Business in Bhutan: A Fully Integrated Bottom Line
Ujjwal Deep Dahal is the CEO of Druk Holding and Investments Limited (DHI), founded in 2007. DHI is the largest and only government-owned holding company in Bhutan. It was created to hold and manage current and future investments of the royal government for the people of Bhutan. DHI has shares in 21 different companies operating in the manufacturing, energy, natural resources, financial, communication, aviation, trading and real estate sectors
Sho Links:
Druk Holding and Investment’s Website
Imperfect Show Notes
While these notes are not perfect (AI translation is still improving), they give you the gist of the conversation. Enjoy!
My conversation with Ujjwall Deep Dahal:
Morgan Bailey 0:02
Hello, and welcome to the profit meets impact Podcast where we explore the intersection of doing well and doing good in the world. I'm your host Morgan Bailey and I'm excited to bring you the wisdom of entrepreneurs and thought leaders that are using business to create sustainable and meaningful change across the globe. Really excited to be having this conversation with Walt the hall. He is the CEO of drug holding Investments Limited founded in 2007. Dhi as a company is known as a largest and only government owned holding company in Bhutan, created to hold and manage current and future investments of the Royal Government for the people of Bhutan. Dhi has shares in 21 Different companies operating in the manufacturing energy, natural resources, financial communication, aviation trading and real estate sectors. Withdrawal really an honor to have you in this conversation.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 0:56
Thank you. Thank you, Morgan. Thank you for having me.
Morgan Bailey 0:59
Oh, draw, there's so much I want to I want to talk with you about can you tell us a bit about your background and kind of how it is that you came to be CEO of this? I find a really fascinating company.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 1:10
Thank you. Thank you, Morgan. Yes, the recording and investments was created in 2007, as you mentioned, under a Royal Charter, as Bhutan transitioned into a constitutional monarchy, democratic constitutional monarchy. And we have about 21 Different companies in different shareholding patterns. So for me, personally, my background, I'm an electrical engineer by profession. And I, my passion in the sense, as an engineer, but now more so as, as, as a leader, or as somebody who, who looks at developing the next generation of industries for the decoding and investments, but more importantly, building solutions for societies that that matter at the end of the day. That's how we look at problem solving, and creating a solution. And hopefully, that will be something that we can create as an industry for the better purpose of, of the country of the society. So that's, that's my passion. And one of the, you know, opportunities in the present decade. Is, is the revolution in the computing power. So as DHI as Bhutan, as a personal motivation, I will really look at taking technology for leapfrogging the Bhutanese economy, but at the same time solving problems that matter in creating the next gen industries.
Morgan Bailey 2:41
So talk to me a little bit, I love what you're saying here that problems that matter? How do you define problems that matter?
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 2:48
If you look at, I mean, if you look at historically, we need to ensure for a better advancement and development of society's problems keep reoccurring, I think as humanity as, as human beings, we never really solve problems completely. And that's also exciting, actually, because the problem that has been solved maybe in 100 years ago, we thought we solved the problem of transportation when we moved from, you know, horse pull carts, to diesel engines, or petrol engines, and we thought we solve the problems of transportation. But here we are, after 100 years, which is, you know, the transportation industry is one of the polluting industries in the world, and we're trying to solve the same problem again. And in within that 100 years, also, we have been solving the problem of transportation, making it more efficient, and this is just about one vertical. So I think what, you know, problem that matter is very, very relevant in time and space. And in Bhutan, today, the problems maybe, you know, very local, but if we solve those problems, those may be also the solutions for many problems that the societies in the region or globally are facing. And that's how anyway industries are built. It's my opinion, and my feeling that if we solve the right problem that crippled a society, you know, the byproduct is of course, the economic value and the financial value that comes to the, to the to the economy, but more fundamentally we are, we are helping humanity to progress, and live more comfortable life, more quality life. And at the same time, when you do that, that's the time when innovation happens. And then we evolve to towards a more developed nation, but also more, you know, evolved human beings at the end of the day.
