A. H. Md. 2 Maqsood Sinha Bangladesh
environment
3 Abhijit Bardhan India
education
E F Blurb Election year Capitalizing on the high organic content of domestic waste, and tapping into a pool of ready labor, Maqsood and Iftekhar are setting up a string of community-based composting plants that convert garbage into fertilizer. Their work not only meets the need for efficient and environmentally sound ways to manage refuse, but also meets the demand for organic fertilizers. The city government recognizes these benefits and allows the pair to use vacant lots for Developing communitytheir work. Winning over neighbors required not only a good argument for recycling, but a technical solution to the infamous stench that gives trash dumps a bad name, so Maqsood and Iftekhar adapted a system that would keep based, high-tech, low-cost the smell down. Along with composting, Maqsood and Iftekhar have designed and implemented an inexpensive solid waste management program in two slums of Dhaka. Supported by the United Nations, they have adapted a Sri composting plants to convert organic waste into Lankan model of barrel-type composting that allows slum dwellers to compost their kitchen scraps. People can sell their nutrient-rich products to Maqsood and Iftekhar's organization. The two point out that it is meaningless to income-generating fertilizers exhort people living in slums to keep a clean environment when they don't have enough food on the table. Only by demonstrating that waste is a resource was it possible to gain their cooperation. As Mohammad Azizul, a senior slum resident, remarked, FY01 "The slum is cleaner Abhijit Bardhan is using his established networks to launch a grassroots movement to train teachers to change the way science is taught in government-run schools. He began by creating a competitive program to reward innovative Launching a grassroots scientific experiments in secondary schools. It culminated in the National Children's Science Congress. In getting the program established nationally, Abhijit realized that only a fraction of secondary school children were participating, movement to train teachers which caused him to launch a new effort to bring innovative science education to all students in a new way: through their teachers. He introduces teachers to scientific experiments, mathematical puzzles, and mapping of the local to change the way science is environment to understand social science concepts. These techniques are then used in the classroom to make the lessons interesting and interactive, thus improving student attendance and enthusiasm toward school work. Abhijit taught in government-run is making learning more relevant to the future lives of the students and is relating what is in the books to their "real" environment. He is engaging the students in a dialogue and discussion so that they remember what they learn. schools The aim is to adapt their cognitive abilities to the needs of a changing social system. FY03
housing
Drawing on the emerging field of Universal Design to create affordable, barrierfree environments that are highly functional for all people — regardless of age, ability or situation
Abhishek Ray is using the emerging genre of Universal Design to engage with builders, architects, city planners and citizen organizations to create inclusive and user-friendly environments. e is shifting the orientation of builders and urban planners from the narrow concept of “disabled-friendly” architecture to the more inclusive platform of Universal Design. With most builders cutting corners on accessibility, Abhishek presents universal design as a costeffective alternative by which everyone is served without exclusion. Simultaneously, Abhishek directs his efforts towards prominent government bodies such as courts of justice, national banks, railways and airports as well as citizen organizations catering to the disabled.
FY06
environment
Creating the technical design for the construction and operation of communityfinanced and managed minisewage treatment plants
Agus Gunarto has created a wastewater management system that will significantly improve the health of people living in crowded urban areas. He has developed a technical design and worked out strategies for the construction and operation of simple, community financed and managed, mini-sewerage treatment plants. Unlike large public projects, Agus's smaller scale treatment plants are affordable by the poor people whom they service. Before the creation of these plants, these communities often simply used open drains, shallow septic tanks, and rivers for the disposal of contaminated water. These practices contributed to high rates of disease. In addition to clean water, the treatment plants also provide fertilizer for local farmers and catfish that can be sold by the community to help offset the maintenance costs of the plant.
FY98
Working with Lima's waste management workforce to design products that improve their work flow custom tricycles and a variety of trash collection and composting tools
1
A Full Name
4 Abhishek Ray
5 Agus Gunarto
B Country
India
Indonesia
C Field of Work
D One Liner (if available)
6 Albina Ruiz
Peru
environment
7 Amol Goje
India
education
Ana Luisa 8 Arocena
Uruguay
environment
Working in the poor and congested northern suburbs of Lima, Albina Ruiz is building a community-based solid waste management system that is playing an increasingly important role in improving sanitation and health conditions in the area. Accompanied by a public education program and carefully coordinated with the garbage and trash removal services of public agencies, Albina's initiative is organized around a network of employment- and incomegenerating micro-enterprises at every stage of the waste management cycle. Working through a nongovernmental organization that has succeeded in enlisting the cooperation of the relevant public authorities and marshaling the necessary funding from a wide variety of sources, Albina has developed, and is now expanding, a remarkably effective demonstration in poor and crowded communities in the northern outskirts of Lima. With the aid of a revolving loan fund, she has stimulated the formation of micro-enterprises that are engaged in the collection and processing of garbage and trash throughout the area. In addition to producing marked improvements in health and living conditions, the program is generating much-needed employment opportunities for community residents. Amol helps rural communities increase their productivity and avoid the high transaction costs associated with accessing essential services. He is using information technology both to promote computer literacy and IT-enabled entrepreneurship and to service delivery in rural India. With stimulation from enhanced computer literacy, training, and design of new services, he has launched an IT-led educational and economic development initiative that will Developing user-friendly and allow rural communities to have the same growth opportunities as their urban neighbors. Amol's strategy is to develop low-cost technological services that are innovative and easy to use, select people with entrepreneurial low-cost IT tools for farmers potential in rural areas and train them in the technological innovation, and then provide these people with a business plan and technical guidance to set up their own service delivery enterprises. This provides rural people with to increase productivity and access to improved computer literacy and training and an exposure to IT services. It also uses their expertise to exploit the latent commercial potential of the rural areas to increase the profitability and viability of existing enterprises stimulate economic growth with the help of information technology. Through the creation of MA&A, in 2001, Ana Luisa developed the first efficient system in Uruguay dedicated to managing toxic waste produced by the pharmaceutical, chemical and agricultural industries. She is building leading best practices for the first time in the sector, creating decent jobs and developing innovative technologies to recycle and dispose of hazardous products that would otherwise end up in Uruguay’s rivers and soils. Ana Luisa is contributing to a fundamental shift in Uruguay, by demonstrating that the country is capable of developing technologies and methodologies adapted to its small market scale. MA&A is building transparency and accountability into each activity it undertakes, thus breaking away from the popular perception that waste management is a ‘dirty’ business. Ana Luisa is putting the emphasis on the health and quality of the life of its employees and of the population at large. She is also offering capacity building opportunities to waste management businesses and citizen sector organizations (CSOs) to enable them to adopt MA&A’s innovative and responsible practices and adhere more strongly to safety
environment
Designing and testing technologies – video microscopes, long-distance stethoscopes, and other diagnostic and treatment tools – to save lives and increase efficiency of rural health centers in Colombia, Peru, and Nicaragua
housing
Incorporating appropriate technologies — cisterns, ovens and houses — into the existing health infrastructure of Mexico’s poorest rural In rural Mexico, where one in every four children is malnourished, Dr. Andrés Randazzo has stepped outside his medical role to tackle health problems through simple eco-technologies that provide families with basic necessities areas to better basic living such as clean water and adequate housing. His organization, SANUT, has created cisterns, ovens, and houses that are 70 percent cheaper than their regular counterparts and can be easily constructed. SANUT is engaged in the conditions continual re-design of products and the development of new products. Results are effective because rather than using simple prototypes to test models, SANUT engages users in the creation process.
Andres Martinez 9 Fernandez
Andrés 10 Randazzo
Spain
Mexico
Andres has created a powerful communication system to facilitate easy and efficient exchange between lightly staffed rural medical outposts and the often far-removed medical centers on which they rely. He works with local medical staff and engineers to design and provide simple, cheap and sustainable technological solutions that allow two-way fluid communication. His powerful cost-cutting model thus allows doctors to save the valuable time normally spent traveling between locations for reports and consultations, and in so doing, drastically enhances their effectiveness as medical staff. Having successfully tested the model in Peru, Nicaragua and Colombia, Andres is now looking to expand in similar environments in Africa and Asia. Together with a number of partners, he has begun to test the use of his micro-networks in other fields affecting rural life, including education and civic participation.
