Last month, the IIX team spent time at Prakti Labs, located in Auroville, southeast India.
Prakti is an innovative company that designs, manufactures and sells quality cook stoves in low-income communities across India, as well as in conflict and disaster zones such as Haiti and the Democratic Republic of Congo. The founder of Prakti, Mr. Mouhsine Serrar, is a Moroccan national who spent many years as an engineer working for MNCs in California before turning his attention towards cook stoves.
Upon entering Prakti’s premises, the first thing you notice is the range of prototypes, iterations and latest designs of Prakti’s award-winning cook stoves. Mouhsine’s passion for continuous improvement is evident as he explains the development process for his product. It has taken him and his team 5 years to design hardy, fuel-efficient and portable cook stoves that are now being used to prepare meals for thousands of people across multiple continents, at affordable prices.
We spent time with the Prakti team understanding their business, working on improving their business strategy, business plan and financial forecasts. We continue to work to refine these documents in order to facilitate the raising of external capital for Prakti in the new year. With growth capital, Prakti can achieve even greater scale and social impact.
Urvashi Gupta,
Social Enterprise Team,
IIX.