Social Venture News from Yale SOM

On Friday, a team from Prasetiya Mulya Business School in Indonesia became the first international team to win the Global Social Venture Competition. GSVC is an annual global competition held at UC Berkeley that brings together some of the most dynamic aspiring social entrepreneurs in the world to pitch their ideas and hopefully win cash prizes and other support.

Winners in the past have included groups like fair trade craft marketplace World of Good and sustainable design firm d. Light Design. In this anniversary year, the new companies ranged from telemedicine training in India to a search engine that pays to plant trees. The judges included serial innovators like Victoria Hale, Founder and Chair Emeritus, One World Health, Karyn Barsa of Investors’ Circle, Sam Moss of Gray Ghost Ventures, and more.

In the end, the Global Finals winners were 1. EcoFaeBrick, 2. mPedigree, and 3. SolarCycle, with the Social Impact Assessment prize going to Bright Mind Labs. Go to GSVC for more information about the competition, and check out the short descriptions of the winners below!

Congrats to all the competitors and to GSVC for 10 years launching innovative new ventures.

EcoFaeBrick, Prasetiya Mulya Business School

EcoFaeBrick, in conjunction with Faerumnesia, produces high quality and low price bricks by utilizing the abundant cow dung in Godean and Sayegan, Jogjakarta. The utilization of the cow dung will not only solve the hygiene problem but also reduce the exploitation of the un-renewable clay. The replacement of firewood with the cow dung methane biogas in the combustion process brings a lower production cost with a more environmental friendly process. EcoFaeBrick also empowers rural people through close partnership with local communities.

Using business model which involves the housing developers, NGOs, and local communities, EcoFaeBrick builds a sustainable market demand to ensure an interesting financial return to the investors. The EcoFaeBrick’s expansion plan focuses on areas with rapid development and high concentration of cattle farm. EcoFaeBrick offers a feasible solution for rapidly developing areas not only in Indonesia but also in other emerging countries.

mPEDIGREE LOGISTICS, Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth

mPedigree Logistics provides pharmaceutical companies with robust anti-counterfeit solutions appropriate for emerging markets, with added value via mobile marketing and granular supply chain oversight.

The WHO estimates that up to 30% of drugs sold in developing nations are fakes, containing little to no active ingredients or laced with malicious chemicals. The growing global counterfeit drug market is estimated to reach US $75 billion by 2010, forming about 10% of all global pharmaceutical trade. Our technology leverages the power of 4 billion cell phones worldwide. With our service, consumers can check their drugs before use with a simple text message. Genuine manufacturers can reclaim market share lost to counterfeiters while boosting sales with targeted advertisements at the point of purchase, a world-first innovation.

SolarCycle, George Washington University School of Business

SolarCycle’s primary innovation is a low-cost reflective material made from used plastic bags and the interior of metalized chip bags that can replace mirrors in solar concentrating applications for developing countries. We’ve designed this product to help low-income urban Africans turn a local trash problem into a cheap, green and revolutionary new product that can assist rural people with both solar cooking and water pasteurization.

SolarCycle will address the staggering environmental damage and negative health effects caused by contaminated drinking water and indoor air pollution in the developing world with its two products. A solar cooker made from our material would be durable and the most affordable on the market. Additionally, we have developed a novel pasteurizer design that takes advantage of a large collection area made possible by the low cost of our material to purify water for an entire village for ten years for only $350.

Bright Mind LABS, University of Auckland

There is fantastic educational gaming made for the likes of Nintendo. And it works.

BrightMind Labs are applying these proven principles to meet psychological needs. By creating world-class, clinically robust computer games that young people actually want to play, they aim to bring the therapist’s couch into the living room.

Immersive gaming will be developed for the likes of depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder. But first, BrightMind Labs will test and perfect their business model with their first product - a game created to teach children on the autistic spectrum to recognise and respond to emotions.