GSBI 2009

The 2009 Global Social Benefit Incubator participants have been selected.  Meet the winners of this year's competition:

Information Communication Technology Application Initiatives

Amanda Atwood
Freedom Fone, Zimbabwe
www.kubatana.net
Millions of people in developing countries lack access to critical information on development issues such as agriculture, health, and human rights. Freedom Fone creates affordable, efficient, and easy to use software through which local and international development organizations can generate their own audio information for the large and growing number of mobile phone subscribers in Base of the Pyramid markets.  Freedom Fone provides a two-way communications service that overcomes the hurdles of cost, distribution, and access that print, broadcast and Internet-based communications face.  Use of the Freedom Fone tools helps local and international development organizations dramatically improve their impact by more effectively reaching their target audiences.

Mario Martinez
Sabbia Telecom, Mexico
www.sabbia.com.mx
Sabbia Telecom supplies rural telecommunications, voice, and Internet services to those millions of households in isolated and poor communities in Mexico.  These services help those who aspire to a higher quality of life by providing greater economic, social, and educational opportunities.  Because ARPU (average revenue per user) is particularly low in these regions, most companies don’t consider these markets profitable.  Sabbia’s innovative combination of technologies and business acumen overcomes these barriers to provide poor communities the possibility to be better informed, communicate with distant family, and improve their economic lot. 

Pravin Joshi
Zen Tech International, Nepal
www.zentechcalls.com
Zen Tech International (ZTI) was formed to deliver telecommunication and financial services using IP (Internet Protocol) backbone in both urban and rural areas of Nepal.  Unlike the existing expensive, unstable and illegal network, ZTI will partner with ISP providers, money services businesses, banks and micro finance institutions to deliver VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) and cash management services through technology kiosks operated by money services businesses, call shops and postal services.

Nnaemeka Ikegwuonu
Smallholder Farm Rural Radio, Nigeria
The Smallholders Foundation provides rural poor farmers living in remote isolated communities of Nigeria with sustainable agricultural development information in local languages through the establishment of rural radio stations known as The Smallholders Farmers Rural Radio (SFRR). It deploys, integrates and utilizes radio with the Internet to deliver timely, reliable, and accurate information to enhance the livelihoods of poor rural farmers.  Unlike conventional commercial radio stations, SFRR is livelihood-driven and profitable—deriving 80% of its income from radio and Internet operations.

Jason Shah
INeedAPencil.com, United States
www.ineedapencil.com
INeedAPencil.com provides an innovative and comprehensive platform for low-income high school students to raise SAT test scores and get to the inside track for being admitted to college. INeedAPencil.com is the only full-service free program of its kind, and it outperforms fee-based SAT tutoring programs through its features for enhancing test-taking outcomes. By increasing the college-going rates of low income students, INeedAPencil is narrowing the income-based education achievement gap in the U.S. and helping to foster a more just and equitable world.

Economic Development and Equality Initiatives

Annapurna Mamidipudi
Dastkar Andhra, India
www.dastkarandhra.org
Dastkar Andhra promotes rural livelihoods by providing technical training for handloom weavers, and linking rural co-operative institutions to marketing networks in urban India.  This ensures sustainable livelihoods for handloom weavers who face the threat of large scale migration into urban slums, and helps a generation of weavers to come out of poverty.  Unlike government programs which treat handloom work as a welfare activity, or intermediaries and traders with unfair practices, Dastkar Andhra sets up equitable, sustainable, production marketing systems which allow weavers to live with self respect and dignity.

Gregorie Perez
Gifts and Graces Fair Trade Foundation, Philippines
www.giftsandgraces.com
For the poor and disadvantaged who seek to earn income by making handicrafts and other livelihood products, Gifts and Graces provides product development assistance and training which will help them sharpen their creativity, and improve their craft, and strengthen sales.  The market access that Gifts and Graces provides contributes to increased incomes and an improved quality of life though enhanced food security, shelter, health, and educational opportunities for families.  The producers also gain pride and self-esteem from being productive, contributing members of society.  Unlike producers without product development training and guidance, producers of Gifts and Graces are able to deliver products with innovative, marketable designs and superior craftsmanship.

Jabeen Jambughodawala
SAHAJ, India
www.sahajindia.org
SAHAJ comprises of a team of professionals dedicated to developing entrepreneurship in the tribal population of Eastern Gujarat in India by providing a complete package for creating income-generation from home-based craft industries.  The services that SAHAJ provides include product design and development, business development, marketing, micro finance, and capacity building. SAHAJ also helps create common facility centers, co-operatives, federations, and business enterprises which enable the tribal population to secure stable livelihoods, improve education, and promote the conditions for healthier lives in an economically viable economy.  SAHAJ thus alleviates high unemployment and the ignorance of opportunities that drives unsustainable urban migrations.

Cosmos Okoli
Mobility Aid and Appliances Research and Development Centre (MAARDEC), Nigeria
Nigerians with disabilities are bedeviled by a myriad of problems, making most of them perpetually dependent on the rest of society as beggars.  Existing rehabilitation centers provide them with obsolete and unmarketable skills and limited services that impact negligibly on their lives.  MAARDEC pioneered a radically holistic approach to rehabilitation and empowerment replete with the following services: free guidance and counseling;  mentoring, skill acquisition, job creation and placement; advocacy and public enlightenment; promotion of sports for persons, and the organization of motivational summits; provision of affordable and free mobility aids; micro-finance, enterprise development, and provision of physiotherapy services.  With staff made up of 50% of persons with disabilities, MAARDEC fabricates, assembles, repairs, and maintains various mobility aids and appliances.