Morgan Bailey 4:46
So I, I'm really enjoying this frame of reference that says, you know, solutions that are problems that matter, right solutions to problems that matter. And I'm curious if you can give us a little context on Bhutan. because it seems like the way the way you're, you're approaching this is from a very different paradigm in terms of business. Now, I also know that, you know, Bhutan does not look at GDP or gross domestic product as much as it looks as gross national happiness. So it's there's something there's something different in the recipe in Bhutan, about how you how you approach problems, how you approach business, how you approach where I guess, what's what you value, can you talk to us a little bit about, like, you know, where does that come from? And what does that what does that look like when it comes to both, you know, the gross national happiness and the approach to business.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 5:39
So GNH, Gross National Happiness, to very quickly, you know, look at that framework of governance, if I may call it so I also really feel GNH, or gross national happiness is, is a governance and a philosophy by itself. So it's not just the bottom line that matter at the end of the day. But that's, that's the, that's, that's the bottom line actually. So we look at look at GNH from four pillars, we look at, from the environment side, we look at from the culture we look at from good governance, and of course, we have to look at the economy. But each of these four areas are looked at with a very same judgment, when when you want when you do anything, whether you invest or whether the way you want to lead your life. How do you bring up a balance between amongst these four areas is important. In a very simplistic way, that's what you know, I at least understand Gross National Happiness. Well, economy is a very important part of it. And we realize that so so that's, that's the philosophy, that's the governance that kind of guides us we're not, I'm not saying that we are champions of gross national happiness, it's, it's a, it's a governance philosophy. And we, you know, towards a progressive world, I think it's important to look beyond just the economy. But, of course, I have to put a disclaimer, that economy is important. But we do look at environment, culture, and good governance. And probably that's also the reason why Bhutan is one of the only carbon negative country in the world. Today, the secret straight about almost 8 million tonnes of carbon. And, and also, we have more than almost about 70% forest cover in the country. And our Constitution mandates 60% forest cover at any point in time. So that's, and then we'll have to look at this dimension, when we do business,
Morgan Bailey 7:37
kind of blown away by the progressive thinking of Bhutan, and this, I guess, incorporation because I mean, we see a lot of that sort of business for good, if you want to call it that, you know, in the West, a lot of ammo talks about the triple bottom line, quadruple bottom line, and essence, you know, what you're saying is, you know, that's just already kind of baked in, to how the, to how the country as a whole approaches business?
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 8:04
Yes, largely, you know, we do want to be very conscious of other parameters, when we, and I think when we do when we make decisions or when we when division businesses, I think that's an important angle. But this is also important, I think GNH relevance is important in different different times and space anyway. And how I will also want to probably look at is, in the age of AI, if I miss a call, you know, when in the age of automation in the age of when we are programming things to be automated, it's important to look at how, you know, systems are built. And if we build systems only looking at triple bottom line, quadruple bottom line, or just bottom lines, are we going to build the best systems in the world, so maybe the, you know, idea of looking at from a multipronged angle, to develop anything, whether it's an automated robot that runs a car, or automated car, or you know, or a robot that runs something, when that is being programmed. And specially, you know, with the algorithms of AI and self, you know, deep learning and stuff, it's very important to see how these systems and machines may or will behave in different scenarios. But more important to reflect as we go towards that is who are the ones who are building it? Are we just looking at bottom line when we are building these corporations and industries? Or are we looking at it from different angles, from ethical angles to environment to culture to everything else? I know it might sound a bit like a philosophy, but I I really believe and, you know, with conviction that it's important to have the sense of value of sense The value of society when we build these automated systems,
Morgan Bailey 10:04
it is a philosophy. But I think it's an important one. So what have you seen in terms of the economy of the country over these past 15 years.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 10:16
But in terms of economy, I think with the creation of, you know, calling in investments, with with the vision and idea that it's an investment arm of the government, with an arm's length with the government to ensure that, you know, the political systems and the economy does not have has an arm's length, so that prudent investments are, are done by the investment arm of the government was the idea behind ensuring the DHI and government has a very close relations and strategy. But in terms of operating operations of DHI, there is a full corporate governance separate from the political government. So DHS makes its own decisions and investments. But every earnings of DHI eventually goes back as revenue to the government in the forms of royalty in the forms of taxes and forms of dividends back to the government. But now, but then the business decisions and business operations are completely done by DHS corporate governance set.
