IAP 2010 Seed Grants
The Legatum Center is pleased to announce the recipients of fourteen IAP 2010 Seed Grants. Please join us for a poster session to learn more about the teams and their progress over IAP on April 7, 2010, 6-8 pm in the MIT Stata Center Student Street.
Team: Aquaport
Team Members: Oladapo Bakare, Mary Bergeron, Rebecca Smith, Tiffany Yuh
Geographic Focus: Ghana | View video interview >>
Project: The team has created Aquaport, a simple and affordable water transportation device that addresses the needs of the more than one billion people worldwide who lack immediate access to clean water. The device, which is modular and scalable, will stimulate local economies and empower low-income families, especially women, who currently must spend up to eight hours each day collecting water. Over IAP 2010, the team will work to integrate the model with water purification techniques, refine customer usability, complete additional product testing, obtain funding, and develop partnerships with distributors.
Team: Celedu
Team Members: Alex Shih, Claire Cunningham, Swaminathan Sekar
Geographic Focus: Rural India | View video interview >>
Project: Celedu (Cellular + Education) aims to spread literacy in the developing world by developing literacy applications for locally available cell phones, including a game-based learning platform that transforms culturally relevant board games to teach basic literacy. This approach leverages the most widespread technology in the region, reduces the need for books and equipment, and enables scaling the program quickly to other villages. During IAP, the team will build off the success of a summer pilot study that confirmed the effectiveness of the applications and Celedu’s facilitator-led community-learning model.
Team: mSurvey
Team Members: Kenfield Griffith, Andrew Hoy
Geographic Focus: Kenya | View video interview >>
Project: mSurvey will address the significant lack of comprehensive data for assessing housing needs in rural areas of developing countries by aggregating a centralized visual statistics data bank using mobile phones. Using a Participatory Rapid Appraisal (PRA)/RRA technology, the team aims to gather data by engaging local communities, taking a bottom-up approach to help create sustainable projects globally. During IAP 2010, the team will travel to Kenya to connect with community members, teach locals how to use the system, and publicize on the ground.
Team: Enhancing Educational Opportunities for Blind Children in the Developing World
Team Members: Nina Suresh, Ainsley Braun
Geographic Focus: India | View video interview >>
Project: The team will develop inexpensive oral courseware for blind schoolchildren who currently have limited access to facilities, course materials, and instruction. This courseware will encourage independent learning and promote educational opportunities to some of the most vulnerable members of society. The team will travel to Delhi during IAP 2010 to visit schools and the Directorate of Education, obtain information on curricula and languages of instruction, and enlist the administrations of ten schools as partners in implementation.
Team: Grassroots Mapping Kit
Team Members: Jeffrey Warren, Seth Hunter, Carla del Carpio, Josh Levinger
Geographic Focus: Lima, Peru | View video interview >>
Project: The Grassroots Mapping Kit is a set of tools and techniques to produce maps for informal settlements and the organizations that support them. While over a quarter of the world's population lives in urban slums, most cities have no means of mapping them, and efforts to produce slum maps by governments and nonprofits have excluded the communities they depict. The GMK will put cartographic tools in the hands of youth in a settlement outside Lima, Peru, providing both educational value and high resolution, up-to-date maps. During IAP 2010, the team will conduct a series of community workshops to prototype new low-cost geographic tools.
Team: Pure Home Water
Team Members: Leah Nation, Tom Hay, Susan Murcott and Travis Watters
Geographic Focus: Ghana | View video interview >>
Project: A team of graduate students, undergraduates, and professors are working to strengthen a pre-existing ceramic pot water filter through improvement in composition and design, in order to provide the Ghanaian community with safer water. This IAP, the team will bring the improved filter to the Pure Home Water (PHW) facility in Tamale, Ghana, where they will make materials composition, design and flow rate recommendations based on lab tests. The team will also perform additional tests and share their findings with the community, bringing attention to the importance of potable water.
Team: Innovative Marketing and Education
Team Members: Lilei Xu, Mia Yinuo Qian
Geographic Focus: China | View video interview >>
Project: The team seeks to implement a rewards system that will improve the educational performance of the migrant worker's children in urban China while helping companies reach low-income consumers. The team will set up a performance-based cash reward system at schools for migrant worker's children to incentivize the students to perform well academically, and then leverage this access to migrant worker's families as a marketing platform for companies, who will provide product samples and coupons. Over IAP, the team will test the feasibility of this idea by conducting interviews.
