Can tradition be innovative?

It's been weeks now that a thought is bothering me. Since I got to Adelaide, I am having the opportunity of listening to many different languages from all around the world. Some of them are so familiar to me that I can get some words and even get the general meaning of the conversation, some others I cannot distinguish the ending nor the beginning of words. However what fascinates me the most is the astonishing variety of rhythms and musicalities they have. That made made me ask to myself how did my own language sound like and how was it like to hear it without knowing the meaning of the words. Of course I will never know the answer, because I will never be able to hold that perspective and I find it really puzzling.

Nonetheless, this week readings shred some light on my quest, as I was really surprised that a very common informal financing scheme in my country was regarded as an innovation in another. I am talking about a group of people making little monthly payments in order to build a pool of resources that is allocated to a member of the group through a raffle. We, Mexicans, call it Tanda.

My grandmother used to organize two tandas a year, my mother used to participate in some her coworkers did, and my father organizes them in order to buy expensive medical equipment. This schemes are so popular that 16.9% of Mexicans over 18 use them as their principal source of financial resources, 4% more than the people of the same age that use formal banking, and among users, women use them more often. That made me guess this is all about learning to hear with other people's ears by getting familiar with their ways and then contrasting them with mine. Maybe if we are able to do that more frequently, we will be able to detect the gaps that have to be filled and turn a traditional solution into a very innovative one by changing its context, adapt it to make it acceptable and available for people that appreciate the world in different rhythms and musicalities. 

-- Ruben Fernandez <rfernand@andrew.cmu.edu>

Solar Powered Internet in Zambia

Solar Powered Internet in Zambia

 

Now days internet has an important role in people's life. It is truly a substitution for daily actions that we usually do like shopping, going to bank, reading news...instead we use online shopping, electronically bank access, online news. So our life highly depends on internet.

I found this article interesting because with a large impact of internet and new technologies on life, living without it is difficult. By providing access for poor countries they could benefit facilities that these new technologies provide.

In Chikanta, one of the villages in Zambia people do not access to electricity and they do not have any local newspaper or radio station so for a call residents have to walk miles away. Fortunately 6 months ago the British Charity Computer Aid installed solar powered internet hubs. "The panels on the roof feed power to the PC inside. To keep power consumption down, the other 10 screens in the hub are virtual desktops - sharing the computing power of the PC and the 128kbps sat link."

Now people can reach outside Chikanta even outside country and as chief of Chikanta said "It has transformed the village, We have our teachers who are now able to communicate with agricultural officers. Government officers who come to work here will be reporting directly from here to district headquarters which we were not able to do before."

But a considerable point is that users have to pay 518$ a month for satellite link which is high.

I have this question in mind that is there any other way to provide cheaper access for Chikanta's residents? Can government invest in such these projects to provide wider and cheaper internet for its people?

Link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9346415.stm

--
Bahar Forghani

Australia, disability, venture development.

Disadvantage in Australia coheres in geography. My country's poorest post
codes are populated by people on subsistence incomes, living with high
levels of disability, living in single parent families, with low levels of
private car access, disconnected from the internet, (to name but a few
markers of disadvantage). It is an experience of isolation and exclusion.
It is as if the transformative flows of capital, goods, labor and
information identified in the McKinsey Corporation report ('What happens
next') deliver only downside risk to them.
I blogged on happiness in this space recently. I suppose I mean
resilience: people who feel that their higher order needs around agency,
autonomy and self determination are being met are more resilient. They are
happier. They are also more independent.
I believe that disadvantage in Australia and happiness/resilience are
disjointed phenomenon. Disadvantaged Australians don't get to enjoy the
benefits of resilience like the majority population.
I wish to create a social venture that will enable people with
disabilities to be more active in their communities, more present in their
communities. Agency is power in this context. Hopefully it is more
autonomy too. It might also lead to greater happiness.
I have the germ of an idea, shared with a great colleague, to develop a
mobile phone app, which utilizes gaming dynamics in real time to get
people with disabilities beyond their front doors and active in their
communities.
The immediate challenge for me is how to innovate strategically at the
base of my particular pyramid? The watchwords seem to be the four Ás':
affordability, acceptability, availability and awareness.
Well affordability is a confronting thing. People with disabilities live
on government benefits, typically budgeting from one week to the next.
Actually $ is not the only resource in scarce supply when you are
disabled. Cognition and concentration are also likely to be at a premium.
I suspect that the task here is to have the courage of my convictions and
trust that the product I wish to develop has a place in the market. If
people like it, they will direct their scarce resources to it.
Which leads me to acceptability. It is axiomatic that my product must be
dedicated to the needs of people with disability. I am heartened by the
fact that people with disabilities are great consumers of other digital
technologies. Also by the fact that the gaming technology I am considering
works on a powerfully reinforcing psychological schema: contingent reward.
This schema also plays out in areas such as gambling, which can prove to
be highly addictive. I suppose I would welcome some healthy addiction to
my product!!
Availability is a tougher challenge. I think the app technology works on
only the most recent mobile phone platforms (for example, Android 2.1, or
Froyo). I think I need to identify a distribution channel for my product,
which may even entail approaching mobile phone companies to see if I can
tap into their CSR programs.
Lastly awareness. I would like to build awareness of my product through a
demonstration program.
Anything you can tell me about how to build a social venture such as this
would be gratefully received!

Implementing Social Innovations for Development & Growth of BoP Ventures

The operating space of ventures of social enterprise has expanded its domain (Alboher: 2009 New York Times) from merely constituting social sector ventures, to also including the participation of for-profit businesses having ‘social mission’ as the core purpose of their existence. This interesting and emerging development introduces a greater scope for the integration and coordination of activities in the formal and social sector.

Thus, social entrepreneurs are afforded a window of opportunity to act on the implication behind removing the legal distinction between, the incorporation and registration of, the memorandums of association for profit companies and non-government not-for profit entities. The implication of this new development is, market orientated solutions for mobilizing capital in more formally established financial markets can thus be innovated for the purposes of funding capital formation and infrastructural developments targeted at the poorest regions of the world.

