Project Background:
Due to the HIV/AIDS scourge and the conflict in the north, Uganda represents a community of great need. An estimated 2.4 million children remain especially affected, many who are orphaned lack financial ability to attend school. While thousands of orphans are unable to receive education, the percentage of unemployed graduates keeps on growing each year, putting the country in an economic tragedy.  Factually, children don’t get a chance to study music due to lack of music schools. More so, Uganda is endowed with a rich culture heritage. However, these art forms have not been economically explored to provide therapy and empower children with practical skills for a future of job creation and self-reliance.

Project Objectives:
The main objective is to establish a music school for disadvantaged children who will be trained in both Ugandan traditional music styles and western music practices.  The goal is to create musicians, teachers and leaders who can work to create peace for the future generations of Uganda and elsewhere. By providing intellectual education and interaction through music, children’s voices will reverberate again –offering strength to talk about their past with assurance. Through performances, children will gain self-confidence to utter their life dreams and aspire for them in a peaceful and economically viable manner. While providing them with rehabilitation and expression though art, their performances and leadership skills will ultimately build a future of job opportunities. It is the intent of the project to reduce the gap of dependence into economic independency.
Branco7730.0

PoverUP's mission is to educate students about global poverty and the benefits of microfinance. Our goal is to help lift 1 to 3 million people out of poverty over the next 10 years by igniting a student grassroots movement. With PoverUP Your World – the First annual Global Student Microfinance Day – we will fight poverty worldwide through $5-$10 student donations/investments. The campaign will reach out to the 38 million students in the US and more than 100 million students in the Developed World. PoverUP's interactive action platform and innovative technologies (mobile giving, interactive lending website, etc...) will enable students to help alleviate poverty by providing loans to microfinance institutions, MFI projects and micro-entrepreneurs.
HillaryClevenger5670.0

Kosh, a social venture, is an online knowledge repository that will aggregate and create engaging educational content in all formats. This virtual library will make educational media accessible at a nominal price and in regional Indian languages, to over 200,000 educators and school administrators , and through them to young students in rural India.

Kosh was recently selected as one of the top 35 semi-finalists in the 2010 Duke Startup Challenge.
http://sites.google.com/site/dukestartupchallengeorg/the-competition/semi-finals/results-2009

The basic summary of how Kosh will work and what problems it would is summarized below:

How will this work?

 

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India is a land of intellectuals and at the same time people struggling to gain access to education. A big chunk of those who have access do not get quality education. Schools in rural and remote places lack basic infrastructure. Though brilliant talent rests in these places they do not get a chance to come to the forefront.

What triggered the idea: Schools in rural areas because of poor infrastructure are unable to provide computer education to students. Increasing number of students from rural areas are taking up white collared jobs which requires minimum knowledge of computers. As they are getting access to computers very late in life they develop fear towards it and thus face problems at workplace affecting their performance.

Even if computers are provided to these schools the schools cannot use it either because electricity has not reached these villages or electricity is not sufficient to power computers. Even the teachers themselves are not trained enough to teach the students.

Need Identified:

To provide computer education to people in villages or remote places.

Target Segment:

• School students in villages and remote places in India
• School teachers teaching in such schools
• School dropouts, men and women working or otherwise
• Member of panchayat, self help groups, cooperative societies etc
• Farmers (to enable them to use e-chaupal and related services)

How it will be rolled out:

Computers will be installed in a bus powered by generators/ mobile power sources, projector and printer along with an instructor. Initial survey will be conducted to find the target schools, their infrastructure, class strength and competency level. Complete course plan will be designed for each target school and after discussion convenient slots will be allotted to specific classes of each school. Similarly other interested participants will be enrolled in the program. Each bus will be assigned set of schools depending upon the geographical location and strength of school.

It will be a year round activity and course will progress like any other regular courses with a mix of theory classes (with the help of projector) and practical classes (around 10 computers installed inside the bus). Focus will be more initially on computer usage, word, Excel, PowerPoint, internet, simple designing etc. Performance of participants will be monitored regularly and certificates will be provided to those who clear the computer literacy exam to help them get better job opportunities.

Key differentiating factors:

Year round program, systematically covers the target student segment, custom designed curriculum, teaching in local language (along with English), use of customized software and talent will be mapped to job opportunities to facilitate earning of livelihood.