Team: Karu Pyahu
Team Members: Shayna Harris, Gustavo Setrini
Geographic Focus: Paraguay | View video interview >>
Project: Karu Pyahu aims to tackle poverty and inequality in Paraguay through private enterprise by addressing the gulf between modern agro-industry, the traditional small-holder sector, and sustainable agriculture. The team will seek out partnerships for a 'mission-driven' trading company that meets growing consumer demand for diversified, high-quality Fair Trade organic goods. During IAP, the team will consult with Paraguay's successful small farmer associations, which work with 4,000 out of half a million Paraguayan campesino farmers, as well as NGOs, companies, and public-sector institutions that support their development.
Team: Micro Health Insurance
Team Members: Claire Nauman, Asad Moten, Neeharika Bhartiya, Sandra Abago, Dominic Mosha
Geographic Focus: Tanzania | View video interview >>
Project: The team has developed a community-based micro insurance model to break cycles of poor health and poverty in Moshi, a region of Tanzania with high rates of poverty, mortality, and HIV/AIDS. Two schemes aim to lower patient out-of-pocket spending at the time of illness and ensure access to health services, the first characterized by voluntary membership, monthly pre-payment to the rural clinician, and risk-sharing, and the second offering microcredit plus interest to cover immediate out-of-pocket health costs. The team will pilot the program over IAP 2010.
Team: Power Up!
Team Members: Kimberly Torrence, Leigh Rowan, Kristen Heudorfer
Geographic Focus: Kenya
Project: Power Up! will serve the hundreds of millions of people who rely on their mobile phone but who lack reliable access to electricity and thus cannot easily re-charge their economic life lines. Initially targeting national mobile phone providers in Kenya, the team will provide end users with portable mobile phone power generation devices based on next-generation, hand crank power technology. During IAP 2010, the team will further investigate local retail and distribution models and conduct usability and market research in order to launch the product upon return to MIT.
Team: Promoting Sustainable Computer Literacy Learning in Ghana
Team Members: Benjamin Mensah, Kristen Felch, Aaron Rucker
Geographic Focus: Ho Municipality, Ghana | View video interview >>
Project: The team aims to improve computer literacy in the Ho Municipality of Ghana through the development of a curriculum that will increase students’ computer awareness and fluency via three different functions: media and design, business and accounting, and science and math education. Working with the Network Volunteers Training Institute (NVTI) to train local instructors and community members on this curriculum during IAP 2010, the team seeks to provide the communities in Ho with a computer literacy platform that is both sustainable and expandable.
Team: Sanergy
Team Members: David Auerbach, Ani Vallabhaneni, Jeff Zira
Geographic Focus: Kenya | View video interview >>
Project: Sanergy is a renewable energy company that generates biomethane, electricity, and organic fertilizer by converting human waste collected from our network of micro-franchised sanitation centers. Sanergy's innovative model effectively addresses the lack of sanitation and energy affecting urban slums in developing countries by creating a profitable closed-loop sanitation cycle. Over IAP, the team will travel to Kenya to analyze the feasibility of the model, develop a viable service delivery plan and supply chain, and build a viable business plan for successfully piloting Sanergy during Summer 2010.
Team: TerraMetric Development
Team Members: Elizabeth Basha, Andrea Llenos, Carrick Detweiler
Geographic Focus: Honduras | View video interview >>
Project: Terra Monitoring provides sustainable sensor network-based automated systems capable of predicting and warning about river flooding and landslides, for use in developing countries that lack the infrastructure and resources to cope with these disasters. The team is developing a new cellular-based system to replace and support existing volunteer-based operations in Honduras, which will improve disaster mitigation efforts and save lives. Over IAP, the team will perform a pilot test of the new prototype, begin market research, and meet with key stakeholders.
Team: Thermoversion
Team Members: Michael Kozlowski, Matt Aldrich, Jeff Zira
Geographic Focus: Tanzania | View video interview >>
Project: Thermoversion aims to develop home-scale power generation solutions for those in the developing world without access to electricity. The Kettlectric Power Generation System, which looks like a normal kettle, can generate and store electrical energy for task lighting, mobile re-charging, and radio use. During IAP 2010, the team will travel to Tanzania to field-test the first system, and gather essential user feedback.