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FY03
FY09
FY08
FY06
1
A Full Name
B Country
C Field of Work
D One Liner (if available)
E Blurb
F Election year
13 Augustin Woelz Brazil
environment
Babu Raja 14 Shrestha
environment
Bringing together financing, simple and sustainable Anil envisions a series of intensive five day to one week camps, typically of 20 11 to 14-year-olds and 5 or 6 volunteer student trainers/leaders, leading to a new type of local youth group his organization will continue to challenge technologies, and marketing and help. From informal village contacts to five-day camps for urban children to the first several programs for children from rural schools, Anil's thinking is shifting to sweeps of rural schools in a region. Thus, for example, a team of to support a range of socially- his volunteers would spend several months working its way from school to school in the valley connecting Pokaran and Mustang. Anil has constructed efficient, practical methods for his work as it has evolved. For example, he useful technologies, typically organizes a rural school's program, after some advance correspondence with the local school and government, in one or two days during which he briefs the children in each of his four target age groups, gets their parents' including water purification permission, organizes the group and briefs it, scouts the opportunities in the area (e.g., a modern small scale hydro facility to compare with the older mills still operating with wood bearings, a modern bee farm, examples of erosion and solar tukis caused by overcutting), and prepares a schedule of activities for the group's typically five-day-long encampment. A typical day in the encampment includes four subgroups, each led by a student trainer, trekking to one of several educational field FY82 sites, and benefitting from th In 1984, Anna founded the Surya Kanti Foundation: Center for Development of Child Potential (PUSPPA: Pusat Pengembangan Potensi Anak) as a model for early detection and early treatment of child developmental disorders that provides promotive, preventive, curative and habilitative care for children up to five years in age. She focuses on those with special needs, helping kids develop into productive and confident individuals. The Surya Kanti team consists of medical professionals, psychologist, therapists, pedagogue and social workers from a wide range of disciplines, including pediatrics, neurology ophthalmology, rehabilitation ,and ENT specialist. Parents/caretakers are involved as partners in the identification and treatment management of children with developmental delays and disorders. Another of Anna’s innovations is the adjustment of the concept of Early Childhood Care and Development (ECCD for Indonesia- Asuhan Dini Tumbuh Kembang Anak (ADITUKA)), building the early detection and treatment effort into a more comprehensive “women and early childhood care” movement. Again, this adopts a holistic approach that views children as complete and complex individuals with unique talents and weaknesses. Early learning, early detection and intervention are addressed from pregnancy, delivery, and through the six year of child’s life, with parents and the community FY09 integrally involved in th Reducing the inefficient use In Brazil, as in many other parts of the world, high and inefficient electricity consumption are directly linked to the construction of large hydroelectric dams, waste of water, various types of air pollution, and excess spending by poor of electricity for hot water populations. Augustin has created the Low Cost Solar Heater (Aquecedor Solar de Baixo Custo, or ASBC), a do-it-yourself system for domestic hot water heating. But just as important, he has developed a methodology for heating through a do-itdissemination of this accessible technology at the community level through youth and their families. Augustin taps into young people’s interest in science-based projects. To reach large numbers of youth, he takes advantage of yourself system teachers’ accessibility, providing them with the tools they need to integrate solar technology construction into their coursework. The crux of the process is a workshop which prepares teachers to train students and colleagues alike disseminated by young in the construction methods. They receive a simple manual to share with their students—also available on the organization’s open-source Web site—as well as a free sample kit to get started. With only this do-it-yourself kit, people households are capable of substantially reducing their electricity costs while simultaneously reducing the social and environmental costs of excess electricity consumption. FY05 Replacing traditional An engineer by training, Babu has turned his attention to a critical need in many cities in Nepal: trash collection and disposal. Starting first in Biratnagar, he is introducing a cost-effective approach for solid waste management that kerosene lighting sources relies on effective incentives and high performance standards. He oversees and finances the effort through a private-public partnership that is adaptable to cities throughout the country. In addition to getting the framework and with solar-powered tukis, incentives for solid waste management right, Babu is exploring alternate methods of waste disposal as well–some of which, it turns out, provide additional income for the communities that use them. For example, Babu has revived a assembled and serviced by rotational trench system of composting once used widely in Nepal's cities. Having re-learned this technique, communities now turn organic waste into rich compost and sell it to farmers. And finally, to curb waste production, Babu local people reaches the public through campaigns and radio spots, and supports eco-clubs in schools, helping groups of dedicated students to launch their own recycling programs. FY01
education
Revolutionizing the way science is taught in India through low-cost materials that promote hands-on learning and creative dissemination techniques
11 Anil Chitrakar
Nepal
education
Anna 12 Alisjahbana
Indonesia
health
Nepal
15 Balaji Sampath India Bernard United States 16 Amadei
not yet categorized not yet formally elected
health
Introducing an eco-friendly, twin-pit, compost, pour-flush toilet technology for households - an alternative to the cost prohibitive sewerage or septic tank based systems of waste disposal Constructing microhydropower plants and linking them to industrial and commercial ventures to manage the system Combatting fraud in the pharmaceutical industry by creating a SMS-telecom solution that allows consumers to verify pharmaceuticals at the point of purchase
Brazil
environment
Adapting new shallow tube wells for Brazil’s semiarid regions
21 Collins Apuoyo Kenya
economic development
22 Cosmas Okoli
health
Bindeshwar 17 Pathak
India
environment
Bir Bahadur 18 Ghale
Nepal
environment
19 Bright Simons
20 Carlos Simão
Ghana
Nigeria
Balaji is revolutionizing the way science is taught in India by introducing “Science Dialogues” into middle and high schools. Balaji’s methods are helping children change their perception of science as a difficult subject only for the very intelligent—a belief which has implications for their success completing school and consequently, their careers. Founded on the concept of “learning by doing,” Balaji’s curriculum is focused on helping students internalize concepts, an alternative to the traditional technique of rote memorization without adequate comprehension. The curriculum is currently implemented in schools by a team of volunteer demonstrators, most of them high-school dropouts. It brings the material to life through dialogues and lessons drawn from daily life, using simple tools kits and specially designed reading material incorporating stories, illustrations and experiments, often in fun cartoon forms. By overhauling the framework of traditional teaching techniques, Balaji is attempting to form a whole new generation of thinkers who can apply well-internalized, progressive principles to all aspects of life and become catalysts in the advancement and development of the nation.
FY05
not yet formally elected
FY10
Over a span of four decades Bindeshwar Pathak has advanced his vision for a safe, just, and dignified India through the introduction of dramatically improved sanitation systems supported by municipal and user fees. His project, Sulabh International, is improving India’s sanitation, eroding the caste system, and transitioning the “untouchable” caste to safer, more dignified jobs. His solution draws together design, financing, and public will; municipal resources; and, technologies that are basic and low-cost: The pour-flush compost toilet (Sulabh-Shauchalayas), is outfitted with biogas converters to generate energy and reduce toxins and practices that damage the environment, such as dumping waste into rivers. By introducing a scalable, self-financing solution for sanitation, Bindeshwar eliminates scavenging—the practice of removing human waste with manual tools—a role that falls to India’s untouchable class. Thus, the system he has introduced has built new roles for India’s poorest citizens and charted a new, safe and dignified way for them to earn money. Villages in the highest altitudes of the Himalayan Mountains face isolation and economic stagnation. As a result, they lose dozens of young people every year to increasingly crowded urban areas. Bir Bahadur Ghale electrifies these villages with a small hydropower plant and helps them attract new business ventures that stimulate their economies and draw young people back to their communities. He accomplishes this by constructing micro-hydropower plants, just large enough to light a town and support a wave of new businesses. In linking sustainable power generation to industrial and commercial ventures, Bir Bahadur Ghale creates jobs that enable villagers to buy electricity and revive their failing villages. To support power management, he has founded the Nepal Micro-Hydropower Entrepreneurship Federation, connecting hundreds of plant managers to trainings and idea exchanges, and uniting them to advocate for rural development in national policy.
Bright is improving the safety of pharmaceutical consumers by providing a way for them to identify fake drugs with the first system anywhere in the world by which consumers and patients can instantly verify the source of a purchased pharmaceutical at no cost, right at the point of purchase, using standard mobile phones and SMS messaging. Bright has created a system for consumers of pharmaceuticals to enable them to confirm the source and quality of drugs they purchase. By simply sending a code embossed on the body of the product in a regular SMS to a dedicated access number, purchasers receive a real time response authenticating the product. His system provides a live, dynamic link between the consumer and the manufacturer. This idea is set to make communication between the buyer and manufacturer a point of purchase routine. The implications for quality assurance, advertising, consumer relations, and customer service are ground-breaking. Carlos has introduced a new technology to improve the water supply in the semiarid regions of Brazil most affected by drought. In contrast to the deep wells the government typically digs, shallow tube wells are less expensive, easier to build, and more efficient at producing water. Most importantly, they do not tap into the high-salinity, unusable water found at greater depths. Although shallow tube wells are common in Brazil’s coastal regions, Carlos was the first to adapt the technology and bring it to inland semiarid regions. Since 1999, he has constructed almost 4,000 wells with the participation of local communities. Carlos realized that new well technologies are useless if they aren’t accompanied by community-based management, participation, and ownership. He believes local residents themselves need to dig and maintain the wells in order to benefit from them. Participating in the process of obtaining water in arid regions transforms a community’s perception of what it can achieve. His Irrigated Family Agriculture program supports well construction by providing access to loans, technical production aid, and assistance in selling Collins Apuoyo is protecting the environment by safely collecting, storing, and reusing used oil that is otherwise dumped in rivers or uninhabited land in Kenya. Through a creative financing model, he has turned his project into a vehicle for economic development, by providing mechanics and disadvantaged communities with access to loans they can use to improve their small businesses. Through his credit for safe collection of used oil program, Collins proposes a proactive solution which essentially transforms polluters from irresponsible dumpers to protectors of the environment. Collins has developed a system to guarantee safe collection, storage and reuse of used oil. His program is built on an incentive scheme that initially targets thousands of small-scale mechanics operating in slums in Kenya to participate in his oil-for-credit program. This program collects liters of oil in exchange for cash rewards or loans which mechanics can then use to improve their businesses. These oil banks then feed into a central collection point from which companies that depend on used oil for production can purchase it. Cosmas Okoli, who at the age of four was disabled by polio, is working to create a society in which the disabled can live full lives and have pride in themselves. He manufactures special protheses, manual car controls, and sports equipment for the disabled and concurrently has established a National Association for Physically Disabled Youth. Page 2
FY08
FY04
FY09
FY07
FY08 FY90
1
A Full Name
23 David Green
24 David Kuria
Dipendra 25 Manocha
Douglas 26 Racionzer
Elizabeth 27 Hausler
B Country
USA
Kenya
India
South Africa
USA
C Field of Work
D One Liner (if available)
E Blurb
health
Producing and disseminating socially-useful products including affordable hearing aids and intraocular lenses using a tiered pricing David Green is enabling developing countries to produce, distribute, and service high-quality, affordable health care products. Having already directed the successful production and distribution of two products–intraocular lenses structure and surgical sutures, David is now launching an effort to manufacture and distribute top-of-the-line, cost effective, cosmetically acceptable, and locally maintainable hearing aids.
FY02
health
Designing technologyenabled sanitation "kiosks" that halt environmental degradation and promote David is the first to successfully construct and manage hygienic public sanitation facilities in Kenyan slums and other informal settlements. He engages urban communities in the design and construction of his “Iko toilet” (coined health and social cohesion in from the word “eco” meaning environmentally friendly). David has made sanitation facilities a profitable venture for the urban poor as well as the business community by collecting dues and providing innovative financing schemes Kenyan slum areas in collaboration with local and international financial institutions and funding partners.
FY07
health
Using an open source approach to creating screen reading software for Hindi and other local languages and low-cost playback devices for disabled persons, particularly the blind
The goal of Dipendra’s work is to improve both disabled people’s self-image as well society’s perception of them. He taps into the power of technology to liberate people who have been trapped by a limited access to communication tools. His approach has shown how his ideas work and allows him to demonstrate change—creating incentives for individuals and society. Dipendra’s ideas and tools are replicable and have the potential to spread throughout India and beyond. Through his example, all of India’s national academies for the blind have now adopted new communications technology as part of their curricula. He is helping universities set up training centers, which are backed by government investment. Disabled people who have received training are finding jobs and through their successes, are convincing businesses that they are desirable employees. Dipendra is part of several groups that are developing communications technology for the disabled to be shared internationally, including under the auspices of the United Nations and large technology companies.
FY07
economic development
Transforming existing, small, technology-focused businesses into successful enterprises that deliver of community services
In South African township communities where it is next to impossible for outside organizations or government agencies to function on a formal and effective basis, Douglas is tapping the corner store and other local businesses to become the foundation for community economic development and a hub for social services. Through Emerging Market Services (EMS) and other organizations, Douglas is giving neighborhood entrepreneurs the expertise and resources they need to expand their operations from mom-and-pop shops to real commercial enterprises, and at the same time using their position in the community to deliver needed services like HIV testing. By participating in Douglas’s effort, shop owners increase their earning potential, provide jobs for others in the community, and contribute to the overall well-being of the neighborhood.
