PayGo

SOLAR LAMP CHALLENGE; GHANA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Solar lamps. 

Learn more about the Solar Lamp Challenge and how these lamps create enormous benefits for developing world families.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Paygo LLC is a for-profit direct sales company formed with the sole purpose of proving the concept that direct sales to the poor business model can be effective in distributing innovative and life-changing products, while providing a good living wage to sales representatives and a profit to the company. 

Paygo works to identify and train teams of direct sales representatives who go directly to consumers in their homes, villages and workplaces and teach them the benefits of off-grid lanterns. The goal is to sell the products directly to these consumers right at the point when they are most excited to purchase. Sales representatives are also the distribution resource and carry product with them wherever they go. Additionally, the representatives are the lending mechanism for the lease to own model. 

The Paygo model focuses on three types of distribution strategies: 1) educating and selling at pre-scheduled meetings in villages where they can talk with over a hundred villagers at a time directly where they live and work, 2) meeting with groups at municipal assemblies and in their places of work through meetings that are sponsored by their employers, and 3) selling directly to street vendors, businesses and individuals. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Employ 50 sales representatives by the end of year 1

• Have three offices throughout Ghana by the end of year 1

• Sell 17,886 solar lamps by the end of year 1

FOUNDING TEAM

Taylor Turnbull - President and Chief Operations Officer 

Alan Westenskow - Managing Member and Chief Innovation Officer 

Paul Dickson - Member of the Board and Advisor 

Patrick Umeh - Director of Operations 

Social Cops

TRANSPARENCY CHALLENGE; INDIA

PROVEN INNOVATION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

A platform using vioce, SMS, web and smartphone applications that allow the public to verify the quality and completion of municipal projects carried out by contractors. 

Learn more about the Transparency Challenge and how citizen reporting platforms can be used to hold government officials accountable and reduce corruption.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Most public services of the government such as garbage collection, traffic light repair, and street light maintenance in many parts of the world are outsourced to third party service providers. While third party contractors send in daily reports regarding the completion of their duties, the government has no way of monitoring the accuracy of these reports. 

Social Cops allows citizens to easily report issues via their mobile phones and the internet. A seamless process (compliant filing can be accomplished in one minute) combined with google map and GPS integration allows Social Cops to identify the relevant authority and forward the complaint to the authority which can view it on a customized dashboard. A council then receives two feeds: one from citizens and one from the third party service provider. The citizen reports are used to verify the accountability of reports submitted and then easily respond and engage with citizens via the platform, notifying them when the complaint is solved. 

 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Increased garbage collection from 26 percent to 98 percent in one ward of Delhi.

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Prukalpa Sankar

Varun Banka

Harjoben Singh

Vivek Banka

Shreya Sonthalia

YouthGlobe

SCHOLARSHIPS CHALLENGE; BURUNDI

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Scholarships for students. 

Learn more about our current distribution challenges and why we focus on interventions that are proven to impact lives.  

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Civil war ravaged Burundi from the early 1990s to 2005 with an estimated death toll of 300,000 in a nation of 10 million. The war orphaned tens of thousands of children and shattered the national economy. The country is not able to provide free secondary education in its public schools. However, less than $30 is enough to put a Burundian student through a year of high school which gives Youth Globe the opportunity to be a highly cost-effective platform for donors to make an impact on many young lives.

YouthGlobe sponsors scholarship recipients from six partner high schools in different regions of Burundi. Many of these scholars have recently returned home from refugee camps in Tanzania and are finding ways of reintegrating into their local Burundian communities. YouthGlobe USA will promote and sell the scholarship program to potential patrons, with YouthGlobe South Korea aiding in fundraising efforts. YouthGlobe Burundi will review and admit scholars. 

Scholars are recommended by the headmasters of each partner school. Following the recommendation, YouthGlobe reviews the candidate's academic record and relevant personal information with the consent of the student's parents or legal guardians, or in the absence of a guardian, with the student herself. Applications from candidates who have lost both parents are weighted favorably. YouthGlobe aims fro a 2:1 female-to-male ratio in distributing scholarships. 

