Nexus
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Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2012
On Monday February 6th, 16 engineering students gathered in the new Frugal Lab for design challenge co-hosted by the Frugal Innovation Lab and Engineers Without Borders.
Their challenge: to redesign the gift giving experience for their partner. The students were guided through an introduction to the design thinking process by a fast-paced, self-contained video produced by the Stanford d.school.
The goal: make the lives of the people they’re designing for better. The process emphasizes prototyping, sharing unfinished products, and iterative interviewing skills to best learn how to empathize with the person for whom you design. Design thinking draws on methods from engineering and design, and combines them with the arts, the social sciences, and the business world.
The students in attendance are all working on projects to benefit society. Some do this through their senior design work or through their extracurricular participation with the Engineers Without Borders.
While the challenge of redesigning the gift giving experience was rather abstract, in the discussion following the activity students commented on the elements of design thinking process such as interviewing and collecting feedback early and often, that are pertinent for their current projects as well as to their mindfulness as designers.
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Friday, Feb. 10, 2012
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Who: Daniel W. Smith, Program Coordinator
What: AquaClara, www.aguaclara.cee.cornell.edu
Where: Headquarters in Ithaca, New York, impacting Honduras and Latin America
When: The Tech Awards 2011 Intel Environment Award Laureate: www.thetechawards.thetech.org/
How: AquaClara develops, designs, and implements sustainable water treatment plant technology for the benefit of small and mid-size communities in Honduras, Latin America, and other developing countries. Projects are carried out with a strong training component that empowers technology users to independently manage the water treatment plants. Worldwide, AguaClara estimates that hundreds of millions of people currently without access to safe water can benefit from its technology.
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Friday, Feb. 10, 2012
We are passing along this request from Angelique Smit of Ideas at work, an alumna of the GSBI 2007 who is working on clean water in Cambodia. She is researching social enterprise valuation for her MBA thesis and needs your help!
Dear fellow GBSI’ers
I am working on my last phase of my MBA and I have asked myself the question "How to valuate a social enterprise"?
- Should that only be the financial value?
- or does social/environmental value creation also have a value?
- And if so, how to put an US$ amount on it?
- and how is that used in the total value on such an enterprise?
This all more from a social entrepreneurs point of view than an investors point of view.
I am looking for people/groups that have opinions about this and are willing to share, preferably people that have bought/sold social companies. Halfway my field-research, I have found that this is a very new topic and that my questions give lively discussion but no clear direction yet. Therefore I hope you can help me. I have an interview guideline questionnaire and use skype.
Greetings,
Angelique Smit, GBSI alumni 2007
Ideas at Work Cambodia
skype: angeliquezzz
angelique@ideas-at-work.org
www.ideas-at-work.org
More about Ideas at Work:
In Cambodia's rural area only 5% of the almost 1 million open wells have a pump attached: our target market is the other 95% which are people mostly living at the bottom of the pyramid. IaW believes in sharing the experience of implementing ideas and innovations at the same time providing jobs for disadvantaged Cambodians. Profits are invested back into the organization and 25% goes towards improving the situation in orphanages.
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Friday, Feb. 3, 2012
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Who: Dr. Kathy Perkins, Director
What: PhET Interactive Simulations: www.phet.colorado.edu
Where: Headquarters: Boulder, CO USA. Impact: Global
When: The Tech Awards 2011 Microsoft Education Award Laureate: www.thetechawards.thetech.org
How: The PhET project provides over 100 interactive simulations, free of charge, to support more effective and engaging science education. PhET simulations offer an intuitive game-like environment where students develop their conceptual understanding and build connections to the real world.
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Thursday, Feb. 2, 2012
The Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI TM) at Santa Clara University was founded in 2003 with a vision to work with social entrepreneurs to help them build and scale sustainable organizations that solve problems for people living in poverty. In the last nine years, 138 organizations have participated in the GSBI. Of these, 90% are still in existence, 50% are growing, and collectively they have positively impacted over 74 million people.
Last week four GSBI alums, Digital Divide Data (GSBI ’04), Gram Vikas (GSBI ’04), International Development Enterprise – India (GSBI ’06), and Rishi Valley Institue for Educational Resources (GSBI '08) were all recognized by The Global Journal on their Top 100 Best NGOs list. Everyone here at the GSBI congratulates them!
A biodisel powered tiller. Photo credit: Gram Vikas website
Based on the values of inclusion, sustainability, cost-sharing and social and gender equity, Gram Vikas deploys a comprehensive habitat development and governance program that uses common concerns regarding clean water and sanitation as a tool to unite and empower communities, launch development initiatives, and improve village health and quality of life. To date, Gram Vikas serves more than 3 million people, primarily in India.
Foot powered treadle pumps for irrigation. Photo credit: IDE-India
International Development Enterprises (India) is a not-for-profit enterprise committed to providing long-term, market-driven solutions to poverty, hunger and malnutrition. IDE provides low cost drip irrigation solution systems which are deployed and maintained by small farmers. This generates significant economic and social empowerment by enabling farmers to shift to higher value products. IDE is committed to delivering environmentally safe, affordable and potentially sustainable appropriate technologies to rural communities by blending market and donor supported business models.
Operators in Battambang. Photos © Digital Divide Data / Thushan Amarasiriwardena / Alicia Conway
Digital Divide Data (GSBI ’04)
DDD delivers world-class, competitively priced digitization and IT services to clients across the globe. Staff operators are recruited from disadvantaged backgrounds in Cambodia, Laos and Kenya. DDD training provides jobs, education, and marketable skills to help them overcome poverty and achieve upward mobility. With a self-sustaining non-profit model that re-invests revenues back into the company, Digital Divide Data has a significant impact – ‘graduates’ go on to earn more than four times the average regional wage, while the organization is currently the largest technology employer in Cambodia and Laos.
Reading class, Rishi Valley School, Andhra Pradesh All © Mark Edwards/Still Pictures
RIVER has developed a multi-grade, multi-level (MGML) methodology in primary education for under privileged children in rural India. Its flexible, open source initiatives permit teachers to collaborate in designing educational programs that meet their particular needs, with emphasis on activity based learning. The model currently benefits children and teachers in over 65,000 primary schools.
In addition to congratulating our GSBI Alumni, there are also several past laureates of The Tech Awards:
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