global social venture

[chris macrae]

http://www.gsvc.org/about_gsvc/

The Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC) provides aspiring entrepreneurs with mentoring, exposure, and $50,000 in prizes to transform their ideas into businesses that will have positive real world impact. Founded by MBA students at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, the GSVC has evolved into a global network supported by an international community of volunteer judges, mentors and student organizers and a partnership of premier business schools in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa.

In 2012, GSVC received over 600 entries from 50 countries. Previous years’ finalists include Husk Power, Revolution Foods, and d.light design. Since its inception in 1999, the GSVC has awarded more than a quarter of a million dollars to emerging social ventures and has introduced early-stage social venture entrepreneurs to the investment community.

• Partner Universities
  • Haas School of Business - UC Berkeley
  • Columbia Business School
  • London Business School
  • Indian School of Business
  • Thammasat University
  • ESSEC Business School
  • Social Venture Competition Asia
  • GSVC China
  • ALTIS, Postgraduate School of Business & Society
  • Outreach Partners
• Our Sponsors

Congratulations to the 2012 GSVC Finalists

GSVC Finalist Team Presentations:

InBelly

Spill

FasoProt

Mapability

Exygen

Greenovation Technologies

NEWS:CONGRATULATIONS to the 2012 GSVC Round 2 Finalists: Exygen, FasoProt, Greennovation Technologies, InBelly, Mapability, and Spill!

NEWS:CONGRATULATIONS to the 2012 GSVC Winners! First Place: Spill. Second Place: Greennovation. Third Place: Exygen. Social Impact Assessment Award: FasoProt. People's Choice Quick Pitch Award: Watsi.

 

2VIDASUniversity of California, Berkeley,

finalist file attached

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next competition final in berkeley april 2013

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history 2011t place: Next Drop 2nd Place: Sanergy 3rd Place: Tree Planet >SIA Winner: Sanergy SIA Runner up (tie): Prakti Design SIA Runner up (tie): Magnivy

Check out video of all the 2011 pitches, as well as clips from the Ideas to impact conference. Watch now

Past GSVC Entrants Share their Experiences

* See videos from past entrants on our youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/GSVC2011?feature=mhsn

Jonathan Greenblat, Co-Founder, Ethos Water

“The act of writing the summary was instructive and helped us to narrow our focus.  The practice of presenting was good, too.  We also really benefited from the hard work around calculating our Social Return on Investment (SROI). [My advice to future entrants is to] take the time to get [SROI] right.  The GSVC-inspired practice helped us make the social impact case to prospective investors and partners.”

“There were so few sources of early stage capital for socially responsible businesses- GSVC was an oasis!  We were attracted to the funding and recognition that came from [the competition].”

Aynsley Toole, Student Entrant with MicroEnergy Credits

“GSVC gave the founders of MicroEnergy Credits the opportunity to get feedback from a lot of people…with different perspectives. The GSVC also helped [my] career by facilitating connection to people in the carbon credits industry.”

Manoj Sinha, Co-Founder, Husk Power Systems

“[We chose to enter GSVC because it] was more competitive and better attended than any other socially-oriented business plan competition. Also, the location of GSVC competition (close to Silicon Valley and venture capitalists) gives it an advantage.

“The competition provided great practice in writing actual, usable business plans – and the feedback in stages two and three of the competition also was extremely helpful in improving upon the existing business plan.  The SIA component of the competition was unique, but also extremely helpful in translating qualitative output into numbers… and was useful when presenting to potential and existing funders.

“[My advice to entrants is to] take advantage of mentorship, and listen to feedback from judges because you can really create a solid business plan through the process.”

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2010 winners

2010 Winners

1st place: ($25,000)

Re:Motion Designs

Stanford University, USA

With 80% of the world’s amputees living in developing countries, there is a profound need for low-cost lower limb prostheses for the developing world. Modern assistive technology has the potential to re-mobilize lower limb amputees, but at a cost typically in the thousands of dollars. Re:Motion Designs is a for-benefit venture that provides high performance, extreme-affordability prosthetics for the 20 Million amputees in the developing world. Our initial product, the JaipurKnee, is a polymer-based polycentric knee joint that can be manufactured for less than $20 USD, and has been featured by Time Magazine, CNN, BusinessWeek and Fast Company as a major innovation of 2009. Compared with existing low-cost prosthetic knee joints, the JaipurKnee provides a new class of stability and gait efficiency for above-knee amputees, and is currently in field trials in India with over 700 patients fitted to date. For more information visit http://www.remotiondesigns.org.

