EnCube Labs: Incubating Young Innovators and Entrepreneurs

Employment needs and demographic shifts in many developing nations are approaching a crisis of poverty and social unrest. This introduces complex challenges requiring creative employment solutions.

We need entrepreneurs and startups to create the number of jobs to address these challenges. However, most entrepreneurship development programs focus on a few latent entrepreneurs - ignoring the millions of equally capable youth.

What if marginalized communities can be transformed into buzzing innovation hotspots by revealing the unrecognized potential of youth as problem-solvers and job creators?  

EnCube Labs transforms youth aged 10 - 24 into confident and resourceful young adults through a specially designed maker program. They, in turn, build self-sustaining ecosystems that empower more youth in their communities.

While current programs are trying to create a few entrepreneurs today, EnCube Labs is sowing the seeds to create thousands tomorrow who will start companies, generate jobs, and impact their communities over the next decade.

Job creation is a critical challenge faced by many nations to manage the growing youth population of 1.8 billion. According to the World Bank, to simply keep pace with current youth employment rates, the global economy needs to create five million new jobs every month over the next decade, including one million from India alone. No corporation or government can generate this volume of jobs. It can only be created by a large number of young entrepreneurs. Not only do founders create jobs, they also solve problems and uplift underprivileged communities.

Though youth entrepreneurship across the world is consistent, access to opportunities and support in developed regions are far ahead of underserved regions, where 90% of the youth in the world live. 

While basic education in some of these regions may be improving, the digital divide between these regions is a growing threat. This is especially true in today’s digital age where technologies impact every aspect of life. The lack of exposure to STEM education, making skills, and digital literacy exacerbates inequality. Without the right interventions, youth in many marginalized communities will be unable to become entrepreneurs and generate the jobs needed to address the growing global unemployment crisis.

We serve youth who live in underserved communities who face significant barriers in accessing learning opportunities that expose them to innovation and entrepreneurship skills and mindsets.

As part of EnCube’s interventions, they are given extensive exposure on topics such as ideation, fabrication, problem solving, and business models to develop their self-efficacy and entrepreneurial skillset. They are inspired to become future champions, mentors, and catalysts for change who can spread such interventions in their communities and nurture community-driven entrepreneurship ecosystems, leading to the exponential growth of more innovators and entrepreneurs.

By providing access to these learning interventions, youth become trained to solve real problems, monetize solutions, generate jobs, solve local problems, and create wealth for themselves and their communities.

EnCube Labs creates sustainable innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystems in marginalized communities to unleash the full potential of young people for improved employability, entrepreneurship, and community development.

Developed based on research performed in MIT (Rajesh Nair, MIT-SDM MS Thesis 2014) and Asia School of Business, EnCube Labs has conducted over 57 innovation and entrepreneurship interventions in various underserved communities in India, Malaysia, Timor Leste, Indonesia, and the USA since 2012. Directly engaging over 2700 youth to create a critical mass of “pre-entrepreneurs” with the right mindset and skills for entrepreneurship and to build sustainable innovative ecosystems. This model focuses on five key stages:

• ZERO: the uninitiated youth, with unrecognized potential

• MAKER: the creative thinker and doer, one who thinks outside safe spaces, connects disparate ideas, and designs and makes things.

• INNOVATOR: a problem solver who can synthesize observations to identify unmet community/human needs, and create and validate desirable solutions for social impact or financial gain.

• ENTREPRENEUR: The value creator who converts a problem into a commercial opportunity from resources that one does not possess.

• ECOSYSTEM: building a vibrant, growing, and self-sustaining community, consisting of makers to entrepreneurs as role models.

The interventions are composed of the following components:

1. Maker Training - As the initial touch point of youth, these workshops cover ideation, fabrication, and design of user experience, mechanical and electronic components, and software. These activities empower youth to achieve things out of their zone of comfort and competence to build self-efficacy.

2. Makerlab in a Box – For communities that lack resources, we curated an affordable makerlab equipped with 3D printers, electronics, and tools that support young makers.