This development is based on developing a ‘social venture capital market’ for mobilizing capital from surplus agents to deficit agents pursuant to achieving a social mission. The volumes of capital which are mobilized create a far greater leveraging effect than traditional micro-financing institutions that operate at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

The Human Acumen Fund (http://www.acumenfund.org) is a non-profit social venture capital non-government agency which focuses on financing and consulting social enterprise ventures with the ethos ‘meeting urgent needs with patient capital’ (Case Study: Market Minded Development). Their social innovation is designing investment vehicles for small cap start ventures that cannot service debt under the terms of established merchant banks, as these ventures need patient financiers to grow. Social venture capital markets could therefore spark the next Greenback revolution in the history of usury and its impact on social change.

Enablers of Social Innovation & their Impact

In one the of the week three readings (Lehr: 2008), the article provides a two-by-two table in which the impact of product innovations on social and economic benefits, are determined by a composite of factors that collectively describe the feasibility of projects linked to social ventures. The composite of factors of feasibility, are compiled by Thomas Associates, and made up of the following components:

1. Financial
2. Technical,
3. Cultural,
4. Political and regulatory constraints.

In terms of the latter two factors listed in the composite, Ken Banks, who is the founder of Kiwanja.net which is in the business of developing IT solutions for NGO’s operating in less developed countries, advocates the importance of anthropology in driving socially innovative solutions for communities positioned at the Bottom of the Pyramid.

His position is informed by the belief that, if first world inventions are to be adapted and applied in innovative ways for resolving social problems within different contextual environments, the cultural relationships between countries where initial ideas are sourced and where they are to implemented need to be considered when formulating the design of the socially innovative solutions. Banks maintains that anthropologists should come to the mainstream of the “technology driven renaissance” of the information age, particularly when cultural contexts determine and create differences in how basic needs are satisfied within developing countries, as opposed to, the high spec and high utility product design paradigm of developed country product markets.

Banks truly makes one ponder on how an archaic subject like anthropology which once was central to colonialism, could now be the answer to freeing the most poor communities from underdevelopment.

Drivers of Social Innovation and Human-Centered Design Thinking

Social innovation creates a paradigm shift from the Jean Baptiste Say definition of entrepreneurship as follows:

1. It identifies a need for understanding the scope of social entrepreneurship and social enterprise
2. It requires an understanding of the processes within the socio-economic and environmental context of “bottom of the pyramid” market needs, and
3. It requires an actualization of the mechanisms of social innovation through endorsing and enhancing appropriate social institutions for making economic freedoms accessible to lower income communities and informal business.

Therefore, social innovations need to cultivate the conditions that are amenable to and foster the social institutions required for sustainable social innovation (Phills et al: 2008).

Taking the market based approach to poverty reduction requires “capitalist states” (Bisson et al: 2010) to create social institutions that enhance, collaborative ventures between for-profit businesses and NGO service support initiatives. More specifically, the public sector within developing countries need to create enabling legislation and regulatory policy for making informal markets more secure and stable investment alternatives for venture capitalists.

A research paper written by Gopal Joshi of ILO on “Policy and Regulatory Environment for Micro and Small Enterprises: Informality and Policy Alleviation”, studies the regulatory impediments in developing countries that make it difficult for businesses ventures in the informal market to access the mainstream economy. The importance of this paper to the subject of social innovation is that, social institutions that innovate business environments such that micro and small businesses are incentivized to participate in mainstream economies, allows the many households that are dependent on SME livelihoods to increase their welfare.

The ability of low income countries to become more independent and less reliant on donor funding to alleviate extreme hunger and poverty is of paramount importance. According to OECD projections, member states may not be able to sustain donor funding as their demographic patterns change, and their productivity is affected by aging population. Perhaps the age of mercantilism has arrived for emerging low income economies.

Frugal Innovation in Pakistan (Gas Fan)

Pakistan is currently facing a tremendous shortage of electricity. The demand has clearly outstripped the supply with no major investments in power generation in the foreseeable future by the government . Government has no option but to resort to frequent load-shedding. That means people spend majority of their day without electricity. Electricity per unit costs have also risen significantly due to the shortage of supply. That means higher costs for businesses and eventually price inflation for the end consumers.

Innovators are born in environments with harsh constraints. A man by the name of Waheed Babar has developed a Gas powered fan whose engine is built on the model of a steam engine. The fan can run on a flame as small as one on a candle stick. The fan can run for 4 hours for a gas cost of 1 Pakistani Rupee , which is approximately 1 cent in US dollar terms. This fan can easily provide relief to slum dwellers and majority of the rural population who do not have electricity in their houses. The government and the private sector is slowly waking up to the necessity of innovations like these in such dire conditions.

Here are the video links

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBn-xCdr6aQ&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTeRI9nLIbc

blog week 4

Caroline Kiriga: Blog submission week 4

Sanitary towels: A Universal Human Right?

 

Here's a regular statistic, and then a shocking one: Every month, a large percentage of the world's adult population menstruates. But in emerging markets, that group can scarcely afford the protection. Many thousands are still forced to exit their daily lives and livelihoods during their monthly periods. Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKmt7PwYPCY

 

 

I am not sure that the execution of this video campaign is the most compelling but this strikes me as a totally underreported reality. This is a subject that I am personally very passionate about. Research has showed that many girls do not attend school because they could not afford to buy commercially made sanitary towels and 90% of the urban poor were improvising with unhealthy materials such as banana fibers grass leaves, old newspapers and pieces of cloth that did not provide reliable protection.

 

"Makapads" a project that was started by a Uganda professor Dr. Moses K. Musaazi of Makerere University faculty of technology in 2003 with funding support from the Rockefeller foundation, is making affordable sanitary pads from locally available materials and is keeping young girls from poor families in school all month all as well as generating local employment for many women, men and girls in Uganda. Makapads sell much more cheaply than imported sanitary pads.