FY04
building structures do - hundreds of thousands of people die from home collapses every year in earthquake-affected regions, most in developing countries. Elizabeth and her team are helping local government and international organizations engage and harness local talent and use local technologies to build homes that are earthquake resistant. Working in India, Indonesia, and now in Sichuan, China, Elizabeth and her team get the homes built safely and leave introduce a set of tools and checklists that change building practices and respond to homeowner preferences. Elizabeth lives in California and - currently - in Sichuan.
FY09
housing Designing and Distributing appropriate technologies for low-income communities, including a manual rope pump for water extraction.. Gustavo is also battling unemployment among Argentina's young people by growing and inspiring inventors and entrepreneurs
Enrique Gustavo 28 Gennuso
Argentina
education
Fábio Luiz de 29 Oliveira Rosa
Brazil
environment
Gustavo is convinced that the answer to unemployment, one of Argentina's most unrelenting social problems, lies in a combination of training in entrepreneurship and backing for new, productive initiatives. He has initiated a new approach to community development that builds alliances among local institutions like universities, companies, small businesses, local authorities, and grant-making foundations. To give young people coming from poor families better opportunities, Gustavo pairs them up with middle-class professionals and offers initial seed funds to start a business. Gustavo offers a wide range of experiential training programs to foster entrepreneurship. The training focuses on shaping attitudes, such as attentiveness to new opportunities and adaptability in a changing world, rather than on honing particular skills. As participants begin to set up their own ventures, Gustavo supports the participants in project implementation, assessment, and management. Through training, institutional support, and funding, Gustavo sees to it that young people have job opportunities, and he combines the efforts of local institutions to foster collaboration on regional development. Fabio's "Project Light" succeeded in its very first attempt to raise the living standards of low-income rural families by taking cheap electricity to their homes and farms. The first experiment took place in Palmares do Sul, a rural community in the southernmost Brazilian state, Rio Grande do Sul. It is now being implemented in 23 more communities. The state boasts the most electric service in Brazil, but half of its 400,000 rural properties have no electricity. Bringing electricity to the That means as many as a million rural residents of the state have no electricity, refrigeration, indoor plumbing, water pumps for irrigation, or other common household and farm electric appliances. Fabio's pilot project from 1984 to rural poor through low-cost 1988 changed that situation for 400 rural families in Palmares and reaped results beyond his expectations. Not only did low-cost electrification stop the flow of residents to cities, it reversed the flow. A study two years after the electrification technology project's implementation showed that one in every three beneficiaries was someone who returned from the city to resume living in his former rural area. This was in large part because of the newly affordable electric service.
health
Francisco (Paco) Arroyo has devised an urban food production scheme which simultaneously improves lowincome familiar nutrition Paco is implementing a comprehensive urban food production plan in marginal barrios of Mexico City which rapidly improves familiar nutrition while fortifying the communities' capacity to collectively improve their economic and social well-being. After a long history of developing and innovating agricultural practices, especially in fertilizers and composts, Paco now has the ability to bring together many distinct elements into an integrated process. and moves Mexico City's marginal neighborhoods toward taking ownership of He has designed a simple machine that cuts and turns tires inside out. These tires are used as pots for food production. By turning the tire inside-out he has managed to increase the volume by 150% and achieve 40% more sun their own development exposure. Two complementary components of using tires for urban food production is the creative "re-use" of some of the millions of tires that surround Mexico City, and the promotion of a "recycling culture."
Francisco Javier Arroyo y Galván Mexico 30 Duque
F Election year
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A Full Name
B Country
C Field of Work
D One Liner (if available)
economic development
Inventing construction tools that enable the building of ecologically-sound, energysaving public housing on a large scale and in ways that mobilize and employ France's poorest residents Engaging rural entrepreneurs in distributing essential products through a "micro-consignment" approach
Hamzah Harun Indonesia 33 Al'Rasyid
economic development
Raising agricultural productivity through new farm products and a drip irrigation implement he invented, to benefit farmer cooperatives and markets
34 Hamzah M.
Indonesia
health
Hany Hassan Mahmoud El 35 Miniawy
Egypt
housing
36 Harish Hande
India
environment
31 François Marty
Gregory Van 32 Kirk
housing
USA
37 Heike Schettler Germany
38 Hilmi Quaraishi India
F Election year
François Marty is setting new standards and redefining what public housing should look like: Aesthetic, high quality, ecological houses. With municipalities, he is shifting the vision of pubic housing operators and demonstrating the economic viability of such houses. He is also creating and training an entirely new sector of social enterprises, employing those most marginalized in ecological construction. In doing so, he guarantees a strong economic return for social housing operators and social construction enterprises; social welfare for housed families and newly inserted construction workers; and a powerful environmental impact in low-income neighborhoods.
FY08
Greg Van Kirk has developed the MicroConsignment model—a sustainable, replicable means of delivering health-related goods and services to remote Guatemalan and Ecuadoran villages using entrepreneurship; empowering the villagers to help themselves. Greg’s MicroConsignment model creates access to health care-related goods and services in isolated rural communities. The key to the MicroConsignment model is that local women are given the opportunity to become entrepreneurs by selling goods and services in their communities using a consignment mechanism. Unlike the traditional approach of giving handouts to rural communities, the MicroConsignment model—which Greg implements through his American citizen organization (CO), Community Enterprise Solutions and Social Entrepreneur Corps, is scalable, replicable, and sustainable.
FY08
education
Hamzah recognizes the need to put viable technologies into the able hands of people who have a stake in their success. He is raising agricultural productivity in Indonesia's driest lands through the combination of sustainable technologies, farmer cooperatives, and the development of new farm products and markets. A drip irrigation specialist and avid inventor, Hamzah is driven by a simple insight into the nature of the problems that face the rural people with whom he works: accessing maximum benefit from the resources already available is a more practical, more sustainable approach than pinning hopes on a large "project" like a dam. His life's work is a continual effort to strengthen agriculture through people's ownership and management of appropriate technology. Hamzah's first success was his invention of a simple drip irrigation gadget and, subsequently, its transformation into a powerful development tool. He discovered that local materials, including clay and rice husks, could be processed into crude ceramic knobs that allow water to drip at a regulated pace. Called "emitters" in irrigation parlance, these instruments, when attached to discarded water bottles, can be fashioned into an effective drip irrigation system. The result is a locally produced irrigation system that can be manufactured and sold at one-tenth of the cost of comparable systems. FY07 Huge numbers of people in Indonesian cities live in dangerously unsanitary conditions that threaten their health and pollute the environment. Neither their government nor private organizations have developed a sustainable system Introducing technologies for providing basic sanitation services to these citizens. Hamzah Harun Al'Rasyid fills this gap by creating a maintenance system that sustains itself through affordable service fees. His organizations put neighborhood representatives that improve water and in charge of assessing their own needs and devising their own solutions; the facilities themselves are professionally designed and managed to guarantee their environmental safety. Because management and maintenance costs are sanitation in Indonesia covered by user fees, this system is sustainable over the long term and it creates new jobs. FY04 Hany is introducing low-cost, environmentally friendly housing for squatter and other low-income areas in Egypt, an effort that will decrease the cost of housing by 30 percent. His idea has three main components. First, he is reducing dependency on expensive imported, mass-produced, and environmentally unfriendly building materials by participating with local communities to test and improve the properties of locally available materials, using simple Developing eco-friendly non-polluting production and construction methods. Through experimentation with local ingredients used by the ancient Egyptians and the treatment of polluting materials such as rice straw, cement dust, and iron-fabric leftovers, methods of home Hany has been able to create low-cost, government-certified, environmentally friendly construction materials. Second, he is using building techniques that are easier, faster, and more affordable than the techniques currently used to construction that use local build homes. Finally, he is transferring his know-how of building materials and techniques to youth in low-income, illegal communities, adopting a participatory approach and a mutual-learning process that incorporates local materials and create jobs construction knowledge and styles. FY04 Harish chartered the Solar Electric Light Company (SELCO) in 1995 to challenge these assumptions. SELCO has proven the poor can afford and benefit from modern and clean energy services. Today, over 95,000 solar systems have been installed by SELCO with over 400,000 people directly benefitting and tens of thousands more indirectly benefitting. SELCO has provided sustainable energy services to the underserved and keeps costs to a minimum by focusing on the specific lighting needs of its clients as opposed to the common practice of catering to the general electricity demands of a population. Additionally, through door-step service, SELCO demonstrates that maintenance is not an issue. The families and individuals purchasing solar services receive routine check-ups and care for the equipment. The company works with the natural forces of the market and though 75 percent of its client’s earn less than US$4 a day, SELCO generates enough revenue to break-even. FY09 Heike Schettler is breaking down the ivory tower of science by empowering young children to pro-actively question their environment, thus counteracting the fear and misunderstanding of science widespread in the adult population. Through her innovative Science Lab program, she is reforming the traditional school system by thoroughly reaching out to every kindergarten and primary school in Germany and helping them adopt a method of Spreading bottom-up, child- teaching science that is effective and fun. Recognizing that a population in which only experts can understand basic arguments on scientific topics (and therefore manipulate the masses) faces huge democratic challenges, Heike has centered Science Labs and developed a system that gives 4 to 10 year old children the opportunity to be in charge of their learning. They can appropriate science at their own pace by probing, asking and experimenting while being led to understand the curricula throughout primary complex arguments by specially trained lay-experts. By helping children learn that they are entitled to ask questions and search for answers, Heike simultaneously reverses Germany's top-down educational approach. Supporting and fostering children's curiosity from a very early age on regardless of their class background, she has built a system that empowers children and helps eradicate class as the determining factor for a child's future educational career. FY06 schools in Germany
health
Hilmi Quraishi is using mobile telephony to bring important public health messages to the masses.
Howard 39 Weinstein
Brazil
health
Iftekhar 40 Enayetullah
Bangladesh
41 Ingrid Munro
Kenya
environment economic development
42 Isaac Durojaiye Nigeria
E Blurb
health
The use of mobile gaming for the dual purpose of education and entertainment is a new idea in India. Hilmi Quraishi is using mobile telephony to bring important public health messages to the masses. He envisages the widest and deepest reach through the mobile phone, the computer, and the internet—the technology tools of the future—to combat various health and other critical social problems by delivering useful knowledge products in the form of games.