Morgan Bailey 11:24
And in based on kind of what you're saying it, you know, it sounds like, apart from the government mandate, it sounds like the Governing Board of DHA also has a very strong belief in the philosophy that you're talking about.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 11:39
I would say yes, I mean, because the corporate governance of DHA is structured in a way to be in that sweet spot, that it can take financial and economic decisions for businesses independently. But at the same time, in a way, has a relationship with the government to enjoy Polit policy support, you know, for certain businesses, which are very strategic to the country. So we stand in a very interesting spot to be efficient in, you know, and build a corporate environment, but also be in a spot to, you know, talk to the government and build a pathway for industries to happen in an efficient manner. So we kind of DHI one would invest in areas that has, you know, not been charted much. And hence, you know, today we're looking at building the next generation digital identity, in self sovereign framework, for example, which we will be launching, incidentally, actually, this month, very soon. And the first country was a sovereign country to build this national identity on self sovereign decentralized platform. And the parliament also passed the act in the couple of months ago, as a self sovereign identity act. So those are the opportunities in business that that DHI ventures and would want to, in future venture more into, which may not be something that in private sector maybe immediately be able to do, because of, you know, obvious risks that are there in these kinds of investments.
Morgan Bailey 13:27
So, I mean, I'm really hearing that there's a sweet spot that you're talking about of both being able to make your own corporate decisions, but also having support the government and sounds like being strategic with certain investments towards certain industries, that the that are highly valuable for for the country. And can can you talk to us a little bit about what are some of these, what are some of the sectors, what are some of these industries? Where are these some of these technologies that Bhutan has really heavily betting on some of
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 13:57
the areas as I mentioned, personally, I am very bullish about blockchain as a, as a as a foundational technology. And because the use cases of blockchain can, you know, go into so many verticals of industries. And, and that's one of the reasons we we experimented in the beginning to build our national digital identity on self sovereign framework on a chain. So that's, that's one area we're looking at very closely. We recently released Bhutan verse in Sandbox. This is also to ensure that we build industries that resonate with the next generation of the next generation and the youth coming into the workforce. So that's another area that we are working very closely with with our partners. The other areas definitely are in, you know, industry in drones that we are looking very closely because Bhutan A small country of 30,000 square kilometers. But our altitude ranges from 200 meter at sea level in the southern part, to 45,000 meters in the northern part in that small space. So, we feel that we provide unique opportunity for drone testing and drone labs. You know, to test the algorithms and the aerodynamics in different different altitudes and different weather conditions. So I always joke with my with my colleagues that if a drone can fly in any anywhere in Bhutan, it can play anywhere in the world, actually. So that's, that's another area, we're looking at very fundamental, design, manufacturing. But more importantly, in the beginning use cases of drones in different industries. So one of the interesting use cases we have been testing and now hopefully, we can go commercial operations is using drones in the transmission line monitoring. So that a lot of preventive maintenance can be done a lot of faultfinding in the transmission lines, power transmission lines can happen. And as we fly the drones on the transmission lines, we collect the videos, we collect the pictures, and we are training algorithms to automatically find faults in the transmission lines. And height, because our energy, especially a triple energy is one of the backbone. Hydropower is one of the backbone of goujons economy. These kinds of innovative solution into the mainstream sector with the new new generation technology provides a lot of opportunity for us, again, to solve the right problem moving forward and create, you know, create solutions and industries.