 

This innovation is relevant because earlier research has found that many disadvantaged primary schoolgirls absent themselves during menstrual periods and those that attend do so under stigma and tension for fear of soiling themselves. The absenteeism leads to poor academic performance and subsequent dropping out of school by the girls. The Makapads project's primary objective is to retain young vulnerable girls in school instead of dropping out of because of absenteeism during their menstrual periods.

 

Makapads are 99% local materials and the main raw material is papyrus reeds, which is cut from the vast, abundant swamps and riverbanks all over the country.

Apart from producing safe, cheap sanitary towels the project has generated development of simple cottage machines which are locally manufactured and that use more than 95% local materials as well as providing employment and skill development to more women, girls and men.

 

 

She (Sustainable health Enterprises) campaign is another project whose mission is to improve the quality of life of women and girls in developing countries. Donations don't work long-term. Market-based approaches do, so why leave them just for the business world? Let's apply them to some of our biggest social problems in the world, especially in the health arena.

 

From a holistic policy perspective, marrying the education of girls and women with the provision of sanitary towels seems like the right move. This is a basic basic commodity and is integral to female development. Schools worldwide should support young women who might otherwise miss crucial elements of their education or career.  As we know, educating women and offering them a means to understand and regulate their fertility is a key component of economic progress in developing nations. "Protecting futures" has reached approximately 115,000 girls in 17 countries and is committed to reaching 1 million girls by 2012; So if you are a girl, mother, have a daughter, sister, a niece, a friend or know anyone that is female please let us join efforts to provide sanitary protection, sanitary facilities and puberty education to help vulnerable girls stay in school.

 Caroline Kiriga: Blog submission week 4 

 

blog week 3

Caroline Kiriga: Blog Week 3

 

Bringing 'Human-Centered Design' Forward

 

Human Centered Design is an approach that integrates multidisciplinary expertise towards enhancing human well being and empowering people. It leads to systems, machines, products, services and processes that are physically, perceptually, cognitively and emotionally intuitive to use. In other words HCD is based on the needs of people. It's an approach to problem solving that brings together generating, building, and testing to create more effective solutions.

Organizational groups such as IDEO (which is a design consultancy that creates impact through design)  have chronicled many times on  great ideas that easily fall through the cracks of well-intentioned projects to address poverty through human centered design in order to generate positive outcomes. IDEO's main aim is to spread human-centered design principles by working directly with a wide spectrum of players and a diverse set of project categories to address poverty alleviation and associated factors such as health, financial services, gender equity, water and sanitation, and agriculture.

Globally, progress is being made towards reaching the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on Water and Sanitation. However, in many cities the situation is getting worse. By 2030, it is expected that 60% of the world's population will live in urban areas and 180,000 people are added to the global urban population every day. Most reside in informal urban settlements and slums and face many problems, including inadequate water and sanitation. Many are constantly stressed about finding enough affordable and safe water. WSUP (Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor) is a project that has helped improve access to clean water for impoverished people in African and Asian countries.

 

WSUP is currently prototyping sanitation products, services, and businesses for people living in poor urban communities to understand the nuances of delivering solutions that are both desirable and convenient for low-income people. The WSUP project in conjunction with other community organizations  has managed to improve access to clean water for more than 500,000 people living in slams. WSUP stresses that a key part of the process is working with partner organizations to understand their customers' needs and aspirations around clean water so as to drive behavior change.

 

There has been an increasing interest in social innovation and human-centered design within the social sector and designers are very enthusiastic to apply their skills to address challenges related to poverty.  IDEO  is working with nonprofits organizations, foundations, and social enterprises  that are focused on improving the life of low-income communities  e.g. through poverty eradication to address their toughest challenges.

Link to this article: Water and Sanitation for the urban poor.

blogs: week 2

Caroline Kiriga: Blog Week 2 submission.

 

 

 

How to Kill Poverty: Social Entrepreneurship???

 

 

What to do about global poverty evokes passionate and polarized views: at one extreme we just need financial aid; at the other billions have been thrown down a sinkhole over the last 50 years and accomplished almost nothing. How many charitable and financial aid organizations exist at present? I mean don't get me wrong…I am so grateful for charity. Literally billions of people especially those in developing countries benefit immensely from such organizations. But is this a solution to the ongoing problems that impoverished countries are facing today? The UN Summit set Global targets (Millennium Development Goals) to achieve eight anti-poverty goals by the year 2015. To many, this agenda may seem too ambitious. Whatever means being used to achieve this, we have to realize that after half a century of failure, foreign aid "should" no longer be the preferred tool for lifting the masses of Africa out of their economic prostration. It is time for the developing world to pull itself up by its own bootstraps.

 

Is entrepreneurship the answer?

 

 Entrepreneurship as a source of economic growth and a weapon against poverty especially in developing countries is greatly underappreciated.

Having grown up in a third World country, I know that Innovative thinking and alertness to opportunity is present in most societies. I have seen entrepreneual activities uplift the lives of millions of people. Many started with small beginnings and are now one of the most successful businesses in the country. Good example being a chain of supermarkets in Kenya called Nakumatt that sells almost anything and everything and despite a disastrous economy and other setbacks, Nakumatt's success has flourished and led to a new class of farms growing fruit and vegetables in Kenya. Clearly, the world lacks for opportunity not ability.

It is unfortunate that roadblocks such as beurocratic corruption, pollution of currency, inefficiency in resources, excessive taxation and unnecessary regulation have found their ways and means to kill entrepreneurship in developing countries.

 

Today millions of people eke out a living in very creative ways despite stifling bearocracies, elitist systems or despotic governments indicating that entrepreneurship is part of the human spirit and not just the exclusive preserve of those countries that have generated astronomical wealth. Entrepreneurship is the catalyst for economic growth. What works in defeating poverty? Entrepreneurship, transparency in government, low taxations, and light regulation.

 

Link to this article: Lessons from the poor: Triumph of the Entrepreneurial activities.

 

 

 

 

Hi Prof - I'm afraid I am having problems publishing my post this week.