2nd place: ($10,000)

Ruma

Harvard Business School, USA

Of the 250 million people in Indonesia, 3/4 live below $2.5 a day, and 2/3 have mobile phones. Ninety percent of these users buy prepaid minutes instead of paying a monthly bill. Ruma sells a business-in-a-box that enables small entrepreneurs to sell prepaid minutes. We buy minutes at a discount from 10 telecom operators and store them in our server. When a customer buys minutes from our entrepreneur, we send the minutes electronically via SMS thereby reducing the need for a physical voucher. We worked with Grameen Foundation to develop this model, which is essentially the next evolution of the Grameen Phone.  As of March 2010, we’ve deployed a network of 2,000 entrepreneurs, $3,000 worth of minutes to 80,000 customers each day. Seventy percent of our entrepreneurs were below the poverty line when they joined; now 100% are profitable. We plan to launch a jobs market, micro-insurance and retail application using our prepaid minutes platform.

3rd place: ($5,000)

Bags of Hope

Guanghua School of Management – Peking University, China

Our company is dedicated to promoting a program named Stacks of Straw, Bags of Hope. We create job opportunities for millions of rural women who are bound to the land in remote areas making very low income to support their families. We provide training for them to process straws to weave bags and promote the distinct local culture through bag design. In this way, we can also prevent tons of straws from being burnt as fertilizers, reducing significant CO2 emission. We plan to sell those straw bags at high-end supermarkets in major cities in China. 30% of our profit will be donated to schools in areas we have cooperation relationships to purchase books. We firmly believe if you give a man a job, you help him only for some time; if you offer a man better education, you help him for a lifetime.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Winner

WE CARE Solar ($5,000)

Haas School of Business – UC Berkeley, USA

WE CARE (Women’s Emergency Communication and Reliable Electricity) Solar is a social enterprise that saves lives of childbearing mothers and infants in developing regions by providing obstetric health facilities with solar power for lighting, mobile communication and essential medical devices. Pregnancy-related complications cause over 500,000 maternal deaths annually, primarily in Africa and South Asia. Life-saving obstetric care requires reliable lighting, communication and electricity. Approximately 300,000 health facilities worldwide lack this basic infrastructure. WE CARE Solar has developed and field-tested the Solar Suitcase, a user-friendly, portable, plug-and-play solar-electric system that ensures electricity, lighting, and communication for maternity care in low-resource settings.   In addition, WE CARE is leveraging and building local market-based capacity and partnerships to distribute, install and maintain these systems. The Solar Suitcase facilitates timely and effective emergency care and reduces maternal and infant morbidity and mortality, thus enhancing family productivity, strengthening health systems, and improving markets for renewable energy.-------------

 

2009 winners

1st place: ($25,000)

EcoFaeBrick

Prasetiya Mulya Business School, Indonesia

EcoFaeBrick, in conjunction with Faerumnesia, produces high quality and low price bricks by utilizing the abundant cow dung in Godean and Sayegan, Jogjakarta. The utilization of the cow dung will not only solve the hygiene problem but also reduce the exploitation of the un-renewable clay. The replacement of firewood with the cow dung methane biogas in the combustion process brings a lower production cost with a more environmental friendly process. EcoFaeBrick also empowers rural people through close partnership with local communities.

Using a business model which involves the housing developers, NGOs, and local communities, EcoFaeBrick builds a sustainable market demand to ensure an interesting financial return to the investors. The EcoFaeBrick’s expansion plan focuses on areas with rapid development and high concentration of cattle farm. EcoFaeBrick offers a feasible solution for rapidly developing areas not only in Indonesia but also in other emerging countries.

2nd place: ($10,000)

mPedigree Logistics

Dartmouth University Tuck School of Business

mPedigree Logistics provides pharmaceutical companies with robust anti-counterfeit solutions appropriate for emerging markets, with added value via mobile marketing and granular supply chain oversight. The WHO estimates that up to 30% of drugs sold in developing nations are fakes, containing little to no active ingredients or laced with malicious chemicals. The growing global counterfeit drug market is estimated to reach US $75 billion by 2010, forming about 10% of all global pharmaceutical trade. Our technology leverages the power of 4 billion cell phones worldwide. With our service, consumers can check their drugs before use with a simple text message. Genuine manufacturers can reclaim market share lost to counterfeiters while boosting sales with targeted advertisements at the point of purchase, a world-first innovation.