Manisha Mishra2520.0

Expanded polystyrene foam (EPS) is one of the most common materials used worldwide for product packaging, construction and model creation, etc. It is also one of the most contaminating materials, taking between three to five centuries for biodegradation. For example, one of the biggest threats to whales, among other marine species, is the residuals of EPS in the sea, causing asphyxia which results in the death of most of them. In addition, the dangerous gases released during the production process of EPS, worsen the effects of climate change.

Montanoa Quadrangularis is a typical Colombian tree that shares similar properties with EPS. It has been studied by many universities and different biologists because of its characteristics: thermo resistance, acoustic resistance, ultra-light weight and malleability, among others.

We have designed a project based on the cultivation, extraction and production of the stem core of Montanoa Quadrangularis which is 100% biodegradable.  By passing the stem core of the tree through a productive process, the final result is a perfect substitute for EPS. This total innovative product can be used in several economic sectors such as construction, electronics packaging, and refrigeration systems, among others.

BIO-PRO is committed in the construction of a better world. Taking into consideration the fact that Colombia has 4.3 million refugees due to the internal conflict (9,3% of the total population), and the fact that these people used to work on agricultural activities, we want to involve them in our project, thus contributing to the environmental and human rights problems or our part of the world. Whereas the government has many programs to help the displaced population, they usually run short because of the increasing growth rate of refugees and the insufficient budget they release for these programs. That is why it has developed programs such as JUNTOS, encouraging private initiatives to help the government to reduce this problem by giving support to displaced people living in urban areas.

Unfortunately, the economic aid is very little and these people are forced to survive without much support from the government in an unknown and hostile environment where they have few skills. Without having many alternatives to support their living expenses, these people are forced into a life of begging, drugs and prostitution, sexual abuse, burglary- and in extreme cases- being recruited by the guerilla. To counteract this, an organized Montanoa Quadrangularis crop program in the country side can successfully give work to these people by providing them with agricultural development opportunities and creating environmental friendly products and having more economic opportunities.


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Ever heard of Restaurants for Rickshaw pullers and slum dwellers. Did u say no!!! 

For 8 million Rickshaw pullers and 60 million slum dwellers of India, we are coming with the same and we call it AAHAR food point. Where the Rickshaw pullers and Slum dwellers would get a clean, hygienic and complete food at Rs 10 i.e. 0.22$

In this whole project the wives of Rickshaw puller would get employment of cooking food and education for free of cost.

This would lead to a healthy and educated India.  kumararayan1780.0

A unique but a very common idea(may sound weird) and that is how we can bring our surplus money , may it be an individual's pocket money or those of small business men's money into a productive profit venture with providing employment to the poor , our team will start it with the Hand Pull Rickshaw or Bicycle Pull Rickshaw venture in the city of joy "Kolkata" in India. The rate of unemployment among the migrant laboures to the city is at its peak in the recent time and with no jobs people are curbing to petty crimes therefore our aim is to indulge these migrant labours to be self employed workers which can be done raising a small capital.
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Lucy Auwor lives in the Kibera slum of Nairobi, Kenya—the largest in Africa. At age six, Lucy was forced to engage in prostitution to survive. At a young age, Lucy knew that as a poor, uneducated woman her life prospects were bleak. Lucy is just one of nearly half a million young women in Kibera denied education and made to suffer daily indignities. But in August of 2009, Lucy’s life and place in her community drastically changed—she became a student at The Kibera School for Girls. 

We have developed an innovative, two-step community-driven model to combat gender inequality. We link free schools for girls to holistic community centers that provide residents with essential services unavailable elsewhere. In August 2009, we founded The Kibera School for Girls, the first entirely free school in Kibera. However, simply providing accessible education is not enough to change the value society places on women.

The 2^nd step of our model provides the community-at-large with tangible benefits through a community center adjacent to the school. The Shining Hope Community Center addresses severe local deficits in health care, education, sanitation, nutrition, and computer/literacy training. In our model, girls’ schools become portals through which attitudes toward women change as community members associate needed services with an institution dedicated to girls’ education. By investing in health and economic success through a school for girls, we demonstrate that benefitting women benefits the whole community, cultivating a community ethos that makes women respected members of society.