FY08
Manufacturing and distributing low-cost hearing aids with extended batterylife options allowed by solar- Howard Weinstein’s business model gives access to low-cost, high quality hearing aid technology to the low-income people in developing countries that need it most. His deaf employees are taught to become leaders and advocates powered batteries for the full inclusion of hearing-impaired people in society. FY08 Capitalizing on the high organic content of domestic waste, and tapping into a pool of ready labor, Maqsood and Iftekhar are setting up a string of community-based composting plants that convert garbage into fertilizer. Their work Developing communitynot only meets the need for efficient and environmentally sound ways to manage refuse, but also meets the demand for organic fertilizers. The city government recognizes these benefits and allows the pair to use vacant lots for based, high-tech, low-cost their work. Winning over neighbors required not only a good argument for recycling, but a technical solution to the infamous stench that gives trash dumps a bad name, so Maqsood and Iftekhar adapted a system that would keep the smell down. Along with composting, Maqsood and Iftekhar have designed and implemented an inexpensive solid waste management program in two slums of Dhaka. Supported by the United Nations, they have adapted a Sri composting plants to convert organic waste into Lankan model of barrel-type composting that allows slum dwellers to compost their kitchen scraps. People can sell their nutrient-rich products to Maqsood and Iftekhar's organization. The two point out that it is meaningless to income-generating fertilizers exhort people living in slums to keep a clean environment when they don't have enough food on the table. Only by demonstrating that waste is a resource was it possible to gain their cooperation. As Mohammad Azizul, a senior slum resident, remarked, FY01 "The slum is cleaner Ingrid Munro founded Jamii Bora, a microfinance organization that provides business and housing loans, health and life insurance, and business education to the urban poor and slum dwellers in Nairobi. In 10 years, Munro’s organization has organized a cumulative 36.2 million dollars in loans for Kenya’s urban poor, stimulating small businesses and raising living standards in the city. FY09 Creating Nigeria’s first mobile toilet initiative to Concerned about the health and environment issues created by the absence of public toilets in most Nigerian cities, Isaac started the first mobile toilet initiative in Nigeria to provide decent toilet facilities in strategic locations across remedy rampant urban the country. To do this effectively and in a sustainable manner, Isaac manufactures mobile toilets locally and in a manner that meets the needs of the different categories of users. For instance, squatting mobile toilets are built for unemployment and poor markets, parks and streets, while executive toilets are manufactured for use at seminars, crusades, construction sites, and parties. In addition, all the toilets are leased to unemployed youth who make fixed returns at the end of the sanitation conditions day and keep whatever they make over the fixed amount. In this way, Isaac is not only creating a healthier more dignified environment throughout Nigeria, but created hundreds of jobs in the process. FY05
Page 4
1
A Full Name
B Country
43 Jack Sim
44 Joachim Ezeji
45 Jose Dias
Jose Raúl 46 Moreno
José Roberto 47 Silva
C Field of Work
health
Nigeria
Brazil
Colombia
Brazil
D One Liner (if available) Revamping the field of sanitation worldwide by bringing technical, financial, organizational, and marketrelated strategies to citizen organizations working on sanitation
environment
economic development
José Dias is empowering small farmers in Northeastern Brazil to collectively manage and appropriate resources for drought-resistant
E Blurb
Jack has founded a pair of global initiatives, the World Toilet Organization (WTO) and the World Toilet College. He is also one of the founders of Sustainable Sanitation Alliance (SuSanA). WTO—and it is no coincidence that this name resembles that of another illustrious global body—is a membership organization of citizen groups, academia, and government agencies around the world whose work proves that progress on sanitation is possible. The WTO, which has 130 member organizations in fifty-one countries, is essentially a collection of effective citizen organizations working in sanitation. Jack weaves them into a network, boosting their local or national credibility by adding the WTO “brand.” These are the people who, with the right resources, can provide the solutions and services needed to begin meet the demand for toilets. The role of the second organization, SuSanA, is to align organizations, budgets, governments, and other sources of influence to redefine the mission and the urgency of sanitation. Members include members of national governments, UN and multilateral agencies, with room for private sector partners to join as well. Through SuSanA, Jack wants to use the great expanse of sanitation know-how to create and an efficient global sanitation marketplace. Confronted with the impracticality of existing water filter designs that could be efficiently used in rural and suburban Africa, Joachim designed an innovative two-stage water filter that uses local non toxic materials to provide acceptable levels of physical and chemical filtration. His filter has a physical barrier to remove sediment and a second barrier of locally-available moringa powder to act as a bactericide instead of chlorine which has a high toxicity level and can be hazardous to the health if improperly used. A further third barrier of pumice removes chemical pollutants. Joachim then built and trained a network of ‘water entrepreneurs’ to manufacture, distribute, and service the filters at the community level, thereby keeping the cost to the consumer as low as possible and creating jobs for local youths. The filter lasts a long time and is environmentally friendly as it only requires a periodic change of the layer of moringa powder to ensure protection from water pollutants.
José Dias is empowering small farmers in Northeastern Brazil to collectively manage and appropriate resources for drought-resistant technologies. His model aims to break the dependence of small-scale farmers on government support by providing them with sufficient autonomy to invest in new infrastructure and appropriate technology as they see fit.
F Election year
FY07
FY09
FY08
Jose Raúl is developing and disseminating new earthen construction technologies as commercially viable solutions for the housing needs of poor families in Colombia and neighboring Andean countries. In the Andean setting, earthen construction is a familiar, affordable, and environmentally friendly housing solution, and Jose Raúl is using it as a tool, both, for fostering local development and employment opportunities and for giving people a sense of ownership of the houses and communities in which they live. In 1999, as a vehicle for developing and spreading his idea, Jose Raúl created Fundación Tierra Viva. Over an initial five-year period of investigation and experimentation, Jose Raúl and his Tierra Viva colleagues developed new and much-improved earthen construction materials that have proved to be appropriately durable and earthquake-resistant and have been certified as meeting governmentprescribed construction standards. Research and experimentation continue to be important components of Tierra Viva’s ongoing work, with a particular focus of the integration of green technologies—including thermal insulation layers, stabilized FY09 floors made of earthen m
housing
economic development
Enhancing small-scale farming with a solarpowered micro-irrigation system of production, marketing, and commercialization that makes farming profitable for poor farmers in Brazil's Northeast
Developing a commercially viable system that uses a fixed filter anaerobic biogas converter to clean air and water from slaughterhouse effluence
Through the Eco-Engenho Institute, José Roberto questions the widespread assumption of fighting against drought, and bases his work on a new paradigm where it is possible for small rural communities to draw on the potential of semi-arid regions for their socioeconomic development. He has created a model for remote rural zones in the northeast of Brazil which utilizes renewable energies and technologies appropriate for cultivating products of high aggregate value in this climate. He is also developing mechanisms for access to a fair market in which there is solidarity; guaranteeing income for these communities. With the project H2Sol, José Roberto makes use of the abundant solar energy to amplify access to water and develop irrigation micro-systems which permit agricultural production without wasting water. This technological process is customized to each producer. With the vision that it is necessary to produce in order to generate income and not only subsistence, José Roberto stimulates production valued in the market and through Articulation of Solidarity Trade (AmercSol) supports the entire productive process and commercialization.
FY07
Joseph 48 Adelegan
Nigeria
environment
49 Joseph Sekiku
Tanzania
economic development
Dr. Joseph Adelegan has brought technological innovation to conventional anaerobic biodigesters. He designed a reactor dubbed “Cows to Kilowatts” that treats slaughterhouse waste in an effort to abate water pollution and mitigate greenhouse gas emission. He engages local communities in the implementation of his project which produces biogas usable as domestic cooking gas to create a commercially sustainable solution to a persistent environmental problem. Dr. Adelegan’s reactor treats slaughterhouse waste and, instead of churning excess methane into the atmosphere, captures the usable biogas that is produced. Basing the reactors in the communities most affected by slaughterhouse waste, he designed an accompanying community engagement program that provides income incentives and employment opportunities and incorporates local priorities into the construction and function of the reactor. Joseph is fostering entrepreneurship among farming families in northwestern Tanzania. He does this by helping small-scale producers understand how markets work, and how they may move beyond subsistence by adopting new approaches to post-harvest production, marketing, and distribution. He introduces methods that improve yield, such as low-cost techniques and tools for drying and packaging fruits, and helps farmers connect to each other and to new markets. Taken together, these approaches yield higher incomes to small-scale producers—but as important, they inspire rural farmers to see themselves in a completely new light: As enterprising contributors to a better future for themselves and their families. As Joseph notes, the time is ripe to realize changes in the economics of small-scale production, as farmers are supported by a burgeoning citizen sector, an economy that is open to global markets, and improved information exchange.
Encouraging aspiring young inventors to use local materials and their own creative talent to improve living conditions among the citizen engagement poor
Juan Carlos, who has invented with found materials since childhood, is leading a movement for social inventing, applying the inventor's imagination to local development needs. He encourages inventors to consider several aspects of their work's social viability: local access to materials, local maintenance and repair, low cost, convenience, and environmental impact. He recognizes poor people's creativity and teaches them to invent for self-reliance. To promote this new profession, he supports aspiring young inventors and encourages accomplished inventors to turn towards social inventing.
FY00
In Lima, one of the world’s driest urban areas, growing numbers of low-income neighborhoods have no access to running water. Juan Carlos is proposing a new approach to sustainable waste management. He starts by offering simple water management technologies to slum neighborhoods and rural areas with no effective clean water system. These inexpensive technologies promote community water conservation and waste management, help prevent human waste dumping, and have the added benefit of turning gray water into usable water for public parks. The system can be installed at one-third the cost of traditional water and waste systems, it saves 50 percent of typical urban water consumption, and most importantly, it involves local citizens in development and financing in order to ensure sustainability. In a city where a growing population is putting tremendous pressure on an already failing system of water and waste management, innovative thinking is necessary to prevent a health crisis of drastic proportions.
