‘Are we drifting away from our core mission?’ - that was the burning question within Fusion management as they were preoccupied with Social enterprising.

Business aspect of Fusion social enterprise has been a major focus for more than a year, as economic sustainability has been recognized as fundamental to Fusions achievement of longer term mission. As a result Fusion completes 2008 / 2009 budget year with a healthy cash flow, contributed over 45% by the social enterprise revenue.

Nevertheless, such positive outcomes were at a price. For instance, Fusion’s village information centre (VIC) program could not produce healthy results. Though over 100 VICs continue to sustain on their own, they could not result in new thrust. Are we drifting from the core mission - ‘Mission Drift’?

The question lead to a research carried out by a research team from Ross Business School of University of Michigan. The study involved a document based analysis carried out by 5 research students (including Postgraduates) under the guidance of Prof. Michael Gordon over 3 months (during October to December, 2008).

The recommendations of the final report included:

a). to establish micro-mission statements for target group categories

b). for Fusion to strive to establish Performance based budgeting practice

c). introduce SROI (Social Return of Investment) as an impact monitoring mechanism.

Following link provide access to detail report>

By 2009 May, Fusion had managed to adopt Performance based budgeting, as a new model for their new budget. Micro-mission statements are being formulated. However, Fusion still contemplates over SROI.

For more details visit the Mission drift blog.

ICT technologies are changing very fast. Fusion depends on Research & Development to keep- up the pace.

‘Research’ - implies applied research, & ‘Development’ - towards improvement of technologies and services to make Fusion delivery efficient and effective.

We aim to infuse mainstream technology developments on the one hand, and also aims to contribute to the technology developments, by working as a sounding board of community needs, wisdom and voices, on the other.

Goal:

Update Fusion ICT4D approaches to fit into most modern context

Strategy:

• Carry out applied research within the context of fusion programs
• Partner with academic and research institutions

Projects:

• Completed the project titled Virtual Villages - Socio-anthropological and technological studies on Last Mile. The project carried out from 2005 - 2007, in collaboration with 4 partner institutions, UCSC (University of Colomobo, School of Computing), CENWOR (Centre for Womens Research), University of Peradeniya and D.Net (Bangladesh).

Products:

• Our research findings of 3 year long engagements are published in the Fusion publication - ‘Noise at the Last Mile’ (read >> pdf).
• Other Research papers related to Fusion:
  • A Study of ICT & Rural Development of Sri Lanka - Kamal Kapadia, PhD Candidate, University of California, Birkley (read >> Paper)
  • NGO and Community Participation in Setting Up Nanasala for Targeting the Poor and Vulnerable and Improving Government Accountability - Harsha Liyanage, Regional Develop Dialogue, UNCRD (UN Centre for Regional Development), Vol 27-2, 2006 (read >>> paper)

On going:

1. Research on Telecentre sustainability - ‘Sustainability First’ carried out by Dr Harsha Liyanage, MD, Fusion as a visiting fellow to telecentre.org of IDRC. Research has been carried out since January 2007, involving Sri Lanka (Fusion & ICTA), Bangladesh (D.Net & Grameen Phone CIC), India (Drishtee) & Brasil (ATN). ‘Sustainability First’ book publication is due early 2009, capturing research findings. For additional details>  www.sustainabilityfirst.org

2. Research on ‘Mission Drift’ - Are we losing our social mission, in the face of entrepreneurship drive? That is the question, fusion seek answers, as it put more effort into Social Enterprising. A research has been initiated (in Nov 2008) with the collaboration of team of students from Ross Business School, University of Michigan, USA. For details> www.missiondrift.wordpress.org

Forward plans:

Fusion is planning to carry out research programs into the aspects of Mobile Phones and Telecentre hybrid applications towards the empowerment of rural farmers. Expect - ‘Fusion-net’ in 2009.