 hectares) of pristine jungle in exchange for the value of the carbon locked inside the trees. In exchange, Merrill got carbon credits, which are also known as carbon offsets. These credits meet the quality standards set by a group called the Climate, Community and Biodiversity Alliance (CCBA), whose members include environmental groups Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the Rainforest Alliance, and companies as BP, Intel and SC Johnson.

Profile:
Dorjee is a social entrepreneur who has founded 11 companies with 2 acquisitions and 3 exits and assets sales [cvMail (2000), Elevate Education (2002), AsiaGroove (2004), Honey RoastedTV (2005), Joosed (2005), Carbon Conservation (2007), Carbon Agro (2009), Whogives (2012), SnapClip (2014), Freedoms (2014) and Home Group (2014)].

His experience in technology ranges from ecommerce where he has advised TESCO’s Asian CEOs and KUONI Travel on ecommerce innovation strategy, engaged to help with their internal hackathons. Advised Shopline a SME SaaS e-tail platform in Asia and started, operated and led Visa’s Bigger Better Sale recruiting 45K customers and 60 vendors in Singapore in just 77 days. He is advising a crowdfunding platform ‘StartSomeGood’ and ChangeTip a bitcoin tipping platform. He is a Director for Whogives the company deploying the world’s first commercial Google Glass public project, also the company deploying kindness and philanthropy project for Singapore’s Government, he is Chairman of Nexus Singapore. He previously owned AsiaGroove, at the time the biggest Asian youth community in Australia with virtual currency 5K gifts p/day and currently is a co-Founder and investor relations/ marketing for an innovative new mobile video animation app called Snapclip.

Dorjee is a founder and director of the Home Group which owns equity in companies that work in the areas of conservation, agriculture, philanthropy, technology and financial innovation. Dorjee is also a founder and director of Carbon Conservation which owns equity in large scale sustainability and carbon conservation projects globally with project partners and clients such as Rio Tinto, Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Olam and Twitter. One such project in Aceh, Indonesia, won the Carbon Finance Deal of the Year award and was also the subject of an award winning documentary, “The Burning Season”, narrated by Hugh Jackman which explained how orangutan conservation and avoided deforestation could be tied in to generate alternative monetary incentives. The African Rainforest Conservancy honoured Dorjee with an Earth Day Award and by naming a newly discovered blue spotted species of chameleon from the Tanzania rainforest – the “Kinyongia dorjeesuni”.

His most recent undertaking is a solution for busy undergraduates called UNSWOT – a simple idea, an enabling digital platform, to engage the students face-to-face online with a conversation, a discussion, a debate on wide ranging issues such as challenges facing UN, Australian immigration policies, international obligations and climate change. Last month, this new idea was presented to University of North South Wales Vice Chancellor Ian Jacobs and 51 other Heads of Schools.

Dorjee has also been named one of TIME Magazine’s Heroes of the Environment, a World Economic Forum Global Leaders of Tomorrow, CPA Top 20 Business Leaders, one of Esquire Magazine’s 5 Gentlemen of Philanthropy, one of the Young Leaders by The Australian newspaper, he has won the Asialink Leaders Program Alumni Award, was named an Asia Society 21 Fellow, a World Cities Summit Future Leader, is the Chairman Nexus Youth Philanthropy Singapore Conference, on the board for the Nexus Youth Philanthropy Australia Conference and his work has been covered in Wall Street Journal, Fortune, TIME, Esquire, ABC, PBS, BBC, Discovery, CNBC, Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian and other media outlets.

Dorjee has a law degree, commerce degree and diploma of Asian Studies (Mandarin) from the University of New South Wales, studied at North Sydney Boys High. Growing up in Sydney he now shares his time between Singapore, San Francisco, Sydney and other project locations.