Posted by: Steve Hamm on November 09
Kiva.org has been one of my favorite social enterprises even since I started lending small amounts of money to poor entrepreneurs in developing nations a couple of years ago. To me, what was so compelling about it was you could read little stories about entrepreneurs then choose the one you want to back. At least that's what Kiva said was happening. Turns out, that was a fiction--in most cases. Instead, Kiva channels money to micro-finance organizations that have already made the loans. I read about this outrage today in a story in the New York Times. The person who exposed the fiction, David Roodman, laid out his findings in a blog posting. A more charitable person might forgive Kiva.org for misrepresenting how its model works. But not me. Social enterprises should be held to an even higher standard than are for-profit businesses--not a lower one.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on November 04
One of the tough things about being a social entrepreneur, I'm told, is that it's lonely out there. Unlike regular entrepreneurs who can readily find other people in their geographic proximity and share ideas and experiences with them, social entrepreneurs tend to be widely scattered. They commune via social networks or at infrequent and typically short gatherings of the clan.
A group of four friends in Boulder, Colorado, has come up with an inventive way to address the loneliness of the social entrepreneur. These folks, founders of The Unreasonable Institute, have created a 10-week mini-MBA for promoters of social change. No, check that. The metaphor isn't quite right. That's because the 25 or so young entrepreneurs who participate in the program next summer won't just be learning the skills of social business; they'll be putting them to work, too. The idea is to come up with ideas, develop them into business plans, vet them, divide up a small pool of venture capital, and connect with a support network--all in the span of an intense 10 weeks. It's like packaging Silicon Valley in a box. "We want to give young social entrepreneurs the skills, training, and networks to help their ideas grow wings and create a lot of impact," says Tyler Hartung, the Institute's community tactician.
The four founders, all University of Colorado at Boulder grads, scan like a mini-United Nations. They refined their ideas for the Institute last summer when they were widely scattered: Teju Ravilochan in Boulder; Vladimir Dubovskiy in India; Daniel Epstein on a bike ride down the West Coast; and Hartung volunteering for a microfinance outfit in Uganda. "It was a most unreasonable time for our founding team," quips Hartung.
For sure, these guys are having almost too much of a good time, but their idea seems to be both ingenius and practical. All experienced social entrepreneurs themselves, they'll do a lot of the training in the program, but they're also planning on bringing in 50 mentors from around the world who are experts in everything from business formation and venture capital to international development and poverty alleviation.
The whole process gets started on Nov. 15, when they begin taking applications from people who want to be Unreasonable Fellows. (www.unreasonableinstitute.org) Applications close on Dec. 15 and a list of finalists will be posted on Dec. 20. Then it's time for philanthropists and social investors to get into the act. They'll vote with their dollars for the entrepreneurs who seem to be most promising, and every applicant who raises the $6,500 tuition by Jan. 31 that way will be invited to the summer program. "We want market forces to determine who will come," explains Hartung.
Now for my part: I'm supposed to help the group round up applicants and funders for the program. So, how about it?
Posted by: Steve Hamm on November 02
This is a relief. Alec Ross, one of the key architects of Barack Obama's technology policy during last year's campaign, isn't pushing ultra-high-tech solutions as a cure-all for the world's diplomatic and social problems now that he's senior adviser on innovation for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He's practicing the art of the practical.
Ross's job at State is to figure out how to use the global communications network to address poverty, health pandemics, human rights violations and the like. "With the ubiquity of our global networks, there are opportunities to engage with people that weren't possible in the past. We're practicing what I call 21st Century statecraft," he says. While he's supposed to use technology to accomplish Clinton's goals, "In some cases it's cutting edge. In other cases it's basic."
There's a temptation to fantasize that just because the opposition in Iran used Twitter so successfully during its brief uprising, the latest in social media can be spread around globally like some sort of super digital goo. So it's good to know that Ross is thinking in a more nuanced way. He gave me a couple of examples of calibrated responses to particular situations.
The low-tech solution: In the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, where nobody rules and militias run wild, one key issue is figuring out how to get militia members to quit fighting and return to peaceful living. Ross visited with former militia members in demobilization camps and asked them for their advice. What he heard back was that the authorities should use radio to communicate with fighters who are hiding out in the bush, since they all listen to it. The former fighters also suggested that they should be put on air. Fighters would listen to somebody else who had walked in their shoes. So now the State Department is putting together a radio outreach program. "We use 1920s technology if 1920s technology is the right solution," Ross says.