FY04
Juan carlos 50 Aguilar macizo Peru
Juan Carlos 51 Calizaya Luna
Peru
environment
Installing environmentally friendly sanitation systems at the household and community level and building the social infrastructure needed to support them
Page 5
FY07
FY07
1
A Full Name
B Country
C Field of Work
D One Liner (if available)
52 Juan José Oña
Uruguay
education
53 Juan Rivera
Perú
environment/econ omic development not yet on website
54 Jyoti Sharma
India
environment
E Blurb Juan José Oña is spearheading the emergence of environmental protection in Uruguay. His multimedia BioBank project engages a diverse range of previously apathetic citizens, young and old, in the task of documenting native flora and fauna. The BioBank itself becomes an important tool for many public and private efforts to protect the environment. His training for community groups to use modern audio-visual technology also stimulates them to initiate projects for the more harmonious use of natural resources. Thus, Juan José is meeting the needs of the budding Uruguayan ecology movement and the general public and is encouraging and helping students, teachers, government officials and community groups and leaders to take an active part in documenting and preserving Uruguay's environment. Juan is promoting efficient coffee-farming practices and processing techniques that are non-damaging to the environment and guarantee a high product quality. Through his initiative, Juan is also doubling small coffee producers’ outputs while assuring the sustainable management of natural resources, waste recycling, and the preservation of the environment. Through his internship program, Juan has already trained more than 2,000 small farmers in sustainable coffee production, in the Cajamarca region of Peru. Moreover, Juan’s farming methods are quickly spreading through partnerships with government bodies and Peru’s largest coffee cooperatives. Juan has also developed two technological innovations that are both accessible to poor farmers and much more efficient and environmentally friendly than the traditional devices that they replace. In order to facilitate the process of cleaning, selecting and drying coffee Juan has designed both a coffee bean cleaning and selection tank and a solar dryer. Both tools are easy to build and are made with natural resources found in the coffee producers’ surroundings. FORCE, Jyoti's organization, is creating community-owned water management structures. She has built a portfolio of water conservation technologies that enables communities to see the impact that changing their consumption patterns can have on local water resources. FORCE has created the model for disseminating community scale water conservation structures across India. For example, by introducing a rain water catchment structure in a community that would serve 20 families she garners the support of other people in adjacent neighborhoods who also want to introduce catchment structures in their areas. The water conservation structures themselves give the community a physical rallying point for further dissemination of conservation technology to individual households and behavioral conservation efforts on an individual level. Jyoti has combined technological interventions with a community governance structure that makes citizens responsible for consumption decisions. In order to build a citizen base of support for water conservation efforts Jyoti begins her work at the community level where behavioral change can
Providing local communities in the central and western Himalayas with the organizational, technical, and managerial skills to effect ecological restoration of their area
55 Kalyan Paul
India
economic development
Kongkiat 56 Kespechara
Thailand
health
57 Kovin Naidoo
South Africa
health
Kalyan Paul is providing local communities in the central and western Himalayas with the organizational, technical, and managerial skills to effect ecological restoration of their area. Kalyan's organization–Grassroots: The PanHimalayan Development Foundation–is a platform that facilitates the free flow of ideas and solutions regarding sustainable land use, appropriate technology, and technical skill transfers. By thus bringing the region's local groups together, he hopes to create a movement pressing competently for ecological restoration across the western and central Himalayas. Most of the major rivers of northern India rise in this region's threatened mountains. Kalyan also works to provide practical economic alternatives to destructive exploitation, noticeably the initiation of new small-scale or cottage industries, both independently and jointly with trade organizations. Grassroots will also plan and be responsible for the implementation of projects designed to promote environmental conservation. One such example is the installation of solar energy systems in urban centers in the western and central Himalayas. Kongkiat is using information technology to enable small rural hospitals to provide improved healthcare services and make more effective use of the severely limited financial and human resources at their disposal. He has developed an information management system tailored to the special needs of such hospitals, and by training hospital staff to be owners of that technology, he is enabling local adaptations of the system that are responsive to the special needs of a particular institution and help assure the continued growth and vitality of the system. Unlike most medical software, Kongkiat’s “Hospital OS” collects both clinical and financial data. The database that it provides enables rural hospitals to analyze the cost-effectiveness of their services, optimize their generally meager budgets, and design improved ways of delivering healthcare services. It has also resulted in many local initiatives, including a new approach for attending the needs of patients with chronic diseases and improved disease surveillance systems in remote rural areas. Determined to bring eye care and blindness prevention to the poor, Kovin has developed a comprehensive, sustainable, and horizontal economic service delivery model for poor rural communities in South Africa. His model shifts the Providing access to eye care primary responsibility for refractive services and blindness prevention from private sector professionals to cadres of community eye and health care workers. Using a horizontal model which develops a value chain encompassing through technological educationalists, educators, practitioners, clinics, hospitals, suppliers and the community, Kovin has intricately knit together a model for providing eye care, making it both affordable and accessible by the rural poor. His model innovations that reduce lens comprehensively utilizes each component of the value chain, from education and training of eye care practitioners to establishment of examination sites, technical equipment and support, and manufacturing of lenses and frames. costs to $1.50 Additionally, Kovin has constructed incentives and configured relationships that ensure a win-win situation for all stakeholders involved in the model, which has elicited buy-in for his program and has made it sustainable. Bringing sustainable electricity to rural Sri Lanka, and building the components that allow community members to maintain and finance smallscale biomass generation
Lalith 58 Seneviratne
Sri Lanka
housing
59 Lazaro Cunha 60 Leonora Mol
Brazil Brazil
not yet categorized not yet formally elected housing
Luis Orlando 61 Castro
Colombia
62 Lynn Freiji
Egypt
Madan Mohan India 63 Rao
64 Mahabir Pun
Nepal
education
economic development
education
Refining a nearly extinct technology — the party line system — to provide connectivity to villagers living in rural areas unable to attract mobile phone service providers Using solar power, treebased relay systems and adapted technologies to create wireless networks that are suitable for the remote mountainous regions of Nepal
Lalith is developing a sustainable model for rural power generation that allows communities and villages that do not have grid-connected electricity to set up their own biomass-based electrification systems and reap the social and economic benefits. The villages Lalith is assisting are in the dry zone of Sri Lanka, where villagers are dependent on rain for their largely subsistence cultivation and are among the poorest Sri Lankan citizens. Lalith encourages villages to form cooperatives and cultivate gliricidia wood, while employing their labour in the construction of a power plant. The gliricidia, a woody biomass, is well suited for the climatic conditions of the dry zone. The villagers are then trained to use the technology to run and maintain the power plant, which can then supply power to 60 rural homes. not yet formally elected
F Election year
FY94
FY09
FY09
FY92
FY09
FY06
FY05 FY10 FY09
Luis Orlando Castro is turning the biodegradable components of trash from a source of contamination into a cheap and accessible resource. The technology he has invented converts organic waste into a highly effective fertilizer. He sees multiple ways that waste can translate into income-producing work for poor people and generate benefits to the land, and he is making the necessary connections among recyclers, waste-processing plants, government training institutes, farmers, buyers of farmers' produce, environmental restoration efforts, and municipal governments that control waste-disposal contracts. The municipal waste-disposal contracts are the fulcrum for spreading Luis Orlando's work. While they remain in the hands of landfill operators, they are an obstacle. But where town and city governments become convinced that Luis Orlando's approach is preferable to the status quo, the contracts open the door to profitable fertilizer production and many attendant employment and marketing opportunities. Lynn wants to replace the stale, outdated pedagogic methods that characterize science education in today's classrooms with a hands-on, child-centered approach that gets students out of their classrooms and into the world. The 40 or more structured outdoor activities (usually half-day or day-long field trips) she has designed put children ages 6 to 11 at the center of learning; encourage them to explore nature, science, and history in ways that are fun and instructive; and link directly to the homeroom lessons in the national science curriculum. Rather than learning by rote, children learn by doing; they discover, explore, and deduce scientific principles based on their experiences, experiments, and observations. In the process, they gain confidence in their creativity and critical thinking skills and learn to formulate, articulate, and refine hypotheses. Lynn has spent the past few years developing and improving her curriculum, designing a pilot field center, and welcoming her first classroom groups (the learners) and university students (the teachers and curriculum developers). She is now pursuing a national plan to introduce outdoor field
FY03
Rural Telecom Foundation (RTF), of which Madan Mohan Rao is one of the founding members, has created a system to bring telephones to rural India for the mutual benefit of households, small business people, state-run service providers, and the government, while subtly creating important shifts in relationships among families and villages. Through a series of experiments, the RTF has created the GramPhone—a cheap and easily run village-based exchange that takes into account the short-distance communication needs of rural people. The copper wire, switchboard and handsets that together make telecommunication possible are the material elements of RTF’s idea; and the conviction that lasting social change can be brought about through expanding the means of communication is its substance. Over 90 percent of India’s rural households still do not own a telephone. As someone who is closely associated with rural Andhra Pradesh, Madan understands how this condition inhibits or thwarts economic entrepreneurship, new social transactions, and the ability to respond to crises that telephones allow. Through telephones, rigid caste, class, and gender hierarchies are being gently but irrevocably displaced.
FY05
Mahabir has designed income-generation initiatives that deliver new economic possibilities to villagers and fund schools, allowing them to operate independently of the state and extend education to the 8th, 9th, and 10th grades. Community members channel profits to areas of critical need for the schools–from teachers' salaries to electrical generators that run classroom computers. To improve the quality of instruction, to inject creative and effective ideas into the classroom, and to prevent teacher burnout, Mahabir is linking teachers by computer and Internet. Thus, he is using technology to overcome the geographic isolation of many of the communities in which he works. The creative solutions he has designed allow teachers in neighboring villages–usually hours away by foot–to communicate, share ideas and resources, and support each other. Mahabir is bringing computers and computer training to the classroom because he sees that especially in isolated areas, Web-based learning can benefit students and teachers, as well as attract volunteer doctors, teachers, students, and tourists, and provide a market for village products. Mahabir's idea is replicable in other areas characterized by geographic isolation and a dearth of educational and economic opportunities.
FY02
Page 6
FY01
1
A Full Name
65 Maher Bushra 66 María Ferro
67 Mathias Craig
B Country
Egypt Argentina
USA
C Field of Work
D One Liner (if available)
citizen engagement
environment
Developing a communitybased clean energy model dependent on local manufacture and maintenance of a specially designed hybrid solar/wind turbine along the impoverished Caribbean coast of Nicaragua Widening access to housing for Nigeria’s urban and rural poor through the introduction of a new building technology that is low-cost, sustainable, and attractive
Maxwell 68 Marshall
Nigeria
housing
Mohammed 69 Abba
Nigeria
economic development
Moses Kizza 70 Musaazi
Uganda
health
Muthu 71 Velayutham
India
economic development
72 Narcís Vives Ylla Spain
education
Narong 73 Patibatsarakich Thailand
economic development
Nawee 74 Nakwatchara
Thailand
economic development
Omar Azad 75 Chowdhury
Bangladesh
education
76 Onno Purbo
Indonesia
economic development
E Blurb The millions of people working in Egypt’s informal economy face high occupational risks and low standards of legal protection. In the informal sector, health insurance, job security, and basic rights are both vitally important and very rare. The dangerous, grueling work of the country’s more than 200,000 quarry workers makes their need particularly great. Maher Bushra fights to establish legal, social and economic protections for these neglected workers as a first step toward guaranteeing basic rights to all the workers of his country’s informal economy. Through years of work, he has built a model for organization and advocacy among quarry workers that will serve as a tool to secure rights and services for the millions of workers who make their living in the informal sector. Maher has shown a talent for balancing the interests of all stakeholders in the informal economy. He lobbies the government and reaches out to the general public. He helps quarry workers connect with each other, learn their rights, and organize for safer working conditions, job security, and compensation to their families in case of accidental injury or death. He
Mathias Craig has developed a community-based clean energy model that relies on the local manufacture and maintenance of a hybrid wind/solar energy system along the impoverished Caribbean coast of Nicaragua. As an engineering student, Mathias was fascinated with the potential of renewable energy for developing the world’s poorest regions. In 2003, Mathias co-founded the citizen organization (CO) blueEnergy. blueEnergy implements a reliable clean energy model for poor Nicaraguan communities and puts development in the hands of residents by emphasizing the local manufacture and maintenance of wind/solar energy systems. blueEnergy develops local capacity to build, operate, and maintain energy systems by manufacturing its turbines in Nicaragua and investing in training local technicians and community operators.