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Students in Tajikistan's government-run schools are taught in Russian and Tajik with few opportunities to seriously pursue English fluency; however, the forces of globalization have opened myriad opportunities for English-speaking students to excel and fostered a strong desire within the population to pursue an English education.  Learning English will provide students with an open door through which to pursue new opportunities and to help their communities.  Our Team’s vision is to expand access to an English education across the mountainous Gorno-Badakhshan (GBAO) region of Tajikistan.

In GBAO, language and literacy are not only methods to achieve a better way of life, but they are tools that can help unify geographically dispersed peoples. In late 2009, we dispatched approximately 10,000 English reading materials to the region which will be available to the general public through community-based Learning Centers.  These centers are currently producing tutorial CDs to supplement the donated materials and to help students master English comprehension, writing, and speaking skills.

The Team’s goal is to expand the access to such opportunities through a mobile library that will service remote communities with English-language books and tutorial CDs.  This builds upon the 10,000 books we have already sent and fills a critical gap in access that students living in isolated communities face.  To ensure this initiative remains sustainable, membership fees to borrow books will pay the mobile library’s gas and maintenance costs.

By sharing the English language, we can break down the mountains and build new opportunities in their place.

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Many communities in Dominican Republic in the purlieu areas of the capital and major cities suffer economically. Also from the recent earthquake in Haiti, there is a major need for rebuilding schools and classrooms.

Education is the epitome of a bright future, and therefore our focus will be to transform the shipping containers into classroom modules that will foster a better education atmosphere, that will encourage more children of the community to attend school, that are currently discouraged from attending, due to the uncomfortable and overcrowding conditions of the classrooms. These shipping containers that will be remodeled into module classrooms will allow students to be in a safer built structure, as opposed to the poorly built infrastructures of the current classrooms located in these underprivileged communities.

This initiative will not only allow us to recycle the containers, which have a 15 year lifespan for the initial use of transporting goods, but will also provide us with a swift response to towards the indigent communities that do not have a sturdy classroom infrastructure.
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The Digital Literacy Project (DigiLit) is a non-profit and official Harvard student organization that was founded in the fall of 2008. It is part of an international grassroots movement promoting digital literacy for students and teachers. DigiLit aims to integrate the XO laptop, a low-cost laptop designed for children by One Laptop per Child (OLPC), into schools by initiating XO laptop pilot programs and developing training and curriculum resources.

The ultimate goal of this venture is three-fold:  DigiLit will (1) create an online Teacher Portal with training materials and curricula that support digital literacy among students and teachers around the globe, (2) conduct formal research studies that gauge the XO’s effects on the classroom environment, and (3) continue to scale up and strengthen our laptop pilots.

DigiLit has carried out a series of pilot programs in the Boston area over the past year, where team members volunteer regularly at the Cambridge Friend School (CFS) and at the Mission Hill After-School Program (MHASP) for youth from low-income backgrounds. By working closely with teachers, we compile bundles of free, open-source software that complement existing curricula.

Most recently, DigiLit traveled to Managua, Nicaragua, where we set up a computer lab and taught computer classes for deaf students at the Nicaraguan Deaf Association (Asociación Nacional de Sordos de Nicaragua, known as ANSNIC). DigiLit donated ten XOs that students can checkout for homework assignments and activities.

This summer, DigiLit will be supporting a government-led XO laptop deployment in Timbuktu, Mali. HelloLaptop290.0

Creating SMILES - building the Nation (SMILES) is a youth initiative based on the conclusion that using engineering and technology in an environmental friendly way can create the prerequisites needed for the development of education and health care as well as job opportunities in the rural villages of Nepal where about 80% of the total population live and out of them 42% are still under acute poverty line. It is a structured plan for electrifying these villages using green energy and connecting them to the global communication nexus using wireless communication technology.

This will be followed by computerized education which will enable the villagers to increase their literacy and overall knowledge. It will also help to gain better understanding for the importance of proper sanitation and good health. SMILES is also about opening up a variety of chances for sustainable incomes and community entrepreneurship which can lead to an increased number of job opportunities as in e-commerce. All this will contribute to a sustained village life.  We want a computer in the village to be used for running a business, connecting to the relative working far away from home, providing telemedicine facility and educating students and adults equally. Thus, the combination of technology and socio-economic interventions will lead to increased living standard and quality of life of the people in the rural villages. 

Finally, it is a vision of using the power and the mind of our generation to do good to our fellow humans.

