All-rounders: Kalpana Beesabathuni
It’s a pleasure to introduce Kalpana Beesabathuni, the Global Lead of Technology & Entrepreneurship at Sight and Life. Sight and Life is Swiss-based foundation and humanitarian nutrition think tank that works to deliver innovative solutions to eliminate all forms of malnutrition in children and women of childbearing age and improve the lives of the world’s most vulnerable populations.
Please tell us a bit more about your current role at Sight & Life.
“Three tectonic movements are reshaping the world today: technology, globalisation, and climate change”, observed Thomas Friedman in his book Thank You for Being Late. Technology plays an increasingly important role in enabling the implementation of high-quality public health nutrition programs. Two of these tectonic movements — technology and globalisation — have led to a major phenomenon: the rise in entrepreneurship, which can disrupt “business as usual”. Innovative entrepreneurial solutions are required to improve access to proven solutions and ensure sustainability. At Sight and Life, we advance technology and entrepreneurial approaches together to all aspects of improving nutrition in resource-limited environments, including prevention and education, affordable product interventions, efficient supply chains, and monitoring and evaluation. Some of our innovative platforms are Elevator Pitch Contest, The Nutrition Entrepreneurs, Sizanani Mzanzi and Eggciting Innovations.
We also compiled pragmatic perspectives of innovators and entrepreneurs in nutrition in our flagship bi-annual Sight and Life Magazine.
The roles you’ve held and the different contexts you’ve worked in illustrate versatility and adaptability. Why is being an “all-rounder” important– and how has it helped you be successful?
Nutrition is a complex domain. Unless we integrate with different sectors, we will not be able to scale proven solutions. I enjoy sharing successful stories from the various domains I have worked in — health, food, agriculture, water and sanitation, renewable energy in both public and private sectors. Scalable solutions in nutrition are slow to show impact and scarce to find. Learning from other sectors helps me challenge the status quo, experiment with novel solutions and share best practices.
We need all-rounders, people with a variety of expertise and experience to connect the dots where others don’t see a link or are unsure of possible links. We live in a world overloaded with information. All-rounder perspectives help in integrating numerous sources of knowledge, accepting ambiguity and uncertainty and set a direction for creative collaboration.
How do multi-sector partnerships (MSP) play a role in your work? Partnerships are not just about shared values, but also about trust. How do you cultivate trust in partnerships?
At Sight and Life, we work on a range of MSPs with academia, philanthropists, public and private sectors. Cultivating trust is usually the easiest part in my work with partners. Since I lived in India, partners from the Global South are able to relate to me as we address common challenges in our work and our daily lives. We often have good stories to share from our countries from culture to politics. It is important to be and stay humble and acknowledge the strengths of our partners in MSPs at ALL times.
What advice or wisdom from your life would you pass on to others who are just beginning their journey to become an all-rounder, or desire to embark on such a path?
Two suggestions: (1) Raise your hand and seek out assignments that will stretch your abilities and makes you uncomfortable very early in your career. It could be in new country or a division you have never worked with before or forces you to learn a new skill. (2) Specialise in at least one skill or subject area and then be an all-rounder. It may not necessarily be a hard skill such as science and business. Non-traditional areas such as facilitation and conflict resolution will become more important as your responsibilities in an organization increase. You then become the go-to person for that special skill giving you credibility and respect. It then becomes easier to embark on an all-rounder path.
