During our daily search of all things world changing, we came across Google's latest contest Project 10^100, being held in part to celebrate their 10-year anniversary and in part to help those who want to help others. During the next three months, the Internet search company will solicit world-changing ideas from anyone, anywhere, no matter the size or scope and will reward the top five ideas with $10 million to see their projects come to life.
In today's Seattle Times Google's Managing Director Andy Berndt gave us some insight on why the company feels like this kind of a project is necessary:
"Never in history have so many people had so much information, so many tools at their disposal, so many ways of making good ideas come to life. Yet at the same time, so many people, of...
Having a personal computer the size of your hand is something that, in a relatively short period of time, went from being seemingly impossible to practically ubiquitous. In fact, many of us can barely imagine leaving the house without one. These tiny personal pieces of technology allow to send messages and images anywhere -- from across the table to across the globe, connecting us to each other and the world.
Exploring the extent to which this technology could benefit society as a whole is mobile company giant Nokia. Yesterday, Nokia announced its contest, Calling All Innovators, encouraging developers to design applications that could help better society.
“Calling All Innovators is not just about making mobile applications that could help society; it’s about developing...
God knows we've written our share of water purification posts, but this is pretty cool: An Australian professor has come up with a way of making DIY water purifiers (PDF), suitable for the developing world:
A handful of clay, yesterdays coffee grounds and some cow manure: the ingredients that could bring clean, safe drinking water to much of the third world. The simple new technology, developed by [Australia National University] materials scientist Mr. Tony Flynn, allows water filters to be made from commonly available materials and fired on the ground using cow manure as the source of heat, without the need for kiln. The filters have been tested and shown to remove common pathogens including E-coli.
They are very simple to explain and demonstrate and can be made by...
We raised €825 raised as a result of my article in The Tablet - sincere thanks to everyone for their kind support and generous donations.
All monies will be put towards the next consignment of badly needed medicines and supplies, which we will endeavour to send as soon as it is safe to do so.
In light [...]...
A couple of things to mention before I post the article that the Big Issue recently featured on Basra.
Last year we raised a total of €3,100 (£2,345 at today’s exchange rate), so a big thank you to everyone who supported us and made a donation.
Secondly, I’ll be writing a report on the situation in Basra [...]...
Merry Christmas from 4Basra and thank you so much to everyone who has helped and supported us this year.
In the past six weeks or so, with the help of Nicholas Wood, Dr Chris Burns-Cox, the guys at Media Lens, and thanks to donations from a number of doctors in the UK and Ireland and a [...]...
Two leading social venture/social entrepreneurship competitions are open for applications from around the world:
The Global Social Venture Competition is seeking entrants for its 2008 competition. The winning business plan will receive $25,000 for its blend of high economic and social returns. There's a total of $45,000 in the pot; winners also get professional feedback on their ventures -- "[N]early 25% of past GSVC entrants are now operating companies," according to GSVC materials. For the 2007-08 Competition, executive summaries are due on January 16, 2008.
The deadline for initial applications for the Echoing Green Fellowship is December 3. EG is looking for "visionary idea(s) for social change – be it a sustainable energy system, a new model for middle schools, or a...
Please click here! http://www.irishwhiskeynotes.com/2007/11/help-good-cause-win-case-of-irish.html
Thanks to David at Irish Whiskey Notes.
And thanks to Stephen Teeling and David Horgan at Cooley Whiskey for your kind donation.
I’m also very grateful to a number of people in the UK who are helping me as we try to gather some further support.
I should also thank Terence at the Irish Medical [...]...
For most Irish doctors and nurses, the daily battle to save lives doesn’t begin until they reach their workplace.
In the southern Iraqi city of Basra however - about 600km south of the capital Baghdad - it’s a battle just to get to work safely through the dusty, rubbish-strewn and war-torn streets without being kidnapped or [...]...
The situation in Iraq has been worsening over the past few months.
A colleague of one of the doctors working in the children’s hospital in Basra was recently found dead in a rubbish dump, her body cut into pieces.
One important ward of the chilren’s hospital will close if my colleague in Vienna cannot help, and I hope [...]...
A new nongovernmental organization is forming a critical link between poor communities, renewable energy providers, and local banks in southern India. Over the past three years, the Small-Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund, Inc. (S3IDF) has implemented 35 low-investment renewable lighting projects for urban and rural communities, benefiting about 5,500 people. “Increasing evolution of technology and materials is driving small-scale solutions to be much more cost effective in poor areas,” explains Dr. Russell deLucia, founder and president of S3IDF. The S3IDF Lighting Initiative acts as an interface between modern energy supply chains and unconnected poor communities, implementing financing options for residents and extending their access to infrastructural...
The first step would be to understand the local ecosystem and its stakeholders and to become familiar with existing and similar experiences, their successes and failures, both at a local level and in other places. This would keep us from duplicating efforts, repeating mistakes and would allow us to learn from such experiences and to identify local partners and others with relevant......
Given enabling environments for social entrepreneurship, both individuals and institutions will have similar incentives (beyond their social motivation) to innovate, explore, pursue and develop solutions, goods and services for their local communities and global markets....