3rd place: ($5,000)

SolarCycle

George Washington University School of Business

SolarCycle's primary innovation is a low-cost reflective material made from used plastic bags and the interior of metalized chip bags that can replace mirrors in solar concentrating applications for developing countries. We've designed this product to help low-income urban Africans turn a local trash problem into a cheap, green and revolutionary new product that can assist rural people with both solar cooking and water pasteurization.

SolarCycle will address the staggering environmental damage and negative health effects caused by contaminated drinking water and indoor air pollution in the developing world with its two products. A solar cooker made from our material would be durable and the most affordable on the market. Additionally, we have developed a novel pasteurizer design that takes advantage of a large collection area made possible by the low cost of our material to purify water for an entire village for ten years for only $350.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Winner

BrightMind Labs ($5,000)

University of Auckland, New Zealand

There is fantastic educational gaming made for the likes of Nintendo. And it works. BrightMind Labs are applying these proven principles to meet psychological needs. By creating world-class, clinically robust computer games that young people actually want to play, they aim to bring the therapist’s couch into the living room. Immersive gaming will be developed for the likes of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. But first, BrightMind Labs will test and perfect their business model with their first product – a game created to teach children on the autistic spectrum to recognise and respond to emotions.

2008 winners

2008 Winners

1st Place: ($25,000)

MicroEnergy Credit Corporation

Columbia Business School

Roughly 2.5 billion people worldwide suffer from “energy poverty”; a lack of access to affordable, healthy, and environmentally friendly ways to heat, light, and provide income for their families. MicroEnergy Credits Corporation makes use of the carbon emissions cap-and-trade markets to help Microfinance institutions offer clean, efficient energy products to their customer base of over 250 million microentrepreneurs. This makes energy-efficient products like solar electric lighting, efficient cookstoves, and local biogas cooking fuel, accessible and affordable to poor households. MECC bridges the gap between the $30 Billion carbon markets and billions of people making clean energy choices.

2nd Place: ($10,000)

Bio Power Technology

Prasetiya Mulya Business School, Indonesia

Bio Power Technology (BPT) was initiated in response to electricity shortage in Indonesia. BPT involves local farmers and communities and uses agricultural waste to create electricity, thus creating business sustainability as well as social and financial return on investment. Supported by a powerful management team and an experienced board of advisors, BPT aspires to increase overall quality of life for Indonesian people.

3rd Place: ($5,000)

BioVolt

MIT Sloan School of Management

BioVolt’s mission is to bring low-cost, clean, renewable energy generation to off-grid rural, remote customers worldwide. The company has developed a microbial fuel cell (MFC) with innovative and patent-pending catalyst and membrane technology that directly converts cellulose into electricity. Our customers are renewable energy distributors and installers in developing countries that have access to novel credit/financing instruments and serve low-income communities that have difficulty accessing the electricity grid. Throughout this effort, BioVolt will develop the technology for higher efficiency and larger scale applications to fulfill its long term vision of becoming the industry leader in microbial fuel cell products.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Winner

SMART - Sustainable Marine Adventures and Responsible Tourism ($5,000)

Thammasat University, Thailand

SMART (Sustainable Marine Adventures and Responsible Tourism) is being launched to commercialize the successful environmental and social initiatives that have been generated by the Ecotourism Training Center (ETC) for the last three years. Founded originally as a grassroots relief effort to help affected people in areas devastated by the Asian Tsunami of 2004, ETC has proved that it can train low-income local inhabitants with high-level driving and reef conservation skills. SMART is the commercial arm of the ETS and provides dive tours in the lucrative market in Southeast Asia. The company will be launched in Thailand, which receives over 500,000 tourists who come to the country to specifically dive. SMART will build additional dive operations in neighboring Southeast Asia countries which have large or growing dive industries, have a need to develop sustainable environmental management practices in order to preserve its natural and tourism resources, and large discrepancies between incomes of local inhabitants and the large number of international visitors.

2007 winners

2007 Winners

1st Place: ($25,000)

Revolution Foods

Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley

Revolution Foods transforms school food service by providing healthy meals, nutrition education, and operational support for schools in California. We provide schools with a comprehensive and robust meal solution that nurtures the bodies and minds of students. Using many natural and organic products from healthy food suppliers such as Whole Foods, our meals are homestyle, kid-friendly, and made with care. Our focus is on serving communities with traditionally low access to healthy food; a majority of our school customers are public schools in low-income neighborhoods.

