GSBI™ 2010

Santa Clara University Center for Science, Technology, and Society
Global Social Benefit Incubator
2010 Cohort

Antonio Schettino
Act/If ElectroPower, Mexico
www.actifpower.com
Designs, manufactures, and installs efficient lighting solutions using Light Emitting Diodes (LEDs) for households, businesses, and municipalities in Mexico and abroad.  Each installed lantern can save roughly 300 kilograms of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere per year.  In addition, the markets that are served, in some instances, extend access to lighting in underserved and off-grid markets. 

Bright Naiman
Africa Biofuel and Emission Reduction Company, Tanzania
www.africabiofuel.com
Specializes in cultivating and producing biofuel for diesel generators, trucks, farming equipment, and other generators in rural Tanzania.  By 2018 it hopes to replace 13% of Tanzania's petroleum requirements with Pure Plant Oil Biofuel produced from the cultivation of indigenous, non-edible oil, croton seed tree.

Rolf Papsdorf
Alternative Energy Development Corporation (AEDC), South Africa
www.aedc.co.za
Manufactures and distributes zinc air fuel cells-- an electrolytic process that provides environmental friendly and maintenance free energy to off-grid communities.  Its unique approach to distribution involves the creation of up service shops in the areas of operation and training of local people to become self employed entrepreneurs.  AEDC systems have been implemented in South Africa, Namibia, Zambia, Malawi, and Lesotho.

Rajnish Jain
AVANI, India
www.avani-kumaon.org
Provides high quality, affordable cooking gas made from pine needle gasification to households in the Uttarakhand region of India at the same monthly cost as subsidized liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).  Its technology utilizes the extra gas in a generator to produce electricity which is sold to the local grid.  Families that cannot afford to purchase gas can earn cooking gas by exchanging their labor services in collecting pine needles for the gasifier.

Joseph Brenyah
Christian Volunteer Service International, Ghana
www.mofilghana.com
Under The Green Journey, 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 essential human nutrients than many commercial products and at a better price to customers and with important local livelihood benefits for local producers.

Hugh Whalan
Energy in Common (EIC), Worldwide
www.energyincommon.org
Makes small-scale remote and rural renewable energy projects financially feasible by partnering with microfinance institutions to provide interest free green energy loans and technical support.  It also uses small-scale carbon offset resources to build the capacity of microfinance organizations to implement their own carbon projects on a large scale.

Livingstone Bangi
Energy Plus, Uganda
Manufactures and markets pre-fabricated electric wiring systems for households, schools, hotels and other organizations in rural and peri-urban Uganda.  Prefab systems can reduce installation and wiring costs by 67% and improve maintenance efficiencies through increased standardization.

Somnath Pyne
The Force for Rural Empowerment and Economic Development (FREED), India
Provides services that enable cultivation and fuel extraction from Jatropha by utilizing abandoned/unused land like areas surrounding rails.  By collaborating with academic institutions, subject matter experts, retired bureaucrats, government officials, news media, and private companies it   seeks to develop the scalable “unit economics” that will enable wide scale replication

Devendra Shukla
Jaipur Rugs Foundation, India
www.jaipurrugs.org
Provides integrated supply chain and capacity building services for carpet artisans in vulnerable and marginalized regions, including the remote tribal areas of India. Supply chain services extend from providing raw material at the door step of weavers to market linkages through Jaipur Rugs Company.  The livelihoods of more than 40,000 artisans have benefited from Jaipur’s work.

Cliff Schmidt
Literacy Bridge, Ghana
www.literacybridge.org
Provides impoverished rural families with efficient, on-demand access to locally relevant audio knowledge using their "Talking Book" -- a simple and durable $10 audio computer to play, record, and copy spoken messages.  This device, with supporting content systems, empowers communities to improve the health and income of families in regions where literacy, access, and the need for affordable content dissemination tools are critical to extending the reach of educational content.

