SMS Maama

PATIENT IDENTIFICATION CHALLENGE; UGANDA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Automated text messaging service for pregnant women to screen for potential complications.

Learn more about the Patient Identification Challenge and why identifying individuals in need of medical treatment and finding ways to make that treatment accessible reduces poverty.  

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Approximately 1 in 44 women in Uganda will die from pregnancy related complications throughout their lifetimes. SMS Maama is an automated text messaging service for pregnant women in Uganda that harnesses mobile technology to send health information and screen for these potential pregnancy related complications before they become more serious. As an organization, we believe every woman has the right to information and the right to receive respectful maternity care. By providing access to this necessary health information, SMS Maama works to empower women and serve as a modern addition to pregnancy healthcare in Uganda.

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

FOUNDING TEAM

Katelyn Pastick - Founder

Nicole Stephens - Founder

Meg Burman - Founder

Sonja Ausen-Anifrani - Founder

Access to Education

FLIPPED CLASSROOM CHALLENGE

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Flipped classroom. 

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

Access to Education (A2e) is an online educational platform that ensures remote areas students access to quality instructive videos and live classes, complementary to their academic curriculum that is facilitated by trained instructors through a multimedia classroom set up in each partner school. It is working to create a bridge between privileged and deprived students where former one will be able to share their learning experience with later one and synergize the power of education to break all barriers.

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Ayesha Meem - Co-Founder

Mostofa Sadab - Co-Founder

Samiha Nusrat - Co-Founder

Pardafas!

TRANSPARENCY CHALLENGE; NEPAL

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Online accountability tool that aims to fuel the national fight against corruption. 

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

Pardafas will be the counry's biggest effort to-date to map out corruption in order to create and distribute easy-to-use and people friendly, data-driven narrative to wage anti-corruption campaigns.  By going back through the archives of Nepal's top national daily newspapers, we will collect and code the data on federal-level corruption.

In three months, the team will produce a preliminary data on corruption levels in federal institutions and hope to use the data to reach out to at least 70,000 Nepalis. Within a year, they hope to mobilize at least 500,000 Nepalis to further enhance the data. Together with activists and anti-corruption organizations, Pardafas will use the data to unite people in fighting against rampant corruption at the federal level. The team will measure their success by the number of corruption cases filed in court from the campaign and the number of cases won in court. 

 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Reach 70,000 people during the pilot
• Reach 500,000 people by the end of year 1

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Subhash Ghimire - Founder, Director

Kritikal Lamsal - Head of Research and Public Mobilizer Team

Prem Lamichhane - Head of Technical Team

Angel Sharma - Head of Administrative Team

Alina Ghimire - Memnber of Research Team

Peach Health Technologies

MATERNAL HEALTH CHALLENGE; GHANA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Misoprostol tablets. 

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

In Ghana, the maternal mortality rate stands at 322 deaths for every 100,000 live births. Excessive bleeding after childbirth, known as postpartum hemorrhage, accounts for 25 percent of deaths. Excessive bleeding can be controlled if birth attendants are given the right training and access to medications like misoprostol. 

Peach Health Technologies has developed a step-by-step solution to address the problem. First, they will create an electronic version of a misoprostol administering training guide on a mobile application called Peach. Peach is a mobile electronic medical records system with meaningful use designed specifically for developing countries. Community Health Officers (CHOs) in Ghana use Peach to collect patient information and follow-up with expectant mothers. CHOs who work with Traditional Birth Attendants (TBAs) will watch the training video to learn how to properly administer misoprostol. After CHOs have gone through their virtual training, they will each train a minimum of 5 TBAs in their district using the virtual program on their phones. CHOs will supply the TBAs with misoprostil and monitor its use. By using mobile phones, they will significantly reduce the cost of training and easily scale to reach every CHO with a phone. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Train 70 CHOs during the pilot 
• Train 350 TBAs during the pilot 
• Make 1,500 misoprostol tablets available during the pilot 
• Serve 300 expectant mothers during the pilot 

FOUNDING TEAM

Cobby Amoah - Co-Founder and CEO

Kwame Akpalu - Software Developer 

Humphrey Kanyoke - Business Development Manager 

Caleb Oppong Wiafe - Pharmacist 

Charles Kunene - Co-Founder and Product Designer 

Empower Generation

SOLAR LAMP CHALLENGE: NEPAL, MYANMAR

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

Empower Generation is a social enterprise that creates clean energy distribution networks consisting of women-led businesses that reach last-mile populations. Empower Generation provides women with the training, start-up inventory, mentoring, and long-term support they need to run a successful clean energy business.

Using an innovative, market-based and capacity-building approach, they build a network that sustainably distributes clean energy and brings economic opportunities to isolated and underserved communities. The key innovation is mentoring rural women to become solar CEOs and own their own businesses. Empower Generation’s CEO network improves health and increases education for their children, creates local jobs for rural and peri-urban communities, and contributes to a shifting role of women in society.

 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Distribute 300 solar systems during the pilot
• Install 15 solar home systems during the pilot 
• Reach 2,560 individuals by the end of 6 months 
• Recruit 20 sales agents by the end of the pilot 
• Recruit 50 sales agents by the end of year 1 
• Distribute 1,500 solar lamps by the end of year 1 

FOUNDING TEAM

Anya Cherneff - Co-Founder and Executive Director

Chloe Chapman - Director of Operations

Sita Adhikari - Country Director

Please Disturb the Driver!