2nd Place: ($5,000)

Feed Resource Recovery

Babson College

Feed Resource Recovery provides the food industry cost-effective waste disposal solutions that capture and reuse valuable nutrients and energy from previously discarded food waste — mirroring nature’s regenerative cycles. Feed Resource Recovery’s onsite waste conversion systems produce renewable energy and organic fertilizer from the food waste generated by supermarkets and restaurants. Employing the intelligence of nature, Feed’s systems redefine the meaning of garbage and break the wasteful cycle of food production in the United States, where more than 40 percent of food is simply thrown away.

2nd Place: ($5,000)

d.light design

Stanford Graduate School of Business

1.6 billion people live without electricity, spending up to one-third of their income on kerosene. They represent a $38B fuel-based lighting market. LED technology provides lighting solutions that are cheaper, safer, and brighter than fuel-based lighting. d.light is a for-profit company and our mission is to develop and commercialize sustainable lighting and power solutions for off-grid rural markets.

2nd Place: ($5,000)

Verdacure

Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand

Verdacure is an affordable high-quality natural ingredients medicine producer. Its first product, PerioVerda is the only periodontal disease solution that can inhibit bacterial growth and promote growth of gum tissue that will help patients to save time and money. The great business opportunity from PerioVerda allows a symbiotic business model, where selling PerioVerda to patients with access to dental service providers pays the activities provided affordable mobile dental education and treatment for rural villagers who have no dental care access, which allows Verdacure's technology and expertise to be deployed equally to both targets, while delivering superior financial and social benefits.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Winner

d.light design ($5,000)

Stanford Graduate School of Business

 

2006 Winners

1st Place:

Mobile Medics

Columbia Business School and BITS Pilani team

Mobile Medics is a private healthcare service company specializing in providing medical treatment to rural villages in India. The Company provides private sector, high quality, and affordable medical care to paying villagers. The Company is targeting the 80 -100 million middle-income Indian villagers who are in dire need of quality medical treatment. Mobile Medics employs trained medical professionals on a full time basis to provide a quality of care that would meet highest standards of primary care provided in the private sector.

2nd Place:

Advanced Transit Enterprises

Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College

Advanced Transit Enterprises (ATE) commercializes heavy truckaerodynamics technology to reduce global oil consumption by over 200 million barrels annually. The US trucking industry spends over $25billion per year on fuel. ATE's patented drag reduction technology improves fuel efficiency of trucks by 8% and has the potential to save fleet vehicle operators hundreds of millions of dollars annually.

3rd Place:

The Highland Tea Company

Columbia Business School

The Highland Tea Company is an importer, manufacturer and distributor of Kenyan specialty teas. Our goal is to contribute to the economic growth of Kenya by creating a Fair Trade for Tea program.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Winner:

OneWorld Medical Devices

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

OneWorld Medical Devices (OneWorldMD) is introducing a vital and innovative solution to save the lives of 4.3M people each year, primarily in developing countries and during natural disasters, which can be largely prevented by a safe vaccine supply. The Vaccine Pac is a portable, self-contained, and strict temperature controlled transport and storage unit that addresses the large vaccine wastage problem due to improper temperature control.

2005 Winners

1st Place:

World of Good

University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business

World of Good’s new line of globally sourced, fair trade gifts and accessories brings ethically sourced handcrafts into the mainstream retail market and aims to generate sustainable livelihoods for thousands of artisans around the world. During 2004, its first year of operations, World of Good established sourcing partnerships with 70 fair trade artisan cooperatives in 20 different countries around the globe and increased sales for all of them. Products are sourced under fair trade guidelines that generate employment for women and disadvantaged communities, promise a living wage and promote social and economic development. World of Good also contributes a percentage of its revenues to World of Good: Development Organization a 501(c)3 non-profit working on economic development projects in artisan communities and on the development of fair trade standards. Just months after World of Good installed its first in-store kiosk, our products are flying off the shelves in over 55 retail locations, including bookstores, yoga studios and 14 Whole Foods Bay Area stores. World of Good’s 2004 run rate was over $400,000 in sales and its products have turned significantly faster than retail industry averages while generating markups of 100% for both retailers and World of Good. World of Good projects its 2007 revenues to be over $20 million.