Daniel Bode
Mission Goorgoorlu, Senegal
Designs and support services for local fabrication of an affordable, durable, engine which runs on biodiesel.  Currently, farmers, fisher people and the Senegalese Government use these engines along the Saloum Delta and the Casamance River.  It hopes to incubate hub villages as 'gas stations' and processing plants for the Jatropha or other biofuels and expand to other river systems.

Cosmas Okoli
Mobility Aid and Appliances Research and Development Centre (MAARDEC), Nigeria
www.maardec.net
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 or unmarketable skills and limited services for positively impacting the quality of their lives.  MAARDEC pioneered a holistic approach to rehabilitation and empowerment that includes the following services: free guidance counseling; mentoring, skill acquisition, job creation and placement; advocacy and public enlightenment; sports promotion and the organization of motivational summits; affordable mobility aids; micro-finance and enterprise development: as well as the provision of physiotherapy services.  With a staff comprised 50 percent of individuals with disabilities, MAARDEC fabricates, assembles, repairs, and maintains various mobility aids and appliances.

Nigel Waller
Movirtu, Sub-Sahara Africa and South Asia
www.movirtu.com
Movirtu reinvents the way mobile phones are used so that rural poor can benefit from them by providing patent pending, innovative and low cost infrastructure products to mobile carriers who are servicing people living below the $2 a day poverty One of these products is the “cloud phone” which makes mobile phone services affordable for the 1 billion people who earn between $1-2 a day and cannot afford to buy a mobile phone, but still spend 5-30% of their income on mobile phone services through phone sharing or buy using village phones. The cloud phone is like having your own phone without the upfront and monthly transaction costs associated with it.  It provides greater convenience and enables individuals in this market segment to have their own phone number and identity, and save money while, at the same time increasing their potential to earn more income by being connected though local wireless network.

Faisal Islam
Padma Research and Development Organization, Bangladesh
www.rcpla.org/padma
Padma Research and Development Organization utilizes an Agricultural Knowledge Management System to improve access to agricultural knowledge for rural farmers, facilitate and resource management This increases crop security and to enables farmers to identify ways to scale up outputs and increase ecological and financial sustainability...  Padma’s purpose is to foster economic and social empowerment of agro entrepreneurs through increased  knowledge and capacity-building services that make effective use of  ICT to support these micro business.

Gbenga Sesan
Paradigm Initiative Nigeria, Nigeria
www.pinigeria.org
Paradigm Initiative Nigeria (PIN) is a social enterprise that connects underserved Nigerian youth with Information and Communication Technology (ICT) opportunities; while mitigating the ill effects of unemployment and channeling talented youth from lives involved with cybercrime and other vices that undermine the contributions of young Nigerians to the nation’s economy. Through its work with government, civil society, private institutions, and international organizations such as the United Nations, PIN has established new standards for enhanced ICT education, telecenter support, rural ICT applications, and other ICT development activities in Nigeria.

Sam White
Promethean Power Systems, India
www.coolectrica.com
Develops and manufactures a solar-powered cooling system for commercial cold-storage applications in developing countries. The energy efficient technology stores and preserves fresh food and enables dairies to immediately cool milk at village collection centers, cutting transportation costs in half, saving milk from spoiling, and enabling farmers to get a higher return.

Jason Aramburu
re:char, Worldwide
www.re-char.com
Designs and manufactures small-scale biomass pyrolysis plants which convert agricultural and animal wastes into carbon negative electricity and biochar.  Biochar is potentially an effective way to sequester atmospheric carbon and improve crop yields in a wide range of global markets.

Vivek Gupta
Saran Renewable Energy (SRE), India
www.saranrenew.com
Generates electricity using a biomass gasification system based on the use of “dhaincha” as a feedstock-- a local woody plant which grows in previously uncultivated, waterlogged, land.  This model provides cost-effective electricity to users and increased income to farmers.

Anita Moura
Solar Ear, Worldwide
www.solarear.com.br
Manufactures affordable solar power hearing aids and provides people with disabilities employment and development opportunities. Solar Ear enables low income hearing impaired customers to buy hearing aids and also provides and environmentally sustainable alternative to conservation-minded customers through a product line that includes:  (a) low cost hearing aids, that has the same quality of a traditional one, (b) solar battery charger and (c) rechargeable hearing aid batteries which cost the same as a zinc air but last 2-3 years instead of one week.

