Thanks for sharing information about ColaLife. This sounds like a promising idea. Can you elaborate on how the prize money from Africa Rural Connect would be used? It seems like it would be used to design the AidPod. Is that correct? What is your anticipated cost?
I like your proposal to ask local communities to decide what the AidPod would contain in their community. How do you envision that happening?
There is another organization on this site that is also interested in designing technology based on the needs of Africans. They are called the Full Belly Project. Here is the link to their project proposal: http://arc.peacecorpsconnect.org/view/637/the-acceleration-of-innovation. I encourage you to check out their post as they are also interested in manufacturing products locally. Perhaps you'd be interested in collaborating with them. Good luck.
while the idea of using an established distribution network is very good, the project will work if it is "aid-based".
How can the transport network be used to enhance income generation by the rural community ?
The transport network can also be used to provide better access/introduction of more consumer products but I like to see discussion on how it can enhance income generation for the rural community.
P.S: how do I get a notification when a comment is entered into this project idea ?
Over the past few decades, tremendous amounts of money have been funneled into development projects in Africa. While levels of extreme poverty have decreased, they have not fallen as much as we would have liked. The problem is, as economist Paul Collier points out in his book, The Bottom Billion, is that the developing world has a saturation point at which excess aid has no additional beneficial effect. This, according to the the Center for Global Development is when aid reaches 16% of GDP (mentioned in Paul Collier's book The Bottom Billion, p. 100). The International Monetary Fund mentioned that in 2005/06 foreign aid to Tanzania reached 14.2% of it's GDP (look on page 50 of: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/books/2009/tanzania/tanzania.pdf). What this means is that even a threefold increase in foreign aid to Tanzania will not be beneficial in the long run. Aid as we know it will not solve the problems that we feel so strongly about. The encouraging point is that ColaLife has the potential for doing something different... encouraging trade. If we were to let "foreign aid" compete with "trade" on the playing field of lifting individuals out of extreme poverty, trade will win more times than not. The drop in the prevalence of extreme poverty in China is astonishing... from 64% of its population in the late 1970's to 10% in 2004. The main driver is this drop in poverty was the "open door policy" which encouraged trade and economic reform.
Local Tanzanian business owners could place their products such as oral rehydration solution and transport it via the ColaLife distribution network to customers that could have never been reached previously. In rural regions where a gravel road is considered a luxury, ColaLife is able to break down transportation barriers that have resulted in slowed economic growth. In this way, the supply chain of Coca-Cola can act as a catalyst to drive the expansion of local African business.
Thanks for these comments. I agree with @jackyfoo. We think that there should be as much money made out of delivery of an aidpod as that made from the delivery of a bottle of Coca-Cola (or even more).
@jenngross. Sorry, I've been a bit negligent in following up on comments here.
There are three threads of activity that need immediate funding:
1 Product design. We want to engage a team in Africa to build and test prototypes of the AidPod in the field. We then want to manufacture a few thousand aidpods to enable proper trials of the idea to be carried out.
2 Process design. This covers the whole process of getting the social products into the aidpods and what happens to them at the destination. But a crucial part of this is how to verify delivery and pay for that delivery. We are talking to FrontlineSMS and FrontlineSMS:Credit about this. We think both of these processes could be handled using mobile phones. See: http://www.colalife.org/2009/10/25/verifying-delivery-and-paying-for-it/
3 I have committed to give up my day job in June to dedicate myself full time to ColaLife and I need someone to pay the bills. However we are hopeful that this funding will come from another source. Up until now ColaLife has been a purely voluntary activity. Despite this we have achieved an amazing amount. Please see: http://www.colalife.org/2009/08/26/progress-report-26809/
jenngross said 2 years ago
Thanks for sharing information about ColaLife. This sounds like a promising idea. Can you elaborate on how the prize money from Africa Rural Connect would be used? It seems like it would be used to design the AidPod. Is that correct? What is your anticipated cost?
I like your proposal to ask local communities to decide what the AidPod would contain in their community. How do you envision that happening?
