May 05
Amory Lovins is the co-founder and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy thinktank. His TED talk focuses on the principles of his new book, Reinventing Fire, which is a comprehensive plan to end our dependence on oil. Lovins understands the role of business in this process and is unique among environmentalists on his understanding of markets. Reinventing Fire addresses transportation, building, industry, and electricity.
May 03
Outgoing board members: Becky Eisen, Valerie Lubrano, Pradeep Suthram, and Andrew Giessel
Thank you to the outgoing board members. Congratulations on your upcoming graduation.
Apr 26
Get an MBA, Save the World is the title of a great article in Foreign Policy magazine regarding how MBA’s interested in international development are going to work at big multinational companies. Working at a large company that operates all over the world is a great way to have impact on developing economies.
Apr 19
Applications for additional at-large board positions for the 2012 Net Impact Conference are attached to this email. These positions are to be members of the different task forces: Community Events, Partnerships and Local Impact.
Applications are due to Net Impact by April 25th so please have them to Emmy by April 23rd for review at emmy.langkenendy@gmail.com. Craig Bowden is a Co-Chair for the Partnerships taskforce and Sue Compagna is Co-Chair for community events so they can also answer questions.
Please see the links below for each application:
2012 Task Force Member Application – Community-Events
2012 Task Force Member Application – Local Impact
2012 Task Force Member Application – Partnerships
Apr 10
The New York Times published an article on Friday profiling a start-up Ugandan coffee company called Good African Coffee. The article is an incredibly detailed look at the struggles of an African company trying to thrive in a global economy. Good African Coffee is used as a symbol of the on-going struggle of transitioning African economies from an aid-based model to a self-sustaining entrepreneurial model.
The article provides lessons in entrepreneurship, supply chain, development, marketing, and finance.
Background: Good African Coffee’s founder is Andrew Rugasira. Rugasira is a former owner of a chalk factory and a successful concert promoter. He founded Good African Coffee with the goal of creating profits and also creating value for the Ugandan people. Africa supplies 10% of the world’s coffee beans, but most of it is lower quality. Rugasira wanted to create a coffee company that produced high quality beans and eventually transition into a roasting company.
Challenges: Good African Coffee supplied their vast network of Ugandan coffee farmers with modern equipment and farming techniques that allowed the farmers to increase yields and the quality of the coffee. Good African Coffee purchased beans from their network of farmers but had little success in finding international customers. Rugasira traveled to London twice in order to secure customers with no success. Good African Coffee was in serious debt and had almost no hope for any turnaround. Rugasira tried possible sales tactics from writing an op-ed in the paper to emailing the CEO of a British supermarket chain.
Initial Success: Rugasira’s last ditch effort to find a customer for his coffee was successful. A late-night email sent to the CEO of Sainsbury, a British supermarket chain, gave the spark Good African Coffee needed. The CEO decided to carry the line of coffee. Through additional success in spreading his company’s message, Good African Coffee landed shelf space in multiple American chains and also began selling coffee online. In 2011, Good African Coffee grossed $1.2 million in revenues. They expect to gross $2 million in 2012.
Lessons: The article touches upon the continued debate of the power of aid-based solutions versus market based solutions. Rugasira is a strong believer in the power of business and trade in lifting up African economies. Rugasira says that “every society that has prospered has done it through trade and not aid.” He goes on to say, “Africa’s contribution to global trade is 1 percent. If that were just 2 percent, the increase would bring far more annual revenue to the continent than all the aid Africa receives in a year.”
It is important to note that Good African Coffee is not just a case for pure capitalism in development. One-eight of their initial funding was from USAID. There is a strong difficulty in African ventures finding investor capital. In addition, aid is often necessary to provide the necessary infrastructure for investment and business development. Many development agencies have stepped in to the fill the void of private capital and investment, but this is not sustainable. Investors are beginning to recognize the opportunities in investing in African economies. Companies like Good African Coffee have the potential to provide financial returns and social returns. Below is a list of various for profit and non-profit organizations that are providing investor capital to companies like Good African Coffee.