2nd Place:

Connect US

Columbia Business School

Connect US' goal is to minimize the $100 to $300 billion social and financial burden of patient non-compliance in the U.S. healthcare system ¹ . The company's stategy is to provide the pharmaceutical industry with value-added wireless messaging solutions to remind patients to take mediation as originally prescribed by their physicians. Reminders will be created at the prescription's point of sale at no cost to the patient. Messages will be broadcast in real time during the patient's treatment in order ot prevent forgetfulness (main cause of non-compliance) as well as to educate patients of the drug's benefits and side effects. Over time, Connect US aspires to create a whole new market: Interactive Business-to-Patient (B2P) communications. The Company's vision is to become the leading international provider of low cost, personalized and highly interactive B2P solutions for the healthcare value chain.

¹ Source: Fortune 500, April 14, 2004: A tough pill to swallow

3rd Place:

Fuelture

University of Pennsylvania, Wharton and London Business School

Fuelture is a start-up business proposing to achieve high economic returns and high social returns by promoting the use of automotive propane or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) by high mileage urban drivers, namely taxis, Private Hire Vehicles and small delivery vans.  Through switching to LPG, commercial high mileage drivers can significantly reduce their running cost, improving their profitability. Fuelture proposes to simplify the conversion process for them, supply LPG fuel through a chain of filling stations and offer additional services of managing their vehicle or their fleet.  LPG as a transport fuel specifically in densely populated urban areas has very high benefits for urban air quality and the health of the urban population, as it emits up to 90% less NOx, SO2 and particulates than conventional fuels. Hence this is a very strong case for a blended value business proposal.

Honorable Mentions

Fuerza Research

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

Fuerza Research is a market research firm with an unusually intimate knowledge the urban, Hispanic teen population. Fuerza closes a significant gap in the market for consumer research in Hispanic teens while employing and investing in talented teens. Fuerza has a unique research and training methodology which trains Hispanic teenagers to serve as research field agents and focus group moderators, through a hands-on, experiential learning process. To our customers, which include consumer companies, policy agencies, and market and branding agencies, Fuerza can provide in-depth insights into urban, Hispanic teen values and culture. To our teen employees, Fuerza is a source of hope and strength: an empowering start to a productive, well-paying, secure future. Fuerza Research recognizes that it is the teens’ insight, more so than adult supervisors, who create value for our clients. As a result, the teens and their communities deserve fair compensation and transferable skills in return for their superior insights. Fuerza Research captures and enhances the inherent value Hispanic teens provide to global companies, who wish to understand them, and redirects it back into the hands of the UHT segment. It is the combination of commercial need, strategically linked to the potential for meaningful social contribution that makes Fuerza such an exciting investment opportunity.

MicroCredit Enterprises

UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business/ UC Davis, Graduate School of Management

MicroCredit Enterprises, LLC (MCE) seeks to establish an innovative socially-responsible investment fund targeting the microfinance sector. The goal of this fund is two-fold:

1. To provide low-cost capital to microfinance institutions (MFIs) that provides business loans to poor microentrepreneurs in developing countries.
2. To offer high net-worth individual and institutional investors an opportunity to leverage their investment activities for social purposes while maintaining full control over their accounts and earning a market return on their investment.

To accomplish these goals, MCE is forming a strategic relationship with a major financial services company to establish MicroCredit Enterprises Investment Accounts (MEIA). Domestic investors will commit a minimum of $1 million to open a MEIA. At the same time, investors will give MCE the authority to use their assets as collateral to obtain a low-interest line of credit from the financial services company.  In turn, MCE will utilize this line of credit to extend low-interest loans to MFIs in developing countries. These loans will allow MFIs to increase their ability to offer microcredit which allow poor individuals to engage in income-generating activities.

Social Impact Assessment (SIA) Winner

Human Service Fellowship

Northwestern University, Kellogg School of Management

Our venture is directed at the AIDS crisis in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nearly ten-thousand people are dying every day. This is not solely for lack of financial resources, as funding for AIDS work has increased at a 45% annual growth rate for the last ten years. The key problem is lack of skilled health labor.

HIV/AIDS organizations in Sub-Saharan Africa currently spend $20,000 in total employment and recruiting cost to bring an AIDS-experienced, American health worker to help deal with this problem. Experienced Americans are ideal for their ability to train others, and lack of professional commitments in Africa. By training others, they create a lasting legacy of life.