 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Award 100 scholarships within the pilot phase

• Expand to 12 partner schools during the pilot phase

• Collect at least 100 donor pledges to fund scholars during the pilot phase

• Scale to 2,000 scholarships by the end of year 1

• Collect 2,000 donor pledges to fund scholars by the end of year 1

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Salathiel Ntakirutimana - Director 

Miles Graham - Fundraising Manager 

Nicky Kwon - Partnership Manager 

Ding Zhou - Program Manager 

Colibri

SOLAR LAMP CHALLENGE; NICARAGUA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Solar lamps. 

Learn more about the Solar Lamp Challenge and how these lamps create enormous benefits for developing world families.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Colibri is a last mile distribution network that uses transnational bus routes to provide solar lighting solutions to those in off-grid areas of Latin America: last mile distribution by those who are already going the last mile. 30 million people in Latin America do not have access to electricity.

Colibri employs a traditional microentrepreneur model in an innovative setting: buses and bus routes. As an enterprise, Colibri's roles are to import SunKing products (the SunKing Pro) through partnerships with suppliers, work with microfinance institutions, recruit bus driver microentrepreneurs, develop a sales and distribution network on bus routes, provide microentrepreneurs with products, and train and support them as salespeople. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Work with 8 microentrepreneurs during the pilot phase

• Work with 20 microentrepreneurs by the end of year 1

• Distribute 1,200 products by the end of year 1

FOUNDING TEAM

Morban Babbs - Founder 

Pulse

CUSTOM CHALLENGE; INDIA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

A mobile phone deposit system similar to popular talktime top-up methods to help low income families put aside money for household needs. 

Learn more about the Custom Challenge and why we only fund ideas that focus on distributing proven poverty interventions.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Through a network of certified Pulse vendors, users can 'save on impulse' and create a buffer of funds that serve as an insurance against emergencies and unexpected expenses. Furthermore, it provides a solution to the common issue of insufficient physical change, in which customers receive their change back in the form of candy rather than cash, a common occurrence in many developing countries. 

Pulse offers an electronic system that is more convenient for beneficiaries. Importantly, since the service is not tied to any particular carrier, it works on any mobile phone, and enables instant access to the service for all users. 

The customer experience: customer deposits leftover change or surplus income by buying a Pulse prepaid scratch card or leaving change with the shop owner and requesting an electronic deposit into the Pulse account; shop owner and customer receive an sms confirmation of the transaction with current balance; customer spends or withdraws their savings at any vendor in the Pulse network when needed. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Sign up 1,000 Pulse savers during the pilot phase

FOUNDING TEAM

Karl Oskar Teien - Product Development 

Mandy Vidalis - Business Operations and Finance 

Niketa R. Malhotra - Implementation and Technology 

Saul Alexander Minkoff - Management and Business Development 

LiTe Africa

COOK STOVE CHALLENGE; UGANDA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Energy efficient cook stoves. 

Learn more about the Cook Stove Challenge and how clean cook stoves reduce health and safety risks, lower fuel expenses, and help reduce poverty.  

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

LiTe Africa overcomes obstacles preventing wide distribution of energy efficient products by putting solar lanterns and energy efficient cook stoves in the hands of rural end users by utilizing the existing small retail and mobile money shop network not commonly used for these products. Rural, family-run shops draw low income consumers with basic essentials and mobile airtime. Customers visit these shops every day, creating a trust-based relationship with the retailer. Rural retailers currently do not know about, have access to, or know how to provide adequate service for energy efficient technologies. 