F Election year
FY04
FY08
Maxwell Marshall is revolutionizing access to housing for the urban and the rural poor by introducing a building technology that combines bamboo and latrite (red sticky clay) as inexpensive and environmentally sustainable alternatives to conventional building materials. A production and delivery system ensures that low-income consumers benefit not only from the finished product but also from the cultivation and production of materials. His innovative housing design uses affordable alternatives to cement and timber that are also two of the major components of conventional building in Nigeria. Bamboo provides many economic and environmental benefits as a building material. Maxwell’s design is intended for prefabrication and has components that are easy to assemble to create additional cost savings and make housing available to everyone. The design is deployed in urban low-income estates, run by his Green Access Initiative. The estates will be built in partnership with government and multilateral agencies to replace shanty towns. Housing will be made available through an evaluation process to ensure that only residents with the most need are selected. Skills transfer training at regional centers will reach rural areas and create income generation and job opportunities for local youths. FY07 Mohammed Bah Abba has invented an innovative earthenware cooling system to preserve perishable foods in developing countries with arid climates. As a Nigerian teacher, Mohammed was motivated by his concern for the rural Creating economic poor and by his interest in indigenous African technology to develop practical, local solutions to rural problems. His simple and inexpensive earthenware “pot-in-pot” cooling device, based on a simple physical principle and used as opportunities for Nigerian far back as ancient Egypt, is revolutionizing lives in this semi-desert area of Nigeria. The pot-in-pot refrigeration device consists of two earthenware pots of different diameters, one placed inside the other. The space between the farmers through a system two pots is filled with wet sand that is kept constantly moist, thereby keeping both pots damp. Fruit, vegetables, meat, and other items such as soft drinks are put in the smaller inner pot, which is covered with a damp cloth. The that naturally refrigerates phenomenon that occurs is based on a simple principle of physics: the water contained in the sand between the two pots evaporates towards the outer surface of the larger pot where the drier outside air is circulating. By virtue of fruits and vegetables the laws of thermodynamics, the evaporation process automatically causes a drop in temperature of several degrees, cooling the inner container, destroying harmful microorganisms and preserving the perishable foods inside. FY08 In order to sustainably produce affordable and environmentally friendly sanitary pads, Dr. Musaazi has created a simple technology that uses locally available resources such as papyrus reeds and waste paper as raw materials. He is engaging the participation of the local community in production, thereby creating employment and an alternative income. Currently, he is partnering with individual entrepreneurs and organizations in both the private and civil sector to form a wide distribution network to make these MAKA Pads available for school-age girls throughout Uganda and its neighboring countries. To provide a safe and clean environment for the girls to change pads and wash up during their menstrual cycle, Dr. Musaazi is also constructing well ventilated, spacious pit latrines that have running water heated by a solar powered water heating system, also innovated by Dr. Musaazi and his students. To ensure that the girls have a constant supply of clean water, he is constructing concrete water tanks with up to 170,000 liters water capacity for harvesting and storage using a low brick-making technology he adapted that reduces the cost of FY09 While debates rage on how best to build the economic power of rural communities in the developing world, Muthu Velayutham quietly leads a network of community-based business ventures and financial institutions that make sustainable economic growth possible for India’s rural poor. He organizes federations of rural dry land farmers into producer companies that enable them to compete in large regional markets and to create savings and credit Pairing rural farmers with programs needed to sustain their growth. After one and a half decades of operation, his programs have resulted in four registered community based financial institutions employing almost 10,000 women. These community engineers to design products businesses market and sell medicinal plants, energy products, and traditional crop resources. Realizing that economies cannot ultimately succeed without effectively addressing the pressing issues of health, education and and distribute them through infrastructure, Muthu Velayutham builds solutions for all three into his model of rural development. He helps communities fund and run schools, Common Facility Centers (CFCs), and hospitals where none have existed before. He is rural citizen networks encouraging the environmentally responsible use of bio-gas and bio-diesel, reducing the carbon emissions of some farming villages by more than 80 percent. With his support, communities become capable stewards of their economic and socialFY05 growth, building their capacit Narcís gives students around the world the opportunity to learn interactively and enter the information age sharing information instead of merely receiving it. His online platform, Atlas of Diversity, presents a new teaching paradigm that utilizes technological applications as tools for teachers to explore innovative educational techniques. The result is a new classroom dynamic that improves and deepens young people’s learning experience. Atlas is designed to be applicable to any subject, from literature to mathematics. Students work in teams researching, summarizing and uploading information to exchange and discuss their work with others around the world. By making learning a dynamic and exciting process in which students and teachers learn and build important parts of their own educational content together, Narcís is adapting education systems around the world to the new, increasingly globalized information era. FY08 Narong Patibatsarakich founded and became the first chairperson of the Association of the Physically Handicapped of Thailand and then of the even broader umbrella Council of Disabled Persons of Thailand. With his colleagues he is pushing for a basic law that would ensure the disabled of basic rights of access (e.g., through construction of ramps and curb cut-outs at key points), to education, and to work. The most advanced thinkers in the field have increasingly been talking about "community-based rehabilitation" or CBR, but the statistics remain grim. Narong estimates that in Thailand "not more than 2% receive some kind of rehabilitation services." He is not only going beyond rehabilitation to jobs, but he must cause thousands of villages and slums to change how they perceive and deal with their disabled neighbors. To do that, he knows he must work through other institutions. He is especially hoping to tap the Ministry of Public Health's volunteers, religious leaders (he has been encouraged by the recent reaction of one Buddhist abbot), and private voluntary organizations. FY89
Nawee Nakwatchara is empowering small farmers to make their own informed decisions in pursuit of decent livelihoods from their agricultural pursuits. In the 1- ngan (0.1 acre) “learning plots” that he encourages farmers to set aside and employ, Nawee has developed an unusually effective tool for stimulating farmers to ask questions, experiment, and contribute to a growing knowledge of locally appropriate agricultural practices. Working with small landowners in the Northeast of Thailand, the country’s poorest region, Nawee is enabling farmers to break the cycle of debt and dependency on unviable farming practices. Nawee’s work is a marked departure from the conventional “packaging” of rural assistance. He asks farmers to explore their own solutions, employing a familiar and tangible medium of communication: land. The 1- ngan plots of individual farmers host collections of promising alternatives for increasing productivity and cutting production costs, with an emphasis on integrated farming, low-cost technology, and drawing on local wisdom. Farmers decide what to experiment with in their 1- ngan plots, while Nawee provides FY09 technical assistance in tra In Bangladeshi society technical expertise in the sciences can be the key to overcoming limitations on social mobility such as poverty and class. Omar’s program draws on this potential of science to improve the quality of life. From experience, he has observed that children develop a fear of science from a very early age. By teaching it in a way that makes science stimulating, enjoyable, and relevant, Omar exposes children to science learning in an entirely new Advancing a new model of way—one that stands in stark contract to traditional Bangladeshi educational practices characterized by regimented processes, rote learning, and an absence of creativity and fun. The principle vehicle of Omar’s method is a mobile science and invention science laboratory that visits different schools. The lab facilitates experiments and workshops which enable children to experience science in its simplest forms and relate it to their curriculum and events in their everyday lives. learning in Bangladesh Omar’s methodology allows him to reach a large number of children because his lab is designed from simple, easily available items. As a result, even the most remote areas and institutions with little or no access to expensive FY04 Building Indonesia into a Onno is playing a central role in transforming Indonesia into a knowledge-based society by pioneering the development of low-cost technologies, recruiting and mobilizing a growing network of “techies” committed to broadening knowledge-based society by access to and use of the Internet, and advocating related changes in public policy and education. Convinced that access to information and broad participation in knowledge formation are integral to survival and poverty alleviation bringing low-cost Wi-Fi in an increasingly globalized economy, Onno is pursuing a concerted range of strategies to stimulate and broaden access to the Internet. His goal is to engage rapidly increasing portions of Indonesia’s population in knowledge-using Internet access to and knowledge-generating endeavors. A key element of those strategies has been the creation and nurturing of a network, or virtual organization, of like-minded individuals who are committed to “democratizing” Internet access. communities and schools Over the past dozen years, Onno has worked with hundreds of such individuals who are spearheading the development and use of technologies for bringing affordable and cost-efficient Internet access to schools, grassroots throughout the country communities and citizen groups. To broaden their reach, Onno and his colleagues have produced an impressive and rapidly growing body of books and papers in the local language (Bahasa, Indonesian) on the relevant technologies and their application FY05 in successful endeavo Page 7
1
A Full Name
B Country
77 Patrick Gathitu Kenya
78 Paul Basil
79 Pedro Serrano
India
Chile
80 Pradip Sarmah India
81 Prema Gopalan India
C Field of Work
economic development
D One Liner (if available) Empowering Kenyans to make good choices about what technologies to buy and how best to use them on their farms and microenterprises
In an environment in which tradespeople buy and sell for profit, not bothering about the product’s usability to its purchaser, Patrick helps Kenyans make good choices about what technologies to buy and how best to use them on their farms, in their microentreprises, and so on. He identifies several hundred promising, affordable, and appropriate technologies. He shows people how to use them and offers continued support to small-scale business owners as they expand their ventures. Having begun his work in Western and North Rift Kenya, Patrick hopes to build a network of inventors, farmers, and civil society groups across East Africa to foster efficiency and entrepreneurship.
FY04
economic development
Developing promising rural technological innovations into successful commercial enterprises
Paul sees that people living in rural areas must confront problems of every sort with few resources or ready-made solutions. Some brilliant and widely applicable practical solutions surface in this environment, yet more often than not, the solutions designed by rural people are seen merely as local innovations, with limited application beyond a small cluster of communities. Using a venture capital investment model, Paul is reaching these rural innovators who have little visibility or access to support. He and his staff identify promising ideas, such as rain guns, automatic seed-drills, bio-insecticides, and solar water purifiers. By mentoring the men and women behind the ideas, Paul and his team help refine, promote, and market the ideas or products.