Sanju Kumar
SAMRUDHI Micro Finance Society, India
www.samrudhi-india.org
For the millions of poor households in India who suffer from high rates of hunger and malnutrition and who lack access to credit from formal financial institutions, the SAMRUDHI Micro Finance Society provides cost-effective, livelihood-based, collateral-free, financial services (such as microcredit) to rural and urban poor households.  SAMRUDHI reverses the age-old vicious cycle of low income, low savings, low investment, and an expanding system of low income people, through the injection of credit for livelihood investment, more income, more investment, and more income.

Rajendra Joshi
Saath, India
www.saath.org
Urban poor and slum residents are considered to be a large BOP market lacking access to user-friendly institutions for providing them with the resources and services they need to develop sustainable livelihoods.  Unlike other services, Saath’s Urban Resource Centre (URC) enables the poor to efficiently access quality services from the government, private sector, and civil society at affordable market rates, including the resources they need to increase their productivity and income.  The URCs enable migrants and the urban poor to become more productive, self-reliant citizens.

Environment and Energy Initiatives

Maria Rodriguez
Byoearth.com, Guatemala
www.byoearth.com
For rural and slum area habitants in Guatemala, Byoearth develops sustainable worm-casting products, producing a 100% organic fertilizer that recycles degradable waste pollutants, improves the soil’s natural condition, upgrades crops, and enhances the ecosystem, by reducing erosion and improving water retention.  Byoearth provides opportunities for the poor to generate income by raising worms.  Unlike other fertilizer companies, Byoearth provides environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable products and services

Yugandhar Mandavkar
Grass Roots Action for Social Participation (GRASP), India
www.grasp.org.in
GRASP provides the rural poor with vertical-draft, energy-efficient wood stoves, which consume less than half of the fuel, have negligible emissions, and work with agricultural residues.  GRASP thereby helps rural poor women save time collecting firewood, while alleviating the long-term health hazards to their families from unsafe stoves.

Manoj Sinha
Husk Power Systems, India
www.huskpowersystems.com
HPS provides low-cost power as a pay-for-usage service (similar to a utility in the U.S.) that enables farmers to reduce irrigation costs by 45%, entrepreneurs to create businesses and increase profit margins, and households to dramatically reduce cost/lumen-output ratio (over 200% savings).  Further, the service increases productivity in villages as fuel doesn’t have to be procured on foot from cities that are usually 5-7 miles away.  Finally, HPS systems eliminate over 190 tons of CO2 emissions annually per village by replacing kerosene, diesel, and methane output with renewable sources.

Andrew Tanswell
ToughStuff, Madagascar
www.toughstuffonline.org
ToughStuff is a pro-poor social enterprise which provides solar-powered products for low income people, replacing expensive and environmentally damaging kerosene lamps and batteries.  Users substantially increase their incomes as these robust products that provide less expensive sources of light and power allowing them to work more effectively and live fuller lives.


Health and Education Initiatives

Joseph Brenyah
MOFIL, Christian Volunteer Service International, Ghana
www.cvsighana.com, www.moringaindustries.com
Under the Ghana Malnutrition Annihilation Project (Ghana MAP), Moringa Oleifera Farms and Industries Limited (MOFIL) produces and markets high quality, nutritious, natural and organic Moringa products.  Moringa products offer a local, inexpensive and appropriate solution to combat malnutrition and provide water purification, while improving farmlands and increasing agricultural yields through safe nutrient management.  Moringa, the main base or source of MOFIL products, contains more of the essential bio-available nutrients for the complete upkeep of the body than many commercial and natural products on the market.

Susan Ritchie
First Steps, North Korea
www.firststepscanada.org
First Steps is a Christian human development organization whose purpose is to prevent childhood malnutrition in DPR Korea through programs that provide essential nutrients to young children.  First Steps enables communities to produce their own soymilk and other foods using highly energy-efficient food-processing machines provided by First Steps.  First Steps partners with the North Korean government and communities to provide a daily cup of soymilk to more than 90,000 children.  Since soymilk is part of the traditional Korean diet, it is a highly desirable and a culturally acceptable food for children, many of who are chronically malnourished.

Yan Speranza
Fundación Moisés Bertoni (FMB), Paraguay, Argentina, Brazil
www.mbertoni.org.py
For all those companies that operate in the rural sector, particularly in intensively harvested and conflict prone areas in Paraguay, Argentina and Brazil, the Fundación Moisés Bertoni (FMB) offers an integrated system to create environmental, social, and economic alternatives for joint community-corporate management of local resources. Unlike the programs which only try to assist neighbors via donations, FMB offers an integrated solution with the support of skilled technical specialists for improving economic and social conditions.

Margarita Barney
Group to Promote Education and Sustainable Development (GRUPEDSAC), Mexico
www.grupedsac.org
GRUPEDSAC has been working for over 20 years to educate, train, and carry out activities to promote the development of sustainable societies for low income, small farmers in Mexico.  Simultaneously, the organization works on the development of environmental responsibility among all citizens through and appreciation of indigenous knowledge, skills and systems for increasing the well-being of rural communities.

Nik Kafka
Teach A Man To Fish (TAMTF), South America and Africa
www.teachamantofish.org.uk
TAMTF supports high schools in developing countries to adopt Education That Pays For Itself, an innovative approach designed to transform children from the poorest of families into economically successful graduates.  This approach overcomes access barriers by creating schools which are virtually free and focused on the entrepreneurial and practical skills needed for young people to lift themselves out of poverty.  Graduates from a TAMTF school typically earn 2.5 times as much as their peers.  Unlike alternative efforts, the TAMTF model is financially sustainable, allowing schools to run indefinitely without additional funding.

GSBI Class of 2009