vChalk

FLIPPED CLASSROOM; INDIA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Remedial education and progress tracking. 

Learn more about the Flipped Classroom Challenge and why new education models, like flipping the classroom or deskilling a class curriculum, offer a solution to the vast teacher shortages in the developing world.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

vChalk offers remedial educaiton and progress tracking services to affordable private schools in semi- and per-urban India. The problem is the inability to support all children in India with diverse learning needs in keeping up with the formal curriculum and in preventing them from falling behind.  This inefficiency translates into poor learning outcomes for millions of young learners in India, many of them first generation, who are enrolled in primary school but have not achieved the minimum benchmarks for learning. 

Remedial programs that help students catch up have been, for years, directed only toward government schools. As affordable private schools spread to meet the growing demand for education in India, vChalk fills an important learning gap by distributing the proven Balsakhi (now called Read India) remedial education model to these schools. We help mitigate their problem by offering a bundle of two services: in-school remedial programs start and support (targeted at children who do not master basic numeracy and literacy skills) and learning progress tracking service (targeted at children who are subscribed to the remedial class). 

The remedial program would look like this: a female Community Instructor who has completed at least 12th grade and who is motivated to work with children (ideally from the parents' community) works with lower perfornace students in 3rd and 4th grade for two hours each day. The instructor goes through a two week training program before teaching and receives further on the job training during the year from vChalk's Monitoring Manager. The intervention runs for two years at the school. vChalk's tracking system of children's learning progress is a focus of the project and makes longitudinal data available for each student. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• 30 active schools during the pilot phase
• 360 total students in remedial classes during pilot phase
• 160 active schools at the end of year 1 
• 3,220 students in remedial classes at the end of year 1
• 360 active schools at the end of year 2 
• 7,620 students in remedial classes at the end of year 2

FOUNDING TEAM

Daniela Gheorghe - Team Lead

Anil Bishnoi - Chief Technical Officer 

Jody Tian - Management Consultant 

Suma Nagaraj - Product Development Consultant 

Dazin

COOKSTOVE CHALLENGE; BHUTAN

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Efficient cook stoves and fuel cookies. 

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

Dazin manufactures and distributes Fuel Cookies made from manually collected forestry wood waste such as tree branches, locally known as 'lops and tops'. Abundant available raw material is collected based on the requirements of each household and delivered at our extended network of collection points. Dazin fuel cookies will reduce the forestry wood required for cooking by 84%, reduce time spent collecting fuel by half, cost less than what customers use currently, allow for a healthy gross profit margin from fuel sales to allow the organization to expand. 

The fuel and cook stove combination system is affordable, even for the poorest families, through the cross subsidized revenue model. Dazin provides free fuel cookies and free smokeless gasifying stoves in exchange for the rural households supplying free forestry wood waste. Due to the efficiency of the combined fuel and stove system, an excess of fuel cookies is produced compared to the wood waste provided. The surplus fuel cookies are sold in nearby cities to offset free services in rural areas and expand to new areas. For example, a woman living in a rural area collects 40-50% lesser forestry waste and provides to Dazin at the nearest collection point. She gets in return enough free fuel cookies to meet her cooking requirements. She also gets a smokeless gasifying stove on lease to use the fuel cookies. Remaining fuel cookies made from her wood waste contribution provides enough fuel for three equivalent urban households. These are sold at urban markets as a cost-effective and reliable fuel supply to offset her free services. Stoves are leased with a nominal yearly maintenance fee of $15-30 depending on the stoves. These inventories also supply directly to commercial customers such as restaurants and schools. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Set-up fuel production infrastructure over the pilot phase

• Reach 4,000 households by 2016 

• Reach 28,000 households by 2017 

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Deepak Ashwani - Co-Founder

SoLight

SOLAR LAMP CHALLENGE; UGANDA

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

SoLight partners with rural shopkeepers to drastically increase the use of solar lamps in Uganda through three usage programs: the Daily Rental Program, the Financing Program, and the Direct Sales Program. 

The Daily Rental Program serves as the foundation for all of SoLight's partnerships. Through this program, shopkeepers in a shopkeeper network rent out SunKing Eco Model solar lamps for just seven cents per day. This program is popular as it closely mirrors the current reality of most kerosene and candle usage: small daily purchases. It allows families to test, use, and trust a superior lighting source risk-free with zero financial or lifestyle change requirements. 

Local demand is stimulated by the Daily Rental Program while risk is reduced for SoLight by providing a period to train, test, and build trust with partners before larger transactions and larger systems are implemented through the Financing Program and Direct Sales Program. When a SoLight representative is completing bi-weekly shopkeeper visits, users will have the option of purchasing solar products outright. This reduces the inventory SoLight needs to hold and drastically reduces risk by preventing solar products from going missing. Shopkeepers will receive  a commission for any of their customers who purchase a solar product directly during one of SoLight's "rolling promotions". 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Engage 10 shopkeepers and sell 75 lamps during a three month period of refining the model
• Engage 100 shopkeepers and sell 1,100 lamps during the pilot phase 
• Engage 350 shopkeepers and sell 4,000 lamps by year 1 
• Engage 2,150 shopkeepers and sell 28,000 lamps by year 2 

FOUNDING TEAM

Adam Cameron - Co-Founder, Managing Director

Dorothy Lsoto - Co-Founder, Operations Director 

Steffen Wassler - Co-Founder, Advisor 

Vianney Tumwesige - Co-Founder, Advisor 

 

GiftedMom

MATERNAL HEALTH CHALLENGE; CAMEROON

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

An SMS and voice application which sends free, customized and stage-based education and reminders to pregnant women (antenatal care) and new mothers (baby vaccinations). 