FY02
environment
Employing a holistic approach that combines energy-saving technology, education and political action, Pedro Serrano is introducing new energy technologies that will reduce pressure on Chile's scarce firewood resources
economic development
civic engagement
82 Ramji Raghavan India
education
83 Randolph Wang India
education
84 Ravindranath
Rebeca Villalobos 85 Vargas
India
Costa Rica
environment
health
86 Roshaneh Zafar Pakistan
economic development
87 Salah Arafa
citizen engagement
Egypt
Distributing safer rickshaws with improved ergonomic design through Rickshaw Bank loans geared towards ownership Training rural women to identify community needs and design, build and operate water and sanitation systems
E Blurb
Convinced that current patterns of energy use, which involve a heavy reliance on firewood, are producing increasingly disastrous consequences, Pedro Serrano is employing a holistic approach, encompassing appropriate technology, education and government action, to achieve the needed changes. Pedro is persuaded that a successful attempt to introduce energy-efficient practices on the scale required to protect the environment and benefit the poor in Chile's arid regions requires carefully orchestrated actions in each of those areas. Pedro has long played a leading role in the development of energy-efficient technology, including solar-powered stoves and other appliances, as a means of combating traditional, inefficient energy practices that deplete Chile's firewood resources and contribute to desertification. But he believes that "real change will occur only through vigorous, systematic efforts to educate and prepare the public for an energy efficient culture." Seeking to avoid the mistakes that have characterized attempts to introduce solar and other energy-efficient technologies in India, China and elsewhere, Pedro is convinced that the key to the successful introduction of these technologies is education and careful cultural preparation, and he also recognizes that government action, including subsidized distribution of appliances, mandated training in energy efficiency in the public schools and a sustained policy focus on alternative energy sources, FY95will be required. Pradip Sarmah sees an enormous opportunity to introduce commercial breeding of chickens, pigs, cows and other animals to northeast India, the most "backward" region of the country. He is creating a service whereby veterinarians, who are underemployed, stimulate the rural economy by helping farmers increase livestock production, and earn themselves a living at the same time. The vets train "paravets," local counterparts who provide ongoing assistance to farmers. Combined, Pradip's carefully planned pricing scheme, knowledge of the market, expertise as a vet, and awareness of local culture overcome the many stumbling blocks which have foiled so many previous development programs. In fact, no one has made a serious effort to introduce animal husbandry to the northeast, and surprisingly few attempts have been made in the rest of India, apart from the enormous growth of the dairy industry, the "white revolution," which has yet to reach the northeast. Government programs have failed because they lacked the economic incentives and technical support systems–cross-breeding, feed supply, immunization, marketing–that commercial husbandry requires. By using community microcredit groups ("self-help groups," in the parlance of rural development), Pradip builds participation and responsibility, and taps into a major trend in rural development.FY01 Prema is empowering women to influence and change government policy from inside the system, creating a "micro-macro" balance that will help stop the tremendous waste of resources. Prema has made it possible for women to be involved from the first step of the policy process: to draft a new sectoral reform policy at the Maharashtra state level to effect a transfer of power and resources relating to water and sanitation to women at decentralized, community institutions and local governments. Prema is now taking advantage of this historic policy to involve the women in promoting community ownership of water supply systems and their management by demonstrating how collaborations between gram panchayats (village administration committees) and community groups that are operated by women can manage water systems. Ramji Raghavan’s vision is to build an India of tinkerers, problem-solvers and creators who are humane, anchored and networked. In order to realize this, Ramji and his organization, Agastya International Foundation, have worked to provide teachers and out-of-school and at-risk children access to hands-on science that arouses curiosity. With a focus on moving from ‘teaching’ to ‘learning’, the foundation has developed innovative approaches like the pioneering Science Park in Andhra Pradesh, mobile science vans that go into the rural areas in neighboring Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu. His work has reached around 700,000 children and trained 40,000 teachers. Randolph Wang, along with Urvashi Sahni, are matching high quality pedagogy with low-cost technology to link quality teaching in urban schools with poor rural schools, and to do it cheaply and on a large scale. A facilitated videobased instruction system provides flexible ways of teaching students in the face of entrenched shortages both of qualified teachers and high quality educational materials. The Digital Study Hall (DSH) initiative started by Randolph and Urvashi is a user-generated video sharing system intended to overcome the shortage of qualified teachers in poor and remote rural schools. DSH provides tools to help local schools and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) make videos of the best teachers in actual classroom sessions, teaching standard textbook materials. These videos are stored and shared in a network of "hub databases" and then distributed to underserved local "spoke schools" via digital video disks (DVDs) using the postal system and other couriers. Local teachers use these videos live in their classrooms as they interact with their students.
Mitigating flood disasters by introducing - through an active citizen network - such life-saving technologies as modified tube-wells to keep drinking water safe, quickassemble toilets for use in floods, and stilt designs to elevate homes Developing a participatory system of eye care that enables Costa Ricans of all classes to access affordable medical services Introducing solar technology to Pakistani homeowners through the national financial tools network she has built
F Election year
FY03
FY09
FY09
Working extensively in the Brahmaputra-Barak basin in the upper stretches of the northeastern Indian state of Assam, Ravi’s model incorporates local mechanisms to facilitate accurate warning systems; river levels and rainfall datasharing processes concerning river levels through River Basin Friends, a network of 6,000 volunteers; alternative livelihoods that harness the forces unleashed by the flood cycles instead of succumbing to its fury; issues of health and shelter; and, dialogue with the government to drive policy. Propounding the philosophy of “co-existence with floods” Ravi’s model is designed to address every stage of the flood cycle and make productive use of the time during and after. His Early Warning Network System is a community-managed process involving local and regional data-sharing and simple technologies to measure water levels and land contours to accurately forecast flash floods. Warnings are then transmitted throughout the region. Ravi provides disaster mitigation solutions by introducing alternative crops suitable for cultivation during “safe” months including innovations of creeper varieties of vegetables, highly profitable livestock breeding such as pig farming, a seed bank, and forty markets during the dry periods to move people away from government promoted welfare programs like food-for-work.
FY07
Rebeca's innovative Little Windows of Light program trains schoolchildren as community-wide promoters of proper vision care. In schools around rural Costa Rica, children eagerly line up to shout out the figures they read from an eyesight exam chart posted at the front of their classrooms, while a classmate attentively records and explains each student's results. This groundbreaking program reflects one dimension of Rebeca's large-scale effort to reverse the trend toward preventable blindness in her native Costa Rica. Rebeca's work is centered on the notion that blindness is not strictly a health problem. Like deafness and dental decay, vision loss is a social problem that requires involvement from a range of community actors for diagnosis, treatment, and prevention. Undaunted by the shortage of optometry professionals and resources, she is working with doctors, nurses, medical students, teachers, suppliers, and even children to incorporate responsible eyecare into the fabric of everyday life.
FY02
In 1995, Roshaneh founded a new organization, the Kashf Foundation, to spearhead the development of a new model for a “full-service organization,” managed by and for women, that combines in-house, micro-scale banking and lending operations with closely integrated training and support services. The Foundation has obtained start-up funding from outside sources and is now implementing, testing, and refining programs with those characteristics in two pilot settings in rural Pakistan. Salah created a sustainable community-based model for development founded on the notion that development and modernization do not necessarily entail urbanization or a move to the cities. Salah believes that the community development process is largely an educational process, and that the prerequisite for Egypt’s sustainable development is citizens who are free, well educated, well-informed, and technically skilled, who can actively participate in their own development process. Salah selected one marginalized village, Basaysa in Al-Sharqiya governorate, and introduced a completely new concept to the field of development. He used an active participatory method to mobilize the community members to transform this village into an educational center and diffuse its methods to other communities facing similar problems as far away as Sinai. By using locally available resources and by including all villagers to discuss their needs, Salah created an integrated approach to development—one that sought to address the social, economic, and political problems faced by the inhabitants. His program included providing inhabitants with training in agriculture and the efficient use of natural resources, literacy, and perhaps most importantly, group collaboration and community building. Page 8
FY97
FY04
1
A Full Name
B Country
C Field of Work
88 Sameh Ghali
Egypt
health
89 Sanjeev Arora
USA
health
90 Satyan Mishra
India
economic development
Sergio 91 Oceransky
Mexico
environment
92 Simón Parisca
Venezuela
citizen engagement
93 Sonam Jorgyes India
D One Liner (if available) Disseminating a new community-based latrine system and producing a water byproduct clean enough to use for irrigation
E Blurb Sameh is introducing a village-wide sewage system for smaller villages to connect their household septic tanks by gravity-fed pipes to a communal filtering facility. Importantly, this mini-sewage plant can be built and maintained with locally available materials and labor, thereby significantly reducing the cost compared to government-proposed sewage systems and increasing the likelihood that the community will actually develop a system that meets their needs. Sameh is promoting these sewage systems to households in villages who are currently deprived of hygienic living conditions and will not likely be served by government programs in the next decade or two. Sameh invites local communities to actively engage and participate in planning the sanitation systems implemented in their communities. He introduces improved technology after group discussion to determine their needs and preferences. By reducing the pollution of canals and underground water, he improves the environment and health conditions of rural and village populations and establishes a sense of ownership and pride in the community. Dr. Arora, one of the top Hepatitis C specialists in the country, is the founder of Project ECHO (Extension for Community Healthcare Outcomes), an innovative, collaborative partnership to provide medical support to patients who live in rural, underserved areas and prisons around the state who do not have access to the state-of-the-art facilities of the University of New Mexico or the Hep C specialists who are virtually all located in Albuquerque. More than 50% of the 30,000 New Mexicans infected with Hep C every year are uninsured, and only 5% ever get medical care for the disease, which can lead to cirrhosis, liver cancer, and death. Most cannot travel to Albuquerque for the customized weekly chemotherapy, and local clinics and rural doctors are not trained to treat Hep C patients. But using simple, available technologies like conference calling, Dr. Arora is creating “centers of excellence” around the state whose staff can treat 11 chronic, complex diseases, either with help from ECHO specialists or, when sufficiently trained, on their own. There are now 21 such clinics, with assertive expansion plans. Through weekly “teleclinics” Rural villages in India are often cut off from the outside world; without any local government outposts, it’s hard for villagers to find accurate information about government benefits, trade and exchange rates, or health care. To help bring these isolated villages into the global information network, Satyan has created a system of service kiosks where people can access public internet terminals and receive information pamphlets at low cost. The kiosk owners are drawn from the local community and selected for their civic-mindedness to ensure that villagers won’t be overcharged for accessing information. Satyan trains and helps each kiosk owner, providing him with capital, holding his hand, and monitoring his progress. Public demand determines the range of products and services offered, which may include government data, agricultural data and commodity prices, medical and health information, insurance products, and photo facilities. Although the initial model is a one-way, service model, bringing city goods to the countryside, Satyan sees a future for a two-way channel, where rural products and services are made available to the urban population. Impoverished areas in southern Mexico, where indigenous tribes have been allowed to operate with considerable autonomy by the Mexican government, have become a current battleground for massive new wind farm investments. In order to change the course of these developments, Sergio is democratizing the future of the energy economy by making it possible for local and indigenous communities to participate in, and benefit from, their own grassroots renewable energy projects. Sergio’s primary focus is currently in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, with communities that have rejected contracts from multinational energy companies. He has also begun to work with Maori communities in New Zealand, farmers' cooperatives in India and community electricity cooperatives in Europe and North America. Simón Parisca has founded an organization called Eureka that is bringing together demonstrably creative individuals in a private, nonprofit setting to launch much needed social changes in Venezuela. The idea, and mission, of the organization has three main components. The first is to develop a human and institutional capacity to conceive, design and implement projects that, while contributing to the realization of an idea, also generate resources and guarantee the self-sustainability of the organization. Second, it aims to provide the forum for a variety of actors, both public and private, national and international, academic and business, to collaborate around these projects in a collective search for opportunities that create social change. Last, Eureka is using its own development process as a learning tool, much like a research center, where new, innovative methods will begin to define the "necessary social technology to promote innovation" and will serve other organizations throughout the country and beyond. Through its work, Eureka is developing both leadership capacity as well as promoting new solutions to substitute conventional methods.