In Uganda there are currently over 40,000 mobile money shops. Tapping into both the mobile and retail shop networks will help LiTe Africa reash the broadest consumer audience. LiTe Africa will sell cook stoves at a low cost and utilize Angaza's pay-as-you-go service for solar lamps. Payment in small increments has been proven to be not only popular and affordable among low-income households but drives up sales significantly. LiTe Africa will purchase products at wholesale through Ugastove, Angaza, and Greenlight Planet's distribution partners in Uganda, Small Solutions. The sales team will demonstrate products to retail and mobile money shop owners, training them on marketing techniques. The products are sold to shop owners at a price slightly above wholesale. Retailers will also be trained on pay-as-you-go operations and will explain the method to consumers and help them conduct monthly installments. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Partner with 36 retailers during the pilot phase

• Sell 380 solar lamps and 500 cook stoves during the pilot phase

• Partner with up to 170 retailers by the end of year 1

• Expand to 10 more surrounding villages and semi-urban locations by the end of year 2

• Sell 20,000 cook stoves and 17,000 solar lamps by the end of year 2

FOUNDING TEAM

Alyse Daunis - Co-Founder

Hashim Mutanje - Co-Founder

Pay2Africa

CUSTOM CHALLENGE; ETHIOPIA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

An online and mobile platform that provides a fast, reliable, low-cost, and convenient way to send money to loved ones from the United States to Ethiopia. 

Learn more about the Custom Challenge and why we only fund ideas that focus on distributing proven poverty interventions.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Due to a lack of competition and a weak knowledge of the market, MoneyGram and Western Union - two major money transfer companies which charge high fees - have continued to dominate the remittance landscape in much of Africa. The only other option for customers looking to send money to Ethiopia is to use illegal hawala operators. 

Pay2Africa's vision is to become the leading online and mobile platform application used by the Ethiopian diaspora to send money from the US to Ethiopia. The website will allow senders to wire funds directly to a recipient's bank account or for cash pickup at one of over 750 partner bank branch locations spread throughout Ethiopia. Pay2Africa is both a website and a mobile platform application that integrates the latest encryption technology with a secure remittance software platform that addresses all Anti-Money Laundering Act and Bank Secrecy Act laws and regulations. The end result is a user-friendly platform designed for the target demographic, the Ethiopian diaspora. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Send $300,000 in transfers by 2015

• Save customers $10,000 in fees by the end of year 2

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Zacharias Teshome - Founder and President

Youth Impact

SUGAR DADDY AWARENESS CHALLENGE; BOTSWANA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Sugar daddy awareness classes. 

Learn more about the Sugar Daddy Awareness Challenge and how a simple, one-hour “sugar daddy awareness” training could help countless girls avoid pregnancy while still in school, which can lead to entrenched poverty, and build a better life.

 

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

As of 2011, Botswana had the second highest rate of HIV in the world. Despite numerous condom programs, free anti-retroviral drugs, national curricula emphasizing abstinence and other efforts to curb the spread of HIV, the disease remains pervasive. 

Youth Impact (who won D-Prize as “Young 1ove” before changing their name) uses a four-pronged approach to connect youth to life-saving information about HIV. First, they find HIV education programs that work. Second, they centralize materials from effective programs on the website and at headquarters in Gaborone, Botswana. Third, they disseminate with four central approaches to remain effective: top down, grass roots, mass media, and institutional. Finally, they measure impact by making HIV surveys and assessments available and helping to administer them. 

Youth Impact will scale the sugar daddy curriculum across Botswana, starting in Gaborone and selected villages, with a plan to reach 200 schools between March and May, 2014. In addition to making a suite of proven materials, they will also crunch the numbers. Their team has produced graphs from existing national HIV data in Botswana and they will supplement the sugar daddy material and make it relevant to the Botswana context. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Reach 200 schools during the three month pilot phase

• Reach 500 schools at the end of year 1

• Conduct 2,000 sugar daddy workshops by the end of year 1

• Decrease teenage pregnancy by 40% by the end of year 2

• Decreasing HIV by 15% by the end of year 2

FOUNDING TEAM

Noam Angrist - Co-founder & Executive Director 

Moitshepi Matsheng -  Co-founder & Managing Director

Maisha Meds

PATIENT IDENTIFICATION CHALLENGE; KENYA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Technology that provides high-quality, affordable, and consistent treatment for patients in the form of an android-based system that tracks sales, manages inventory, and automates reordering of pharmaceuticals. 

