The Social Innovation Podcast had a fabulous conversation with Azalea Ayuningtyas, the co-Founder and CEO of Du Anyam.  Du Anyam is the leading ethical craft brand in Indonesia with a vision is "to empower women, promote culture, and improve livelihood."  Azalea originally intended to be an academic after receiving a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan and a Masters Degree in Epidemiology from Harvard University's School of Public Health.

However, during a field study in India, she had an experience that changed her career perspective.  While interviewing a young woman in her home in the slums of Mumbai, the elder woman of the house came into the interview and yelled at Azalea and told her to leave.  After leaving the house, during a conversation with the translator, Azalea learned why she was asked to leave.  The older woman was upset because many researchers have come into her house to ask questions and learn about her life and yet nothing has changed.

This inspired Azalea and helped her realize that as potentially impactful as academia and its resulting research can be, it is necessary to wait for someone to act on that research and implement solutions based on its findings, conclusions, and resulting policy recommendations.  Remembering her parents running their family business and being able to see the impact of their own decisions began to make Azalea a bit impatient.  It was also around this time that she started to learn about Social Enterprises.  This was very intriguing to her because Azalea figured out that she could use business principles to solve social problems.

Listen to this episode to find out more about Du Anyam and its newest vertical, Krealogi, created to solve craft supply chain bottlenecks and empower all craft SMEs.  You can reach the Du Anyam team here and follow them on Instagram here.