Learn more about the Maternal Health Challenge and how the distribution of Misoprostol, a $3 drug that can prevent maternal deaths from postpartum hemorrhage, could save thousands of lives.

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

GiftedMom uses innovative and low-cost technologies to send life-saving and educational reminders to pregnant women and new mothers. They develop channels through which to education pregnant women and new mothers specifically in rural areas to help them know the availability of medical resources. The channels include the automated SMS and voice application which send free, customized, and stage-based education and reminders with messages in English, French, and four widely spoken traditional languages, and the Android application and web platform which contain content for teenage mothers and first-time mothers.

Subscription to GiftedMom takes place at hospitals (data collected from these hospitals is sent to a centralized database), through a short code number (with GiftedMom running as Cameroon's first help line for pregnant women and mothers), or through community health workers (community workers and medical students are engaged and trained by GiftedMom to assist in subscribing women who have never been to a hospital). 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Reach 1,200 users during the pilot phase

• Reach 500,000 users and scale nationwide in Cameroon by the end of year 2

• In the future, scale across Central Africa and reach 5 million users

FOUNDING TEAM

Alain Nteff - Co-founder and Executive Director 

Dr. Conrad Tankou - Co-founder and Medical Director

Serra Lem - Head of Operations

Blueprint International

VACCINE CHALLENGE; SOUTH AFRICA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Advanced, low-cost mobile app technology to track and assist vaccine supply chain drivers. 

Learn more about our six Global Health Challenges that address immunization, patient identification, maternal health, and other issues and why we focus on poverty interventions that are proven to save lives. 

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Blueprint International seeks to improve vaccine distribution within the developing world by implementing VIVE (Vital Improvements in Vaccine Efficiency), a simple and scalable web management platform for a mobile phone. This tool will enable better management, planning, and tracking of vaccine supplies from central stocks of primary-through-tertiary health care facilities. In addition, it will identify vaccine supply chain failures and highlight needed improvements. 

Almost 50% of vaccines are lost in the transition between manufacturer and the desired delivery point. Vaccine supply chains and logistics management capabilities of many countries have been shown to be ill equipped to manage not only the current vaccine supply, but also the increased vaccine volume in the future. Tracking individual vaccine vials is extremely costly and complicated. As a proxy, tracking drivers and collecting data on the vaccine journey will allow for the creation of a customize-able, holistic, and cost-effective approach to fixing supply chains. The technology has already been developed and proven successful within the private sector. The pilot will be rolled out in partnership with Biovac, a vaccine distributor in the Western Cape, South Africa. The model will utilize a three-pronged revenue approach including a monthly rental of the mobile device, advertising, and fees to other suppliers for integration within the system. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• During the pilot, gain proof of concept with five devices and extend the pilot site to all chains in the target area 
• Track and monitor 50 devices across two sites in South Africa by the end of year 1 
• Identify and target new countries and sites by end of year 1 
• Have 300 devices in the field in at least two countries by the end of year 2 

 

FOUNDING TEAM

• David Clark - Technology Director 

• Catharine Young - Operations Director

• Colin Young - Director of Business Development

Breakfast Revolution

CUSTOM CHALLENGE; INDIA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Nutritious foods and other essential nutrition interventions for those facing malnutrition. 

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

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

The problem of malnutrition is more common in India (~43%) than in Sub Saharan Africa (~26%).  Anemia (low levels of hemoglobin) affects 74% children in India under 3 years, more than 90% of adolescent girls and 50% of women. More than 50% of all childhood deaths in India are attributed to malnutrition. The Breakfast Revolution tackles micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) and protein deficiency in children, adolescents and women from the poorest communities by leveraging proven interventions of food fortification, deworming, and vitamin A prophylaxis. To successfully distribute their fortified products, The Breakfast Revolution ensures they are low-cost, tasty, easily accessible, and evidence based. Their products are: 

• Supercookie: Cookies made of whole wheat and oats, fortified with 70 -100% RDA of vitamins A, D, Calcium, Iron, Folic Acid, naturally rich in protein and fiber.

• Supermilk: Vitamin A and D fortified, organically produced soy milk

• Suberbeans: Air-roasted and flavored soybeans, intrinsically rich in protein

• Superdrink: Similar to tang, fortified with vitamins C and B complex and electrolytes

The manufacturing is outsourced to Indian FDA-approved manufacturers and The Breakfast Revolution focuses on behavior change communication, distribution, and monitoring and evaluation. Consumers / beneficiaries are put on a program that begins with a baseline health evaluation, deworming and vitamin A prophylaxis, and 3-6 months of our food products 3-5 times a week. Health evaluations are repeated 3-6 times monthly. The Breakfast Revolution will utilize several distribution channels including selling directly to consumers through female entrepreneurs based in slums, selling products to NGOs offering meal programs, and through public-private partnerships with government nutrition programs to get their fortified products to the people who need them on a mass scale.  

 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Serve 1,400,000 meals in the first year

• Reach 60,000 beneficiaries in 2 years

FOUNDING TEAM

Neelam Jethwani - Co-founder, Chief Operating Officer 

Dr. Pankaj Jethwani - Co-founder 

Manasvini Mehta - Director, Business and Micro-Franchise Development