A Better World Faster - Social Impact Challenge

Normally I do not toot the horn for superginormous companies figuring they have enough muscle already. But I want to give a shout out to Google for this one - To mark India's Independence Day this year, they launched the social Impact challenge in India - A Better World, Faster.

Copied from thier website below:

The Google Impact Challenge has launched in India in an effort to support innovators who are exploring new ways to solve the world's most pressing problems. If you’re an Indian non-profit, tell us how you would use technology and innovative approaches to tackle problems in India and around the world. Four selected non-profits will each receive a Rs 3 crore Global Impact Award and assistance from Google to help make their project a reality.

• 5th September 2013 - Final day to apply to the Google Impact Challenge.
• 21st October 2013 - Google announces the finalists, and the public votes online for their favourites.
• 31st October 2013 - Each finalist team will pitch its idea to an esteemed panel of judges at an event in Delhi. Four finalists, including the non-profit chosen by the public vote, will be announced as Global Impact Award recipients.

If you missed it this year I have heard it may become annual - so watch for it next year.

2011 Knight Foundation Challenge awardee: FrontlineSMS

FrontlineSMS developed by Digital Vision Fellow Ken Banks founder of The Kiwanja Foundation,  is one of 16 projects Knight Foundation has selected as winners of the fifth Knight News Challenge . Details:
Award: $250,000
Project Lead: Sean McDonald
Web link: www.frontlinesms.com
Twitter: @frontlinesms

FrontlineSMS: Media will create a new platform that allows journalists to more effectively use text messaging to inform and engage rural communities. The Frontline SMS platform already enables users in underserved areas to organize interactions with large numbers of people via text messages, a laptop and a mobile phone – without the need for the Internet. This grant will enable FrontlineSMS to expand its software platform and work with community radio stations and other rural journalists.

Full list here.
Congratulation to Ken and all the 2011 winners.

Social E-Challenge: Final Round

The annual BASES Social E-Challenge, a student-run social entrepreneurship business plan competition, where I mentor, will be hosting its final round event Wednesday, May 18th at Stanford University. Our finalists are:

Foresight Medical is a low cost device for cervical cancer screening, a disease that kills 270,000 woman a year.
Culture Kitchen is a social enterprise that seeks to connect immigrant women in the U.S. with female American “foodies” interested in learning to cook authentic ethnic cuisine, by creating a culinary and cultural forum focused on empowerment.
1/2 PROJECT champions the idea of giving on a small scale through everyday common purchases, instead of large annual gifts that require more financial commitment.
Juntos Finanzas creates innovative personal finance tools that empower first generation Latino communities.

The finalists were chosen after multiple rounds from the following:
 
1/2 PROJECT
AquaNation
Axis
Biological Processing of Milk Wastewater
Culture Kitchen
D3W: Diagnostic Devices for the Developing World
DesiHaat
Foresight Medical
Gram Power
Juntos
Milaap.org
NextDrop
PLANT ELEMENTS
PublicVine
The College Gap
WorldMedSchool

Want To Design a Mobile Phone? LG Announcement

SAN DIEGO – March 16, 2010 - LG Mobile Phones, the fastest growing mobile phone brand in North America, is partnering with crowdSPRING, an online marketplace for creative services, and Autodesk, a leader in 2D and 3D design, engineering, and entertainment software, to hold an innovative competition to define the future of mobile communication. Starting on March 15th, LG Mobile Phones will give consumers the chance to design their vision of the next revolutionary LG mobile phone and compete for more than $80,000 in prizes.


The competition will award over 40 winners. The first place winner will be awarded $20,000, one Wacom Intuos4 medium tablet, and Autodesk industrial design software. The second place winner will be awarded $10,000 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro software, and the third place winner will be awarded $5,000 and Autodesk SketchBook Pro software. To reward as many people as possible in the name of creativity, LG will also be giving out a whopping 37 honorable mentions at $1,000 each.

