sustainable vision

Submitted by tim on Fri, 10/12/2012 - 09:42

Baisikeli Ugunduzi, the tubeless tire E-Team, has a new video and a fundraising campaign--check it out!

Sanergy making good progress

Submitted by tim on Thu, 10/11/2012 - 15:44

The Sanergy team from MIT continues to reach toward their goal of providing hygienic, accessible, affordable sanitation for everyone in Nairobi's urban slums. In the last month, they have:

    •    Sold 103 Fresh Life Toilets and franchised to 50 entrepreneurs
    •    Created 122 jobs
    •    Removed 170 metric tons of waste from the community
    •    Served 1,000,000 paying customers with hygienic sanitation

Reaching these numbers relies heavily on their Fresh Life Operators successfully running Fresh Life Toilets. Mercyline Atieno (pictured above) is one of their newest Fresh Life Operators. Mercyline runs a vegetable stand and rents out stalls in the Viwandani section of Mukuru slum. When they spoke to her about why she wanted to open a Fresh Life Toilet, she told them how she wanted to give her children--particularly her girls--choices that she did not have due to limited education. She plans to use the income from the operation of the toilet for school fees. Mercyline's toilet is now up and running, and she has joined their FLO advisory council to represent her section of Mukuru.

Check out this Voice of America spotlight on Sanergy.

Injerama: Social Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development in Ethiopia (NutrAfrica)

Pennsylvania State University, 2011 - $51,200

Injera is a spongy sourdough flatbread made from the Ethiopian grain t’ef. It is a staple of Ethiopian meals, and it is usually cooked over an open fire, resulting in severe deforestation and poor respiratory health. This project is addressing environmental sustainability and the health of women and children by eliminating the need to use wood for fuel to cook injera. Instead, it will be mass-manufactured in a centralized food processing facility in Addis Ababa using not t’ef but lower cost grains like sorghum, millet, and cassava. The team believes it can reduce the cost of injera while improving nutritional quality. Previous survey evidence shows that because the cost of t’ef is high, many poor Ethiopians are already making and eating injera that is a mixture of more affordable grains. The team is partnered with the African Climate Exchange (ACE) and the Organization for Rehabilitation and Development in Amhara and supported in the US by mentors in agricultural products.

Scaling Medical Devices in African Markets

Stanford University, 2011 - $39,677

This team is developing Brilliance, a low-cost phototherapy device for newborns with jaundice in Sub-Saharan Africa. A cross-disciplinary team of Stanford and Northwestern masters level students and faculty are collaborating with the non-profit D-Rev to research the medical device markets in East and Southern Africa, seeking to understand medical device distribution channels for Brilliance and other future products, as well as how sales, marketing, and maintenance might be implemented. They are also seeking to understand how unreliable access to and flow of electricity in East Africa impact the design of the current Brilliance device.

Interlocking Compressed Earth Block Buildings: Low-Cost Earthquake Resistant Construction Using Indigenous Materials (Earth2Block)

California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, 2011 - $46,983

The need for low-cost, seismically resistant housing in Southeast Asia is compelling for two reasons: the region’s seismic activity and its large, dense populations of low-income purchasers. In order to meet the need for earthquake resistant, inexpensive housing, this team is partnering with a Thai NGO to promote interlocking compressed earth block (ICEB) construction in the area. ICEBs are made by compressing soil with the right combination of fines (silt and clay) and sand with a small amount of water and cement so that they are stable enough to be handled right after pressing and do not erode when they come into contact with water. ICEBs are environmentally friendly and can be made locally by lower-skilled laborers with minimal training.

Specifically, the team is developing manuals for seismically resistant ICEB construction and traveling to Thailand and Indonesia to build a culturally appropriate prototype ICEB structure and ensure its safety. The team’s partner NGO, which has a business model that combines a revolving fund with income from training courses and sales of equipment, is adding this to their product line and taking on responsibility for scaling and implementation in the region.