Morgan Bailey 16:48
And so one thing I'm hearing in this is, a lot of the industries that you're talking about, and you're developing, you're developing are a lot of very based on innovation and technology. So that really heavy bet on innovation and technology.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 17:02
You're right, Morgan, one of the aspiration in DHI is, you know, to build an innovation ecosystem in Bhutan. So, we have been looking at what are the interacting actors to actually build a country as a, if I may say, a startup nation and innovation hub. So it's important to look at how Israel became a sovereign nation, what was done in Silicon Valley for for innovation to flourish. An interesting part in Bhutan is the density need not be that big, to have an impact in our economy, to provide that density of innovation or density of footprint may not be that big. And so if you look at the different actors in ensuring that we build a conducive environment for a country to be innovative, you know, so we work very closely with the government, we are a small part of the industry. The other other actor, of course, is the academia. And we work very closely with academia globally and nationally, and of course, we are in touch with the society. So these are the four actors we look at very closely. So for for you for quickly to give an example, we hosted the fab 23, in in 2023, and Fab Fab Lab communities, huge community builds through the MI, MIT, Cambridge, and PAC foundation. So we had about 350, plus international guests, and from 49 different countries, in a two week long workshop in Bhutan, type 23 in Bhutan, the next one is going to happen in Mexico. So it's a huge community. So we have as a way of investment invested in Super Fab Lab in collaboration with MIT. So after Kerala in India, and MIT itself, this is the third super Fab Lab in the world in the fab community. So this is a place where you can build almost everything or anything rather. That's how the father Fab Lab, New Question field advertises Fab Lab, and there are about 2500 Plus fab labs around the world. So So those are the foundations, I think about, you know, building innovation ecosystem. You know, establishing proof of work, proof of proof of concept projects, using the super Fab Lab, inviting the passionate minds from around the world solves problems at a proof of concept level. And then the moment you find an opportunity, have enough, you know, infrastructure to scale that up. And that's our aspiration. And I also want to take this opportunity to your podcast to all the listeners, any collaboration, any thoughts, any support, we Happy to reach out and create interesting, innovative solutions.
Morgan Bailey 20:07
While they're I mean, you're inspiring me over here. So I, as a former engineer, and someone who also likes really focusing on on problems that matter, definitely getting inspired by the intentionality I keep hearing, and the innovation focus and the partnership that you're building across the globe. It sounds like for a small country, you're really having an outsized impact on kind of what's possible by building these partnerships, and really being forward forward looking. How is folks in these highly specialized industries? Like, how does that trickle down? How does that carry along the rest of the population?
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 20:42
Yeah, I think that's an important, you know, thought and important question that we need to ask ourselves. So it's important for us to build the foundational infrastructure as we move ahead in building industries of the future, if I may say. So. Again, falling back on the national digital identity is something that is nationwide. I think our 3g and 4g 2g connection is about 96%. Plus, if I'm not wrong, 99%. electrification of Bhutan on electrical grid is about 199.99%. So and then, accessibility with roads, of course, we are a very hilly nation, there are it's, you know, we have our own ups and downs in connectivity to those service transportation. But But otherwise, in terms of electrification, in terms of internet, there's a huge 99 Plus coverage. Now what that ensures, is that we can provide services, we can bank the unbanked very, very quickly, especially with the NDI, having people online, giving having given every individual an identity or secure identity online, I think is the foundation to ensure that everybody comes up in this situation. But as we do that, I think more importantly, our primary, secondary and tertiary education is being overhauled, looking at the skills of 21st century and this is a national effort to that's happening. So hopefully, all these happening together will ensure that, you know, whatever industry comes up with very niche expertise to begin with, from Bhutan, but more importantly, also supported by, you know, experts from around the world, this whole society or whole country is getting ready and geared up with those foundational initiatives and foundational infrastructure to be together in this journey.
