I have loved writing this blog and all the special people it has allowed me to connect with, to learn from and to honor through my stories.  It has been fascinating to chronicle my journey working with Acumen Fund and AtoZ, the mosquito net manufacturing company in Tanzania.  Just a few weeks ago, AtoZ unveiled a new facility which will allow it to produce over 11 million nets per year as the only African manufacturer of long-lasting insecticide-treated nets to battle malaria.  Many came to celebrate in Arusha, including the President of the Unites States.  And of course, the debate over public vs. private market distribution of nets continues (click to see latest BusinessWeek article).

I have decided to wrap up this chapter of my blog From Tribeca to Tanzania and take a break for a few months before I write again. 

In the meantime, I will still be storing up stories to tell you later as I continue to help build Bamboo Finance (www.bamboofinance.com) in Switzerland.  As many of you have read, my newest adventures are in designing a new Swiss-based asset management company that specializes in social entrepreneurship.  We have a great team that provides debt and equity investments to social ventures globally which are addressing critical problems (health, education, shelter, energy, etc.).  This company is looking to fill the gap in risk capital for social enterprises described in the article I co-authored this year published by Oxford (click here). We were recently mentioned in the magazine BusinessWeek with our sister company Blue Orchard (click to see BusinessWeek article).  If you know of entrepreneurs looking for finance, please don’t hesitate to send me a message!  We work globally, and next month I am headed to Ghana, Mozambique, South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda.

As promised, I continue to read interesting books and will share my opinions when I blog again.  The most recent book is called When a Crocodile Eats the Sun (a gift from a special Zimbabwean family-thanks) and another book I just peeled open is called MicroFranchising: Creating Wealth at the Bottom of the Pyramid (a gift from Troy at Coast Coconut Farms in Kenya-thanks).

Thanks so much to the community who has been reading my blog, contributing and supporting me.  Please continue to contact me to share your ideas.  And thank you to the Skoll Foundation and Social Edge team, especially Sally, Victor, Jason, Phil and Cristina for all of the creative ways they supported my opportunity to reflect here.

Here`s a round-up of my most interesting posts:

• You are Not Smart Enough to Be Pessimistic
• Last Night I Applied for Food Stamps and an Abortion
• Sex in the City:  Last Night I Went to a NY Strip Club
• How I Raised $10,000 this Week
• Filex, an artist in Tanzania
• From 2 to 24 Striped Socks Behind Me
• Dynamic Distribution from the Factory Gates
• Getting Back to Living with HIV Instead of Dying from It
• Shit Business Brings Dignity
• A Screwtape Letter
• Female Circumcision
• Justice Like A Hot Dog
• My poem- An Invitation

Asante Sana

A friend just emailed me about a very interesting approach to supporting girls in India.  The Indian Postal Service may soon start offering girl child insurance, whereby the girl gets Rs 1 lac ($2,500) at the age of 18 and some kind of conditional cash transfer to the parents for bringing up the girl and delaying marriage till after 18!  I hope this can start reversing some of the incentives for female child infanticide.  Click below to read more:

http://www.hindu.com/2006/12/19/stories/2006121902311100.htm

Things are not always what they seem at first glance.  Just a few days ago, a NASA space craft flew near Mercury, the closest planet to the sun, and discovered spider shaped evidence that past volcanic activity had occurred there.  This is a remarkable finding since it changes the way scientists have perceived the planet previously (thought only to be a cratery and rocky surface with little dynamism).  "We were continually surprised. It was not the planet we expected. It was not (like) the moon," said Sean Solomon of Carnegie Institution of Washington, the mission's lead investigator. "It's a very dynamic planet with an awful lot going on."

 

This was such a healthy reminder to me that one`s original impressions are sometimes mistaken and it is important to `circle around mysteries many times` to make new discoveries.  Social entrepreneurs are famous for discovering new ways to look at and address a social problem.    

  

 

Buuuurrrrrr!!!!!!!