This year’s competition marks the inaugural participation of Russell Bobbitt, a world renowned movie prop master. Bobbitt has worked on a variety of visually stunning films such as Star Trek, Iron Man and Iron Man 2™. He recently received the prestigious “Behind the Camera” prop master award for his work on the first Iron Man film. Bobbitt will serve as a guest judge to reward one contestant’s cutting-edge design with the Prop Master’s Choice award. The contestant’s design will then be created into a non-working mock-up that could wind up in Bobbitt’s next blockbuster film. The Prop Master’s Choice winner will also receive $3,000 plus Autodesk SketchBook Pro software.

“We’re very excited about this competition because it gives consumers and design enthusiasts all a chance to exercise their creative imaginations and have their ideas be heard,” said Ehtisham Rabbani, vice president of marketing and innovation for LG Mobile Phones. “You don’t have to work for LG to make an impact on the future of mobile phones.”

Autodesk will supply participants with a free 15-day trial of SketchBook Pro, a paint and drawing application for use on the Mac or PC. It offers an intuitive, streamlined user interface so even new users can be productive within minutes. The 15-day trial will give all competitors access to industry-leading professional design software and levels the playing field for professional and amateur designers alike to create the phone of their dreams.

“We’re thrilled to partner with LG and Autodesk on this innovative design challenge. The challenge represents the real power of crowdsourcing - by allowing anyone to have the opportunity to design the next generation mobile phone for a global leader,” said Ross Kimbarovsky, co-founder of crowdSPRING. With a pool of over 55,000 designers and writers in more than 170 countries, crowdSPRING is one of the world’s largest creative communities and is an open platform where anyone can post projects or submit entries. Both seasoned and aspiring designers can submit their entries until April 26th at www.crowdspring.com/LG.
Competition Details
Eligibility: Any U.S. resident (citizen or green card holder) that is 18 years (or age of majority in state of residence) and older

Start and End Dates: The competition begins on March 15, 2010, at 12 a.m. PST and ends on April 26, 2010, at 9:00 a.m. PST

Winners will be announced on May 14, 2010 at www.crowdspring.com/LG/winners.

Media for Social Change Initiatives - $25,000; Deadline Jan 20

Ashoka’s Changemakers is sponsoring an initiative that focuses on using media to change the world. It is a tremendous opportunity to showcase your idea and could be the seed funding needed to start 2010 off right.

The opportunity is open for anyone and everyone.

Last year, aside from the two $25,000 winners, so many of the finalists who got to make their pitch found investors and made invaluable connections.

It’s simple to participate: the WeMedia PitchIt! Challenge website has all the details an entrant would need. They can access the entry form by clicking the “enter an idea” light bulb. They’ll need a free Changemakers account and it takes less than a minute to get one. The deadline is really quickly approaching on January 20th, 2010. It’s a chance not to be missed! Only 8 days left to apply.

Social Entrepreneurship Challenge Competition

BASES Social E-Challenge: The Social Entrepreneurship Challenge is a business plan competition for entrepreneurial ventures that effect social change. Participants range from For-profit businesses with a strong sense of social responsibility to Nonprofits with sustainable revenue-generation models. These companies all have a positive impact on our society and the environment. The Social E-Challenge provides participants with $50,000 in total final round prizes, as well as the resources and training to launch their startups: mixers, workshops, mentorship, and individual feedback from renowned judges.

Past winners include Kiva.org, D.Light Design, re:motion designs, and Samasource.

Info session: Wednesday, January 13th, 7:00-9:00pm, Stanford Paul Brest Hall, Munger Residence, Snacks and Drinks Provided. RSVP http://baseschallengeskickoff.eventbrite.com/