 

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Our plan is to support the creation of an independent venture that manages the production and commercialization of Fair Trade honey for small-scale farmers in Guatemala.

Background: Located in the mountainous department of Quiche in northern Guatemala, the town of Chajul suffered some of the most brutal violence of Guatemala's thirty-year Civil War. Its predominantly indigenous community continues to be one of the most economically distressed in Guatemala. Our team traveled to Chajul earlier this year and worked with the coffee farmers of the Asociacion Chajulense. This cooperative of 1,400 Fair Trade and organic coffee producers exports to the US, Canada and Europe, and provides techinical support and social services to its membership.

While the Fair Trade movement has improved the lives of Chajul's farmers, they continue to struggle with poverty, and recent climate changes have emphasized the urgent need for diversifying their incomes. With this in mind, the Asociacion Chajulense recently launched a venture to Fair Trade Honey production.  Honey is an ideal supplemental crop. For most of the year, beehives require only a small amount of maintenance, and the annual division of hives allows for a typical yearly increase in production of 50%.  To date, Chajul's successes with honey are impressive, as 100% of their production has made its way to the European market.

Our plan: To spin off the cooperative's honey project into a separate entity solely focused on the production and sale of honey. What started as a small initiative to support coffee farmers can become a highly impactful independent economic development initiative for the region. The potential is remarkable. The modest efforts so far have impacted only 50 producers who are involved in honey production activities. We estimate another 1,000 families stand to benefit from the implementation or our plan.  Resources would be invested in creating the necessary organizational infrastructure and capacity to manage the newly created social venture.  A portion of the funding would be allocated to the expansion of a microloan fund.

Over 85% of the population of Quiche lives on less than $2 a day. The lack of economic development opportunities is a significant detriment to the region.  By creating a more efficient opportunity for revenue growth for a cooperative that is a central part of the community, it will greatly improve the livelihood of the honey bee farmers, their families and the community.


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Ag 4 Africa is a rural development model for Sub-Saharan Africa. Through social entrepreneurship and native African crops, Ag 4 Africa will challenge issues such as food security, malnutrition and economic development through sustainable agriculture and self-sufficiency.

With the cultivation of indigenous Africa crops, farmers can break the cycle of poverty and ensure a stable food source. Beginning with the Bambara groundnut, a substitute product to the soy bean; Ag 4 Africa believes that through its strategic partnerships it can effectively create a global demand for Bambara.



Fostering relationships with private and public sector institutions as well as multinational corporations; processing at Nestle in Ghana, the milk product sold through Starbucks, A4A will be able to reach lucrative international markets. Through A4A’s mission to cycle revenues back into the communities they are operating in, A4A will improve the quality of life through investments in infrastructure, education and health care.

The mission of Ag 4 Africa, supporting the United Nations Millennium Development goals, is as follows:

• To form an effective coalition empowering the African farmers to modernize their agricultural farming practices and reach new markets.
• To protect biodiversity through social responsible, sustainable and eco-friendly farming practices.
• To strengthen the agribusiness industry of Sub-Saharan Africa by implementing an export-oriented industrialization model, with the belief that exports are the axis of wise industrial policy.

ag4africa200.0

In China, due to the fact that social sector development is still in its infancy stage, it is difficult for NGOs to recruit enough volunteers. On the other hand, companies are willing to donate their products to NGOs but most of the time those goods are not what the NGOs need. Inspired by the commodity market mechanism based on the application of a universally accepted currency, we propose to create a virtual charity market with a new type of currency, which we call Faith-in-Love Hour (FLH), to boost China’s philanthropy.

This virtual market is to connect three parties: volunteers, NGO and disadvantaged people who need helps from volunteers, and companies who donate their products for charity purpose.

Volunteers can trade their volunteer service provided to NGOs and disadvantage individuals for real commodities in our virtual market supported by an online platform. NGOs offer us goods donated by their sponsors in exchange for volunteer service. Companies can also donate products directly to us in exchange for the certificate of FLH donation, which we hope to promote as a universal indicator for CSR measurement in China.

With the incentives that our solution provides to volunteers, we expect that the more sustainable volunteering activities will accelerate the building up of philanthropy environment in China, which further fuels the underlying rationale and engine of this currency.