 

Switzerland has about 1800 glaciers and although at first glance they may appear magnificent, almost all of them are losing ground because of climate change.  If you would have circled around the Aletsch glacier, you might have been lucky enough (or unlucky depending on which view) to catch a glimpse of hundreds of naked bodies recently!  That’s right, this freezing cold striptease orchestrated by artist Spencer Tunick was a part of a Greenpeace campaign to raise awareness of global warming.  They wanted to "establish a symbolic relationship between the vulnerability of the melting glacier and the human body".  According to them, Alpine glaciers have lost about one-third of their length and half their volume over the past 150 years. The Aletsch ice mass has retreated by 115 metres in the last two years alone.    

Yes, in my time I have been known to hang around with trouble makers.  A few weeks ago, I was in Tijuana, Mexico with an inspiring team making trouble for poverty.  There is an amazing Mexican company called Mi Farmacita, lead by Guillermo Krasovsky, which aims to bring affordable health services to low-income communities using an innovative franchise pharmacy model and minute-clinic style doctor`s office.  In Mexico, the poor distribution of generic drugs means that low-income communities often do not have access to affordable medicines for common ills such as flu, allergies, arthritis, and they often wait many weeks to see a doctor if at all.  Mi Farmacita is changing that!  Not only are there now quality health services (doctors ad generic drugs) in these communities, Mi Farmacita outlets also sell services such as purified water, phone services and Internet time.  They now have nearly 80 franchisees throughout Mexico.  The 16 franchises that have been in operation for at least 22 months process about 90 sales transactions daily, or 2,400 monthly, and sales across the franchise’s 57 outlets totaled more than US$2.9 million in 2006.  Their growth potential in phenomenal. 

To learn more about their full model, you can read the WRI case study which is quite comprehensive by clicking here.

Guillermo has an entrepreneurial spirit like no other and his passion for helping low-income people in Mexico radiates in the video below: 

Our world is constantly changing.  We are closer and closer to each other although we may live thousands of miles away.  One of the most fascinating examples of this to me is how social ventures are leveraging the Internet to engage the global community in raising resources to support their mission.  We are seeing new platforms for peer-to-peer online lending such as Zopa, Prosper or RangDe in India.  We are also seeing exciting developments of online platforms to raise capital for microfinance institutions and micro-business owners such as Microplace, Kiva and 51Give in China.

 

So, I was encouraged when I heard recently about a new venture in beta testing which is focused on Africa, called MyC4. MyC4 is an online community which provides a dynamic platform to create and support new enterprises and commercial innovation in Africa.  The vision of the site is to end poverty, and MyC4 has a strict selection process which identifies entrepreneurs looking to develop companies that provide healthy economic prospects for growth.  The screened entrepreneurs then post their ideas labelled as an Opportunity online so that visitors to the MyC4 website can bid on (to invest in) any open Opportunity on MyC4. The bidding process is based on a ’Dutch’ auction which basically means, the more people that are interested in investing, the more favourable the terms (e.g. interest rate) become for the African business.  Check it out and give them feedback on the beta by clicking here: http://www.myc4.com/

Some of you may remember me announcing the application process for the Believe Begin Become Business Plan competition in Tanzania, sponsored by Google.org and managed by Technoserve.  It is an incentivized, practical training and business development program to help entrepreneurs turn their business ideas into fundable and implementable business plans.  It turns out that it has been a smashing success and the final winners have posted their ideas via video online.  

Here are two examples of the 20 final winners:

 

You can find others here:  http://www.youtube.com/believebeginbecome

I met these guys last week and thought this might be helpful to those of you looking for funding:  Investors’ Circle (IC) is now accepting company applications for its 2008 Spring Venture Fair, which will be held May 6th at the Hotel Nikko in San Francisco.  IC seeks to feature the next generation of sustainable, mission-driven ventures at this event. Ventures with a focus in the following sectors are encouraged to apply: Energy & Environment, Food & Organics, Health & Wellness, Education, Media, and Community & International Development.

In the past 3 years, IC venture fairs have resulted in over $20 million in investment for approximately 1/3 of presenting ventures. Sample investments include Guayaki, IceStone, Indigenous Designs, PeaceKeeper Cause-Metics, Niman Ranch, and United Villages.

To apply, companies will need to submit an electronic application through the IC website by going to http://www.investorscircle.net. The deadline to submit an application is February 1st.