Meet like-minded students studying poverty and sustainable development

oikos and UNDP have just announced the first Young Scholars Development Academy, which provides PhD students and young scholars working on poverty and sustainable development a platform to present and discuss their ongoing research projects with fellow students and senior faculty. The Academy is looking for researchers who are trying to understand poverty and development from a management or economics perspective — very similar to the Market-based Approaches to Reducing Poverty class that we are putting together again next year.

Sounds like a fantastic opportunity to network with fellow students and faculty, as well as apply insights and skills in a practitioner day with responAbility Social Investments from Zürich, Switzerland.  Scholarships covering travel, participation fee and housing are made available by UNDP’s Growing Inclusive Markets initiative.

Submission Deadline: September 15, 2009

Academy: December 6-11, 2009

GIH Delicious Site Launch!

Interested in the social enterprise or international development space, but not really sure where to start? Looking for job opportunities at social VC funds or working on agriculture-related projects in Africa? If so, check out a new resource that the GIH team has created that aggregates the most relevant sites across the web.

It’s a set of 300 bookmarks on Delicious, a social bookmarking site that allows users to tag, save, manage and share web pages from a centralized source. The user name is “global initiatives” and you can access the full list here: http://delicious.com/globalinitiatives

The bookmarks are organized in 3 different dimensions:

• Issue area (e.g. microfinance, CSR, development, globalhealth)
• Region (Africa, asia, bayarea,…)
• Type of resource (e.g. blog, listerve, website, conference, faculty)

… which allows you to filter the bookmarks to find what you are looking for! Many sites have multiple tags, so play around with the combinations.  Alternatively, you can also search all the global initiatives bookmarks and see if the search term appears in the description.

We’re hoping this will become an interactive and evolving resource for the Global Initiatives community. So please email myself (cindy_chen@mba.berkeley.edu) or Abhay Nihalani (abhay_nihalani@mba.berkeley.edu) if you know of other resources that we should add, comments about the Delicious user experience, or if you want to help join the “tag team.” (ok, cheesy I know… sorry!).  We’re always looking to find better ways to share information and knowledge.

First Days in Gabon, Africa

About a year ago I was avidly reading the IBD (International Business Development) blog from Haas written by business school students working on projects in developing countries. I’ve just arrived in Gabon, Africa a few days ago, and up until about an hour ago, sans luggage. Last year I spent some time in Eastern and South Africa for a project. I had heard that Gabon was a relatively rich country, rich in oil with a relatively high GDP for the region. I have never been to central or west Africa, and had no idea how critical the ‘relative’ was in those statements.

Gabon seems very different then what I expected. There is very little infrastructure. In Libreville, the largest city, the roads are poor, the buildings are old and the amenities are minimal. My team of 4, are staying in a house with about 12 other people, 3 bathrooms and many mosquito nets. The water turns off at 9pm and the bathroom sinks rarely have running water during the day. The temperature is in the 90’s and with the humidity at 95%, it feels like 105. Without any luggage for three days straight, working full time in this heat was more than a bit difficult.

Nonetheless the project we’re working on is super exciting, and this is exactly the kind of experience I’ve been wanting. Gabon has one of the most beautiful coastlines in the world. We’re building a strategy for a sustainable partnership between the hydrocarbon industry (oil and gas companies) and local conservation societies to protect the Gabonese coast. In the past, Gabon’s economy has almost completely relied on their natural resources – oil. However, the increasing presence of these companies along the coast is slowing destroying the otherwise untouched, beautiful and unique ecosystem. There are four of us, all students, working on this together for the next three weeks. My team is incredible and we all complement each other well, each with our own style, but all working well and having fun at the same time. It’s eye opening to see parts of the world that we rarely think about on a day to day basis. It’s a stark realization of how different things are in this world, how uneven things are often distributed; it puts many things in our lives into perspective.

beyond profit — new magazine dedicated to social enterprise

Nextbillion.net recently blogged about a new magazine dedicated to social enterprise called Beyond Profit. The magazine is a media project of Intellecap, the social enterprise knowledge and business incubator with offices in Hyderabad, Mumbai and Palo Alto.

Their mission is “to bring you the most interesting and unique stories, people and ideas from the social enterprise sector. Learn about the individuals who are working to change the world through social entrepreneurship and find out how they are doing it.”

Sounds like it will be less academic/theory-based, and more about stories of entrepreneurs making it out in the world.  You can get a  free preview of the first issue, and if you hurry up, you can get a free 1-year subscription via their web site. I just signed up for my subscription today! Deal lasts through June 1st.