Affordable Greenhouses: Means for Improved Livelihoods & Food Security (Mavuuno Greenhouses)

Pennsylvania State University, 2011 - $38,950

Food security issues are escalating in East Africa, where over 60% of the population is malnourished. There is broad agreement on the need to help small-scale farmers boost their agricultural productivity, reduce spoilage and provide links to markets. Greenhouses can help farmers increase yields, but the greenhouses currently sold in East Africa, designed for large commercial farms, are too expensive for small-scale farmers and generally do not meet their needs.

Over the last three years, this team has collaborated with Kenyan and Tanzanian partners in the field to design, prototype, and field-test affordable greenhouses designed for small farmers. The greenhouses cost $200 and can be assembled by two people in two days. Proprietary and technical innovations include modular design, a fastener system, the construction process itself, and the choice of materials used in lieu of glass.

Transforming Arsenic Crisis Into A Technology-Based Economic Enterprise in South Asia

Lehigh University, 2011 - $41,431

Over 200 million people in South and Southeast Asia are routinely exposed to arsenic poisoning by drinking naturally contaminated groundwater. For over ten years, Lehigh University has led an international team in developing, installing and monitoring community-based arsenic removal systems in several Southeast Asian countries. Participating families pay a fee for arsenic-safe water, obtained by using a polymer-based arsenic-selective adsorbent currently manufactured in the US. However, high cost, import duties and uncertainty in shipping due to bureaucratic formalities and customs delays have surfaced as primary obstacles for further growth of the enterprise.

This team has developed an equally efficient, reusable, arsenic-selective adsorbent that will cost 50% less than the current product and will be able to be made in India as opposed to the US, thus eliminating the importing issues. An Indian company, Enhanced Water and Air Pollution Prevention Ltd., has agreed to invest in large-scale synthesis of the material with the goal of providing safe drinking water to high-rise buildings in semi-urban areas, a growing market in the developing world. The idea is that increased revenue from this new low cost middle class market will reduce the risk and enable the serving of more poor people.

Update: The team won a Tech Awards honor (fall 2012), which recognizes innovators and entrepreneurs who make a difference around the world in education, medicine, struggling economies, and social services.

The RAAS Waste and Recycling Program

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2011 - $28,272

Nicaragua is the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. Located on the Atlantic Coast of the country, the Southern Autonomous Region (RAAS) of Nicaragua is plagued with the most severe poverty in the country and has very little infrastructure, including systems for the removal and treatment of solid waste. Garbage is commonly dumped in informal dumpsites, creeks, and rivers, or burned in yards behind homes, producing greenhouse gases and emitting environmental toxins that are a threat to public health. Previous attempts to initiate recycling programs in this region have been hampered by the high cost of transporting trash from remote RAAS municipalities to recycling brokers in Managua, located on the other side of the country.

This team is partnering with wastepickers, scrap metal collectors, and a local composting cooperative to develop economically feasible waste sector enterprises that simultaneously reduce greenhouse gas emissions and create income for some of the region's most marginalized families. The team has a two-phased, three-year plan. Phase I focuses on the largest town in the region, Bluefield, where the team will work with locals to develop a logistics plan and build a recycling enterprise, a composting cooperative, and a small scale biodigester that uses organic waste to create biogas. Phase II extends the project to two other towns in the region, El Rama and the Corn Islands. Technical innovation includes the incorporation of slaughterhouse waste with the biodigester (not a typical input for biodigesters in Central America) and plans to design tools (crushing, mixing) to accommodate that waste.

Promoting Entrepreneurial Development and Sustainable Agribusinesses in Rural Western Kenya

University of Hartford, 2011 - $37,061

In Kenya, maize crops, the main food staple, are failing due to disease, climate change, and droughts. Amaranth, a drought- and disease-resistant grain with high nutrient and immunity properties, was introduced to Kenya in 2005 and has shown higher marginal returns compared to other commodities, including maize. This initiative builds on a partnership between US universities and Kenyan institutions to develop market-driven, affordable technology innovations that take advantage of amaranth grain as a cash crop in Western Kenya. The team has already performed fieldwork there, working with farming cooperatives to produce and market amaranth. With this grant, the team is working with farming groups to increase the quantity and quality of the grain, develop the infrastructure and local capacity for large-scale manufacturing of a mechanical seed planter and human-powered thresher, and implement a business strategy with farming cooperatives.

sustainable vision