Learn more about the Patient Identification Challenge and why identifying individuals in need of treatment suffering from health conditions such as obstetric fistula, cervical cancer, clubfoot, and cataracts which can be corrected with cost-effective interventions, could save lives.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Maisha Meds improves distribution of pharmaceutical medication in Kenya by developing and implementing a technology platform that supports pharmacists (called chemists in Kenya), nurses, and other healthcare providers to manage their business and make better choices as they reorder medication. Supply of pharmaceutical drugs can be difficult in Kenya, as distance to suppliers and intermittent communication pose challenges for the distribution of medication. With an estimated 1/3 of medication in East Africa being sub-standard or counterfeit, uncertainty about quality of medication supply chain creates additional complexity for providers hoping to stock high-quality medication. 

In the first year of operation, with funding from Stanford University, Maisha Meds built a team of strategists, technologists, and implementers focused on building systems for scale; and the team has conducted extensive market research on the technology needs of the health sector in East Africa. Using the information from this research, the team has developed an Android-based application and we have begun testing it in chemist shops. The system includes the following components: 

• Android-based system that tracks sales, manages inventory, and automates reordering to streamline supply chains and optimize business practices

• Technology systems and random spot-checks to monitor and provide information on quality of medication throughout the supply chain

Maisha Meds intends to pilot the cost-recovery sales model that they will use at scale, as well as test and refine the quality-control component in partnership with 3-5 small scale distributors of medication in Kenya. This model will include a monthly subscription service to pay for the tablet, application, stand, data plan, and warranty, as well as ad sales integrated into the application to partially fund management and overhead cost for the organization. For more, please see this fact sheet.

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Sell or lease the android system to 20 providers during the pilot phase

• Sell or lease the android system to 200 providers at the end of year 1

• Work in partnership with 10 distributors by the end of year 1

• Randomly test 5% of medication available by the end of year 2

• Operate in 15,000 chemist shops and clinics as well as serve over 200 suppliers in five countries in five years

FOUNDING TEAM

Jessica Vernon - Team Lead 

Benjamin Jenson - Business Development 

Tammu Guo - Product Development

Nick Singer - Operations 

Margaret Mumbi - Special Projects 

Michael Jurka - Technology 

EarthEnable

CUSTOM CHALLENGE; RWANDA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

EarthEnable is helping masons install $30 earthen floors, a much healthier alternative to dirt floors and a much more affordable than concrete alternatives.

Learn more about the Custom Challenge and why we only fund ideas that focus on distributing proven poverty interventions.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Vision to provide floors for at least 1 million individuals by the end of 2015

 

FOUNDING TEAM

CleanTap

CUSTOM CHALLENGE; INDIA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

"Tippy Tap" handwashing station. 

Learn more about the Custom Challenge and why we only fund ideas that focus on distributing proven poverty interventions.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Street food is an integral part of Indian cities. Unofficial government estimates state that there are over a hundred million street food vendors in India. However, lack of infrastructure and awareness about food safety and handling among street food vendors makes it a significant contributor to food borne diseases. Through CleanTap, the organization aims to provide an easy, portable, DIY solution to the sanitation infrastructure challenge and combine it with an effective social marketing strategy to promote behavior change. 

A Tippy Tap is an easy, portable, low-cost device that encourages hard washing and saves water. It can be made with scraps of readily available local material. The apparatus involves a container that holds water with a hole on tap where the water flows out from. The flow of water is controlled by a foot lever. Their design of the Tippy Tap for food carts focuses heavily on portability. On average, a tippy tap involves a $1 investment per person to promote hand washing. It has been successfully deployed as a standalone product in rural areas of India. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Launch pilot with 25 street food vendors 
• Provide hand washing for 1500 customers in Mumbai

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Prerna Seth - Co-Founder

Molly Daniell - Co-Founder

Joel Putnam - Co-Founder