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.

U.S. Social Innovation?

When I think of Social Innovation I usually think of technology or improvements in poverty-stricken third world countries. I think of areas with little or no economic foundation or significance. I think of areas or communities that aren't self-sustaining or could most benefit from innovation. Maybe it's due to my lack of exposure to social innovation but I enjoyed reading improvements and innovations that are being made right here in the U.S.

Last week we discussed the X Prize model that could improve education or illiteracy in poverty areas. Today, an article in the N.Y. Times outlines the improvements being made in Baltimore schools where interestingly, a Cuban immigrant, Andres Alonso, was hired by the school board to bring positive change through reform. Is Social Innovation confined only to creating new technology or can it also include changing behavior in areas of need?

In this Baltimore school district, 84 percent of students are on free or reduced-price meals, which is a measure of poverty. Dropout rates are incredibly high. The murder rate is six times that of New York City. Six administrators had been hired over the past six years.

Dr. Alonso's approach was to change the behavior and culture of these schools. Previously, administrators had focused too much on test scores, but Alonso worked to create a positive perception, get buy-in from faculty and parents, and go to the root of the problems.

In class we defined innovation as "the act or process of inventing or introducing something new." Can we use Dr. Alonso's success in Baltimore schools in other poverty areas in the U.S.? What about other countries? Would cultural differences, traditions, or other barriers prevent similar education reform?

Helping Africa Feed Itself

Currently, African nations are a net importer of food supplies. While worldwide production has generally increased, in parts of Africa production has remained stagnant over the past 40 years. This is despite the fact that 70% of Africans are engaged in agriculture. There remains upwards of 250 million undernourished Africans throughout the continent. Traditionally, as explained in this article from Reuters, investment in Africa in the agricultural sector has been from philanthropic organizations and developed governments.

Recently, however, for-profit private investors have begun, with the help of nonprofits, to invest in mid-sized African farms, helping to develop infrastructure as well as improved farming techniques and advances in farming technology. Specifically, the article describes the TransFarm Africa Transformation Fund (FTA), a private equity investment aiming for 15% returns from aiding mid-sized commercial farmers in processing and distribution that include small farmers in their operations. There are many other private firms involved in similar investments, all of whom are attempting to avoid the typical stigma of “land-grabbing” associated with private investment on the continent. To do this, they are collaborating with local business groups.

While foreign government and foundation investment is critical, the scale of food shortages are so great that private investment is needed. Evidently, there are many opportunities for private firms, and specifically social entrepreneurs to invest in African agriculture, with the social mission of helping the malnourished of the continent, while still generating revenue to create a sustainable business. As time goes on, and food shortages become more and more of an issue, not only in Africa, but also throughout the world, the opportunities will only increase. In terms of the future of social innovation and enterprise, this sector is poised for major growth.

Do you see issues arising with the exploitation of small farmers with increased private investment? In addition, will there be enough space for social entrepreneurs to get in on the action, where it seems that perhaps traditional businesses are also interested? What other opportunities do you see for the future of social innovation on the continent?

Tax and Aid (6)

There is little doubt that governments will have to play a major role in alleviating the world’s problems, from climate change to famine. Of course, nonprofits, foundations, and more recently, social enterprises are also major players. However, all of these organizations depend on world governments, be it funding, other forms of financial support, or policy, to survive and succeed. Social enterprises in particular, being businesses, need government support in the form of laws and policies to survive in an open market. Richard Brooks, in his article, Tax and aid: To trade with loaded dice, from November 29^th in the Guardian, discusses how large multinational corporations can inhibit governments, particularly those of very poor countries, from making a significant impact on these social issues.

He uses SABMiller as an example to highlight multinational tax avoidance, especially in poor countries: The SABMiller brewery located in Ghana only paid 0.3% of its revenue back as tax from 2007 to 2010. The company is using loopholes in local and international laws and creative financing arrangements to avoid paying taxes. In the country, corporate taxes form a significant amount of revenue for the government. Obviously, by avoiding these taxes, SABMiller is creating a significant negative effect on the governments operating income. Such tax avoidance is repeated by other multinationals throughout the world in both developing as well as developed countries. Obviously, this could be a huge source of revenue for governments, who could put the money to good use in helping their people. Specifically for poor nations, this would allow them to reply less on foreign aid, which considering the current economic climate and budget tightening, is likely to decrease.