TRANSPARENCY CHALLENGE; MEXICO

Please Disturb the Driver! was founded by Miguel Torhton, Mexican citizen and Master in Public Policy graduate from The George Washington University. This new social venture will distribute a low cost intervention in the public transport in Mexico City to reduce the number of road accidents. Following the experiences in other countries, this intervention will encourage passengers to speak up to induce social pressure on the driver. The project aims to reach more than half million passengers per day within three months and hopes to transform public transport culture in Mexico by expanding this initiative to the largest cities in the country.

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Stickers displayed in public buses encouraging the public to stand up to reckless driving. This will reduce the number of traffic accidents caused by buses. 

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

The intervention distributed by Please Disturb the Driver! (PDD) is based on posting evocative messages throughout the public transport (bus) system in Mexico City to encourage passengers to speak up against different forms of reckless driving. Their mission is to empower as many passengers as possible to speak up to reduce traffic accidents. This social experiment has proved successful in Kenya, where it significantly reduced the number of road accidents in the public transport system. 

During the planning phase of the pilot, PDD will partner with insurance companies, public transport offices, public transport unions, and innovation agencies within the Mexico City Government to distribute the messages. They will craft messages in focus groups to define the most evocative messages for Mexican culture and language. Four visible stickers with the best messaging will be installed within the treatment group of buses (a control group of buses will be used to measure effectiveness of the campaign). Communication with the bus drivers will be face-to-face. Interns working with the project will check on the quality of the stickers at the end of each day with one bus and bus driver winning a prize. After 8 to 12 months, it will be possible for the PDD team to measure the reduction in traffic accidents between the treatment and control bus groups. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Have stickers in 1,360 buses by the end of year 1 
• Have stickers in 2,600 buses by the end of year 2 
• Reach 590,000 passengers per day during the pilot phase 

FOUNDING TEAM

Miguel Angel Torhton - Founder and Program Coordinator

Pay2Educate

SCHOLARSHIP CHALLENGE; INDIA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

Education scholarships. 

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

 

DISTRIBUTION MODEL INNOVATION

Pay2Educate aims to provide better means for the education of young girls in India. It has created a simple platform that links donors to schools, creating scholarships for underprivileged females. Pay2Educate will begin operations in Bombay and will expand to more cities in the future. In three months, the organization will raise $5,500 for female education. Using this money, schools will create their own scholarships to provide tuition, supplies, and boarding when applicable for students. 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Support the education of 100 girls during the pilot
• Create 1,000 new scholarships for female students by the end of year 1 
• Support the education of 1,250 girls by the end of year 2 

FOUNDING TEAM

Naureen Singh - Co-Founder, Finance Lead

Milinda Bhopatkar - Co-Founder, Partnerships Lead

sharEd

FLIPPED CLASSROOM CHALLENGE; INDIA

PROVEN INTERVENTION TO BE DISTRIBUTED

High-quality educational curricula and resources. 

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

In low-income preschools across the globe, teachers stand in front of classrooms of 3 and 4-year-olds without any training in early childhood education (ECE) and without any materials to aid in play-based learning. Furthermore, low-income schools in countries like India and Bangladesh can't afford expensive, privately published curricula or the games and toys needed for age-appropriate instruction, so teachers make up lessons as they go. By lowering the cost of these materials through a subscription-based sharing model, sharEd operates as a solution provider to the affordable preschool market in India, helping schools to deliver quality education at a fraction of the cost. 

Research has shown that quality preschool curricula, like Creative Curriculum, with structured step-by-step instructions can be an effective intervention even when run by an untrained teacher or facilitator. However, these products are too expensive for most schools. We realized that preschools using these products only use a fraction of their physical materials at any given time, while the rest sit on the shelf. With sharEd, instead of paying thousands of dollars to buy materials, schools can access quality resources immediately by renting one new learning unit each month for as low as $10. When schools subscribe, they get access to monthly themed lesson plans with structured activities, quality story books, and all the play materials they need for that unit. 

Schools that subscribe to sharEd become part of a community of local teachers who meet every month. At monthly meetings, sharEd teachers return their materials, get a new themed lesson plan, and receive training in early education best practices and classroom management. 

In order to reach customers, sharEd will leverage a two-pronged approach.

1. A top-down approach, targeting large groups of schools which are run through a public-private partnership with other non-profits and NGOs and the Indian government. These schools will pay no fee. 

2. A bottom-up approach, targeting the fragmented private school market through a grassroots movement. The strategy will leverage sharEd's local teacher trainers to identify and sign up schools for a minimal monthly fee. 

sharEd will operate in local markets by contracting experienced, trained teachers to rent out the materials and run monthly training sessions. These employees will be recruited by the Regional Program Director and paid a competitive rate to run training sessions. 

 

PILOT AND SCALING GOALS

• Onboard 20 preschools and reach approximately 600 children

• 2016-2017 school year will collect valuable feedback from pilot schools to improve the product and onboard 60 additional schools for the next school year

• In 2017, scale to 80 classrooms and provide quality early education to another 2,400 children

• In two years, provide quality early education to over 12,000 children and empower teachers wtih 3,300 total hours of training

• In 2018, scale to 300 schools

 

FOUNDING TEAM

Bobby Powers - Chief Executive Officer 

Nihar Shah - Chief Financial Officer 

Kate Geremia - Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Procurement Officer 

Derrick Wolbert - Chief Information Officer