Peru, Juan Carlos Calizaya Luna, AGUAECOSAN Perú [2010]
AGUAECOSAN Perú produces and distributes innovative products for sanitation – flushless toilets and urine-diverting dry toilets – and builds waste treatment systems in rural areas, generating a community-owned microenterprise of sanitation and water provision. The local government or a corporation provides a 50 percent grant, and the rest is paid by the community through a soft loan.
Spain, Andrés Martínez Fernández, Fundación EHAS [2010]
Fundación EHAS installs wireless communications networks that support IP telephone and internet access, creating more effective communication systems between rural, isolated health posts (located in areas that are not reached by either road or fixed or mobile phone systems) and the nearest health center and its doctors. Fundación EHAS donates 40 percent of the cost of installation of each network, and the other 60 percent is paid by regional government over four years.
Guatemala, Greg Van Kirk, Community Enterprise Solutions/Social Entrepreneur Corps [2010]
Community Enterprise Solutions has created the Micro Consignment Model (MCM), which solves the problem of lack of access to essential products and services in the developing world by distributing them through the empowerment of local entrepreneurs using a product consignment mechanism. Under this model, local entrepreneurs (typically women) are provided with products and sales training, and do not have to pay for the goods until they have made sales. In contrast to alternative micro-franchise solutions, Community Enterprise Solutions funds the working capital for the entrepreneurs and removes any risk of unsold inventory.
Argentina, Gustavo Gennuso, ETV [2010]
ETV (Emprendimientos de Tecnologías para la Vida – Technologies for Life Enterprises) produces and sells appropriate essential technologies – rope pumps to extract water, spinning wheels to process natural fibers, reading lenses, solar micro-panels, and others – among underprivileged communities in rural or suburban areas. ETV distributes the products by networking with public and private organizations to reach potential customers and through local entrepreneurs with a micro-consignment system.
Africa/UK, Ken Banks, Frontline SMS [2011]
Frontline SMS is bridging the digital divide in the citizen sector by bringing the tech revolution to the last mile: To the isolated, small, and resource-poor organizations in the developing world. Having been one of the first innovators using mobile phones for social change, Ken Banks is now creating a rapidly scaling user-led movement that enables local change-makers to co-create the solutions they need to solve their own problems, based on simple and readily available technology: Ordinary mobile phones. His approach is adaptable to a vast range of contexts and social issues, from health in Malawi, to election monitoring in Afghanistan, to domestic violence support centers in the U.S. The core platform has reached over 10,000 citizen organization (CO) users in more than 60 countries, inspired at least six sector-specific spin-offs developed by user COs, and is reaching an estimated four million individual people.