There is another organization on this site that is also interested in designing technology based on the needs of Africans. They are called the Full Belly Project. Here is the link to their project proposal: http://arc.peacecorpsconnect.org/view/637/the-acceleration-of-innovation. I encourage you to check out their post as they are also interested in manufacturing products locally. Perhaps you'd be interested in collaborating with them. Good luck.
jackyfoo said 2 years ago
while the idea of using an established distribution network is very good, the project will work if it is "aid-based".
How can the transport network be used to enhance income generation by the rural community ?
The transport network can also be used to provide better access/introduction of more consumer products but I like to see discussion on how it can enhance income generation for the rural community.
P.S: how do I get a notification when a comment is entered into this project idea ?
From: [email protected]
gphobby said 2 years ago
Over the past few decades, tremendous amounts of money have been funneled into development projects in Africa. While levels of extreme poverty have decreased, they have not fallen as much as we would have liked. The problem is, as economist Paul Collier points out in his book, The Bottom Billion, is that the developing world has a saturation point at which excess aid has no additional beneficial effect. This, according to the the Center for Global Development is when aid reaches 16% of GDP (mentioned in Paul Collier's book The Bottom Billion, p. 100). The International Monetary Fund mentioned that in 2005/06 foreign aid to Tanzania reached 14.2% of it's GDP (look on page 50 of: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/books/2009/tanzania/tanzania.pdf). What this means is that even a threefold increase in foreign aid to Tanzania will not be beneficial in the long run. Aid as we know it will not solve the problems that we feel so strongly about. The encouraging point is that ColaLife has the potential for doing something different... encouraging trade. If we were to let "foreign aid" compete with "trade" on the playing field of lifting individuals out of extreme poverty, trade will win more times than not. The drop in the prevalence of extreme poverty in China is astonishing... from 64% of its population in the late 1970's to 10% in 2004. The main driver is this drop in poverty was the "open door policy" which encouraged trade and economic reform.
Local Tanzanian business owners could place their products such as oral rehydration solution and transport it via the ColaLife distribution network to customers that could have never been reached previously. In rural regions where a gravel road is considered a luxury, ColaLife is able to break down transportation barriers that have resulted in slowed economic growth. In this way, the supply chain of Coca-Cola can act as a catalyst to drive the expansion of local African business.
ColaLife said 2 years ago
Thanks for these comments. I agree with @jackyfoo. We think that there should be as much money made out of delivery of an aidpod as that made from the delivery of a bottle of Coca-Cola (or even more).
I have written about that here:
Is wealth creation the new philanthropy?
http://www.colalife.org/2009/10/24/is-wealth-creation-the-new-philanthropy/
We are looking to work with FrontlineSMS and FrontlineSMS Credit to provide mechanisms for verifying delivery and making micro-payments for that delivery:
http://www.colalife.org/2009/10/25/verifying-delivery-and-paying-for-it/
ColaLife said 2 years ago
How would the aidpod work. We have just published a short animation on this on the ColaLife YouTube Channel:
http://www.youtube.com/colalife#p/a/u/1/GUjLIUxfbOs
You can download a copy of the video for your phone here:
http://www.colalife.org/2009/11/14/put-the-aidpod-animation-on-your-phone/
ColaLife said 2 years ago
@jenngross. Sorry, I've been a bit negligent in following up on comments here.
There are three threads of activity that need immediate funding:
1 Product design. We want to engage a team in Africa to build and test prototypes of the AidPod in the field. We then want to manufacture a few thousand aidpods to enable proper trials of the idea to be carried out.
2 Process design. This covers the whole process of getting the social products into the aidpods and what happens to them at the destination. But a crucial part of this is how to verify delivery and pay for that delivery. We are talking to FrontlineSMS and FrontlineSMS:Credit about this. We think both of these processes could be handled using mobile phones. See:
http://www.colalife.org/2009/10/25/verifying-delivery-and-paying-for-it/
3 I have committed to give up my day job in June to dedicate myself full time to ColaLife and I need someone to pay the bills. However we are hopeful that this funding will come from another source. Up until now ColaLife has been a purely voluntary activity. Despite this we have achieved an amazing amount. Please see:
http://www.colalife.org/2009/08/26/progress-report-26809/