Nexus
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Friday, May. 11, 2012
2010 Young Laureates Programme. The team of Whiz kids workshop, at their office, Gerji district. From the left to the right: Ajaeb Ahmed, Tewodros Ambaye, Shane (Bruktawit's husband) Etzenhouser, Bruktawit Tigabu, Hanna Belayneh, Marcos Tesfaye, Biniyam Mulugeta, Amina Abdella. | Want to see more photos? Visit our Facebook Page!
Who: Shane Etzenhouser & Bruktawit Tigabu, Co-Founders
What: Whiz Kids Workshop: www.whizkidsworkshop.com/
Where: Ethiopia
When: The Tech Awards 2011 Microsoft Education Award Laureate: thetechawards.thetech.org/
How: Whiz Kids Workshop provides education through children’s television and mass-media programs reaching millions. Their programs are built on research, culturally relevant, available in local languages, and are internationally recognized for quality and educational value. 78% of Ethiopian children enroll in grade 1, but only 45% of those who enroll are still in attendance by the end of the first year. Of those who remain in school, half will have a zero reading comprehension level by the end of grade 2.
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Friday, May. 4, 2012
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Who: Shane Immelman, Founder
What: The Kommunity Desk Company: www.kommunitydesk.com/
Where: Africa
When: The Tech Awards 2011 Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award Laureate: thetechawards.thetech.org/
How: The Kommunity Desk is a robust, lightweight and ergonomically designed portable desk that offers a proven solution to the prevailing challenge of classroom desk shortages in African classrooms. There were 95 million children in Sub-Saharan Africa who attend school without the benefit of a classroom desk.
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Friday, Apr. 27, 2012
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Who: Dean Jansen, Director of Outreach and Business development
What: Universal Subtitles: www.universalsubtitles.org/
Where: Headquarters in Boston, MA, USA. Impacting: Globally
When: The Tech Awards 2011 Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award Laureate: thetechawards.thetech.org/
How: Universal Subtitles is a powerful, open source software platform that allows any organization or volunteer to add captions and translations to any web video. It empowers hundreds of millions of people around the world to watch subtitled videos.
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Friday, Apr. 20, 2012
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Who: Neil Patel, Co-Founder & CEO
What: Awaaz.De: www.awaaz.de/
Where: Headquarters in Gujarat, India, and Berkeley, CA, Impacting: India
When: The Tech Awards 2011: Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award Laureate thetechawards.thetech.org/
How: Awaaz.De makes knowledge creation, access, and sharing available to everyone in any language through a social media platform that leverages the ubiquity of mobile phones and the expressivity of voice. Awaaz.De reaches the 3 billion of the world population currently disconnected from the Internet with mobile phones.
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Monday, Apr. 16, 2012
Whirlwind Wheelchair International designs sturdy, low cost wheelchairs that are built and used in developing countries. Whirlwind has trained wheelchair users and community members for 25 years on how to build and repair these wheelchairs in local workshops using locally available materials. Unlike the traditional wheelchairs designed for a hospital, the Roughrider is tough enough to negotiate the bumpy surfaces of rural and slum environments, where typical chairs tip over. They apply technologies from US mountain bikes to help people who are socially excluded in the developing world. Whirlwind extends its innovations through a network of social enterprises and local organizations. Whirlwind Wheelchair International graduated from the GSBI in 2006.
Our GSBI alumni are restless. They are not content with the innovations they brought to GSBI. They continue to improve, invent, and imagine. To match that spirit, the Center has just launched the Global Social Benefit Fellowship. Santa Clara University undergraduates work with GSBI alumni to learn from them and to support them with research. In early April, two Global Social Benefit Fellows visited Whirlwind Wheelchair’s headquarters in San Francisco to discover how they might help this international organization.
Whirlwind is expanding its mission from providing a service to those excluded by society, to providing an entrepreneurial framework for those same people to start their own microbusiness. To do this, they are applying what they have learned about rugged wheelchairs to the creation of adult-sized tricycles that can carry small goods for sale, such as stamps, snacks, drinks, or lottery tickets. Push-cart vending is ubiquitous in the developing world. A trike opens up this economic niche for those unable to walk. This reframes Whirlwind’s strategy: from designing a mobility device --> to creating a microenterprise platform so that the socially excluded can earn an income.
 
Keoke King, director of marketing at Whirlwind, demonstrates where micro-entrepreneurs will carry their goods for sale on a very early prototype of the tricycle
Aaron Wieler, director of R&D at Whirlwind, explains the research opportunities
This is where our fellows, Nate Funkhouser and Stella Tran, can help. Microfinance institutions usually make smaller loans than the price of a tricycle, but if Whirlwind can make the case for extending credit to potential buyers, then this innovation could really take off. Microcredit is extended to those who want to buy push-carts, so why not for a mobility device plus microenterprise platform? Nate and Stella will investigate the economic landscape of push-carts, trikes, and microfinance, and research the best ways to make a business case for these kinds of loans.
Whirlwind challenges us to recognize that those who cannot walk can still live a life of dignity. They often cannot do this on their own, but technology can help. The physical framework of the trike provides a platform for the disabled to participate in the economic life of their society. Our task now is to reframe the thinking of economic institutions so that they can fulfill the potential of this technology to extend dignity to aspiring entrepreneurs.
For a great video on Whirlwind Wheelchair International watch: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJQJ8pMsEcI
Keith Douglass Warner OFM is a San Francisco native, a Franciscan Friar, and the director of Education in the Center.
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