Unfortunately, blogger keeps tellng me that there is an error in my url, but I just can't figure it out, I'm afraid.  My blog title this week is venture growth for disabilites innovation, and I was intending to tag it with Australia, disability, venture development.

Whilst I will try again tomorrow, would you mind publishing it if I find I can't again.

Thankyou so much!
Yours,
David.

Here is my post:

Disadvantage in Australia coheres in geography. My country's poorest post codes are populated by people on subsistence incomes, living with high levels of disability, living in single parent families, with low levels of private car access, disconnected from the internet, (to name but a few markers of disadvantage). It is an experience of isolation and exclusion. It is as if the transformative flows of capital, goods, labor and information identified in the McKinsey Corporation report ('What happens next') deliver only downside risk to them.
I blogged on happiness in this space recently. I suppose I mean resilience: people who feel that their higher order needs around agency, autonomy and self determination are being met are more resilient. They are happier. They are also more independent.
I believe that disadvantage in Australia and happiness/resilience are disjointed phenomenon. Disadvantaged Australians don't get to enjoy the benefits of resilience like the majority population.
I wish to create a social venture that will enable people with disabilities to be more active in their communities, more present in their communities. Agency is power in this context. Hopefully it is more autonomy too. It might also lead to greater happiness.
I have the germ of an idea, shared with a great colleague, to develop a mobile phone app, which utilizes gaming dynamics in real time to get people with disabilities beyond their front doors and active in their communities.
The immediate challenge for me is how to innovate strategically at the base of my particular pyramid? The watchwords seem to be the four Ás': affordability, acceptability, availability and awareness.
Well affordability is a confronting thing. People with disabilities live on government benefits, typically budgeting from one week to the next. Actually $ is not the only resource in scarce supply when you are disabled. Cognition and concentration are also likely to be at a premium.
I suspect that the task here is to have the courage of my convictions and trust that the product I wish to develop has a place in the market. If people like it, they will direct their scarce resources to it.
Which leads me to acceptability. It is axiomatic that my product must be dedicated to the needs of people with disability. I am heartened by the fact that people with disabilities are great consumers of other digital technologies. Also by the fact that the gaming technology I am considering works on a powerfully reinforcing psychological schema: contingent reward. This schema also plays out in areas such as gambling, which can prove to be highly addictive. I suppose I would welcome some healthy addiction to my product!!
Availability is a tougher challenge. I think the app technology works on only the most recent mobile phone platforms (for example, Android 2.1, or Froyo). I think I need to identify a distribution channel for my product, which may even entail approaching mobile phone companies to see if I can tap into their CSR programs.
Lastly awareness. I would like to build awareness of my product through a demonstration program.
Anything you can tell me about how to build a social venture such as this would be gratefully received!

Smelly chemicals confuse mosquitoes

Chemicals which interfere with a mosquito's ability to sniff out humans have been developed by US scientists, according to research in Nature.

It is hoped they could be used to develop the next generation of mosquito traps and repellents.

A UK expert said the discovery could be a "major step forward" if the chemicals were safe and cheap.

Blood sucking female mosquitoes use carbon dioxide in exhaled breath to track down humans.

They can detect minute changes in the concentration of the gas.

This knowledge is already used in carbon dioxide traps, but requires dry ice or gas cylinders - which mean they are rarely used in developing countries.

Researchers have been looking for chemicals which can disrupt or confuse a mosquito's carbon dioxide sense.
Deception
Scientists at the University of California, Riverside, tested smelly chemicals on three species of mosquito: Anopheles gambiae, which spreads malaria; Culex quinquefasciatus, which spreads filariasis and West Nile virus; and Aedes aegypti which spreads dengue and yellow fever.

The researchers say that these insects combined infect half a billion people each year, some in at risk countries will be infected multiple times in their lifetime, and cause millions of deaths.

The researchers identified three groups of chemicals, which disrupt a mosquito's carbon dioxide receptors.

One mimicked carbon dioxide and could be used as bait in insect traps, another prevented the mosquito from detecting carbon dioxide and the last group tricked the mosquito's brain into thinking it was surrounded by huge quantities of the gas - so it could not pick which way to go.

Anopheles gambiae is responsible for the vast majority of malaria cases in Africa

Professor Anandasankar Ray, from the University of California, Riverside, said: "These chemicals offer powerful advantages as potential tools for reducing mosquito-human contact, and can lead to the development of new generations of insect repellents and lures.

"The identification of such odour molecules, which can work even at low concentrations, and are therefore economical, could be enormously effective in compromising the ability of mosquitoes to seek humans, thus helping control the spread of mosquito-borne diseases."

Carbon dioxide is not the only way mosquitoes can find their dinner however, as the smell of human sweat and skin can also be used.

Dr James Logan, from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "Whilst this is an exciting study, the authors are yet to show that the chemicals are capable of protecting a human being from being bitten.

"Although carbon dioxide is an important cue for mosquitoes, we know that mosquitoes respond differently to a trap releasing carbon dioxide than to a real human being, which releases a complex mixture of many attractive chemicals, heat, visual cues and moisture.

"The key question is - do the 'response modifying odours' actually protect a human being?"

The chemicals also need to be used at high concentrations, which could be hazardous to human health. The researchers say their next step is to develop safer chemicals.

Dr Nikolai Windbichler, from Imperial College London, said work needed to be done to ensure they were safe and could be produced at low cost.

He added: "These compounds have novel and desirable properties because they can confuse the mosquitoes' host seeking behaviour even when the substances are no longer present or the mosquitoes have left the area of application.

"This, if realised, could be a major step forward and could protect large groups of people or large areas, something that is not currently feasible with existing repellents."

Mark Stopfer, from the US National Institutes of Health, said the study offered "a promising line of defence."

By James Gallagher Health reporter, BBC News

CMU Australia and the SIFE Competition in 2012

"SIFE students are changing the world by making a difference in their local communities. They invent new futures for themselves and for others through entrepreneurial educational outreach projects.
SIFE challenges students to take what they learn and apply their knowledge in real situations for the benefit of all concerned.
SIFE challenges business and industry to become involved in a partnership, to mentor students and judge their projects at National Conference and Championships." SIFE Australia.

