In three poor neighborhoods around Bangalore, groups of women micro-entrepreneurs have recently logged on to the power of global social networking through the internet despite being impoverished and illiterate. Helping them in this attempt to escape poverty is a start-up called Ubuntu At Work which is inspired by Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen’s argument that a person’s capability is not what he or she theoretically has, but hinges upon the person’s social arrangements.

Named after an ethical concept of African origin of the same name that emphasises community, generosity and sharing, Ubuntu at Work was set up last year by Vibha Pingle, a former assistant professor of sociology at Rutgers University.

The start-up has been launched just as serious questions are being raised about micro-finance initiatives’ effect on reducing poverty. Some even argue that micro-credit leaves people in the developing world worse off, much in the same way as credit cards and mortgages do in rich countries.

The idea for Ubuntu came out of Pingle’s study of women micro-entrepreneurs in Africa. Two things stood out. Firstly, forming a women’s self-help group was not necessarily conducive to fresh business ideas. Second, the cell phone was not an adequate enough tool to develop a new business.

Pingle realised that 99 per cent of the women she surveyed in the micro-finance networks did not even see themselves as micro-entrepreneurs. She concluded that only those women who built bridges outside of their network were likely to escape the crush of poverty.

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