ISB iDiya Challenge Launched

ISB iDiya Challenge is a National Social Ideas Competition being organised by the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad open to all working professionals. Closing date for submission is October 25, 2009 ( <http://www.isb.edu/idiya> )
From my perspective it is great to see a management school of high calibre like ISB get involved in social issues. Tomorrow's leaders will transform the bottom line to include social impact and institutional change is required to build this new leadership.
The Situation:
49% of the world’s underweight children; 46% of the world’s wasted children and 34% of the world’s stunted children live… in INDIA. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/13/world/asia/13malnutrition.html?_r=2>
456 million people below the international poverty line ($1.25/ day)… live in INDIA. That is one and a half times the population of the USA and one-third of the world’s population below the poverty line. <http://www.worldbank.org.in/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/INDIAEXTN/0,,contentMDK:21880725~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:295584,00.html>
70% of the population does not have access to basic banking and financial services… in Rural INDIA. <http://www.urbanindia.nic.in/moud/theministry/subordinateoff/tcpo/REPORTON_BANKINGSERVICES/CHAPTER-1.pdf>
41% of the population does not own any of the basic products/assets – bicycle; radio; telephone… in Rural INDIA. <http://www.urbanindia.nic.in/moud/theministry/subordinateoff/tcpo/REPORTON_BANKINGSERVICES/CHAPTER-1.pdf>

The Response:
Some individuals have taken the untrodden path and have chosen to create companies which do good and also do business.
DesiCrew - http://www.desicrew.in/. Rural BPO delivering 40% cost savings to its clients while changing lives of rural populations. 80% of its team are women.
Dial 1298 for Ambulance - http://www.1298.in/. Rolling out a nationwide network of life support ambulance service.
Inclusive Planet - http://www.inclusiveplanet.com// <http://www.inclusiveplanet.com/> . Building the world’s largest community of differently-abled persons.

Mentoring partners for ISB iDiya: Acumen Fund, Deloitte, DFJ, Google, Intellecap, Seedfund, Unitus, Venture East.
Registration- www.isb.edu/idiya <http://www.isb.edu/idiya> . Email: idiya@isb.edu.
ISB iDiya Networking Platform: http://isbidiya.ning.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hyderabad-India/ISB-iDiya/127648572855

Microfinance Awards - Application Deadline Sept. 30, 2009

Awards and recognition are a great way of supporting change makers- providing emotional and (sometimes) financial support - while engendering healthy competition. So I am pleased to hear that HSBC is sponsoring Microfinance India Awards. The winners will be awarded with a cash value of Rs. 100,000 each, a silver plaque and a citation. The deadline for receiving completed nomination forms is September 30, 2009. Nominations are solicited for two categories:
1- Microfinance Institution of the year 2009 - self nominate
2- Lifetime achievement -individual - long-term, significant contribution to Microfinance sector
The awards will be presented at the Microfinance Summit October 26-28, 2009 in Delhi. Even better the awards will become an annual feature - so if not ready this year - stay tuned.

Innovations in Farming and Rural Communities Competition: deadline May 13

Ashoka’s Changemakers announced today the launch of “Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities,” a global, online competition to seek out the most innovative solutions in farming and rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and around the world. The competition is funded as part of a grant awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Using the Changemakers’ open-source online platform, the competition will be open to anyone striving to stimulate rural development and agriculture.
Today, three quarters of the world’s poorest people—the 1 billion who live on $1 a day or less—live in rural areas, and most rely on agriculture for their food and income. Many small farmers cannot grow enough food to sell or even eat. Innovative solutions like the ones Ashoka is seeking offer hundreds of millions of the people the opportunity to overcome hunger and poverty.
Over the next two months, people from around the world will be nominating those who are making a difference in farming and rural communities, or submitting their own innovative projects. The Changemakers community will be continually commenting on the initiatives entered in the competition. Entrants and nominators will be able to network with media, academics, and thought leaders. A panel of judges—Roy Steiner, Senior Program Officer for Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; Gene Kahn, Global Sustainability Officer for General Mills; Beatrice Gakuba, CEO of Rwanda Flora; Suzana Padua, Founder of the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (Institute of Ecological Research); and Raj Patel, activist and author, Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System—will narrow the entry pool to 10 to 15 finalists. The global Changemakers community will then vote for three winners, who will each receive a USD $5000 award from Changemakers to fund their initiatives. The finalists and winners will receive media attention and are showcased on the Changemakers website. All entrants will gain increased access to a global network of innovators, supporters, and investors with the means to help them fund and/or scale their projects.
These innovations have many faces and can come from anywhere. For example, we are motivated by people like C.K. “Bablu” Ganguly, an Ashoka Fellow whose innovations have regenerated farmland and created jobs via organic farming and marketing cooperatives in southern India. Or, people like Adrian Mukhebi, another Ashoka fellow who created a virtual trading floor via radio and SMS messaging to link thousands of farmers and buyers and sellers in Kenya. Ganguly and Mukhebi’s work not only helped to revitalize the local farming economies but also directly met many of their communities’ education and health needs, in addition to empowering local women to actively participate in farming and business development.
The online competition will showcase innovative solutions, encouraging members to comment, network, and assist one another in making a difference. Nominations and submissions are welcome until May 13. Changemakers is powered by a strong network of partners, Ashoka Fellows, and everyone who has a desire to change the world.