The reason I post this is because I believe that a lot of us have good ideas and projects that can be presented at the SIFE competition. The CMU-Australia SIFE Group at the moment is undertaking 4 projects. If students from our Social Innovation class put their projects forward, we can have a few more great ideas to participate in the 2012 competition.

This is a great event. I think that we can learn a lot by just participating even if we might not win the world championship. But who knows?

Here is a video link to Egypt's presentation (2009 World Champion). Their presentation is really impressive.
http://www.vimeo.com/7267325

Please let me know if you are interested.

Muhammad Younus Ousted from Grameen

Professor Younus has been ousted by the government from his own institution that developed the concept of micro finance and helped shape the banking industry as we see it today. The reason given by the Bangladesh Bank is that he has passed his retirement age.

The founder of Grameen Bank and a Nobel Prize winner, Muhammad Younus is celebrated as a hero in Bangladesh, whose micro finance model has been embraced by developed countries all over the world including USA, China and Europe. Microcredit enables poor people to carry out economic activities, to propel them out of the poverty cycle.

Some people believe it to be a government propganda against Muhammad Younus who had once tried to enter the political arena and had formed his own political party, but it soon fizzled out. Sheikh Hasina, current prime minister of Bangladesh, was reported to have said that micro finance institutions suck the blood out of the poor in the name of eradicating poverty. The high interest rates charged by micro finance institutions have come under severe criticism recently.

Yunus was in the thick of the heat with the sudden broadcast of a documentary film on a Norwegian TV channel which alleged that Grameen had transferred donor's money, given to Grameen Bank, to another sister organisation. The allegation was widely circulated in Bangladesh on the day the documentary was broadcast, through an online news portal. Later, Norway refuted the allegations saying no irregularities or corruption had taken place" (Daily Star)

Links

1. http://opinion.bdnews24.com/2011/03/03/yunus-departs-as-the-empire-strikes-back/
2. http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=176223

Crowd Sourcing in Micro-Finance (Skills Based Volunteering)

Crowd Sourcing is the act of using the power of community or a group of people to accomplish a specific task. The group completes the task with complete disregard for any financial or monetary compensation.People usually provide their time, skills and services pro bono for that task. One great example of a crowd sourcing product is Wikipedia, whose content is totally volunteer driven. Its a complete online encyclopedia made by the "people" for the "people".

Crowd sourcing has been introduced in microfinance by Grameen Foundation as an effective tool to utilize skills of various professionals in completing important tasks. Grameen Foundation recently launched the "Bankers without Borders" initiative, a pilot volunteer program, which believes in strategic placement of volunteer skilled professionals in various domains to reduce costs and allow micro-finance institutions to operate more effectively in alleviating poverty. Instead of the traditional approach of supervising volunteers, these skilled professionals are allowed to act on their own as managers and use their skills in poverty alleviation.

"For projects that stretch over a longer time frame, Bankers Without Borders has volunteers contribute hours incrementally. Eight employees from MasterCard, for example, worked over a six-month period to create a market entry strategy to support the Grameen Foundation’s program expansion in Colombia."

"What is motivating so many professionals to do this voluntary work? The top three reasons cited by Bankers Without Borders registrants are a desire to help the poor, a strong belief in the work of the Grameen Foundation, and interest in microfinance."

One of the important factors in contributing to scaling up of this project was that volunteers often work remotely. Most of the volunteer hours registered were off the field. Due to the analytic nature of the tasks, most of the professionals can provide consulting work without being physically present on the field. "One remote project involved 10 finance professionals who created a country risk assessment framework for 30 developing countries on behalf of the Grameen Foundation."

Bankers without Borders intends to replicate this volunteer assistance model in other regions through a global network of in country organizations.Each organization will get seed capital and operational support to help them mobilize volunteers in donating their time as consultants for the micro-finance institutions and social enterprises in those regions.

Some of the questions that come to mind are

1. How can this model be standardized so that its effectively replicated in other regions?
2. What role can governments play in promoting and streamlining this model in their respective countries?
3. What is the required institutional restructuring for micro finance institutions and social enterprises in other regions to accommodate this model in their daily operations?

Links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing
• http://www.grameenfoundation.org/sites/default/files/SSIR_Summer%202011_WhatWorks_Brozek.pdf
• Stanford Social Innovation Review

Self Sustaining Social Enterprise: A Promising Model

Social innovation as a strategy to reach low income groups of the society has vast untapped potential. This potential which, on one hand reaches out to a billion dollar market, on the other hand require a very different approach in order to be successful. As the reading correctly points out that, products targeted towards the bottom of the economic pyramid should be based on the following four characteristics: 1) Affordability 2) Acceptability 3) Availability and 4) Awareness (Source: Strategic Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid, Anderson and Markides, MIT Sloan Management Review, July 2010).

This reminded me of the Sehat First (Read: Health First) Project started in Pakistan by Unilever. Sehat First is an initiative of Unilever Pakistan to deliver basic health and pharmaceutical services across Pakistan. In the beginning, a network of 500 health centers and retail outlets will be setup under this project to provide affordable healthcare which is easily available through this extensive network. The project is being undertaken in collaboration with the Department of Health so that an acceptable service to the customers can be provided. Volunteers from the customer & development department in Unilever Pakistan have been working on this project since January 2008, in developing the:

1. Retail outlets
2. Advising & assisting the set-up of retail outlets
3. Inventory and store management
4. Selecting and training retail entrepreneurs
5. Advise on sales generation in rural retailing
6. Strategic input

Project link: http://www.unileverpakistan.com.pk/sustainability/casestudies/economic-development/sehat-first.aspx

This would facilitate the awareness and availability of this service to the remotely located low income population of Pakistan. The important thing to note here is each shop is established with the aim to generate profit. So this can be termed as a social cause targeted, with going the non-profit route. Projects like these make one thing that,

1. Can projects like these continue to be profitable in the long run?
2. Will the aim change or deviate from a purely social one if the profit factor is retained?
3. Is it only large companies like Unilever that can risk such kind of ventures?
4. Is for-profit social business to risky of an endeavor? What are the chances for success?

human centered design

Human Centered Design

 

One of the steps in development process is creating new ideas. Market growth will be achieved by designing new products and technologies that could be attractive to consumers  through smart advertising and communication strategies. Now instead of just focusing on producing attractive products manufactures are looking for ways to meet consumer's needs and desires.