Jon Charles Gore
Tujijenge Afrika, Tanzania
www.tujijengeafrika.org
Provides flexible, transparent, and market sensitive financial products that empower people at the bottom of the pyramid to improve their quality of life.  Its products build the foundation of credit and savings that is needed to access technology healthcare and energy-related services at the base of the pyramid.

Laura Stachel
WE CARE Solar, Nigeria
www.wecaresolar.com
Enables the delivery of obstetric health care facilities in developing regions with solar powered lighting and communication that is cost-effective, reliable, user-friendly, and easy to maintain. By facilitating timely and efficient emergency obstetric care, these portable solar electric systems reduce maternal and infant morbidity and mortality in regions without reliable electricity.

Ella Silverman
World of Good Development Organization: SMS Labor Link, Worldwide
www.worldofgood.org
World of Good Development Organization through their SMS LaborLink, monitors supply chains in the developing world using a worker-centric, values-driven system that provides clothing brands with an on-line dashboard of the welfare and earnings of their workers. This system benefits tens of thousands of informal workers by providing them with economic empowerment through increased transparency and labor rights training that helps to overcome the highly fragmented reality of global manufacturing suppliers.

GSBI™-2010

1. An on-line, mentored, application process hosted on Social Edge and based on three business planning exercises designed to benefit all who participate. In the applicants define their organizations value proposition, target market (beneficiaries), and “social business” model (key income and expense drivers).
2. 20 organization selected from the application process receive scholarships for an online (4 month) and in-residence (2 week) program that involves “action learning” and mentoring to prepare a sustainable plan for their organization.
3. On-going mentoring and collaboration for all who complete the in-residence component.  

1. value proposition with demonstrated impact on important social issues for the Base of the Pyramid (BOP),
2. potential to impact a large target BOP market,
3. a business model with potential to scale rapidly while being financially self-sustaining (including contributed income); and
4. the application exercises have been completed by the top executive in the organization and that executive commits to completing the pre-work and attending the GSBI™.

1. Value Proposition (No Feedback after January 15, 2010)
2. Target Market (Beneficiary) Statement (No Feedback after February 4, 2010)
3. Definition of a Business Model (No Feedback after February 19, 2010)

GSBI Class of 2009:
Read about the Global Social Benefit Incubator's Class of 2009.

• Class of 2008
• Class of 2007

* The Scholarship:
The scholarship covers tuition, room, and board for the two-week intensive immersion program focused on venture planning, beneficiary analysis, business models, metrics and successful scaling strategies. Selected candidates are responsible for their travel expenses (airfare, ground transportation, passport, visa).

Why apply?

“The online application forces organizations to step back and assess the current market and competitive landscape and reconcile their original hypothesis, vocalize their value proposition and business model in the current market climate.”  
GSBI mentor Hardika Shah

“The experience of attending GSBI typically results in some major "ah-ha" moments. The collaborative work environment, the care and feeding from the faculty, guest speakers and mentors opens up numerous possibilities that most enterprises did not consider before.”
GSBI mentor Hardika Shah

“[Social Entrepreneurs] experience the kind of isolation that many entrepreneurs face when the weight of your organization's success rests on your shoulders, you're working long hours, and you are so busy with your daily challenges that you don't often get the chance to step back, look strategically at your organization, and get mentoring and support from others.  This is a real benefit of the GSBI program.” 
GSBI mentor Vicky Mattson

“One of the most valuable aspects of attending the GSBI is the mentorship from Silicon Valley veterans. ...The mentors help open doors for funding opportunities, for pro-bono consulting work when the SBEs return, and continue to be available as a sounding board.” 
GSBI mentor Hardika Shah

“[We], along with our mentoring counterparts, are always quick to say that we gain so much more than we give through the mentoring process.  ... Our interactions with the GSBI program and especially with the social entrepreneurs leave us feeling hopeful about a future that is more just, peaceful and equitable.”
GSBI mentor Vicky Mattson