World Bank :: Social Dimensions of Climate Change

In one of my earlier posts, I talked about environmental sustainability within the larger development context and my experiences working with Oxfam and learning about their take on climate change.  Well, turns out the World Bank just launched a new website called Social Dimensions of Climate Change, with the following focus:

Climate change may be the defining social justice issue of our generation. It brings into sharp relief a vision of a world that is highly polarized – between heavy greenhouse gas-emitting countries and resource-poor countries that will suffer the worst consequences. The rich countries of the world are predominantly responsible for climate change, while poor people in poor countries bear the brunt of its impacts.

Very cool and really looking forward to hearing more about their research and findings.  The World Bank is also co-sponsoring a 2009 Grant Competition on Climate Adaptation which wants to identify 20-25 innovative, early-stage projects that can address this problem.  You can receive up to US$200,000 for implementation over two years.  More information about the competition is located here.

Calling for Guest Bloggers!

A message from Emily, GIH president….

Hey All,

I know many of you are traveling to exotic places this summer for internships, IBD, and other projects, or staying domestically  and working on exciting projects over the next few months. We have a huge amount of student interest in Global Initiatives for next year, and I know the new students would love to hear and read about your summer!

We’re looking for volunteers to blog once, twice, or throughout the summer on your experience. It’d be great to have a diverse set of perspectives so we’d love to get as much of a variety of volunteers as possible. If you’re interested in blogging for GIH or want to learn more, please contact Cindy and/or Abhay – VPs of Outreach (cindy_chen@mba.berkeley.edu, abhay_nihalani@mba.berkeley.edu).

Thanks,

Emily

Interested in more classes and volunteer opportunities in this space? Check out these Berkeley/Bay area resources

If you’re graduating this year, or even if you’re staying for a PhD for five more years, there’s lots of stuff happening at Berkeley and in the greater SF area around social entrepreneurship,   international development, design for social impact, ICTD, …. Just wanted to share some of the stuff that I’ve been exposed to over the last few months that I’ve found pretty impressive. Enjoy!

Great Courses @ Berkeley

(Fall)

Enterprise in Developing Economies: Market-based Approaches to Solving Poverty, 1-credit speaker series, Haas School of Business

This is my personal plug, as it was *the* class that really got me thinking hard about social enterprises in developing countries and what business models work best in different environments.  Last year it was a 7-week speaker series, facilitated by David Lehr of Mercy Corps and Jocelyn Wyatt of IDEO Social Impact.  It will be bigger and better this year!

Old syllabus here: http://globalinitiatives.wordpress.com/gih-speaker-series-class-falla/

New Product Development, 3-credit course, MOT cross-listed

Co-taught by Sara Beckman (Haas), Alice Agogino (CE), and Nathan Shedroff (CCA), this is a project-based course where the end-deliverable is the design of a new product.  Sat in on one of the classes last Fall on sustainable design, but great exposure to creating a product through the entire design and development cycle.

(Spring)

Design for Sustainable Communities, 3-credit course, CE290

I cannot speak more highly for this class. The professor, Ashok Gadgil, is incredibly inspirational with a deep, practical understanding for how to create solutions to address serious problems in developing countries. He’s the inventor of two technologies — one is a fuel-efficient stove that can be cheaply mass produced and is targeted at refugee camps in Darfur, Sudan, and the second is a water purification technology that uses UV radiation to cheaply purify large amounts of water (UV Waterworks).  In addition, there are great speakers (like John Hammock) and interesting readings, all within an intimate, cross-disciplinary group of students who are passionate about making a difference. To top it off, you’re working together in small teams to design a sustainable solution in different communities around the world – from accessory dwelling units in our very own backyard (Berkeley) to solar water heaters in Guatemala and a Native American community in Northern California, to arsenic removal in Bangladesh, to solar box cookers in India!  Check out a video of Ashok’s Darfur Cook Stove project here: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4224765.html?series=37

Business and Technology for Sustainable Development, 2-credit course, MOT cross-listed

Taught by Flavio Feferman, who has extensive development experience in Latin America. I sat in on a couple of classes — pretty heavy workload with lots of readings (all really interesting… lot of articles from the Economist but very recent and relevant), class project (e.g. Senegal solar cooker team that the SBC team met with were creating the business model for this class), and mini-debates that you have to prepare for every few weeks.

Design as a Competitive Strategy, 2-credit course, Haas School

Didn’t take this course but some of my friends would forward along the lecture slides or readings.  If you liked Norman’s Design of Everyday Things you will enjoy this class. Goes through both theory and examples.

And of course, any courses offered by the Blum Center’s Global Poverty and Practice minor. They’re geared towards undergrads so I’ve primarily focused on grad classes. I’d highly recommend John Danner’s class though — Entrepreneurship to Address Global Poverty — as he’s a great guy and really knowledgeable about this space.

