Prasoon Kumar, founder and CEO of non-profit social enterprise billionBricks. (Photo: Cheryl Marie Tay)
The founder and CEO of non-profit billionBricks speaks to PropertyGuru about his journey from commercial architect to socially conscious property developer, whereby he has positively impacted the lives of thousands of disadvantaged people.
by Cheryl Marie Tay
Prasoon Kumar is a busy man. So busy, in fact, that I had to book an appointment with him via his colleague almost two months in advance. When I arrive at the venue where I am to conduct this interview, he admits he did not have the time to look at the questions I sent.
But Kumar, 39, is not quite prepared for our interview because he has been busy with life-saving work: putting roofs over the heads of the homeless.
We meet at The Hub, a co-working setup on Prinsep Street, where he has reserved some office space from which he runs his business. Dressed in jeans and a company T-shirt, he is apologetic for not having looked at my questions, and upon seeing my camera, recorder and notebook, expresses surprise that “this is such a formal interview”.
He is, however, eager to share more with me about his non-profit, billionBricks. That earnestness is apparent throughout the interview, and his mild, soft-spoken manner puts one at ease almost immediately.
A building background
Previously based in the US — where he had obtained his Masters degree in Urban and Environmental Planning at Arizona State University in 2005 — the New Delhi native moved to Singapore 10 years ago, joining American architectural firm HOK as Associate Urban Designer / Planner before being promoted to the role of Senior Consultant.
In 2011, he took the position of Head of Urban Design at local design consultancy Space Matrix, where he worked for two and a half years before he decided to establish billionBricks in August 2013 with two co-founders. Today, the non-profit social enterprise has six full-time staff, three part-timers and four to five regular volunteers.
Inspiration from dissatisfaction
Kumar’s decision to start billionBricks came from a place of deep dissatisfaction with the problem of homelessness and poverty in his hometown.
He says, “I’ve contributed to a lot of (property) development in Southeast Asia and India. But I realised all my work was catering to a few very rich people: all my projects were high-end condominiums or shopping malls or airports…it’s important work but it caters to very few, and there are a lot of professionals who are doing it, anyway.
“After six or seven years in Singapore, I realised my work was getting more and more high-end and expensive: bigger swimming pools, more technology in apartments, taller buildings…I was wondering where I was going with all this.
“At the same time, I would travel to different cities and see how they had been transformed over the last two decades. I grew up in New Delhi and saw the changes there, none of them positive. Whenever I would go back there for work, I would see a significant drop in the quality of life.”
He observed that despite more wealth being generated in India, the traffic conditions, air pollution and poverty had gotten worse. Overpopulation had become a big issue, with an increasing number of slums and homeless people in the city.
He asked himself then: “When it comes to building homes and schools for these slum dwellers and homeless people, where do architects like myself, who keep designing fancy buildings, fit in?”
This question bothered him for four years, until he decided to quit his job at Space Matrix and start billionBricks.
“I founded billionBricks to try to tackle the problem of homelessness, and use design and technology as tools to create replicable solutions that, if repeated or scaled, could actually solve the problem.”
He began by approaching NGOs (non-government organisations), hoping their social initiatives could be effectively combined with his team’s experience and expertise in architecture and urban planning. After two years of hard work, billionBricks finally brought its first project to life last year.
Collaborating with Indian non-profit NGO Salaam Baalak Trust, it turned an abandoned building in Mumbai into accommodation for 100 homeless children, complete with workshops and daycare activities for them.
An emphasis on empathy
He acknowledges the wealth gap between the rich and poor in many countries, and says “this is not just an economic problem, it’s a social problem”, one that has become “very complicated to solve”.
On an individual level, he believes that in striving for improvement and even perfection in our professional and personal lives, we often do not pay enough mind to how our actions might negatively affect others who have less than we do.
“When I made money for myself as an architect, I would question my relationship with and responsibility to the poor in my society. We forget why empathy is important, and that many things that have generated wealth have happened at someone else’s expense.
“The problems have become so big, we don’t know what to do about them. And we might think, ‘One day, when I have enough for myself, I’ll start to give back.’”
He explains that such an attitude often leads to the perception of one’s own superiority, wherein he may pity the poor instead of empathising with them, despite his good intentions.
“The moment that happens, the situation becomes lopsided, whereby someone is in power and someone is not,” he says, adding that it perpetuates the divide between rich and poor.
On the right path
It is for this reason that Kumar does not believe in merely giving the disadvantaged handouts, but prefers to simply give them a push in the right direction, so they have access to decent education and work, and can be self-sufficient individuals.
By providing the foundation of a decent quality of life, i.e., homes and schools, to the less fortunate, he is confident that their lives can be improved. However, he is humble about the success of billionBricks.
“The vision of our organisation is to end homelessness, so I think success is very far off for us.”
While it might be impossible to permanently or completely end homelessness, there is no denying billionBricks’ impact: so far, the organisation has helped between 1,500 and 2,000 people, and is well on its way to making this a sustainable model.
Unlike most other business owners, Kumar encourages people to be copycats, to take his team’s ideas and replicate or even improve on them, in order to “create sweeping change”. None of their products are copyrighted, and the response has been heartening.
Whatever the weather
billionBricks’ most popular product is weatherHYDE, a weatherproof tent that has changed the lives of many homeless people. Orginally called winterHYDE, it was initially designed for use during winter, but was changed to become more versatile after public feedback.
Children in India in a weatherHYDE tent. Designed to withstand all weather conditions, it has provided adequate shelter and privacy for many families. (Photo: billionBricks)
A reversible tent suitable for both hot and cold weather, weatherHYDE is currently available in India, Singapore and the US, though Kumar has plans to make them available in the rest of the world.
And it’s not just the homeless buying weatherHYDE. Others are buying it — albeit for a higher price — so they can go camping with it; proceeds from these sales go to building more tents and homes. Many are also gifting tents to the homeless.
Kumar has even received enquiries from people asking permission to produce similar products for the same purpose, and he has gladly obliged.
A house that is a home
The conversation turns to his family life. Kumar is married with two sons, aged two and five. His wife is also an architect, and being in the same industry was what brought them together.
He says with a laugh: “She makes the money for the family, and spends more time with our kids. She thought running a non-profit would be easier for me, but after six months, she started getting worried because I was busier than before!”
Like many people, she had assumed managing a non-profit would be less stressful than being in the corporate world, but despite her initial concerns after it proved to be even more challenging, she has come around to the idea. He is thankful for her constant support, saying he would not be able to run billionBricks otherwise.
Responsibility a priority
He also mentions that there were people who had expressed interest in joining him, but changed their minds after the work turned out to be more difficult than they had expected. Instead of being in an office all day, they had to assess potential building sites and personally oversee the building process, something for which they were unprepared.
Add to that the long hours, repeated appeals for funding (billionBricks has a Kickstarter page, where it is currently raising funds for 500 weatherHYDE tents for 500 homeless families in India, Singapore and the US) and a significant pay cut from his time as a commercial architect, Kumar understands why people are apprehensive about coming aboard. But his sense of social responsibility takes precedence over such considerations.
“It makes no business sense to be doing this, but somebody has to do it.”
Update: billionBricks is currently running a Kickstarter campaign to help provide Winterhydes to more homeless people.
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