Unfortunately, this mark operates with gross inefficiency. Our goal is to provide a total employment solution for this niche market. A health organization will be able to "order" an American AIDS worker, screen a short-list of resumes within one month, and have a resource on the ground within three month's total time. By removing market frictions, we hope to dramatically expand the supply of AIDS-experienced health labor in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Social Impact Assessment Honorable Mention

World of Good

University of California, Berkeley, Haas School of Business

 

 

[chris macrae]

GSVC 2013 Global Finalist Teams -final april 11 http://www.gsvc.org/finals-conference/2013_global_finalists/

 

AtRium, South Korea

The low income families in the world's cold regions suffer not only from cold weather but also from problems such as fuel costs, illness, and pollution due to their outdated, inefficient stove heating system. AtRium addresses these socio-economic and environmental issues through an affordable heat absorber, G-saver, which is developed based on appropriate technology. Our primary target is Mongolian households living in a "Ger." Later we will expand to other cold regions such as Inner Mongolia and Kazakhstan, and also to developed countries with our technology. Built on a consortium among Good Neighbors (NGO), Good Sharing (Social Venture), and Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (Academia), we aim to contribute to building a sustainable ecosystem that balances economic and social values by pursuing sustainable profit generation, improving the quality of life of low income families, protecting the environment, and developing local economy in cold regions.

 

BrainControl, Italy

BrainControl is a breakthrough technology that gives disabled people the power to control objects with their minds, allowing them to control a communicator, domotic devices (lights, doors, windows, alarms, temperature, bed position, etc.), wheelchairs, and other assistive technologies. Based on a proprietary Brain-Computer Interfaces technology (BCI), BrainControl interprets the electric map that correspond to certain brain activity and allows patients to control a tablet PC through specific thoughts, overcoming physical disability, and improving communication and environmental control. The focus is on assistive applications for people affected by degenerative neuromuscular disease (multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis - ALS) and ischemic or traumatic injury, which each year affects more than 3 million patients. BrainControl is the world’s first assistive technology that is usable by people in “locked-in” state.

 

Carbon Roots International, Haiti

Carbon Roots International (CRI) started as an idea to explore the potential of carbon-rich char as a tool for international development. The idea evolved from a chain of emails between three friends, to meetings over lunch, to a trip to rural Haiti in 2010. Upon returning to the United States, CRI’s three co-founders established the organization to enable the adoption of char technologies in Haiti. CRI’s work served as the basis for co-founder Ryan Delaney’s Master’s thesis at Arizona State University’s School of Sustainability, and compelled another co-founder, Hannah Erickson, to pursue a graduate degree at the University of Michigan’s School of Natural Resources and Environment. After several years of refining technology and testing solutions, CRI has produced a feasible, scalable business plan that addresses two overlapping issues—charcoal fuel use and low agricultural productivity—which converge in Haiti, but are endemic throughout the developing world.

 

CSA Munching Box, Thailand

CSA Munching Box is a community-supported agriculture (CSA) program providing weekly subscription-based delivery of seasonal, organic fresh fruit and vegetables direct from the farms to customers’ doorsteps and bringing the customers closer to our farmer networks in rural areas. We also serve as a distribution platform linking artisanal food producers to the urban market. Additionally, CSA Munching Box brings positive social impacts to its partners. We also use packaging made from recycled materials as well as deliver our products via bicycle couriers to reduce carbon footprint. The primary target customer group is the health-conscious and discerning consumers in major cities across Thailand. This group tends to have more knowledge about CSA, appreciates the concept, and possesses higher purchasing power.

 

Damascus Fortune, India

We at Damascus Fortune not only clean the planet, but have made the whole carbon conversion process profitable. We sequester carbon from carbon emitting industries and convert it into one of the strongest materials known to man – carbon nanotubes, carbon fibers and carbon nanorods. Our products are ultra-low cost as we use the waste emission and heat from the industry itself. We wish to start a composite manufacturing plant from in-house manufactured carbon structures to cater to automobile, aircraft, construction and other industries. We are seeking support to scale into new markets globally. 

