I received the email below from Catherine Casey, a current Acumen Fund fellow living in Nairobi. It's a great update on how things are going in Kenya. Enjoy!
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Dear friends,

It's winter in Nairobi, and the two suitcases of clothes I arrived with in November are no longer enough to keep me warm. I had no desire to spend $200 for a tacky coat in Woolworths, where prices are sky high because of import taxes, so last weekend I set out for Toi Market on the outskirts of the Kibera slum. I picked up a coffee at Java House in the 'mall' on Ngong Road, and made my way down the side streets to the market.

Toi has always fascinated me – with nearly 5,000 vendors, many of whom live in Kibera, it serves a rare mix of Nairobi's highest and lowest income residents. None of the vendors have formal business licenses, but they have developed community savings schemes to get small loans and band together in negotiations with the government. Customers come to buy staple foods, and search for bargain prices on used designer labels and classic old t-shirts with logos like "Mt. Pleasant Little League." It's an incredible place. Read More...

Last week, my colleague Aaron Sklar, and I presented our work on Design for Social Impact at Rockefeller Foundation. We were amazed by the turnout - design firms, consulting firms, NGOs, universities, the government, all came out to talk about how design can play a role in the social sector.

We're excited about the possibilities and about thinking about how we could mobilize the design industry to get more involved in addressing some of the world's largest problems. We've posted our work and hope to engage in more conversations about it. Check it out here.

IDEO's CEO, Tim Brown, wrote an article for June's Harvard Business Review. This is a great introduction to design thinking. The article is the third link from the top http://hbr.com

The short answer is you can donate some money for relief. Organizations I'd recommend are Doctors Without Borders or Foundation for the People of Burma. Both organizations are getting food and supplies into the country.

For a first-hand account from a friend of a colleague, Read More...

A few weeks ago, I was intrigued to learn that American Idol was hosting a 2 hour show - Idol Gives Back. I've never watched American Idol but thought it would be interested to see the profiles of the organizations they chose to raise money for and thought I might see some inspiring stories.

Sadly, I was extremely disappointed. The show was like a telethon or an NPR fundraiser. Every few minutes, a celebrity would appear and would beg for money and give the phone number five or six times. At one point, a woman came on and said, "If you don't call now, I'm going to go like this AHHHHH!!!" and repeated her screaming for two minutes.

After 15 minutes, I couldn't take it anymore and turned it off. Disappointed. With a budget like American Idol's and the staff to create compelling content, why can't they come up with interesting ways to get young people engaged in philanthropy? Why can't they show inspirational stories that inspire action? Couldn't we do a better job at getting people to care?

A friend recently started a management consulting firm and is giving away a pro bono project that has good social impact. Please see his note below and apply if you are interested.
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As you know, I started a management consultancy - Social Symmetry - a few months back to help organizations (public, private, nonprofit sectors) maximize their social impact. We are running an experiment that I thought IDEO may be interested in learning more about.

We recently announced an "Adopt a Client" initiative, where we'll donate some of our time, pro-bono, to help ANY organization work through a project that has a socially responsible mission or subtext (or, a project where the organization would like to introduce such a dimension). Our goal is to help these organizations realize the potential and opportunity of paying attention to two forgotten stakeholders: the environment where they operate, and the communities that they affect.

We're accepting submissions through our blog right now, and the winner will be selected democratically as well:
http://insearchofsymmetry.wordpress.com ... s-be-good/

It's a no-risk program for you, and we only benefit if we deliver a product that IDEO is satisfied with (since it is "free"). If you're interested, feel free to contact me directly or make a post in the comment section. You can also forward this along to someone else you think may be interested.

I remember my time at the Skoll World Forum last year as one of my favorite weeks during the fellowship. The opportunity to spend time with the fellows and share our stories, reconnect with Acumen Fund, and participate in inspiring conversations around social entrepreneurship was truly a magical experience. I was very excited to return this year and was even able to convince IDEO’s CEO, Tim Brown and Co-Creative Officer, June Fulton Suri, to join me.

The Forum did not let anyone down and the excitement I felt upon arrival has stayed with me since. The energy and optimism around social entrepreneurs and those supporting them is incredible. Participating in discussions about scale, microfranchising, and climate change were especially stimulating and the lens of culture, which was a focus of the forum this year, was a great addition to the many more economic-based conversations we tend to have in this field.

I was fortunate to lead a workshop with my colleagues from IDEO, Tim, Jane, and Aaron, about using empathy as a tool for social impact. The purpose of the workshop was to give a quick taste of the IDEO design process and teach a few observation techniques for social entrepreneurs trying to understand different cultural contexts. While IDEO workshops are always fun, the quality of the observations and ideas that come out of them is quite varied. Working with a group of 60 esteemed practitioners, we were very impressed by the depth of observations they noted and the innovativeness of ideas that they generated.

If in only two hours teams could come up with ideas like midwives on bikes, wandering microscopes, and health pods, just think of what they could do in a few weeks.

See the SocialEdge blog entry about the workshop.

Goldman Sachs recently announced that it will invest $100 million over the next five years providing management and entrepreneurship training to 10,000 women.