Opportunities to get involved in the Bay area

There are a couple of great organizations out in the Bay area that do similar design for social impact work. The first is Project H Design which is a volunteer group of designers, engineers, and the odd business school student which work together to “support, inspire, and deliver life-improving humanitarian product design solutions. We champion industrial design as a tool to address social issues, a vehicle for global life improvement, and a catalyst for individual and community empowerment.”  I’ve been too busy to get really involved in the current projects (wheelchair re-design, community garden re-development) but am on the mailing list and try to keep a tab on what’s going on. They’ve done some great stuff in the past, like re-designing the Hippo Water Roller – http://www.hipporoller.org/. Meetings are every other Tuesday evening in the city. Check out their website and email Ryan Duke (SF chapter head) if you want to join up: http://projecthdesign.com/

IDEO also has a sub-practice called Design for Social Impact. Right now it’s only 2-3 full-time people, but I’ve heard Jocelyn Wyatt (she’s the head of it) speak a couple of times.  They apply the design thinking framework and do pretty extensive traveling to get hands-on, ethnographic and anthropological needs assessment.  Their website is here: http://www.ideo.com/thinking/focus/social-impact/ and they’ve also got some “Design for Social Impact” workbooks available here: http://www.ideo.com/work/item/design-for-social-impact-workbook-and-toolkit/.

The second, which may be more relevant to many of the folks in the class, is the SF chapter of Engineers without Borders (EWB).  They have monthly chapter events in the city and just launched a new project this month on designing a medical facility in a poor rural area in Haiti.  Again, free to join and sign up for the mailing list if you’re interested in learning more about their events: http://www.ewb-sfp.org/

The third, Social Capital Markets conference is pricey, but you can help volunteer in advance or day-of and get comp tickets.  This is a seriously jam-packed three days, but practically *everyone* in this social enterprise space –investors, foundations, social entrepreneurs, students, etc — was there.  There were like 15 concurrent panels every hour so it’s an intense few days (and if you volunteer you have to get there at like 5:30am and work a 5 or 6 hour shift), but such a good primer/crash course in this space.  They’ve started posting speakers here: socialcapitalmarkets.net/index.php.  If you want to get involved, the organizer, Amy Benzinger, works pretty closely with some of the Haas people so we can loop you in to the planning meetings.

NextBillion.net is an incredibly rich resource for job listings, news, editorials, conferences, etc for people who want to “make a connection between development and enterprise.”  There’s always a bunch of Berkeley people blogging on the website and it gets a ton of exposure and is well-respected in the development / social enterprise community.

Finally, personal plug for the Global Initiatives club which is run out of the Haas School of Business and has a good pulse on Berkeley and bay area events related to international issues, development, healthcare, ICTD, etc.  Sign up for the list-serve and/or email some officers and get involved!  Here’s the link for the list-serve: calmail.berkeley.edu/manage/list/listinfo/gih_members@lists.haas.berkeley.edu

2009 Winner of GSVC — Making Bricks out of Poop!

Last Friday was the Global Social Venture Competition finals in Berkeley. 15 student teams from around the world presented their best ideas for how to change the world.  It was inspiring to hear students from Indonesia, New Zealand, London, US, Mali, India, and many more countries speak about their business concepts. 10 of the teams focused on “blended” value plans (strong social impact and business feasibility) and 5 of the teams focused on SIA (how to best articulate the social impact of their venture).

The winning blended value team, EcoFaeBricks, was by far my favorite.  I was silently (and sometimes not so silently) rooting for them throughout the day, especially during the judging deliberation.  Their concept: take cow dung, add chemical stablizers to convert the dung into clay, and then fire the new cow dung-clay into bricks for housing.  Lighter, stronger, odorless bricks, made out of a waste material.  And to top it off, the group was planning on using biogas as their energy source for running the brick factories.  So closed loop cycle on top of that!  How can you beat that?!

Well, in fact many of the judges had mixed opinions on the winner.  There were a lot of other strong contenders, from microhealth insurance in Africa to counterfeit drug scratch-off labels to re-purposed solar cooking bags.  And it was interesting to hear the judges debate the different merits of each plan — some focused on the management team (were these the right people to lead the efforts? did they have the right background and knowledge base to be successful?), some on the depth of social impact (which will touch more people? which are addressing root causes of poverty or merely applying a band-aid on a social issue), some on the commercial feasibility and scale (can this business be applied to many different countries, groups? will it be self-sustainaining? will it generate a healthy return for a VC firm?)

Many of these questions were things that we have debated over the last few months during my first year at Haaas. And I felt so lucky that these questions were ones that we have repeatedly discussed and debated over the course of the year.  Hearing other “experts” in the room- from Victoria Hale who founded One World Health, to Varun Sahni from Acumen Fund, to Sam Moss from Grey Ghost Ventures (social VC) — and realizing that my classmates, professors, and guest speakers have the same caliber and depth of opinion was a truly remarkable thing.  It’s been a fantastic learning experience and I’m looking forward to another year of more learning!