Apr 03
This article is a little dated because we were on break. I feel its worth mentioning on here in case it was overlooked by our members. On March 23rd, President Obama nominated Dr. Jim Yong Kim to lead the World Bank. Why is this important? Dr. Kim is an anthropologist and physician who co-founded Partners In Health with Paul Farmer. Typically, the President of the World Bank has a background in business or development. Dr. Kim’s nomination shows that we cannot separate health and development. The two areas are intertwined and can’t be approached with separate solutions.
Apr 01
This weekend was the Clinton Global Initiative University, a gathering of student leaders committed to addressing global challenges. The weekend was filled with pitches, panelists, and presentations from people involved in business, policy, NGO’s, government, science, and the military. All have created or are involved in social enterprises that address social or environmental problems throughout the world.
Net Impact is a network of emerging business leaders committed to using the power of business to create a better world. At CGIU I experienced first-hand how business principles and businesses in general are on the front line in tackling huge problems. I want to highlight some of the people and organizations that stood out for me and I think would be interesting to our members.
Anita Ahuja, Converve India – Anita and Shalabh Ahuja founded Conserve India as an NGO to recycle the waste in their neighborhood that wasn’t being managed by local authorities. They quickly realized that plastic bags pose the biggest problem, not only because there are so many of them but also because they could not be recycled locally. After much experimentation the team at Conserve India realized that the solution lay in upcycling the bags into sheets of plastic that could be reinvented as fashion accessories. They named this material Handmade Recycled Plastic.
Samuel Cochran, Sustainability Minded Interactive Technology (SMIT) – SMIT is a sustainable design team that offers eco-efficient solutions, education and products for sustainable modern living. SMIT combines green consultancy with sustainable product development to promote sustainability through biomimicry, the principle of basing design on natural forms, functions, and processes.
Vandana Shiva, Navdanya – Navdanya is a network of seed keepers and organic producers spread across 16 states in India. Navdanya has helped set up 65 community seed banks across the country, trained over 500,000 farmers in seed sovereignty, food sovereignty and sustainable agriculture over the past two decades, and helped setup the largest direct marketing, fair trade organic network in the country.
In addition to the professional examples above, the student attendees came with 915 commitments on how they are going to address global challenges. I left as inspired as I have ever been in my whole life. The problems of the world are so big, but often times the solutions are so simple. We at Smith are being taught how to be successful leaders in business. In past generations the best thing we could do for society was to get an education, get jobs in the corporate world, work for 40 years and then retire. The world dynamic has shifted and this path is no longer good enough. As Sadiqa Basiri Saleem asked herself before turning down a full scholarship to graduate school in the U.S., “what can I do?” She went on to found a school in Afghanistan that educates 4,000 girls. How can we business students use the knowledge we have and our careers to address global problems. What can WE do?
Mar 27
Mar 27
Join Net Impact and the Entrepreneurship Club to discuss three Ted Talks (http://www.ted.com) about high impact entrepreneurship and enjoy some beers and delicious food!
Tuesday April 3rd, 5:30pm – 7:30pm. Location TBD.
Mar 27
Speaker: Catherine Rodger, IBM Vice President of Global Opportunities
When: Wednesday, March 28, 2012, 11:00 am – 12:00 pm
Where: Executive Dining Space, VMH 2517, Robert H. Smith School of Business
RSVP: Please send RSVPs to Kim Robertella at kroberte@rhsmith.umd.edu
Please join Catherine Rodgers, IBM Vice President for Global Opportunities, for an exclusive presentation titled “Sustainability and the Creation of Social Value” on Wednesday March 28th from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm. Hosted by the Center for Social Value Creation and the Robert H. Smith School of Business, this is an exclusive opportunity to learn from one of IBM’s most sought after executives.
To reserve your seat, please RSVP Kim Robertella at kroberte@rhsmith.umd.edu.
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