The blog posts from NextBillion and Acumen Fund about this initiative tell the story well and echo my sentiments that this is a great show of Goldman Sach's commitment to supporting growth for the majority world. Investments in women, especially education investments, really pay off and Goldman is looking for returns from the social sector just as it does from the private sector.

As we see Bear Sterns collapsing, I can't help thinking about our meeting with Ace Greenberg (Chairman) and Warren Spector (President) a year and a half ago. As we talked about the work we were about to set off to do as Acumen Fund fellows, they told us we were naive to think that business has a responsibility for social change. They had recently heard about microfinance and thought it sounded sweet but could not see a business opportunity for Bear Sterns to serve the poor.

I hope that firms like Goldman Sachs will be rewarded for their move and that firms like Bear Sterns will one day see the need to look beyond Wall Street for business opportunities.

CNN wrote an interesting piece about the Full Belly Project which works to design low-cost appropriate technology for people in the developing world. The successful product they designed was a $28 peanut sheller.

This is a great story about design for social impact.

Indicorps is currently recruiting fellows.
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Who: Indicorps seeks to engage the most talented young Indians from around the world on the frontlines of India's most pressing challenges; in the process, we aim to nurture a new brand of socially conscious leaders with the character, knowledge, commitment, and vision to transform India and the world.

Why Now: We are currently recruiting soon-to-be college graduates and professionals of Indian origin for our August 2008-2009 Fellowship. There are over 50 exciting community-based projects ranging from educating tribal youth in Maharashtra to increasing production of natural dye based products in Karnataka.

Why Indicorps?
· The structured program encourages young professionals from the Indian diaspora to challenge their comfort zones, place others' interests before their own, push their own potential to affect change, explore their relationship with India, and understand what it means to lead by committing themselves to innovative grassroots projects.
· Indicorps believes that giving one's time and energy, without any attachment to the outcome, regardless of the circumstances, is an unparalleled personal experience in service. At the same time, the fellowship is a chance for fellows to address their own identity, recognize their personal boundaries, and understand how to produce change in their environment(s). The fellowship is deeply rewarding, a transformational and challenging personal journey, and part of Indicorps’ collective experiment for change.
· Indicorps firmly believes that contributing to the development of India at a grassroots level will help Indians around the world better understand their heritage, explore ways to strengthen the global Indian community, and encourage civic responsibility at home in their respective countries. Indicorps focuses on the Diaspora in order to foster a sense of responsibility within the Indian community.

Deadline: Applications (apply.indicorps.org) are due March 31st, 2008.
Contact: If you have any questions or need any more information, please contact Shilpa Shah (outreach@indicorps.org) or visit the website.Indicorps

I recently received information about an idea competition run by Conscious Lifestyle. Please apply for refer this opportunity to friends.
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Get $1,000 for your Socially Innovative Idea

Are you passionate about making the world a better place? Have an idea about how to make your fellow students and your school more socially responsible? Want to turn that idea into a reality?

Conscious Lifestyle is accepting applications for its 2008 venture program.
Submit an application for the chance to win:

* Up to $1,000 in start-up funding
* Web space on consciouslifestyle.org
* Monthly skill-building workshops
* Personalized support
* Access to a network of social entrepreneurs

To learn more and download an application, visit Conscious Lifestyle. Application Deadline: February 15, 2008.

Watching the post-election turmoil unfold in Kenya has been heartbreaking. While I was there, things seemed so hopeful and we were optimistic about peaceful elections. The country was experiencing economic growth and it seemed like things were headed in the right direction.

Over the past week, I've received several updates from friends in Nairobi and wanted to share them here. In no particular order, here they are:
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Dear friends,

First of all: I am safe, along with everyone at Acumen Fund and SHF. Thank you for all of your emails over the past few days; it means so much to hear from you and know that you are thinking of Kenya. Read More...

In Tokyo, we visited the famous fish market. This place is wild. As we walked in, we had to dodge small trailer trucks as they drover around the outside of the market picking up and dropping off huge styrofoam coolers of fish and enormous frozen tuna.

This was the largest market I had ever seen and appeared to be pure chaos. How could anyone figure out which of the hundreds of stands to visit? It was incredible to see one of those systems that functions so smoothly with seemingly little formal organization.

The best moment of our visit was when we saw an octopus that had escaped from a tub of water and was trying to escape. We watched in horror as crowds walked by and one person finally stepped on him and he recoiled and started to bleed. This video shows the great escape and if you listen closely, you can hear my colleague say "Excuse me, octopus running away!".

The Washington Post ran a really interesting article recently about blogging in Japan. The Japanese have really taken to blogging and there are currently more blogs in Japanese than English.

I read this article while in Tokyo and was initially surprised. However, after thinking about it for some time it made more sense. While I was there, I saw that the Japanese were more comfortable chatting or texting than talking or calling. They tend toward more formal forms of communication and at times, conversations seem more like monologues than dialogs. All of these things make blogs seems like a suitable form of communication.

The accompanying video is worth watching.

Tokyo

Specialized recently sponsored the Innovate or Die contest, challenging teams to submit designs for a pedal powered device which has a positive impact on the environment. IDEO designers formed a team and prepared this 2-minute video of the Aquaduct: Mobile Filtration System.

This is a bicycle which filters water while you pedal and stores it in a small tank which can be used in the home. Very cool design and nicely-made video for this exciting challenge.