VayuGrid Attracts Investor

VayuGrid (wind-energy) has wings! from Gerad Rego:
"I am glad to announce that VayuGrid, a company I co-founded based on a for-profit social business model that just received funding of $4.3m from a strategic investor. Also enclosing a press release of an interview with the President of Mahindra & Mahindra for your perusal. Look forward to collaborating together around the EIR program to replicate a model across industries and across the pyramid. Look forward to collaborating together with other Fellows to see how we can leverage any other work into our business."

Congratulations to Gerard Rego, fellow Digital Vision graduate, on a major milestone: For a report- Check CNBC coverage : M&M eyes majority stake in Vayugrid's Indian ops.

Health-care Books: Digital benefits

UnaMesa has opened office in Palo Alto as a hub for service innovations, including new approaches to health care, education; it provides free software tools and web services for schools, clinics, and other community organizations. When I first heard of UnaMesa in 2006 from fellow Digital Vision'er Greg Wolff it was a vision but today "UnaMesa acts as an R&D organization with projects that bring together industry, academia, and NGO's to develop and distribute effective tools for social services. UnaMesa maintains the educational materials, software, and other "intellectual property" developed by these projects as a public trust. Much like organizations that acquire and preserve land on behalf of the public, UnaMesa acquires copyrights and related intellectual property and promotes the use of those materials for the public interest."
Technology can change the game when it comes to social impact but so far, research and development has been too expensive for non-profits to take advantage of. UnaMesa is changing that. At the launch party I attended earlier this month, the story told by Sarah Shannon of Hesperian Foundation provided a vision for the future. The foundation has been around for a while and has developed health related books. These books were in English and would get out of date by the time they would get published. Working with UnaMesa, Hesperian has gone digital: books translated into 32 languages, regular updates available instantly for download and a repository that continues to grow because the staff can focus on creating the content. For example the publication "Where There is No Doctor" empowers communities who may have no health-care professional in the area with access to basic medical information.
Congratulations Greg - a DV changemaker.

Jaroka Tele-Health wins mBillionth Award; Sets up Medical Relief Camp for Flood Victims

Congratulations to Atif Mumtaz, Digital Vision colleague. At a ceremony organized in New Delhi by its convener, Digital Empowerment Foundation, and sponsored by India's Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, OnMobile, and Intel among others, Jaroka Tele-health was presented the mBillionth award 2010 in the m-Health category. "We are now in a world where technology is capable of anything; from allowing physicians to review patient records on-the-go, to alert drivers in any city of nearby parking spaces while looking for spot, to surfing the Internet and watching movies; and what better way to celebrate it than this award for innovation in health and technology."

The Jaroka project was honored for its interactive interfaces, innovative design, aesthetic value, accessibility and most of all it’s relevance of content and utility value. Atif developed and refined a tele-health project during his Stanford fellowship and today the Jaroka Tele-health project treats over 50,000 patients in rural Pakistan each year. 90% of the patients earn less than dollar a day and live below the poverty line.
I also heard from Atif that UM Healthcare Trust has established one of the first regular medical clinics for flood victims at the edge of the flood waters in Noshehra District, NWFP, Pakistan. "Manned by our qualified staff of medical doctors, nurses, and medical technicians, we have started treating flood victims who total in millions and are waiting for aid to reach them despite the ordeal being almost a week old. We urgently require medicines to treat the influx of patients."
The mBillionth Award is dedicated to exploring the potential of the mobile sector and promoting game changing applications all across South Asia. The mBillionth secretariat at Digital Empowerment Foundation, New Delhi reached out to the entire South Asia region to solicit nominations across 10 categories: Business, Health, Education, Culture & Heritage, Government, Entertainment, Inclusion, Environment, Tourism, & News and Travel. The Grand Jury of the mBillionth South Asia Award reviewed more than 200 entries hailing from 8 South Asian countries, and chose 1-2 winners from each category.
Jaroka Tele-health is a joint collaboration between UM Healthcare  The project has attracted significant funding from USAID and ISIF Foundation. For more information, or to donate contact: UM Healthcare Trust, Established 2004; Dedicated to Providing Healthcare for the Rural Communities.
Offices in: Islamabad, Pakistan & Washington DC, USA
USA: +1 415 894 9506 PAK: +92-51 210 6304

Vipani: Making Market Forces Work for the Poor

Farming is a tough business. Investment is up front, production is risky, goods are perishable, and market is uncertain. So it is not surprising that a vast majority of the world's poor are small farmers. George Thomas, founded Vipani (Sanskrit for marketplace) to make market forces work for the small farmer. "A farmer can produce tomatoes; but what good is it if he can't sell them when they are ready and ripe?" he says in Ode article. Vipani works by having staff members research community demand for crops and then recruiting farmer-agents to work with the organisation to create a network of farmers, buyers, suppliers and lenders. Micro loans, technology, education all improve/enable the farmers' lot. But if farmers cannot get fair prices for their crops these improvements make little difference.

Poverty is often seen as a failure of political policy or aid. But it is also a failure of market forces - in connecting the community. Vipani has demonstrated the validity of its approach in Kenya - where boosting income has also shown the ability to heal deep-seated ethnic conflicts.

As I was reading about Vipani, I was struck by the success of their social entrepreneurship approach. And it was a real plus to find that George is a fellow alum of the Digital Vision Program at Stanford and his acknowledgement that he researched the idea during his fellowship.

Vipani and George are demonstrating that market forces can be made to work for the poor; that even minor capital investments yield major social and economic returns; but it takes time and it takes dedicated leadership.

Tomatoes anyone?

Reuter Project Market Light launched in India

Reuters Digital Vision project called Market Light is an initiative to reach the rural community in India. The service provides information on crop prices, weather updates and other agri-related news via SMS. If effective in India, Reuters will extend this service to African countries. Mr Mehra, Managing Director claimed that Market Light has enabled the farmers to negotiate better prices - Mans http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Reuters_to_extend_reach_to_rural_India/articleshow/2255086.cms