HASTAC Digital Media Competition- Seeking India Applicants

With my background in imaging and interest in new education methodologies, I have a keen interest in how Digital Media can transform learning. I attended the last Stanford event hosted by MacArthur on this topic. So I was really happy when I got the following note from Mandy:

Dear Neerja, I recently discovered your Digital Provide: From Good To Gold blog. I'm writing to announce that the HASTAC/MacArthur 2008 Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open (http://www.dmlcompetition.net/). This year we are piloting international eligibility for our Innovation in Participatory Learning Award and INDIA is one of the countries from which we will accept stand alone applications. We all know that there is excellent social networking being done in South Asia and very worthy digital learning projects, yet we have seen relatively little traffic to our site from that region of the world. We need your help. I know that an award such as this could change the life of someone and help make their dream a reality. Best,Mandy

I think this is a great program and would encourage you to apply-Details:
DIGITAL MEDIA AND LEARNING COMPETITION 2008 --Inviting Applications from India Now-- $2 Million Competition Focus: Participatory. Full information at: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/
Application Deadline: October 15, 2008
The second HASTAC/MacArthur Digital Media and Learning Competition is now open! The focus is participatory learning. Awards will be made in two categories:Innovation in Participatory Learning Awards support large-scale digital learning projects Applications from South Asia are now being accepted in the "Innovations in Participatory Learning" category as part of a pilot international program. ... Young Innovator Awards are targeted at 18-25 year olds $5,000-$30,000Full information at: http://www.dmlcompetition.net/
Participatory learning is defined broadly: using new digital media for sharing ideas or planning, designing, implementing, or just discussing ideas and goals together. (You can find out about last year’s winners at http://hub.dmlcompetition.net/

SKG Sangha - Uses Award for Training and Education

The Sustainable Energy Futures on-line case study competition resulted in a $5000 cash prize to SKG SANGHA in India for their innovative program using agricultural waste for biomass and biogas production.

Mr. Sagar writes the following:
"If we use this money for our projects, your contribution will not be reflected anywhere. Whereas, you are giving us this money as a token of appreciation which we want to be in a memorable shape. Hence, we shall use the money as part finance for our proposed training centre planned to train our beneficiaries, staff, students etc. We shall write your name as part funders for this training centre by that the contribution given by you will be visible for the years to come.

As part of our work we have to train each and every beneficiary on the running, maintenance of our units provided to the beneficiaries. We also can use the same facility to train the students who are coming to us for training from various Indian and foreign Universities as part of their Engineering/agricultural/social work. We also can use this facility for training our staff as well as staff from Government or other Institutions. The estimation for the training centre is about $40000. Last year we received £10,000 as prize money from Ashden Awards, London.
We have kept aside this amount also for our training centre. Now we have some Engineering Students from France who have come for practical training as part of their engineering course. Tomorrow we are getting two more students for training from France who are studying Agricultural Engineering. This training centre will help students from many countries apart from India. So, far the major beneficiaries are students from France. I believe education is the major tool for achieving socio-economic growth and to instill peace all over the world. I appreciate your support to a great cause."

Thanks to Mr Sagar for pointing out the importance of training and education in creating successful social enterprises.
Our case study was a good exercise in determining whether an on-line process of voting works - based on this thoughtful letter - I would say the process yielded a true winner.

...And The Winner is .....

Our casestudy competition came to an end Sunday with the winner being SKG - India - Biomass & Biogas -Mothers and daughters making income from selling fertilizer and making electricity.