3. Maker Community Platform - To reach even more young people, we created a web/mobile platform that bring together young makers and gamify their learning experiences through interactive challenges. 

4. Maker Mentors – we identify, and train local youth to become mentors for others within their communities.

These interventions have resulted in a tenfold increase in startups in communities. A recent study in India revealed that for 52 students in a rural college, our intervention enhanced their innovation and entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and catalyzed the creation of 21 startups over four years.

In the next  decade, we aim to empower one million youth and 100,000 young entrepreneurs who will start companies, generate jobs, and SOLVE the world’s greatest challenges.

The UN GeneralAssembly talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oprmz2uJM6k

While most entrepreneurship development programs target individuals who have already expressed interest and aptitude to be entrepreneurs, EnCube Labs provide access to innovation and entrepreneurship interventions to youth who have not recognized and are probably unaware of their ability to be innovators and entrepreneurs.

These interventions focus on achieving internal transformation and mindset change as these youth require to start from the basic changes in beliefs, perspectives, and behaviors. From these fundamental behaviors, skills and interest are honed in areas such as applied science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (STEAM) designing and creating products to solve problems, and entrepreneurial competencies.

This comprehensive approach has been proven to cultivate and impact youth from being uninitiated all the way to active, thriving, and problem-solving entrepreneurs who create wealth and value.

The core technology is in the process or methodology of instilling confidence, eliminating fear of failure and aversion to risk, through experiential learning. Building self efficacy and creative confidence requires a bottom-up approach which begins from understanding youth’s perspectives, fears, and aspirations to overtime stimulate creativity, technical skills, communication abilities, and self-confidence.

This is complemented by learning tools such as design of mechanical and electronic systems, coding, 3D fabrication, and presentation.

Initially developed as research at MIT (Rajesh Nair, MIT-SDM MS Thesis 2014), the methodology has been applied by EnCube Labs in over 57 innovation and entrepreneurship interventions in various underserved communities in India, Malaysia, Timor Leste, Indonesia, and the USA. We have directly engaged over 2700 youth to create a critical mass of “pre-entrepreneurs” with the right mindset and skills for entrepreneurship and to build sustainable innovative ecosystems.

Multiple applications of this methodology validates our premise that entrepreneurship potential is universal, even between boys and girls. In particular, having entrepreneurial women in a community is of huge benefit to underserved communities.

We have seen the methodology result in a tenfold increase in startups in communities where entrepreneurial activity was limited or virtually nonexistent. A recent study in India revealed that for 52 students in a rural college, our intervention enhanced their innovation and entrepreneurial skills and mindsets and catalyzed the creation of 21 startups over four years.

Since 2012 the methodology has been applied in 57 programs for 2700 learners.

In Malaysia, we have ongoing programs in 10 schools in the rural state of Kedah directly engaging 80 youth who will then mentor, influence, and inspire 1000 other youth in their communities.

In India, we have previously reached 1000 students in maker workshops in schools. Presently, our programs teach basic making and robotics in rural villages in Idar, Gujarat in India directly engage 250 students who mentor 3500 other youth in 60 villages. 

In Timor Leste, we have reached 35 students who will reach 100 students in their communities.

In 5 years, we aim to directly and indirectly engage 250,000 youth in several developing regions.

In the next 10 years, our goal is to reach, inspire, and empower 1 million youth and unleash the potential of 100,000 young entrepreneurs. They will start companies, generate jobs, create value, and more importantly, transform their lives, change their communities, and solve the world’s most significant challenges.

We aim to do this by working with governments such as the ministry of education who can spread the methodology in the school system, with community leaders, funding agencies, and especially youth groups who can bring interventions in remote regions.

Our web and mobile platforms will also allow us to extend our reach and amplify our impact beyond our physical activities.

Creating programs in school systems is a strategic opportunity to expand our impact exponentially. However, influencing and working with ministries and school boards require building of trust, relationships, and financial resources that take time to mobilize.