I saw John Gage, Sun Microsystem’s official international man of mystery, in Arusha last week, and now at the World Economic Forum in Cape Town. The man is clearly traveling too much. (It's okay, John. Me too.) John pulled me aside this afternoon and asked whether I’d learned anything useful at the afternoon session on mobile banking. I did, actually. Two of the most interesting projects in Africa were represented at the meeting - Celpay and M-PESA - as were an African banker and a central bank governor. Lazarus Muchenje, the CEO of Celpay, a company that’s spun out of DRC’s remarkable Celtel, has been so successful in providing business to business services, his company hasn’t even started marketing to ordinary consumers. Businesses use the service to...
Worldchanging board chair Ethan Zuckerman is in Africa, covering the TED Global conference. - ed Tanzanian President Jakaya Mrisho Kikwete took the stage with Dr. Larry Brilliant of Google.org and Bruce McNeighbor of Technoserve. Dr. Brilliant announces his support for “Believe, Begin, Become,” a national business plan competition, modeled on the successful experiment Google and Technoserve operated this past year in Ghana. He emphasizes the importance of job creation and business development as critical parts of economic development. Brilliant describes the program as “tried and tested” in Africa and Latin America, where it accompanies investment with intensive entrepreneurship training. He notes that Databank, a Ghanaian investment fund, has launched a $2 million “3B”...
According to The Independent, infant mortality in Iraq is now comparable to that of sub-Saharan Africa.
Figures come from a report by Save the Children.
Update: 4Basra’s work to raise awareness of the situation will resume after the election here in Ireland.
The focus will be on the medical community and a number of politicians with an interest [...]...
I’ve just returned from an interesting and inspiring three days in Oxford at the Skoll Foundation World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship.
Who was there? More than 700 people, including:
EBay, Participant Films and Skoll Foundation founder, Jeff Skoll
Nobel prize 2006 winner and founder of the Grameen Bank, Muhammad Yunus
Queen Rania Al-Abdullah, Queen of Jordan
Peter Gabriel, former band member [...]...
Patrick Cockburn is one of the few journalists now reporting from Iraq.
His reports can be read in The Independent and The Independent on Sunday.
His latest report is required reading for anyone concerned about the current state of the country and the fate of the Iraqi people....
The Financial Times recently featured an interview with former Microsoft Executive John Wood.
Wood left his job in 1998 to found children’s charity Room to Read, and he has some interesting things to say. He has written a book and it will be on my reading list.
...
The former Body Shop owner has some useful nuggets of advice on the Real Business website.
As usual I have a backlog of things to do and not enough time to do them.
At the end of March I’ll be attending the Skoll Foundation World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford, where I hope to pick up [...]...
TAVOS Media Network is a trail-blazing venture based in Palo Alto, California, that empowers people in underserved communities around the world through local media services. Our vision is to build a global network of local media microfranchises to give voice and promote the life and prosperity of every......
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We have now raised a total of €1,000 (£675) as a result of the Big Issue article in the UK.
All donors have received a thank you letter incorporating some news and further information on our current aims and the situation in Iraq....
If you are reading this after receiving a message through Boardmatch, first of all welcome to 4Basra’s website and thank you for taking the time to visit.
There are nearly 400 candidates on Boardmatch, all with a varied and impressive track record. I’m hoping to find a number of people who would like to help with the following:
PR [...]...
Remittances are a big deal – from an economic standpoint, a development standpoint, and a business standpoint. A lot has been written about the magnitude and impact of cross-border financial flows here Worldchanging as well as the innovation of sending goods instead of services. I believe that Bal Joshi, AnnaLee Saxenian, and Bill Kramer are right when they describe productizing remittances as economically and socially more powerful than traditional cash flows.I think Nils Johnson would agree. Nils is the founder of Gorilla Mobile, and CEO of Gorilla’s new subsidiary, Aryty (as in "All righty" in text-message lingo.) His is an interesting story; he founded Gorilla, an international telecom firm, at the height of the tech boom. Soon after starting the company, the market...
4Basra has been nominated in two categories of the Irish Blog Awards: Best Newcomer and Best Specialist Blog.
Please vote so we make the shortlist!
And please…no spamming them....
$12 billion (or about €10 bn / £6bn).
It’s a sickening number. Particularly when you read this is the amount the US threw at Iraq (or flew in by the pallet-load, to be more accurate).
This amount of money would more than pay for 20 state-of-the-art 400 or 500-bed hospitals.
In the context of the current situation in [...]...
I’m not sure how regular this will be, but when I have a moment I’ll try to mention some other social entrepreneurship, non-profit and charity blogs and some of the subjects they cover.
One exceptionally interesting article which caught my eye is by Sandeep Junnarkar. This incisive piece describes the process of fundraising for his Lives [...]...
Thanks to four donors (who know who they are!), this is the article in the UK’s Big Issue which raised €500 which will help the children with congenital heart defects.
More news soon…
Big Issue: Basra
As Christmas 2006 approached, Dr Laura Schmidt, who leads a tiny European NGO, learned of a group of 22 children with congenital heart [...]...
Conferences like this summit offer far more to the attendees than the content listed on the program. There certainly are insights to be gleaned from the speeches and panels, but the comments heard in the hall and the connections made over the lunch table almost invariably offer the most value. I personally learned about a few fascinating initiatives between croissants and coffee: Lex Mundi – Lex Mundi is a global non-profit that leverages a worldwide network of 160 law firms to support social entrepreneurs around the world on a pro-bono basis. Managing Director Dave Roll, former chairman of DC power firm Steptoe & Johnson, and board member Ben Greer talked about their work to aid innovative organizations in developing countries using the first-rate legal talent of their enormous...