In terms of social enterprise, money lost from tax avoidance could actually go to promoting social businesses whether it is direct funding, or other financial support mechanisms. Obviously, intelligent policies and laws are still needed, but closing tax loopholes and preventing the offshoring of funds could promote assistance to social enterprises and social causes in general. All that is needed is the political will, which sadly, is really lacking. Do you think political will and capital could be generated if there was more of a focus towards tax avoidance being a social issue? At the moment, it is described by opponents as a way to expand government, and by proponents as the corporate world being negligent. Additionally, do you think poor governments could go about collecting taxes without scaring off these businesses, without help from developed nations (where it seems there is a lack of political will)?

Don’t Use the Word “Charity” (4)

This article is an interview with Will Prochaska, the director of Alive & Kicking, an African social enterprise using sports, specifically, the manufacture of soccer (and other sport) balls to provide recreation and promote health knowledge amongst children as well as create jobs for adults in low income areas in Kenya and Zambia. In this interview conducted by Kerry Ann Eustice of the Guardian, Prochaska discusses his enterprise and the challenges he has faced in developing and growing his business, particularly when he is committed to fair pay for his employees and his competitors are not.

He has established a sustainable business by differentiating his product with the help of retail outlets in both Kenya and Zambia. His marketing strategy involves going into retail outlets and highlighting the low quality and poor labor conditions in the manufacturing of his competitors’ products in other countries. He compares this to his own manufacturing process, educating his potential customers about the benefits of a locally produced product.

This is a very interesting example, particularly as it relates to other aspiring social enterprises in their development and growth. As, Prochaska indicates, his business had particular difficulty in establishing themselves as an independent operation, free of outside support, while still providing a valuable social service. To overcome this difficulty, the mentality of the entire organization had to change, some of which was achieved through more ownership and responsibility by staff within each operation. He also provides some advice to other enterprises, recommending that everyone involved in the organization needs to understand the need for the business to operate independently, while making the case for avoiding unrealistic expectations inside and outside the company by overtly pushing the social mission.

What do you think about Alive & Kicking’s marketing model? Would it be effective (and sustainable) in other situations for other businesses? In addition, do you agree with Prochaska that it is necessary to push away from the charity (or social enterprise) label to be sustainable?

A Surprising X Prize

I was excited to read in this article that the X Prize Foundation announced they would be putting up money for a competition with the goal of cleaning up oil from the BP spill.

However, when I went to the X Prize Foundation homepage, I didn’t find any more details.

What did catch my eye, though, was a little blurb that said “X PRIZEs are being developed that will end our addiction to oil and stem the harmful effects of climate change.” I would loooooove to see how this plays out…

I attended a rather depressing panel discussion sponsored by the E-Cubed club during lunch today: 3 professors (an economist, an environmental attorney, and a former astronaut who’s now in the Environment and Public Policy school) all basically said that they don’t have big hopes that any significant climate change legislation will be passed any time soon.

In light of that grim outlook, it’s great to read about prizes that could stimulate innovations that reduce our carbon footprint. After all, we need something to drive change. If it’s not going to be Congress, what will it be?

As we read in the X Prize article for this week’s class, the X Prizes excite people, “pulling” them toward a certain goal. If that goal can be an end to oil addiction, we’ll all be better off! Especially if the prize delivers on what it promises: growing awareness of the market for the winning (and even non-winning) technologies.

There are a lot of land use, environmental and infrastructural issues associated with the energy use changes we’d likely have to make to facilitate a massive switch to renewables and other technologies. Are these obstacles to big for a prize to overcome? In other words, does this challenge of breaking free from our oil addiction require more cooperation and investment than X Prize participants will be willing to give?