Human Centered Design is a process to help people achieve their physical, social and psychological needs in order to act in the highest level. "Human centered design has a parallel in the green design movement. Universal Design and green design are comfortably two sides of the same coin—green design focusing on environmental sustainability, universal design on social sustainability."

Human-centered design has some steps:

1)    Inspiration- expect success

in this step you are facing some questions in mind like what is the problem? Where is the opportunity? Then you look at the world and thinking what do people do? What they want and need?

Then you are going through constraints like lack of facilities, ineffective policies…  How your new idea could help the situation improve?

 

2)    Ideation – brainstorm

after knowing about problem you are thinking about probable scenarios or solutions, then make a framework , prototyping and testing your idea.

 

3)    Implementation – execute the vision

Use marketing designs as a communication design, make your idea wide spread.

 

 An Example

 

One example of human- centered design is a staff device for easier shopping.These devices are all around the store if you are interested in a cloth staff can scan the label by this device so it will show that clothes details on a screen.

There are new kinds of dressing rooms which have touch screens that show information about merchandise. In these rooms there are some liquid crystal glass that becomes opaque by touching a switch. Also switching to transparent allows others outside the room to see inside.

Magic mirrors in this dressing rooms that are some plasma screens able to view multi- angle in 3 seconds. By turning you can see all around also your back.

 

 

References:

 

1.       1.   www.hbr.org ( Harvard business review, design thinking by Tim Brown)

2.     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eXndL3TNCmo (David Kelley: The future of design is human-centered

3.       3. http://www.aging.ny.gov/LivableNY/ResourceManual/Index.cfm

--
Bahar Forghani

food is the first issue

Food is the first issue

 

Global food prices are increasing to dangerous level and as World Bank reported nearly 44 millions of people have driven into poverty.  Global food prices have risen 36% in the last year, led by maize (74%), wheat (69%) and soybeans (36%). Crude oil prices have increased 21% in the first quarter of 2011. (blogs.worldbank)

To face this issue many countries apply policies to insulate their products from rising prices by increasing limitations in export and reducing barriers in import, but this strategy is not efficient because it will increase the world prices and will rise income transfers. According to a paper by Christophe Gouel trade is important to reduce domestic price. In small, open economy their policy includes import subsides and export restrictions by tax which will reduce overall welfare. This policy could decrease domestic prices. (blogs.worldbank)

Solutions that were recommended are:

1-      Increasing investment in agricultural production and productivity." In the last two years, countries like Burkina Faso and Malawi have demonstrated that and have doubled their output and moved from being net food importers to food exporters." 

2-        Greater investment in infrastructure to help farmers to give their products into markets easily .

3-      Providing better risk management tools for farmers like weather forecasting and climate change, also more information on quality and quantity of grain stock.

Questions that come to mind:

1-      Investment in educating farmers besides investing in agriculture could be another solution to better food production?

2-       To provide cheaper optimal food , using more subsidies by government for poor could be effective?

 

Reference:

www.blogs.worldbank.org

--
Bahar Forghani

Earth Homes for Flood Ravaged Pakistan

The devastating floods in July last year caused country wide wreckage of precious farmlands. Millions of people were rendered homeless with no food and shelter. The rehabilitation process has been quite slow from then onwards. The floods damaged nearly two million homes. According to World Bank estimates the floods have caused $10 billion dollars worth of damage to the infrastructure of the country. Although the government is helping flood victims rebuild their homes, there still thousands of people who have lost everything and cannot afford to rebuild their homes and are still living in flood relief camps. The government lacks funds to bridge the gap between demand and supply of low cost housing.The need of the hour is cheap and sustainable housing for the flood victims.

Earth Homes is a project inititated by John Spiers of the International Centre for Sustainable Development. Its an innovative building system that is built from compressed earth bricks and has features such as passive solar heating, rain water collection and distribution system and solar power. Spiers has partnered with Baber Ali Foundation, a Lahore based charitable organization to set up a social enterprise that will build zero energy affordable housing.

"The enterprise is designed to make a profit so it can continue without outside donations; the company will build the houses and use the profits to build more houses for other needy families." (Gazette) Five model homes would be created initially with the help of local workers to teach them the techniques used in the building process. These homes will be constructed in Syedwala, a town 70 miles southwest of Lahore in Pakistan's Punjab province. The village is expected to be made a centre of learning and innovation and would be used as a model for country wide setup.

"Earth Homes use solar energy to meet the electrical needs of the homeowner and include solar ovens that can be used to cook meals or bake on sunny days. The composting toilets use little water and turn bathroom and kitchen waste into compost for outside gardens, which in turn provide the homeowner with food. The systems are designed to withstand storms and continue operating even if surrounding third-party infrastructure breaks down.The houses will have one or two bedrooms and range in size from 600 to 800 square feet. A basic model would likely cost between $5000 and $10,000." (Gazette)

The completion date for five model homes is June 30 , 2011.

Some of the questions that come to mind are:

• Can the cost of these Earth Homes be further reduced?

• The costs are still too high for people who have lost everything in floods. Would the

  government provide the requisite subsidy for building these homes on a wide scale?

• Is the construction period required for these homes suitable enough to match the government targets of providing low cost housing in a short period of time?