More info about the competition on NextBillion: http://www.nextbillion.net/blog/2009/04/27/global-social-venture-competition-all-it-takes-is-one-person-wit

Paul Polak speaks at GSVC Finals Dinner

About a week ago, I had the opportunity to hear Paul Polak speak at the Global Social Venture Competition finals dinner. Paul has done some amazing stuff in bringing mass-market solutions to the rural poor, particular farmers in developing countries.  His company, IDE (International Development Enterprise), is famous for the treadle pump which allows farmers to access ground water sources to irrigate their crops.  He also has another project, D-Rev, which focuses on designing solutions for the other 90%, as 90% of designers primarily create solutions for affluent 10% of the world’s population.

Paul has done a phenomenal job of creating awareness about design for developing countries and has created some incredible products that have really added a lot of value to many rural farmers all over the world.  But in some aspects he oversimplifies the story and it seems like an all-or-nothing type of game.  Paul’s three “don’t bother” points when looking at a BoP solution are:

1. If you haven’t had conversation with at least 25 people…
2. If it won’t pay for itself within a year…
3. If you can’t sell at least a million of them

Don’t bother!

While this “don’t bother” trilogy is trying to ensure that products fit user needs, are cost-effective, and can be scalable, I do believe it is worth trying even if you can’t sell a million or have a one year payback.  The technology adoption curve generally means that some early adopters will try a new technology, spread the word if it works, and then the technology will begin to disseminate in the mass market.  Without this sort of process, new technologies would probably die immediately, because it’s so hard to mass manufacture things at a low price point right from the beginning.

For my Design for Sustainable Community project, which is focused on re-designing the solar box cooker, Paul Polak’s philosophy puts a bit of a damper on our project.  We know what the most cost-effective solar cooker is out there in the market — cardboard and tinfoil.  And we know the other mass manufactured solar cookers, made out of sheet metal and wood, are magnitudes more expensive (30-45 USD) but also many more times more durable.  So at what point is there a balance between cost and longevity? Because an inexpensive drip irrigation system made out of a rice bag, some plastic tubing, and wooding stakes may be great, but it’s not a long-term solution.  And like the cardboard DIY solar cookers, how do we reconcile this disconnect with Polak’s “don’t bother” philosophy?

It’s definitely a challenge, especially as we’re also targeting more low-income rural villages in India. But one distinction that we made early on during the goal-setting process was moving up the income ladder to the higher-lower income, or emerging middle class.  So a group of people who have some income saved up and may be willing to invest in a more permanent solution.  Maybe that’s where the difference lies — maybe Polak is really focused on the less than a $1, bottom of the pyramid and there’s also a huge market opportunity in the $2 or $3 per day population.  Because in the end, these inexpensive solutions may end up with a higher environmental footprint (shorter lifecycles, more frequent replenishment, more materials used in the end) and they still serve a market need, albeit not the extreme poor.

John Hammock & Updating the Economic Model

John Hammock, the North American director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and co-author of Practical Idealists, came to campus last week as part of a Global Initiatives / Net Impact sponsored event. The mission of Oxford Poverty & Human Development is to build a multidimensional economic model for reducing poverty, grounded in people’s experiences and values. We looked at the current indicator of economic progress — Gross Domestic Product (GDP) — and discussed its flaws. One such flaw is that wars increase GDP, because manufacturing weapons creates jobs, increases business investment, and keeps suppliers in demand. But no society wants to truly measure its progress by warfare. Hammock then talked in more detail about some of the more intangible metrics that he is trying to include in the OPHD economic model. Some of these were things I had heard of, but some were things that I completely took for granted.

• Employment, including both formal and informal employment and with a nod to the quality of employment

• Empowerment, the ability to advance goals one’s values

• Personal safety and security from violence to property and person

• Ability to go about without shame, to emphasize the importance of dignity, respect, and freedom from humiliation

While all of these new metrics are difficult to measure, the last three in particular seem challenging. How can a survey (or other tool) adequately measure a life lived in security, where one is allowed the freedom to do what they wish to do, without feeling shame? And yet, those are the things that matter the most to us.

One country, Bhutan, has already started incorporating some of these human-centered metrics into their measure of progress. Bhutan has a “Gross National Happiness” that is aimed at ensuring that prosperity is shared across society and that it is balanced against preserving cultural traditions, protecting the environment, and maintaining a responsive government. While the model is far from perfect, I think it is a bold step to trying to ensure that social and environmental factors are built into our economic model.