Morgan Bailey 22:49
So I mean, hearing this is happening at multiple different levels, like when you when you talk about electrification across the country, and you talk about access to internet when you talk about, you know, primary, secondary, tertiary education, like looking at all these different levels, as well as looking at the specific industries that you're focused on. Right. So I mean, from this standpoint, it looks like a very concerted effort to try to like pull all these things together.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 23:14
Absolutely bargain. If you look at return, I think we are the way I look at the transformation that's happening in Bhutan and is in four areas again, you know, it's we are having a transformation in the industry, we are having full transformation in the academia side, which is primary, second, tertiary education, we are having a huge transformation in the government of Bhutan with a lot of changes in policy to make ourselves more innovative, more agile, innovation in bureaucracy. So that's a huge stream of work that's happening, and also a huge fundamental change in the society part, as we call the quarter politics model. And especially in the society, we we have the biggest volunteer program called the Serbs. You can you can Google put on this open you will see the initiative, but more importantly from next year, you will we are also institutionalizing you know national service. And our national service is interesting because we are looking at skill impartment the 21st century skill partment in cybersecurity, food security, and the likes. So it is a concerted effort from all, you know, dimensions that's required for a society to evolve to a technology, you know, a tech economy. But of course tech is just a tool at the end of the day. To talk
Morgan Bailey 24:45
to me a little bit I didn't get the name of the volunteer initiative talk to us a little bit about that.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 24:51
Right. So these are volunteers. If you google you will find that you know you will find the find the group Rehman, the details. This was of course initiated on the vision of His Majesty, I think we have about almost 40,000 Plus Bhutanese who have been trained as these sorts of volunteers. And these are the passionate people who serve the country. You know, and and they were very, very instrumental during the COVID. time also to have secured the various different parts of the country and given the service in managing resources in during lockdowns and, and securing the borders, securing different zones and likes. So, I would encourage readers to look at the diesel volunteer program of Bhutan. I may not do justice explaining the, you know, the deprogramming in spod cast, of course,
Morgan Bailey 25:58
and I'll drop a link in the show notes for that. So the other piece I got really curious about, and you mentioned it several times, is that the national digital identity, and I'm kind of here to talk to us a little bit about that, and why it's been so important for Bhutan to focus on on really developing that architecture.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 26:17
One of the most important thing for us was, what's the problem that has not been solved? Or what's the what's the initiative that has not been done in the region or globally, largely. So when you look at that, but also, you know, ensure that when we solve that, it gives us a lot of, it gives us a foundational platform for our system, our systems, and the country to be digitized. So if you look at internet, the kind of revolution internet, brought in the 90s, and the vertical of businesses that internet, you know, made possible, whether you talk about Amazon today or anything else, I feel that blockchain has the potential. But internet, if you look at it, there is no identity on the internet, it was internet layer, there is no identity layer on the internet. Of course, there are centralized digital identity and systems. But what really excited us is about decentralized identity when where the philosophy of, you know, the data belongs to the individual. So, so that was that was the framework of our process, of course, with the vision of His Majesty himself. And then we started researching about decentralized identity and the self sovereign identity framework. And yesterday, we are built it along with partners from India, partners from other parts of the world, and our own national team. And we'll be rolling it out this month. Very interesting to see once you get this as a tool, that you have your foundational identity in your wallet. And we need to then develop the use cases around it for services to be delivered to an individual. Because you have 100% secure identity on the internet. I think this can bring a revolution in terms of how online services can be digitized in return to
Morgan Bailey 28:22
lapse. I mean, this is I'm very curious. I mean, I'm really curious to fall, you know, and you said, this rolls out, this is gonna roll out this month. Oh, yes, very soon, right. So this is very, very timely. And it's gonna be really interesting to see how this plays out. And, again, looking at those use cases and seeing how's the scale throughout the rest of the world?
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 28:42
Are there any updates, you know, people watching us on the digital identity space?
Morgan Bailey 28:48
Absolutely. You know, the other thing so I, you know, in preparing for this podcast, I got very interested in Bhutan, and I started doing all sorts of research on Bhutan history. And it Well, first thing that comes came to my mind was I got to visit this place, this place looks amazing. It's beautiful, really interesting culture, interesting history. And immediately as I started, you know, reading through what is it like to travel to Bhutan, on things I first thing, as I saw was this idea of high value travel, low impact. And such that, you know, the government itself was, you know, almost limiting the amount of tourists that were coming there to minimize impact. And also actually having a daily daily visa for a lot of countries where you actually have to pay a certain amount every day. So again, I'm seeing this very intentional focus on now let's create high value, perhaps expensive value, but that low impact. I'm just kind of, you know, I'm kind of curious, you know, like, you know, it seems like there's this pervasive philosophy down from you know, from To travel there, to how industry is developed to looking at society to looking at education. Do you do you see this as something that's going to continue on this, this trajectory.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 30:11