While we have developed tools, such as the Makerlab in a Box, that make the methodology more accessible than ever before, financial constraints remain for us to reach underdeveloped communities. As a social venture, financial support will greatly expand the impact of the interventions.

Currently, we are working with funding agencies such as Asian Development Bank, local government authorities, and private sector donors to mobilize resources that will support the training activities and materials required to deliver the program in communities.

We aim to expand these types of partnerships and build long term engagement opportunities to sustainably finance the interventions.

We have also invested in web and mobile technologies which will make the methodology accessible in a lower cost to more youth. Through an online platform and a mobile app, engaging challenges will encourage youth to take up the initiative to teach themselves and other youth in their communities.

2 Full time

4 contractors

8 interns

The team is led by Rajesh Nair, Professor of Practice on Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Asia School of Business, and Visiting Scholar at MIT. He is a product designer and entrepreneur with more than 30 years experience in the design of more than a hundred products and multiple startups in Boston area. His research is in catalyzing innovators and entrepreneurs in communities from the ground up and to build local entrepreneurship ecosystems. He has conducted workshops on Making, Innovation and Entrepreneurship in different countries for students and professionals.

He is supported by a team comprised of:

Ponce Samaniego, MSMS Candidate at MIT Sloan (2020)

Olivia Seow, MS IDM Candidate at MIT (2021)

Jose Corpus, Consultant, Asian Development Bank

Dhruv Saidava, General Manager, EnCube Labs

Jimish Fotariya, Technical Executive, EnCube Labs

Our current partners include:

• Asia School of Business

• Asian Development Bank

• Intel India

• Malaysian Global Innovation & Creativity Centre (MaGIC)

• Larsen & Toubro: L&T India

We work with partners and funding agencies that subsidize the programs we offer for youth in rural and underserved communities. As a social venture, we balance the interests of our customers who are funding agencies and our beneficiaries which are the youth in communities. Our programs are provided at no cost to the youth through the support of these partners such as corporate donors, international agencies, and academic institutions.

We utilize several approaches to mobilize resources. This includes receiving grants from funding agencies to run programs. To date, government agencies and banks investing in social development have been contributors to our pilot projects. Their funds support communities to receive workshops and maker material, which stay as part of local school resources.

We also offer our services and developed revenue-generating products that subsidize our operations. This includes corporate trainings, Makerlab in a Box, and maker kits packaged for organizations such as corporations and private universities. Revenue from for-profit activities support the social mission of the organization.

Over time, alumni and entrepreneurs who have been inspired by the program will be able to give back in resources and mentorship.

We have a proven methodology that we believe can catalyze the systemic change needed to meet the growing youth employment crisis.

We also have the traction and team to scale and expand.

Through Solve, we aim to make strong connections to partners and networks with the leverage to further integrate and scale our work with underserved communities in India and throughout Asia. We also seek the support of individuals and mentors with existing positive influence in underserved communities, and with whom our work can gain more momentum. In addition, any prize funding will serve as rocket fuel for us to provide more workshops, better resources, and more facilitators for Zero2Maker activities.  Ultimately, Solve's partnerships and support can enable us to get to the next stage in achieving our aspired impact in the lives of youth and their communities.

• We aim to partner with forward-thinking educational institutions and agencies including ministries of education, Universities, and entrepreneurial ecosystems.

• We hope to be connected with funding agencies, corporate donors, and foundations who focus on education,youth, and community development.

If awarded the GM Prize on Community-Driven Innovation, we will use the funds to further develop our Maker Community Platform called “Zero2Maker”. Zero2Maker is our web and mobile application that complement our workshops by allowing us to reach even more young people, spread our Maker curriculum, bring together young makers, and gamify their learning experiences through interactive, fun, and engaging Making and STEM challenges.

If awarded the Morgridge Family Foundation on Community-Driven Innovation, we will use the funds to further develop our Maker Community Platform called “Zero2Maker”. Zero2Maker is our web and mobile application that complement our workshops by allowing us to reach even more young people, spread our Maker curriculum, bring together young makers, and gamify their learning experiences through interactive, fun, and engaging Making and STEM challenges.