Village Telco

Village Telco is a social enterprise telecommunication company. It is committed to making communication affordable to everyone and available everywhere. Village Telco allows any community or entrepreneur to set up their own telephone and Internet company at a very low cost using meshed WiFi infrastructure. The goal is to make setting up a telephone company as easy as installing a Wordpress blog.

Now this is something new. Set up your own telephone company? Cool! It's like tonnes of people connected together and the WOW factor is, they can communicate with each other for free! You won't have to face pages of phone bills ever again! Though some telco offers stuffs like "sub-line" or more commonly known as "family line", they still limit the number of sub-lines you can create and you have to pay for doing that. Other than that, one other thing that they offer is "friends line". But again it is still not as good as the MeshPotato because you will still be charged though at a lower rate and again, there is a limit to the number of "friends line" you can create.

I really love the way Village Telco works. They got their strategy right on target. With MeshPotato, they can make communication available to everyone all over the world. And it's totally free! The strategy is simple. Get someone to buy a MeshPotato and he will build his own network by spreading it to his family members, friends, and even colleagues. With that, it's not impossible to call someone across the globe with MeshPotato for free! Imagine that! And I believe this will truly make communication available to everyone, everywhere!

If only a clinic can run this way. You know, by making healthcare services available to everyone, everywhere. I'm still thinking. Hope to come across some cool ideas soon.

Joining the dots...

2 weeks ago Mr. Bernard Hor took over my batch's Asas Pembudayaan Keusahawan (APK) class or more commonly known by my batch as the "entrepreneurship class". He started with a very interesting line:

"You can make this 2 hours class an interesting one, or u can choose to just make it a boring one and do whatever you like or sleep through it."

So I was there sitting with my Sarawakian friend, New Ru Peng. And both of us were thinking, "Okaaaay, lets give it a try and see what he has got to say."

Then we found out that this Mr Bernard guy wasn't like how we thought he is. Because he is not a lecturer... well he doesn't has the potential to become a lecturer to begin with. You may picture him as a lecturer-like guy with the usual lecturer-like attire, lecturer-like face, lecturer-like aura and stuffs. I bet you can picture it right? Okay, now you imagine someone completely opposite of that. And voila! That's Mr Bernard!

LOL. 

You might have thought he is a technician or some random staff lurking in the lecture hall. Well the thing is Mr Bernard approach us from a whole new and different way. He is one guy that gives lecture like a friend. Not to say that he is not professional. In fact later on you will know that he is not an amateur, at all. Anyway, I think his way is one of the best ways to get our attention. With our super duper short attention span, he managed to kept us listening to him for around 2 hours. Imagine that. Pro? Haha.

To me, Mr Bernard is a very experienced entrepreneur, and I'm looking forward to hear him talk and share more about his entrepreneur experience and knowledge. This is my chance to learn more about entrepreneurship. 

In the past 2 weeks, he has challenged and inspired us to think very differently, to find a purpose in our life, to understand what is entrepreneurship all about and how has it got to do with us future doctors. So last week, he came out with a suggestion. He wants us to come out with an idea for a social enterprise clinic and he's gonna apply and use the best idea on Klinik Kecheerian - a social enterprise community clinic in SS15, Subang Jaya.

Its not gonna be easy since I really have no idea of how to start and how can we do it. But we are willing to give it a try with Mr Bernard's guidance. I know that no matter how it goes, in the end I will definitely not regret because I would have at least learned something from this entrepreneurship class and I believe it will be of great help to me in the future.

Personally, I've learned a lot from Mr Bernard's sharing about Klinik Kecheerian and Aravind Eye Care System. Both are great and inspiring doctors. Below are some of the things that I've learned from them (I've quoted them out).

This is the social enterprise clinic Mr Bernard Hor talked about: Klinik Kecheerian.

"...to reach out to the marginalized group..." 

and

"...to reach out to youths..."

and

"...just because we have the primary objective - to reach out to marginalized people doesn't mean that we're gonna shy away from making the clinic look good and the atmosphere feel good..."

Dr. Vinod Laxmikanth

Next is the Aravind Eye Care System in India.

"Intelligence and capability are not enough. There must also be the joy of doing something beautiful. Being of service to God and humanity means going well beyond the sophistication of the best technology, to the humble demonstration of courtesy and compassion to each patient."

and

"If McDonald's can sell billions of burgers and Coca-Cola can sell billions of sodas, why can't I sell millions of sight-restoring operations?"
and

"...when you see yourself in all beings, there is no selfishness."

and

"...to be a better instrument to the divine..."

Dr. G. Venkataswamy

Changes (18/10)

To contribute to the world, to do something great, we do not need a ' DR.' in front of our names, because changes can't wait until tomorrow, start now start today, because little things count. What seem small to us, may give a huge impact on others. It is not all about ourselves, not about me, not about you, it is beyond us, affecting the society as a whole in making this world a much better place for all. Contribute with what we know; ideas are precious because one day they may become a reality. Make a difference :)

WORK IN PROGRESS