distribution

Image Source: Kopernik

Kopernik is a group of former UN workers and today, Feb 19th, they are launching Kopernik—www.thekopernik.org—an online store of technology designed for the developing world.

According to Ewa Wojkowska, Co-Founder of Kopernik:

"The technology addresses simple but critical needs—solar power, self-adjusting eyeglasses and quick water filtration, for example.  

As Haiti continues to clear the rubble, as a measure of stability comes to Sudan, as Sri Lanka holds a bitter peace, a new development opportunity presents itself in some of the world’s poorest and most troubled places."

Here is their press release announcing the launch:

Every social entrepreneur seeks financial sustainability regardless of their mission. In looking to create a bigger demand for green products, Ashoka Fellow S. Rajagopalan figured out how to generate almost half of his organization's annual budget from entrepreneur-commissioned sales. Here's how he did it.

1) Train entrepreneurs

Through his organization, TIDE (Technology Informatics Design Endeavor), Rajagopalan adapts technologies such as stoves, pottery kilns and food processing tools used for production to become more environmentally-friendly and efficient. As an alternative to an expensive centralized sales staff, Rajagopalan trained entrepreneurs for two objectives: firstly, as a sales force that markets the product to their locality, and secondly as technicians that customize the products to meet local demand.  Because the entrepreneurs are from the local villages they understand local needs and are able to provide appropriate customization to the products so that they can be quickly adopted. 

Some of TIDE’s profit comes from direct sales, but the majority comes from the entrepreneurial middlemen who pay TIDE a 5% commission on each sale, allowing TIDE to simultaneously spread its technology, increase its client base, generate revenue and stimulate environmental entrepreneurialism in new sectors.

This post contributed by Paula Cardenau.

The gap between those who develop social technologies and those who distribute them was identified as one of the main barriers to ensure that the technologies arrive effectively to the people that need them as discussed by the social entrepreneurs that attended the Sao Paolo event.

On the first day of the Sao Paolo event, which gathered 23 social entrepreneurs and investors, we focused on Social Technologies and the barriers to distributing them (if you are interested, you can read this post which summarizes what the group discussed and this article by Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow's Gustavo Gennuso on his perspective on why technologies don't reach end users).

We also addressed the question of how Fellows dealt with parnterships and distribution strategies to reach beneficiaries at a massive scale. For instance many of the Fellows worked with their governments to reach a large number of people quickly, but as Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow Carlos Simão pointed out, re-negotiating the partnership when the political party in government changes is challenging so it may not be the best strategy for a long-term plan.

Some inventions and technologies can change the world but in reality are too expensive for the average "Bottom of the Pyramid" consumer. 

This is the story of British Petroleum (BP) and how they decreased the cost of their clean lamps by partnering with an Ashoka Fellow--"British Petroleum wanted to enter the Indian rural market to sell liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), but faced several challenges to make it affordable and to develop appropriate distribution channels. They then started to work on a hybrid appliance integrating LPG and a biomass burner. When C.K. Prahalad began advising them on their distribution strategy, self-help groups were identified as an opportunity to build alternative distribution channels, and BP then contacted me" says Ashoka-Lemelson Fellow Muthu Velayutham.

Read the full article of Muthu's partnership with BP by clicking here.

There are a lot of points of intersection between social innovation and technology, but I'm particularly interested in low-end disruptive innovation, where a product begins being offered at a dramatically lower price point, thus making it accessible to the four billion people living at the bottom of the pyramid on less than $2 a day.

Changemakers held a competition for disruptive innovations in health and healthcare back in 2007, with some outstanding entries.