Masdar...Resistance is Futile, You will be Assimilated

Akin to the Borg, Masdar's zero waste city in the middle of the desert has no utility for resistance from detractors. The Masdar corporation has suffered recent set backs from pushing back their launch date to 2020, to loosing the provost at the Masdar Institute for Science and Technology, to dealing with a real estate projection which predicts future difficulty in finding enough residents to fill the future city of Masdar. But Masdar continues to push on, moving forward with their plans to build the underground personal transport system, No one said it would be easy, but is it worth it. Will the ideal of a zero waste world yield from examples like the city of Masdar? Does the push for a community of innovators to be inspired by such imaginative prowess create useful achievable advances in technology or do they lead to machinations like that of the LilyPad, the floating city. Designed by Vincent Callebaut as part of a competition sponsored by the Oceans conference in 2008. The Lilypad would house 50,000 people displaced by the changing landscape due to global climate change. The design is awe inspiring and maybe more science fiction then innovation. But if Masdar succeeds then maybe these more imaginative approaches to the Green movement will become more achievable just by virtue of precedence. And competitions like those sponsored by the Oceans conference or the X Prize Foundation might get us there faster. However using competition as a driver of social innovation is not a new concept. I have witnessed this method work well in the class room. Kids love competition, its a great tool to engage everyone in the learning process, but the results are mixed when used soley it to increase comprehension. But does it mean we should not try it all. X Prize Foundation president Thomas Vander Ark has interesting perspective on the issue. Having worked on both sides of the fence in the social innovation/reform field he understands that "although prizes are no silver bullet, I am confident that they will be a powerful change lever in the social sector." Let's hope that Masdar will make it!

The Social Innovation Network

Attempting to guess where the future of social innovation is heading is an incredibly daunting task. Not only is technology evolving at warp-speed, but the field itself is just as quickly shifting to broaden its appeal and impact. One of the technologies that has certainly fueled the potentials of innovation has been the rise of social networking. With facebook and YouTube, massive numbers of people can connect with each other at a low (or no) cost. This interconnected web can direct energy towards large social movements and has the potential to make activism and social change trendy and hip and not just something for peace-loving hippies. The power of these tools can be seen in movements like the green-clad support of the "Iranian Revolution" and the public outcry that occurred with the deaths of the gay teens. How much actual positive change these movements have can be debated, however, they certainly show a shift in how we communicate and spread information through technology and graphic imagery.

With this knowledge and access to huge populations, social change and innovation now has a platform to bring together diverse minds and potential funders. With the rise of sites that seek to connect social innovation with actual human capital, many projects have been realized that seek to make lasting sustainable change in low income populations. An example is Architecture for Humanity, which brings together architects, designers, and entrepreneurs to solve housing issues around the world. Another project has been the Vlogbrother's Project for Awesome, which annually takes over YouTube for one day a year to post videos about charities and social innovations to raise awareness and potential volunteers. Social innovation has great potential to tap into these networks and resources to expand their mission and connect around the world. 

While social networking has and will continue to increases and spur innovation, it will also create challenges for social ventures in the future. With the ease of creating a facebook page for your cause or linking in to a thousand different networks, the question arises of how up-and-coming social ventures and innovation will stand out and actually receive needed attention to make change. On one hand, this will allow only the truly innovative ventures to rise to the top, while on the other, it could hinder great idea makers by placing them in the middle of undefined cyber noise. 

One project looking to help social innovators stand out above the crowd is an organization called LoudSource. Loudsource raises funds to help advertise social projects through a variety of media. From billboards and TV to ad on your iphone app, LoudSource has created a fairly simple business plan: 

There hope are then "that funding advertising maximizes individual impact by reaching completely new communities for people's favorite causes. By bringing unexpected ideas and creative solutions to mainstream channels, we will ultimately build momentum for some of the best work happening in the world." Looking forward, it will be the innovators and entrepreneurs who can harness the tools at their disposal to raise awareness and efficiently create lasting change. 

It will be interesting and inspiring to witness how the field of social innovation continues to evolve to meeting the challenges and opportunities that technology and communication are bringing to the world. Hopefully these changes will make progress that can be felt by all.

A few questions:

What other online tools have potential for evolving how social innovation is integrate into society?

Has the social networking movement done more to damage the plight of social innovators by making people want instant gratification and by creating generation of kids who have their focus pulled in a million different directions? Can these technologies be compatible with lasting sustainable social change?

Education, public policy and innovation

A recent New York Times opinion discussion noted that top French academics are coming to the U.S. to enjoy the increased salaries, freedom and competitive energy our academic environment provides. Many believe that our universities, with their competition and vast bank accounts, are somewhat responsible for the American culture of innovation -- think Stanford and Silicon Valley, or MIT and Harvard and the Boston biotech industry.

But in a time of decreased government funding for education and research, someone has to fund this innovation. The skyrocketing costs of tuition leave little room for doubt as to who is funding the continued progress of American academia. (Some universities raised tuition 15% this school year.)

The burden that major research universities levy on their students in the form of debt is unsustainable in the long-term. But the debt our own government is facing makes increased federal support for innovation a challenging proposition. Who should pay to create and maintain an academic environment that fosters innovation?