So it's so Morgan, this is, this is consciously developed, that the impact of tourism, in terms of environment, in terms of culture, in terms of the other parameters is important for us as much as having tourism is important for us from the economic side. But that's where probably even if you look at the four pillars of gin, we could have very high volume of tourism, but it does impact our environment. For example, so it's important for us to keep that balance, and hence, you know, and hence, the, you know, we limited tourism, I would say, but, you know, high value, low impact, is the philosophy to go with, that's also guided by guided to ensure that economy is not the only focus, we need to we need to ensure that our environment is protected, our culture is protected. Because we are a people, we are a country of 700,000 people. And it's a very small population. So we need to be very conscious about how we manage our environment. So hence the policy, I would say,
Morgan Bailey 31:24
to me, it is a really fascinating test case, I'm here with Bhutan. And there's a distinct difference from let's say, in the United States, where we don't really have a very strong concerted, I guess, an aligned effort between industry, education, tourism, right, a lot of it really is like, how can individual actors maximize profit, like, we're not really trying to maximize anything together? Right, a lot of it is about the individual experiences, individual actors being able to do what they want. And then you know, regulation saying, Well, this is how much of that you can do. Whereas in Bhutan, it sounds like there's this pretty singular focus on improving the livelihood. And and I guess, maintaining the sort of the historical cultural narrative of Bhutan itself. And so yeah, it's just really fascinating.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 32:19
Right, right. I mean, as we talked about, you know, different problems in different time and space. And so, our opportunity or problem is also in a way to ensure that, for Bhutan to be relevant, we have certain unique features we need to protect, it's not that we do not want to have tourists, we do want to connect with the world have as many visitors as possible, but to ensure that we provide the best of services at the end of the day when tourists and visitors are here. And also to ensure that returns unique, you know, culture, the environment that we protect, are also sustainable. And hence, these interactions in these variables are important to bring up these policies.
Morgan Bailey 33:09
Again, I'm very curious to see how, you know, I think Bhutan is leading the charge in this way that I think a lot of a lot of countries right now don't actually have, you know, I don't think they're in a position to even even attempt what would Bhutan is able to do. And so I think it'd be really curious to see how this plays out and what the lessons that can be, you know, kind of on many different levels that can be kind of spread out cross pollinate throughout the world. So, for you, when you when you look ahead for Bhutan, what do you see some of the greatest words, some of the greatest challenges that you see that Bhutan is going to have to overcome?
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 33:47
I think I always say challenges, recognizing the challenges gives us an opportunity to solve that in a way. So, challenges of Bhutan has, I mean, we have always taken that we are landlocked. And we have always said that is a challenge. But we have the two biggest economies you know, around us, so we have the biggest market around us. But having said that, we need to develop the right services, the right products, because we are landlocked. We may not be very competitive in high, you know, high manufacturing industries. But then at the same time, that's why again, this decade this this century, I think there is an opportunity for every individual, every country to actually look at the digital economy. And that's that's why we do not pivot but we focus on a lot on developing a digital economy. So the challenge has always been the geography but I think the The opportunities with the digital era is we can solve that challenge pretty well. And I see hope moving forward in that direction. The other other areas of challenge, of course, we are a very small population. And we need to ensure for sustainability we require certain mass and certain critical mass of, you know, if I if I miss a population, and that's that's also another very important area to look at. For us. As we develop industries, we do need market within self sustaining market. That's another challenge. Beyond that, any other challenge, converting an opportunity by solving it?
Morgan Bailey 35:45
I love I love that, that that philosophy there and kind of what that opens up when it comes to making business decisions, how do you think that perhaps DHI might be making business decisions differently?
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 36:02
That's that's an interesting question. I think, of course, every every decision making has its own framework, reference of time and reference or space. So I don't think anything is wrong or right. It's only a matter of that space or time. But having said that, in Bhutan, I think we have to be cognizant of the environment. If you look at our main political economy, hydropower is fed by glacial rivers fair to the catchment areas, water to the catchment areas, so if we do not, so climate, we are very vulnerable to climate change. So, we need to be very cautious about certain industries that may that may disrupt, you know, the the pattern of water flow from the catchment areas. So, certain protected areas are important to be protected, if we want the hydropower to be sustainable. So those may be certain areas that we are very, you know, during business decisions, we need to, you need to ensure that we just don't look at the bottom line of that particular business, because it has interaction with our other national strategic areas of investment or areas that run the economy. Apart from that, I think, really looking at ensuring, you know, the cultural values, which ensures that, which gives us the uniqueness for for to be a part of the global, you know, reference, we need to ensure that that remain as much as we want to have industries that give us and boost our economy. I don't know if I've mentioned, but the whole point is, I think we'll have to be very relevant, very specific, you know, to the, to the local conditions, when when we venture into certain business areas. So those are certain things beyond the IRR and the NPV that we need to look at for business. Definitely.
