Technology Salon: Challenges of Sustainability in ICD4D

Took part an interesting discussion yesterday with a great group of people in ICT for development at the bimonthly Technology Salon, hosted by the UN Foundation/Vodfone Foundation partnership, and chaired by the inimitable Wayan Vota. A good writeup of the conversation is here; one of the most interesting parts of the conversation for me was this bit:

In development, we are often looking at projects with a three-year funding commitment, while in domestic private industry, three years is considered the initial start-up phase, with five years the usual time horizon for profitability. In the developing world, even successful organizations like Kick Start, consider 10 years a more reasonable break even benchmark.

So there is a gap between this pilot/start up phase, and a self-sustaining business model, that isn't bridged by current financing. Donors are reluctant to fund "on-going operating costs", yet venture capitol sees development investments as too risky, and development financing organizations rarely see above microfinance or below multi-million dollar financing.

There certainly is a gap here. Particularly in the mHealth space, the globe is spotted with trial projects, proofs of concept, and other two- to three-year efforts to test out new ideas. While many of these projects have proven successful, or at least shown promise, it has been difficult to get either sustained startup capital or commitments from governments/NGOs to see these projects through to sustainability.