????上周二，哈佛大學(Harvard University)2014屆MBA學生阿姆瑞塔?賽加爾和她的創業伙伴、甲骨文公司(Oracle)工程師克里斯汀?卡蓋楚在哈佛商學院(Harvard Business School)主辦的頂級創業大賽中出盡風頭，一舉囊括了新創業大賽(New Venture Competition)社會企業家組別大獎和最受觀眾喜愛獎。

????她們的創意是什么呢——成立一家叫做“薩蒂”(Saathi)的社會企業，為印度農村婦女提供低成本衛生巾和工作機會。這兩位都持有麻省理工學院(MIT)機械工程學位的參賽者獲得了賽事評委和滿堂現場觀眾的交口稱贊，最終擊敗了其他參賽者的創意——在尼日利亞建立一家采用農戶加企業模式的番茄醬生產商，在哥倫比亞創設一個學費計劃，以及一個教育咨詢服務。兩人打算攜帶5萬美元獎金，去印度實踐她們的創業夢想。

????薩蒂大獲全勝后不久，社交網站Poets&Quants在哈佛商學院對賽加爾進行了獨家專訪。她敞開心扉，暢談了這個創意的靈感源泉，以及哈佛商學院課程和教授對這次創業做出的重大貢獻等話題。

????這個創意是如何產生的？

????我此前在麻省理工學院（MIT）學習工程專業，上大三那年，我在寶潔公司(Proctor & Gamble)女性衛生事業部獲得了一個實習機會。那時我21歲，還沒有意識到寶潔女性衛生產品指的是好自在(Always)和丹碧絲(Tampax)，我還以為是海飛絲(Head & Shoulders)和潘婷(Pantene)。

????說老實話，上班第一天，我就發現了一件讓我萬分震驚的事情。我是一位設計師，那個暑期正在設計設備，一個事實橫亙在我面前：印度農村的婦女竟然沒有護墊可用。由于護墊問題，女孩沒法去上學。這就是靈感源泉。這個創意就是這么來的。我知道我可以讓人們對它產生濃厚的興趣。

????大四那年返回校園后，經過我的一番勸說，我的設計團隊開始開創一個小規模的制造工藝，利用印度農村現有的纖維制造護墊。我們觀察了許多種纖維，還跟麻省理工學院的一個化學工程團隊展開了合作。他們透露說，香蕉樹的樹皮是世界上最吸水的纖維，而且它是現成的。

????香蕉樹有一個很有意思的現象。我當時還不知道，從種樹到收獲香蕉需要9到12個月，但香蕉樹只能結一次果，果農每年都得砍掉主莖。他們通常會把它砍成許多小塊，其中一些被用作化肥，但絕大多數都被果農簡單地堆積起來，等著腐爛。

????最終的產品是如何生產的？消費者是否接受這種用樹干做成的護墊？

????我們把樹皮加工成纖維，就這樣，它最終變成一種干燥的粉末狀纖維質材料，完全可以用來填充護墊。所以說，它是一種非常蓬松的材質，我們都嘗試過了，消費者對它很滿意。

????最近獲得的這個獎項對你意味著什么？

????有了這筆錢，我們就可以去印度真正啟動這項事業。也就是說，我們能夠走進印度鄉村，直接跟婦女們合作。

????Harvard MBA candidate Amrita Saigal (class of 2014) and her co-founder, Oracle engineer Kristin Kagetsu, swept Harvard Business School's top entrepreneurship contest on Tuesday, nabbing the grand prize and the audience choice award in the New Venture Competition's social entrepreneurship category.

????Their idea? Saathi -- a social enterprise startup that provides low-cost sanitary napkins and jobs to women in rural India. The two, who both hold mechanical engineering degrees from MIT, wowed both the judges and the jam-packed audience at the Harvard event, drawing top marks – enough to push them ahead of a farm-to-market tomato paste producer in Nigeria, a school tuition program in Colombia, and an education consulting service. The two will use their $50,000 prize to move to India and open up shop.

????Poets&Quants caught up with Saigal at HBS shortly after Saathi's big win. She explains everything from the inspiration behind the idea to the HBS classes and professors that played a pivotal role in creating the business.

????What gave you the idea for Saati?

????I landed an internship my junior year as an undergraduate engineering student at MIT with Proctor & Gamble (PG) in the feminine hygiene division. I was 21 years old and did not realize that feminine hygiene meant Always and Tampax -- I thought it meant Head & Shoulders and Pantene.

????I showed up on the first day and was honestly shocked at what I found. I was a designer, and designing equipment that summer, I was confronted with the fact that women in rural India didn't have access to pads. Girls were not going to school because of pads. So that was the inspiration. And I knew I could get people passionate about this idea I really cared about.

????So I came back to MIT my senior year and convinced my senior design team that we should create a small-scale manufacturing process to make pads out of some type of locally available fiber. We looked at a number of fibers and partnered with a chemical engineering team at MIT who told us that the bark of a banana tree is the most absorbent fiber in the world and it's readily available.

????The interesting thing about banana trees, which I didn't know, is that from the time you plant the tree to the time you get the bananas takes nine to 12 months. But they only produce the bananas once, and then you have to cut down the main shoot every year. The farmers cut it up into little pieces and use some of it as fertilizer, but they just stack the majority of it in piles and piles, waiting for it to decompose.

????How do you produce the final product? Are consumers okay with tree trunk?

????We process the bark into fibers so it comes out as stringy pieces, which are dried and pulverized, and that provides filling for the pads. So it's a nice fluffy material that we've all tried and the consumers are fine with it.

????What does the recent win mean for you?

????That we'll be able to go to India and actually launch the business – we'll be on the ground and able to work directly with the women.