The high-tech solution: In Mexico, the State Dept. is working with the Mexican government, NGOs, and telecom companies to set up a system for tracking crimes. Right now, a big problem there is that citizens are afraid to report crimes for fear of reprisals--sometimes via police who are working with the thugs. So Ross and his collaborators are working on a cellphone-base tip-off system for the police that will scrub identifying information about the tipsters from the system. They're also planning on mapping out the activities of common criminals and narco-trafficantes in near real-time on Web sites, so citizens can see where to avoid. "We're bringing transparency to the activities of the bad guys and empowering citizens," says Ross.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on November 02
I’m working on a story about the Obama Administration’s efforts to make the federal government more effective and efficient. Over the past few months, the USCIS has made a series of modifications to its Web site to make it easier for applicants for green cards and citizenship to find out the status of their applications and understand what is required of them. I’d like to speak to one or two people who have had extremely frustrating experiences in the past with the case-tracking system—to speak to them about those experiences and find out if the new system is any better. Please e-mail me at steve_hamm@businessweek.com. Also, feel free to comment on this blog posting.
Posted by: Steve Hamm on October 30
By Guest Blogger Bruce McNamer
CEO of TechnoServe
World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with more than one billion people -- one out of every six people on the planet; one out of three Africans - going hungry every day. From rural African communities to private high-tech research labs, many parties are working towards lasting solutions.
A global lack of food is not culpable for increasing food insecurity and hunger. The projected 2009 global cereal harvest is a mere three percent below the record world harvest of 2008 and will be the second highest ever. And globally, the use of maize and other foodstuffs for biofuels (i.e., non-food uses) is marginally significant.
Then, what's causing the increase in world hunger?
Part of the answer is the worldwide economic downturn. The global recession has affected poor individuals and communities in developing countries by starkly reducing their employment opportunities, incomes (including domestic and international remittances), and their ability to buy food. These hardships are exacerbated and complicated by ongoing challenges like weak business policy and regulatory frameworks (and enforcement capacities), lack of investment and business growth, declining soil fertility and infrastructure, and minimal access to information and technology.
In 2008, the World Bank's World Development Report assembled overwhelming evidence that broad-based agricultural growth is the most powerful way to reduce rural poverty and also improve food security. To increase local agricultural productivity and spur agriculture-based growth, a variety of organizations, from governments and regulatory agencies to financial institutions, agribusinesses and nonprofits, must collaborate on five key pursuits:
First and foremost, we need to develop human capital by teaching local farmers and entrepreneurs the skills they need to thrive. By mastering agronomic and business best practices farmers can maximize the productivity and profitability of their crops, participate in crop sectors on a more competitive footing and gain access to new markets and sources of finance. Other entrepreneurs across agriculture-based industries, from input suppliers to processors to end-product distributors, need to improve their capacity to identify and develop opportunities and profit by providing goods and services that boost productivity and add value.
Second, social capital is required, in the form of effective producer groups and supporting institutions. Through these organizations, transaction costs can be minimized and the rural poor can negotiate with markets more equitably.
Third, financial capital is needed to enable local entrepreneurs to operate and invest for growth in their businesses. This requires intermediation focused on steering affordable capital flows to investments that will generate productivity improvements and poverty reduction.
Fourth, physical capital, such as road networks, grain storage, power grids, irrigation and sanitation systems, hospitals, and schools, is critical to stimulating economic activity and increasing incomes. Until local tax bases improve, outside assistance is needed.
Finally, we must ensure effective markets exist. Markets are the basis for buyers and sellers to interact, by generating mechanisms for distribution, establishing prices and effecting transactions. Open transparent markets weave these different forms of capital together and optimize value.
Only when we integrate these efforts, can impoverished communities take significant strides towards lasting improved welfare. Communities will be able to feed themselves, the incomes of small farmers and agricultural workers will increase, and new jobs will be created. Also, as more food becomes available, prices will drop in growing urban markets, resulting in broad increases in disposable income for education, healthcare, housing and other needs, all of which improve communities and their broader society.
In order to achieve global food security and end the hunger crisis farmers, investors, agri-businesses and governments are starting to come together at the local level to build more open and efficient agricultural markets. Global leaders also need to agree to deploy their development assistance commitments according to the following principles: 1) apply lessons from prior experiences of boosting productivity in food crops; 2) focus on holistic programs in crop sectors with the greatest economic opportunities, and 3) plan for sustainability -- economic, social and environmental.
Sustainable global food security is possible. Many are ready to do their part. Our leaders need to do theirs.
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Bruce McNamer is President and CEO of TechnoServe, a global non-profit organization that empowers people in the developing world to build businesses that break the cycle of poverty.