Souleymane 94 Sarr
Mali
economic development
Sourirajan 95 Srinivasan
India
health
not yet on website Souleymane Sarr seeks to create what he calls "the new generation" of artisans in Mali. He's training artisans, unemployed school graduates and street youth, to create and produce consumer goods services in clear market demand. In the process he's revolutionizing the traditional creativity stifling apprenticeship system. Souleymane provides each group with a six-month training and six months of follow up and support during the early stages of their enterprises. Srinivasan is demonstrating how to get affordable medicines to India's hundreds of millions of citizens who cannot pay the current commercial prices. Srinivasan hopes his prototype will help catalyze public resistance to the current Promoting the production artificially high-price arrangements. The production facility will allow Srinivasan and his colleagues in the cooperative he helped found, Low Cost Standard Therapeutics (LOCOST), to supply desperately needed drugs at low cost and distribution of essential initially to fifteen percent of the Indian voluntary sector - 300 organizations. Their approximately ten million end users are only a tiny percentage of those that need LOCOST's help, but by serving them all across the subcontinent he drugs at affordable rates to will be creating an invaluable model. The new production unit will give Srinivasan the independence to build on the comparative advantages that have made his work possible so far: location at the center of the drug industry and the poor near suppliers of raw materials, technical competence, and the elimination of high-priced marketing campaigns and fancy packaging.
96 Stanley Zlotkin Canada
health
Manufacturing and distributing affordable iron and nutrient supplements to combat "hidden hunger," the debilitating vitamin and mineral deficiency experienced by millions of women and children in developing countries
97 Toto Sugito
environment
98 Tri Mumpuni
99 Vibha Gupta
Indonesia
Indonesia
India
not yet on website
Stan produces nutritional supplements that have the potential to improve the health of tens of millions of children around the world at very little cost. In addition, by distributing these supplements through local grassroots networks, he shifts the responsibility of health provision and education back into the hands of primary caregivers. His first product, Sprinkles, enables millions of economically deprived parents around the world to gain control of their children’s nutrition during the critical first five years. Stan developed Sprinkles to overcome the infrastructure and technological constraints of other methods of delivering nutrients (syrups, drops, tablets) that have failed. They come in the form of tiny capsules, easily added to semi-solid food, which mask the bitter taste of regular supplements and are excellent conduits of minerals and vitamins. More importantly, Stan has developed a unique distribution system that restores the autonomy of mothers over the nutritional health of their children and through which they can become community health advocates. Toto and his organization, Bike 2 Work (B2W) are raising awareness about the economic, health, and environmental benefits of cycling for urban dwellers in Jakarta and other big cities in Indonesia. B2W’s goal is to introduce biking as an easy and healthy means of transportation by pushing for local governments to create bike lanes and storage places, providing a motivational support network of cyclists, and giving people access to safe, affordable, and convenient bikes. TotoToto is successfully bridging the gap between public issues such as pollution and health problems and individual lifestyles, encouraging people to recognize their individual role in larger social problems and participate in collective action towards solving these problems. He and the B2W community have empowered people by motivating them to take action on emission pollution and energy problems by simply cycling and reducing city traffic. B2W serves as a useful network, connecting people to each other to share ideas and help make public and private bicycle use more convenient, such as arranging for special bike parking at workplaces and collectively
F Election year
FY06
FY09
FY04
FY09
FY96 FY09
FY08
FY02
FY07
FY09
environment
Tackling challenges of rural electrification and economic development by creating community-owned, microhydropower systems throughout Indonesia
By creating economic incentives and financing programs to unlock the power of hydro, Tri Mumpuni is helping rural Indonesia realize its best option for a reliable power supply. Aside from local ownership of the off-grid system, the sustainability of the system is very much influenced by market forces. Most local micro-hydropower operations fold once the state-owned and subsidized electricity company, PLN, enters the market. Mumpuni has been able to connect the community-based off-grid system to PLN’s grid. This link is crucial because the community is now able to sell their power supply to the PLN and gain revenue from the deal. This business model has attracted private investment as well. Along with her organization, People Centered Economic & Business Institute (IBEKA), Mumpuni facilitated a local business partner and the community of Cinta Mekar of West Java to pilot a public-private partnership model where both provide equity funding for the system. The provision of rural micro-hydropower (MHP) plants has now become an economic investment activity. The United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) adopted it as a Public Private Partnership model in the Asia Pacific region. Slowly, the financial barriers to develop the MHP system are being removed. A legal framework, however, must be in place to facilitate the spread FY06 of the model. Mumpuni has al
education
Training rural women to use scientific skills and technologies to create economically productive enterprises
Vibha is training rural women in simple scientific skills and techniques that can broaden their sphere of knowledge and increase their quality of life. With training from the Centre of Science for Villages (CSV), rural women are building skills that help increase their income and make everyday work more bearable. Vibha and her CSV technical staff design and test simple technical tools at their field-based laboratory in Wardha. The staff trains women to use the tools and provides support for maintenance and repair. Women become more confident in the technology and themselves, using their newfound autonomy to increase productivity and decrease health hazards associated with their daily work. The CSV also specifically trains women to use technology to create economically productive enterprises. Small-scale processing units, alternative energy devices, training on maintenance and repair of household goods and electrical appliances are examples of potential projects. The CSV completes instruction with tips on product marketing.
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FY02
1
A Full Name
B Country
C Field of Work
D One Liner (if available)
100 Victoria Hale
USA
health
Vijay Pratap 101 Singh
India
economic development
Building the first non-profit pharmaceutical company to work with the mainstream pharmaceutical industry in bringing new drugs to the world’s poor Creating new access platforms - software and manual - to benefit rural Indians
economic development
Providing venture capital financing and management support to socially conscious and environmentally friendly ventures with limited access to capital
102 Vineet Rai
India
103 Willy Foote
USA
104 Willy Pessoa
Brazil
105 Wilson Passeto Brazil
106 Yohanes Surya
economic development economic development
Financing developing-world rural business entrepreneurs and technologies that boost agriculture production and protect the environment
E Blurb
In 2000, Victoria—a pharmaceutical scientist and a veteran of both the FDA and the biotechnology industry—created a non-profit pharmaceutical company to bridge the gap between neglected infectious diseases and pharmaceutical science. By repurposing existing drug research, conducting clinical trials overseas and building innovative partnerships with big pharmaceutical companies, in-country drug manufacturers and local distribution and delivery partners, OneWorld Health seeks to bring much needed drugs to market for a fraction of the usual cost. Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya and his social enterprise, Ekgaon Technologies, are creating technology platform’s to provide financial, health, and agriculture services, to rural customers. As more and more companies compete for the “bottom of the pyramid” markets in rural India, Vijay’s technological solutions force private companies to compete fairly and offer better services to their rural customers. In return, Vijay’s platform offers these companies the aggregated consumer information they need to develop stronger and cost-effective products and services. Vijay’s enterprise and vision are transforming the way rural producers compete in increasingly globalised markets and are able to increase their incomes and provide for their families.
Vineet is working to create a sustainable change in rural India through the provision of venture capital financing and management support to socially-conscious, environmentally friendly, commercially viable ventures that currently have limited or no access to established financial institutions. His approach is professional, efficient, transparent and sustainable, meeting international venture capital standards as well as in full conformity with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) regulations. Vineet establishes close partnerships with rural incubators, citizen organizations (COs) and government agencies working in the rural sector. He invests in the incubators and provides timely and appropriate financing to support the commercial scaling-up of rural ventures and appropriate technologies with the potential for replication throughout rural India. Willy Foote is redefining risk assessment in a radical new way to bring capital and financial education to poor rural communities and bring their products to a growing ethically-sourced and green world market. The vast majority of the world’s rural poor do not have access to either the finance or supply chains that would allow them to build sustainable livelihoods and lift themselves out of poverty. A mechanism to directly address rural poverty is emerging through the rapidly growing global demand for ethically-sourced and environmentally sustainable goods. However, a chronic lack of access to capital stops supply from meeting this demand, preventing both sides of the supply chain from unlocking the potential of this new market to address the issue of rural poverty. Willy has transformed lending to the rural poor by making loans based on producers’ future sales rather than their existing assets, redefining risk assessment in a way that places value on emerging ethical supply chain relationships. This provides a framework that allows for previously unbankable people to become bankable and is proving the business case that rural communities are viable, profitable investment opportunities for mainstream financial institutions. Willy Pessoa Rodrigues has designed an integrated, holistic model combining technology, low cost and community involvement in planning for small-scale agricultural production. Already implemented in 170 communities in five states, the model contributes to economic and environmental sustainability and is helping to stem the abandonment of rural communities and migration to urban centers.
F Election year
FY06
FY08
FY06
FY07 FY03
economic development
Wilson is helping to design and market technological innovations aimed at improving efficiency and reducing water waste.
Wilson Passeto is empowering ordinary citizens to take steps to combat urban water scarcity, by providing them with a series of incentives and technical innovations to reduce their water consumption. He offers training and support to a growing cohort of “water agents,” who then help to change the habits and behavior of their friends and colleagues, fostering a major culture shift across Brazil. Encouraging people to change their behavior, however, requires that they have access to the basic infrastructure and appropriate technologies needed to do so. To this end, Wilson is helping to design and market technological innovations aimed at improving efficiency and reducing waste. In partnership with one of the world's biggest water distributors, he helped to institute individual water measurement systems in commercial and residential buildings. To date, he has helped train more than 1,600 teachers and instituted new water-related teaching materials in more than 220 schools throughout a number of Brazil's major cities.
FY07
education
Transforming the way children are introduced to, and engage with, science and math learning by creating new materials, science comics, and national The development of Indonesia depends heavily on math and science-based professions, but young people’s interest in both subjects is dramatically lacking. Yohanes Surya is a physicist encouraging a generation of students to excel and international in science and math, and pursue professions drawing on these skills to help Indonesia progress as a nation. He encourages not only students, but teachers, as they hold the key to nurturing the nation’s budding scientists. Ultimately, competitions he seeks to achieve a societal reformation in science/math education; from a feeling of dread of these feared subjects, to an attitude of how science/math is embraced by many/all in their day-to-day activities.
FY08
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