 

E-Lamp, China

E-Lamp is an intelligent lighting control system. It can adjust the color and brightness level of the LED light source by remote control using a mobile device. It can be used in agriculture: as the population of the world continues to grow, more food and crops are needed. As plants at different growth stages require specific spectral and wavelength, production could be sped up using E-Lamp’s adjustment of light intensity and spectral wavelength. The mobile device remote control can be used in agricultural greenhouses to centralize control of E-Lamp equipment in a single region or multiple regions to make the management more convenient. E-Lamp also can be used to improve disabled people’s daily life, allowing them to easily control the light and adjust the color to match their mood, even for psychological treatment.

 

Essmart, USA/India

Millions of people have unmet essential needs, such as clean water and safe, reliable lighting. Hundreds of essential technologies that meet these needs already exist, such as non-electric water filters and affordable off-grid solar lanterns. However, these technologies are not reaching the people they were designed to benefit. Essmart builds an essential marketplace for these products in places where people already shop - their local retail shops - so that everyone can access them.

 

Faso Soap, Burkina Faso

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about half of the world population is still at risk of contracting malaria. In 2010, among 219 million people affected, there were 660,000 deaths, of which 91% were in Africa where malaria remains the leading cause of death. Particularly vulnerable individuals are pregnant women, children under 5 and HIV patients. Considering this alarming report, Moctar Dembele and Gérard Niyondiko, two students from 2iE Foundation, have found an innovative solution through the project Faso Soap. The "soap of Faso" offers an innovative solution for the prevention of malaria, which takes into account financial constraints and cultural habits of African families. The company will produce and market both antibacterial and anti-mosquito soaps made with 100% local resources to integrate prevention against malaria in the daily lives of people most affected by this scourge. Faso Soap: “The action of a group, the future of an entire nation.”

 

Jorsey Ashbel Farms (JAF), Nigeria

Jorsey Ashbel Farms (JAF) is an unconventional livestock farm pioneering a groundbreaking approach to tackling the poverty problem of Protein-Energy Malnutrition, which affects millions of disadvantaged children and women. JAF produces Nigeria’s cheapest livestock products using an innovative, scientifically proven, low-cost livestock feed production technique combined with an innovative deployment strategy.

 

Nafa Naana, Burkina Faso

Armel Guenguere, Operations Director, has 10 years of experience in accounting and logistics on development issues. She realized the first feasibility study for Nafa Naaa in 2009 and perfectly masters rural and urban local contexts. Armel maintains excellent relationships with key partners and community leaders. Claire Le Ster, Director, graduated from ESSEC Business School with a specialization in social entrepreneurship. She has been working closely with the field team for two years to refine and develop the Nafa Naana model on a larger scale. Nafa Naana is also technically supported by the French NGO Entrepreneurs du Monde specialized in social microfinance and with an expert team dedicated to access to energy for the BOP.

 

Pedius, Italy

Pedius is a communication system helping deaf people to make normal phone calls, using voice recognition technologies and speech synthesis. Pedius’ users can call all emergency numbers for free, as well as all partner companies supporting our accessibility program who agree to pay a fee and provide users a toll free access number. Users can also call private numbers, paying an affordable fee comparable to what is offered by VoIP communication providers. The goal of Pedius is the reduction of communication barriers for deaf people, enabling phone services for all and at the same time increasing the visibility of our accessibility partner companies.

 

PulpWorks, Inc., USA

The planet is choking in garbage – toxic, enduring waste. And the single worst culprit is packaging - thirteen bathtubs full per year for each person on the planet; in the U.S. alone, 31 million tons of plastic waste was generated last year. PVC is the world’s leading toxic packaging material. Consumer packaged goods companies are seeking a cost-effective, sustainable replacement for their current unsustainable PVC packaging. To address this crisis, PulpWorks has created a compostable, all-pulp-and-paper alternative to toxic plastic (PVC) blister packaging. Our patent-pending package is, in essence, the “un-blister”. It showcases products in the same manner as traditional blister packs, but, rather than ending up in a landfill, the entire package can be composted after opening. Increasing consumer and regulatory pressure will eventually remove PVC from the marketplace. As designers and manufacturers of eco-friendly packaging, PulpWorks will reap the rewards of this marketplace shift.

 

Reel Gardening, South Africa

Reel Gardening is a manufacturing company that aims to make gardening simple. Its main product is a biodegradable strip that encases organic fertilizer and open pollinated seed at the correct depth in the soil, and the correct distance apart. Reel Gardening indicates where each plant will sprout allowing for watering to be localized, enabling a saving of 80% water in the germination phase. The strip also helps restore soil fertility as the paper breaks down and the vegetable based inks and organic fertilizer seep into the soil. The Reel Gardening team is made up of Claire Reid (Inventor and Founder), Sean Blanckenberg (Director at Reel Gardening), Emily Jones (Project Manager at Reel Gardening), Greg Macfarlane (Financial Advisor) and Dianna Moore (Business Advisor). For more information, visithttp://www.reelgardening.co.za.