Morgan Bailey 38:05
The difference that really seems to me about how Bhutan is approaching this is it really, it really feels like more of an integrated approach, which I think makes a big difference in how those decisions are made. There's there's more of that common goal, again, you're maximizing for societal benefit. And so you're taking in a lot of those different elements that a lot of other businesses are on are forced to do only due to policy. So just again, appreciate that integrated view. And as we can I could talk to you all day about Bhutan, this is really fascinating for me, a really interesting test case.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 38:42
But I like the summary that you made about an integrated approach. I mean, we definitely try to do that.
Morgan Bailey 38:49
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and that's why I'm just really, very curious how this plays out. Because, I mean, a lot of times a lot of businesses that I talked about here, they're taking an integrated approach on a corporate level. And so, you know, they're trying to take certain elements into consideration on the societal level, on the environmental level, as well as on the business level, but you know, that, again, that's, that's an individual entity, right? What you're talking about is an integrated approach between business, environment, society, culture, tourism, education, infrastructure, which is, which is, you know, it's a multi pronged approach. So it's gonna be really, it's gonna be really amazing. And I'm still hopeful. I'll get over there. We'll see some of this firsthand.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 39:41
No, it reminds me of just Incidentally, I was having a conversation today about, you know, corporate governance. What's what's new in corporate governance, and we were just talking and the conversation went into Oh, corporate governance is not for of course, just Improving the share shareholders value, its stakeholder value. And then we went into saying, okay, you know, the corporate governance should really look at customers value at the end of the day if you're trying to solve the right thing. And you look at the customers, of course, they are a major part of the stakeholder. So I think those are those are interesting. But basically, it's nothing to be honest, I think it's nothing really new. It's just about applying basic human, you know, basic human instinct, that right through basic human instinct that we have. I think if we have that mindset, I think we will operate any business ethically, with with values that matter to society at that point in time. I think that's that's probably how we should take business decisions at the end. Not too carried away, just with the numbers.
Morgan Bailey 40:52
Thank you, that feels feels like a business sermon. I love that. You know, so yeah, as we kind of come to come to a close here. I'm curious, looking forward, what's getting you excited?
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 41:05
Oh, absolutely. A couple of things. Want to diversify goujons, green energy, we are 100% hydro, how do we look at other green energy and technologies as a as a nation, and that's something that I'm working on, that keeps me up, looking at interesting battery technologies, grid scale storage technologies, looking at geothermal, and, and others. So that's one area of focus and interest that I personally have and what we're working on from thsi to have a diversified energy portfolio photon, but green energy portfolio beyond hydro. The other areas is of course, building an economy which is tech driven. And this is a point in time where I will request every listener to please look at Bhutan and because we are foundationally revamping our primary, secondary Tertiary Education Foundation in looking at building research, and proof of concept projects, national digital identity being one of the outputs of that establish the super Fab Lab. Now we are trying to see how we can establish a you know, a tech fund that can support this innovation ecosystem, or multi channel technology fund that can support this innovation. Multi Channel, I mean, it could be a philanthropy, it could be a trust, it could be a VC eventually, if they are impactful projects, or proof of concept projects being done. So the whole building the whole, you know, innovation in tech driven economy. So those are things that excite you and keeps me personally of course, going forward.
Morgan Bailey 42:52
Well, such a such a pleasure to have this conversation with you and really look forward to updating our listeners, as has moved on continues to evolve. You know what, it feels like a very unique paradigm. But just really appreciate all your efforts and your time here and this conversation day.
Ujjwal Deep Dahal 43:09
Long and it was it was a pleasure talking. Thank you so much, and thank you to all the listeners.
Morgan Bailey 43:14
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