Meet Nick Moon & Martin Fisher

© Epic, 2010

Prized for Founding KickStart (formerly ApproTEC)

"If you look at the problems in Africa--in other developing countries -- the solution is to create a middle class." --Martin Fisher

When Martin Fisher (pictured on the right) traveled to Peru, it was the first time he had ever encountered poverty in the developing world.  As he trekked through the Andes, he couldn't stop thinking about how his background in mechanical engineering could be utilized to fight poverty.  Armed with a new PhD and a Fulbright Scholarship, Martin flew to Kenya to study the relationship between poverty and technology.

Enter Nick Moon.  A skilled carpenter, Nick was already in Kenya working with ACTIONAID to teach and utilize valuable construction techniques in impoverished slums and villages.  Martin learned about Nick's work and sought him out for help with his study.  Eventually, Martin joined the ACTIONAID team as well.  What was originally planned for a 10 month stay turned into a permanent job.

But something wasn't working.   Nick and Martin both began to see a discouraging pattern that so many of their projects were following.  Initially, projects would seem like a big success.  Aid workers would invest lots of time, energy, and money into getting things started.  Once the projects were up and running, funding and support would be withdrawn, and aid workers would move on to new ones.  Later, when aid workers would return to check up on their previous assignments, they were almost always dismayed to find the projects not functioning properly or even at all.

Martin and Nick spent a lot of time trying to figure out what was going wrong.  They eventually decided to create an organization that they hoped would provide sustainable solutions to poverty.  In 1991, Martin and Nick founded ApproTEC, which was later renamed KickStart.  The company designs affordable technologies that help their customers increase their incomes.  KickStart's most successful product is the MoneyMaker Irrigation Pump.

To date, KickStart has sold over 156,000 irrigation pumps and created more than 99,900 new enterprises.  Each year, their products facilitate over $101 million in new profits and wages for their customers. 

Sources
PBS New Heroes Website http://www.pbs.org/opb/thenewheroes/meet/moon.html
Lemelson-MIT Program http://web.mit.edu/invent/a-winners/a-fisher.html
Kickstart Website http://www.kickstart.org/about-us/

Check Out This Video
PBS The New Heroes: Nick Moon & Martin Fisher

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ud1rwf8_Cv0

Meet Jacqueline Novogratz

© Epic, 2010

Prized for Founding The Acumen Fund

"Philanthropy alone lacks the feedback mechanisms of markets, which are the best listening devices we have; and yet markets alone too easily leave the most vulnerable behind." 

Would you have the guts to give up a high-paying job on Wall Street to try to change the world?  Jacqueline Novogratz did.  After three years of working as an international banker, she accepted a position with a nonprofit microfinance organization working in Africa.  

It wasn't an easy transition.  Many of the organization's women were angry to have a  slender, young, American girl for their new boss.  Most of her family and friends thought she was crazy. But eventually, Jacqueline was able to find her niche.  She moved to Rwanda, where she co-founded the country's first microfinance organization called Duterimbere.  While there, she also helped to overhaul "the blue bakery" (that she later found out should have been green). Jacqueline's time in Africa changed her forever: believing that an understanding of business is essential to creating sustainable, scalable, and empowering solutions, she left Africa to pursue an MBA.

After business school, Jacqueline worked for the Rockefeller Foundation, directing their Philanthropy Workshop and Next Generation Leadership program.  During this time, her vision of a combination of philanthropy and business solutions began to solidify.  

In 2001, Jacqueline's vision culminated in the foundation of The Acumen Fund, a venture fund that uses a business approach to fight global poverty.  The fund invests both money and business expertise in new businesses and organizations that offer valuable services and products to the poor.  Jacqueline says, "We termed [it] patient capital--not traditional charity, not traditional business, but something in-between."

Today, The Acumen Fund is helping over 36 million people through  investing millions of dollars in 35 "thriving enterprises" throughout East Africa, India, and Pakistan. 

Sources

The Blue Sweater by Jacqueline Novogratz (fantastic read)

The Acumen Fund Website

Check Out This Video

Jacqueline Novogratz's TED Speech on Patient Capital (time well spent)

Meet G. Venkataswamy

© Epic, 2010

Prized for Founding Aravind Eye Care

"Intelligence and capability are not enough.  There must be the joy of doing something beautiful." 

When G. Venkataswamy, affectionately known as Dr. V, retired at the age of 58, he didn't really retire.  Instead, he was thinking about McDonald's assembly lines and how they related to opthamology, his life's work.  What if you applied the assembly line approach to create more affordable eye care? he wondered.  Passionately believing that good vision is crucial to creating economic stability, he mortgaged his home to establish a twelve-bed eye hospital for Southern India's poor.

That was the beginning of Aravind Eye Care System, which has grown to become the largest and most productive eye care system in the world.  Using an assembly line approach, Dr. V figured out how to streamline eye care into a smooth, efficient, and cost-effective system.  Dr. V also pioneered the idea of mass free eye camps for the poor.  The results are staggering: Aravind doctors perform 2,200 surgeries annually compared to 250 surgeries per year in nearby hospitals. 

But with the high cost of replacement lenses ($150 a pair), Dr. V's ability to perform surgeries was limited.  In 1992, he collaborated with David Green to create Aurolab,  a company that uses a creative new technology to manufacture lenses, bringing down the cost to just $5 per pair.  Aravind uses a sliding price scale to determine the amount patients pay.  Those who can afford to pay the full price of $10 subsidize the 70% who can't. 

Though Dr. V died in 2006, after performing over 100,000 successful eye surgeries, his legend lives on in the Aravind Eye Care System.   Today  there are five Aravind Eye Hospitals in India, serving more than 2 million patients and  performing more than 270,000 surgeries a year.

Sources

Aravind Website

ASCRS Website
My Hero Project Website 

PBS New Heroes Website

Check Out This Video

PBS NewsHour: Hospital Provides Top Eye Care for All Patients