 

Sunshine Library Rural Digital Education Initiative, China

Sunshine Library Rural Digital Education Initiative (Sunshine Library) is a social venture seeking to improve rural education in China via modern technology. We aim to provide a comprehensive education solution to under-resourced, rural schools using specially designed tablet PCs. Sunshine Library does not only provide tablet PCs for under-resourced schools, nor do we place our volunteer teachers in rural schools. Leveraging information technology, we provide an integrated solution with a sustainable model of operation. We designed a tablet PC, the Sunbook, and educational apps customized to the needs of students, teachers, and schools in rural setting. Then, we deliver the tablets with Internet access to rural students, new teaching methods to teachers, and extensive educational resources to schools, hoping to eliminate education inequity. Now, we have provided 2,000 tablets for students and teachers in 4 rural schools in western China.

 

TOHL, USA/Chile

TOHL developed a patent-pending technology for installing pipelines cheaply, quickly sustainably, and in any location. This technology utilizes much longer segments of pipeline than what is traditionally used. Single segments of pipeline are manufactured in lengths of 500 meters to several kilometers, and these long segments are loaded directly onto large spools that are deployed via helicopter or truck. The pipelines have fewer connections, which decreases labor hours during installation and allows the pipelines to be in operation faster than is possible if using conventional infrastructure technology. The patent-pending helicopter installations method also allows for TOHL to access remote areas that previously could not be reached, which is significant, because valuable water sources are often inaccessible. Lastly, TOHL’s technology also offers the service of pipeline removal and re-use, when the pipeline is only needed for temporary applications. The tubing is re-spooled and recycled for other projects saving money and resources.

 

Vi-Care, India

Vi-Care is a one-of-a-kind company in India, and is on its way to formation to provide a low cost solution to address the problem of high infant mortality due to pneumonia in rural India. Vi-Care focuses on implementing a cost effective solution for the timely detection of pneumonia in infants, keeping in mind the lack of healthcare infrastructure in rural areas. Vi-Care’s solution involves the use of ubiquitous mobile phones to detect pneumonia in infants. Vi-Care provides a unique diagnostic application (i-Treat) capable of performing preliminary but informative diagnosis of pneumonia without requiring any external infrastructure or expert intervention, thereby greatly improving the chances of survival of infants in rural areas. The value proposition of Vi-Care rests upon providing an unrivaled, cost-effective approach to timely detect pneumonia in low-income, rural areas, keeping in mind the financial constraints of the people.

 

Wedu, Thailand

Wedu catalyzes the next generation of local female leaders by providing innovative financing options for university and the lifelong support of mentors. We create a sustainable and positive cycle of development by identifying girls committed to local issues; investing in their education; mentoring them to lead and creating incentives for them to repay the funds to serve more girls. We envision a world where people from the most underprivileged backgrounds have the tools to change their lives and their home country by being masters of their own development. We started operations in Cambodia and Myanmar, built partnerships from the U.S. to Japan, united a league of extraordinary advisers and mentors from the Acumen Fund, Husk Power Systems, Unreasonable Institute and beyond. Wedu is Social Enterprise Startup of 2012 at Cambridge University, GSVC-SEA Winner, Semi-Finalist for the Echoing Green Fellowship and in the Top 10 Global Solution Award at Women Deliver 2013.

 

WOOF, Hong Kong

WOOF is a premium fashion brand producing elegant, yet quirky and fun fashion accessories. What makes us different is that our line of goods is produced by Chiengora (dog hair). WOOF’s raw material is collected from various grooming stores and animal welfare organizations. The grooming division of our current NGO partner, the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), provides over 60% of the dog hair raw material for WOOF production. WOOF ensures that all our sources of material are 100% animal-friendly. WOOF production is a technology innovation. We are currently co-developing the machine spinning technology with our academic partner, the Institute of Textile and Clothing (ITC) from the Poly University of Hong Kong. Through fashion, WOOF aims to change attitudes towards animals. We aim to do this through two means: 1) reducing animal surrenders and increasing animal adoptions, and 2) improving the living conditions of animals.