Links

• http://www.gazette.net/stories/03162011/gaitnew191456_32533.php
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/8196341/Pakistan-floods-No-food-no-homes-no-help.html
• http://www.solarcities.org/pakistanproject.html

Research & Application on "How Illiterate People Learn"

Three most basic survival needs: water, food, and shelter, which most of us take for granted, are a daily struggle for 1.1 billion people around the world (those who live on less than $1/day estimated in 2001 by the World Bank); 17,000 children die of hunger every day (same source). What can we do about it? Examples of efforts trying to address this issue include the "food banks" concept and other charity activities. Although they provide relief to the basic-needs crises, the relief tends to be temporary, and its reach has been limited.

"Give a man a fish; you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish; you feed him for a lifetime." If we read this old adage in the context of poverty, we can relate to the role of "education" in pulling people out of poverty. But the word "education" is broad and disguises its complexity. The policy goal here is how to teach an illerate person to earn a decent living. To do that we need to understand how an illiterate person learns.

I came across an interesting research article, by Fanta-Vagenshtein (PhD) at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, on "How Illiterate People Learn". What's interesting about this article is that we need to understand how adult illiterate people learn, we can then design effective educational policy and/or institutions to teach them "how to fish". Even if we manage to do just that, the challenge remains where to "fish", and whether or not there is enough "fish" for everybody. That is why vocational programs alone appear to be ineffective, unless there is a direct and reliable connection between training and jobs.

Lets also contribute our bit to the world...

The theme of the readings was to do more with less. How can we use innovation (or “frugal innovation”) to serve and facilitate the poor. This innovation can be in the basic necessities of life, from housing, electricity to technological solutions which can increase capacity and open new boundaries for the poor. On such innovative idea was proposed by the researchers at the Computer Science Department of Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). It was a research funded by the Microsoft Research (MSR) Digital Inclusion Grant.

This concept, which was aptly called “Poor Man’s Broadband”, is about using technology to provide high speed internet to the poor. Internet access in remote underdeveloped areas has increased at an exponential rate. While this access has opened them to a whole new world, the problem of slow-speed dial-up connectivity and data transfer remains an irritation issue. The “Poor Man’s Broadband” idea aims to solve this problem by using peer-to-peer Dial-up networking. This is quite the same way the Bit torrent works. This research proposes some innovations in the Bit torrent system to adapt it in solve this connectivity problems for the poor. For further reading I am attaching the paper link (see below) with this posting.

After seeing this and other technological social innovations such as increase access to mobile, One-Laptop-Per-Child and others the following questions comes to my mind:

1. The extend of possibilities that simple innovations like these can open up for the poor?

2. How can we through a simple idea, such as using Bit torrent or shared access telephony, change lives of millions?

3. When will we put on the innovation cap and contribute our bit to the world?

http://academic.research.microsoft.com/Publication/4362403/poor-man-s-broadband-peer-to-peer-dialup-networking

Can we innovate for happiness? Should we?

Transparency is one of the most attractive characteristics in an interlocutor. So here's where I come from at the start of my social innovation journey: Put simply, government human service delivery to its most needy citizens (those living with chronic and severe disability, mental illness and brain injury) in developed country settings actually serves to scaffold dependence rather than foster independence. As the largest player in the human service space, governments the world over get to structure the conversations about how this particular part of the world works. The trouble is, scaffolding dependence only begets more dependence.

In case the URL I have attached to this post doesn't work, I'd love it if you could google Geoff Mulgan (from the Young Foundation in the UK) and watch his TEDx talk of the 25th March 2011, and tell me if you think what he says is as important as I believe. He talks alot about happiness and reslience (hence the title of this post). Actually, he (and I) think that governments should scaffold resilience rather than dependence.

Here's the rub: someone who is happy and feels a strong sense of agency over their own affairs tends to make fewer demands of those who support them than if they are unhappy and feel a lack of control. In my experience, this can be true even if someone lives with comorbid disability and mental illness with a tendency to the sort of crises that require stabilisation in hospital intensive care units.

I believe that the conversations that occur in the human service space should be as much about restoring and bolstering social capital as they should be about subsistence support with daily living.

I want to explore how social innovation enablers can permit this more authentic voice in the discource to emerge. I am excited about the possibility of mobile telephony in this space. Can this be a vehicle for social inclusion? I note the power transfer from state to individual that occurs in phenomena such as Nigerian citizens monitoring elections from mobiles, and I wonder: can we tap into the resilience of people with disabilities via their mobiles to effect similar power transfers? And if we can, how do we get governments to listen?

Design Centred Approach in ICT To Conserve Energy

I am currently researching on an initiative for my Telecom Class. Its called the Green Touch. Green Touch is a consortium of companies and educational institutions that seeks to improve the energy efficiency of ICT networks by a factor of 1000. Carnegie Mellon University is a part of this initiative. The exponential growth in wireless and mobile telecommunications has led to widespread connectivity across the globe, even in the remotest villages of Africa. However there is an environmental cost associated with this unprecedented expansion. "The global network and technology required to run it produce 250 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions annually, roughly the same as is produced yearly by 50 million automobiles (20 percent of all the autos in the U.S.), according to Green Touch" (Scientific American). Green Touch therefore seeks to redesign networks to decrease the carbon footprint of the ICT Industry.

When we talk about design centred approach in innovation, Green Touch has developed a prototype Large Scale Antenna to minimize the amount of power required to send a signal across the air in wireless systems. The Large Scale Antenna uses multiple antennas to minimize the amount of power required to transmit a signal across the wireless channel. The proof of concept proposes that the power consmption is significantly reduced as the number of antennas are increased. " For example, an antenna array comprising 100 elements would transmit only one percent of the energy transmitted by a single antenna, for the same quality of service."(CNET)

Multiple Antennas were previously utilized for capacity gains but now they can also significantly reduce power consumption. The basic concept is "focusing" a narrow radio beam through multiple antennas instead of using one antenna to disperse the signal over the whole channel which comparatively consumes more power over a wider area.

I have shared this piece to demonstrate how simple design restructuring can fuel such immense social gains. Global Warming effects are already visible in the form of steady melting of glaciers and floods. Therefore its imperative that we do whatever it takes to reduce our overall carbon footprint. This technology is nascent, however once developed can have wide ranging impact on the global environment.