Many who voted cited this case's ability to also address local sustainable agriculture- which given the recent global food shortages is becoming critically important.With our first event over and our group reaching the facebook imposed cut off limit of 1200 members we will be launching some new initiatives from the facebook fan page:http://www.facebook.com/pages/Bordeaux-Energy-Colloquium/8141228466 Two new initiatives we will start:
ANGEL INVESTING: Competition for groups looking for start-up funding for sustainable energy technologies
ACADEMIC GRANTS: Student research grants for projects studying sustainablity.Hope we can continue to build and reinforce this sustainable community we have created.

Can Text Messaging do Social Good? Ask NETWAS

Back in November 2007, in partnership with Kiwanja.net we launched a competition- to encourage text messaging for social good.

The idea was simple: more people have cell phones than internet so more people could innovate socially motivated phone system than an internet based system. So we invited NGOs from developing countries to submit a short proposal outlining how text messaging could make their job easier. At this time we're delighted to announce the winners of the inaugural nGOmobile competition. With over seventy entries from all corners of the globe, judging was a real challenge with the standard of entries incredibly high. Listen to the winners announcement on the BBC World Service here (MP3)

According to the Judges: "the sheer inventiveness of the submissions made judging the competition a real pleasure. We think we've chosen winners who combine creativity with the ability to deliver, and look forward to seeing how they progress" The top four are:

Entry name: Participatory rapid response forest management system
Organisation: Centre for Training and Integrated Research for ASAL Development Project Manager: Francis Kamau
Country: Kenya
Project summary: CETRAD is working with local communities to promote the protection and sustainable use of environmental resources. They plan to implement messaging services to help with reporting, field communications and to provide an early warning system to help combat poaching and illegal logging

Entry name: Ask NETWAS a water, sanitation and hygiene question and get an answer
Organisation: Network for Water and Sanitation
Project Manager: Cate Nimanya
Country: Uganda
Project summary: NETWAS plans to launch an SMS-based service for rural communities allowing them to ask a range of water-based questions on topics such as sanitation, hygiene, water harvesting, and water technologies

Entry name: SMS at the service of healthy forests and families and empowerment of women
Organisation: The Equilibrium Fund
Project Manager: Cecilia Sanchez Garduno
Country: Mexico
Project summary: This project seeks to help rural Central American and Mexican communities solve problems of deforestation, poverty, malnutrition, unemployment and the marginalisation of women using SMS to improve a range of communications and provide market data, training and advice

Entry name: Count to 5! Campaign
Organisation: Digital Development
Project Manager: Razi Nurullayev
Country: Azerbaijan
Project summary: This campaign will use text messaging to help grassroots and politically excluded people understand their human and legal rights, and to engage them further in the political process

Do check out details and pics on the ngoMobile site.
Many thanks to our sponsors. We will be doing this again and if you wish to sponsor in any way (laptops, phones, PR) we welcome your help

BiD - connecting investors, entrepreneurs

The mission of the BiD Network Foundation is to contribute to sustainable economic development by stimulating entrepreneurship in developing countries. Thierry Sanders and Koen Wasmus have created an online investment platform and community to tackle the key problems facing investors wanting to help stimulate economic development in emerging markets. This year the BiD Network received 3,400 business proposals from over 100 countries. It operates competitions in Kenya, Tanzania, Philippines, India, Argentina, Columbia and Peru. All of this happens online though www.bidnetwork.org In addition to the business plan, over 3,700 active members contribute to the online community to help entrepreneurs in developing countries. In the first year alone the BiD Network assisted the start-up of almost 20 companies in developing countries that help reduce poverty and employ over 500 people.

Competition: mobile technology for NGOs

Welcome to nGOmobile :: Taking mobile technology to the grassroots
This is a text message-based competition aimed exclusively and unashamedly at grassroots non-profit organisations working forpositive social and environmental change throughout the developing world. Tell your friends about it too. The prize is good and its easy to enter.
Why text-messaging? Mobile technology has the greatest reach - it goes where internet doesn't.