Our volunteer incentive platform applies a nonprofit model, which mainly generates revenue from charging the volunteers the service fee when they trade their FLH for donated goods in our online virtual market. zhdo77180.0

Our idea is to uplift the Indian product handicraft and to help the artisans who have been cought in the vicious cycle of poverty and exploitation. Inadian handicraft has lost sufficient ground to modern artefacts and because of this many artisnas have left their traditional art work and are forced to do menial works to sustain themselves. Those who are still in the work remain at the mercy of exporters and local players who pay them only labour charges and export their products to foreign countries getting huge profit. In absence of adequate knowledge and capital the artisans do not make and sell the product on their own. In absence of any exposure to the market trends they make only traditonal products. Through our venture we help the artisans in making new and contemporary products and help them in marketing their products. The prodcuts are designed by our designers who are from reputed design institutes, the artisans manufacture them using their art and we market them. The products are deisgned so that they can be sold in different market apart from the traditonal market.

Ankit Singh180.0

Students of the Johns Hopkins Chapter of Engineers without Borders-USA (JHU EWB-USA) seek to develop a Technology and Development Center at the Zakhe Agricultural College (ZAC), a vocational high school in KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa.

The Technology and Development Center will meet three specific goals:
1. Educate ZAC students about the design and engineering principles behind the ram pump technology
2. Optimize the ram pump design through testing at ZAC
3. Enable ZAC to manufacture and distribute the ram pump without outside assistance for rural community gardens.

Ram pump technology uses the hydraulic energy of flowing water to lift water to a higher elevation compared to the source. Ram pumps are used in KZN to provide irrigation water to community gardens managed by elderly grandmothers, who are forced to practice subsistence agriculture in order to support hundreds of children orphaned by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The grandmothers rely on community gardens as an important source of food provisions and income generation. Unfortunately, local water must be transported manually from local streams to the gardens, where the gardeners must spend up to five hours daily carrying water in buckets that may weigh up to 25kg.

The “Alcock” ram pump alleviates the physical burdens of these grandmothers because it requires only hydraulic energy. Unfortunately, the current production capacity is limited to Dave Alcock’s sole production. The Center will allow ram pump manufacturing to be controlled locally, which is a sustainable method of promoting and distributing the ram pump while reducing long-term out-of-country expenses. 

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In 2008 in the United States, 31 million tons of food waste was sent to landfills. In the same year, 17.3 million people lived in households that experienced hunger regularly. People want ideas which recycle resources back into communities, create jobs, and provide more sustainable models of agriculture. Break it Down offers a solution for communities by diverting food wastes from landfills and utilizing these materials as a resource for the sustainable production of fish and chicken eggs, valuable sources of protein.

Break it Down is actively developing a decentralized composting system which recycles organic wastes from local businesses and improves public understanding and involvement in the act of composting. This waste diversion program is also utilized as an educational tool – workshops, internships, and school curriculum provide opportunities for community engagement and teach the importance of diverting organic material from landfills and recognizing food scraps as a valuable resource for food production.

What we outline in this proposal is an innovative method of composting which directly results in sustainably-produced protein, effectively processes a larger amount of food waste, and maintains community engagement and educational opportunities while helping to alleviate hunger. Worms and soldier flies will be used to process organic materials and in turn utilized as food to raise fish and chickens. Any organic material can be recycled with this method, and a minimum of 10% of all food produced will be donated to low-income families. Ultimately, this venture will create a working model to develop more sustainable communities. Break it Down160.0

Our idea is to produce fresh drinkable water by using distillation as the primary process utilizing the vastly available solar energy. Though there are distillation units available for producing drinking water using solar power, a distillation process at lower partial pressure was not yet attempted. Therefore we have incorporated the basic principle of decreasing the boiling point of water by reducing the ambient pressure i.e. solar distillation at reduced pressure. In order to have a village level application at low cost, we propose manually operated vacuum pump to achieve lower pressure to enhance the boiling of water. According to our estimates our product will cost upto 1300 INR which can be brought down by mass production and subsidizing. We will be able to provide 21 litres of water per day.
                              
We got the idea from the basic concept that water boils at a much reduced temperature due to a lower atmospheric pressure in Himalayas. We aim at producing an artificial Himalayas like condition in the solar still distillation equipment.

The two major issues being addressed through this project are:

1) Making clean, drinking water readily available for the village community
2) This equipment does not consume electrical energy and rural India is not electrified completely as well.  
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