Some of the questions that come to mind are:

1. What sort of investment would be required to set up an infrastructure for Large Scale Antennas?
2. Would low income governments be willing to invest in this infrastructure?
3. What sort of government policies would be required to facilitate such large scale investment?

Links

• http://www.greentouch.org/
• http://www.networkworld.com/news/2011/020111-advanced-antennas-virtual-modems-to.html
• http://it.tmcnet.com/news/2011/02/03/5289356.htm
• http://www.greentouch.org/uploads/documents/pres_gregory_wright.pdf
• http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=green-touch-launch

Maybe Social Enterprise in the Education Industry?

Why this article is relevant?

After the Grameen Bank video, I remember reading articles that say micro-finance is not without its criticisms. Some poor farmers comit suicide because of some unfortunate and unexpected circumstances rendering them unable to repay their micro-debts. We can see examples like this in India, Bangladesh, and Cambodia, just to mention a few. A lot of people are now questioning whether or not micro-finance really works. My unfounded theory is that micro-finance is not the 'silver bullet' to the poverty problem. It has to be a combination of other things, for instance, the knowledge on how to use your money and manage it effectively. This knowledge can be found in education. Can we do something similar to micro-finance but in education? Maybe something called 'micro-education'.

So I typed in Google the word 'micro-education' and came across this interesting article.

Non-profit or for-profit?

Posted on April 29, 2011 by Chris Makler

Which kind of organizational structure is better for transforming education: a non-profit model dedicated entirely to the mission of change, or a for-profit model with serious financial backing? At a recent Stanford/MIT VLAB event, Sal Khan of Khan Academy and venture capitalist Philip Bronner had a great discussion on this topic (watch the first minute or so of this, then fast-forward to 1:08:20):
As an economist, I tend to gravitate towards the profit motive as second-to-none for allocating resources efficiently. However, the assumption underlying that conclusion is that value is reflected in people’s willingness to pay. In a market economy, if it costs me $10 to make a pair of sneakers and I can sell them for $20, then the market sends me the signal that I should be producing sneakers. Done and done.
But in education, people’s willingness to pay isn’t closely related to the actual value they receive. The main consumers of education — children — have no money of their own, so education is funded by parents or the government, either as an investment in children’s future human capital or out of a sense of social justice. Regardless, there’s no easy way to put a price tag on any individual bit of education (a music class, an economics lecture); therefore a market system to deliver educational services is going to be a very deeply flawed market indeed, and produce all kinds of crazy results. And as in the anecdote Khan shares, the profit motive can lead to private online colleges actually seeking out students who won’t receive a real return on their educational investment.
So there’s a strong argument to be made that educational institutions themselves should be non-profit: they should have a fiduciary responsibility to educational integrity, not their shareholders. But as Khan says later in the video, this clearly doesn’t extend to all the tools that are used in education. At an extreme, the school buses that drive kids to school are made by for-profit companies, as are the light bulbs and the computers in the classrooms. Nobody would want their kids to drive in buses, or learn on computers, that were developed by non-profits.
In other words, it makes sense for educational infrastructure to be supplied by for-profit organizations, even if educational institutions should be non-profit.
The question for education technology companies, then, is this: are we more like schools, or more like computers? Do we seek to deliver educational services ourselves, or do we seek to be a tool that educators can use to deliver those services? The names we choose are a good indication of which side of that divide we see ourselves on: “Khan Academy” sounds like a school (non-profit), while “Blackboard” sounds like infrastructure (for-profit).
Over the next few years, though, the line between educational services and educational infrastructure is going to get blurrier: Aplia and Grockit, for example, are at once educational infrastructure and educational content. In this new world, we’re going to need a new type of organization (possibly like a B Corporation) that blends the best of the non-profit and for-profit worlds, while avoiding the worst excesses of both. As Osman Rashid, founder of Chegg and Kno, puts it later on the same video: “You need the soul of a non-profit, and the mentality of a for-profit.”

This article can be accessed from http://microeducation.org/2011/04/29/non-profit-or-for-profit/.

So there is something already called "Micro-Education". But their mean of 'micro-education' might be a little different from the project I have in mind. Anyway, what makes it interesting to post this article is the author's question about whether or not educational institutions should be for-profit or non-profit. I think this is where Social Enterprise might come in to fill that gap.

My questions for further consideration would be:
1. How to tailor your curriculum to fit the scheduling demand of people at the bottom of the pyramid?
2. How to make sure that your operation is sustainable? To put it another way, who would pay?
3. What kind of education do people at the bottom of the pyramid need?

A Thought on Sustainability

For pundits and apprentices alike, social innovation requires clarity on the issue of sustainability. In order to add social value or have a positive social change, an innovation must observe the triple bottom line of financial, social and environmental sustainability. A myriad of examples are out there of innovations that appear to add social value but in the long run they do not: subprime mortgages, easy access to employment in fast-food restaurants, and corn-based ethanol. The way to test their sustainability is to project an innovation to a global dimension and conduct a cost-benefit analysis of its consequences: recession, obesity, and high price of a staple food like corn which feeds tens of millions south of Rio Grande. The fact that hundreds of millions of people in developed countries have a very comfortable lifestyle and human development indicators show significant progress over the course of a century, does not imply that this development has been achieved in a sustainable manner. In fact, it hasn't: if every human being on the planet had consumption habits as Americans (or rich people around the world, for the matter), we would need 5.4 planets Earth to support our lifestyle (National Geographic State of the Earth 2010, p. 2). [For more on the human footprint on the planet, see here] Therefore, much of the social and technical innovation that has thrusted wealthy nations to improve their standards of living has come at a cost to everyone living in the planet. So far, the problem is not as grave as it will be when China and India -a third of the world's population- reach such levels of consumption. At the pace they have been growing this is expected to happen in the coming decades. This problem adds a constraint to social entrepreneurship, as it does not suffice to add social value, but it must be maintained in the long run as well. Do the test yourself: take any innovation, project its scalability at a global level, and if its financial, social or environmental costs exceed its benefits, then it may need a bit more thinking.