I am now in the final weeks of the fellowship, leaving Kenya exactly a month from today. I will return to the U.S. to spend a month in New York finishing the fellowship with Acumen Fund.

I am excited to report that I recently accepted a position with IDEO, a design consulting firm based in Palo Alto, California. IDEO has done some great work with social enterprises (including KickStart and Acumen Fund) and wants to get into design for the base of the pyramid. I will join the IDEO team to help move this forward and will work to design products and services for the poor in developing countries.

This is an especially exciting time for design as the Design for the Other 90% Exhibit opens at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York. These pieces about the exhibit explain well the type of design work I expect to be involved in at IDEO.

New York Times article
NPR story

Last weekend, I met Cathy, my childhood best friend, on the Kenayan coast for the weekend. Cathy and her friend, Tanya, came to visit and took a break from safari to spend a few days at the beach.

When I was planning our trip, I asked for recommendations on the coast south of Mombasa (referred to as South Coast) and my colleague, John, recommended Sand Island Cottages on Tiwi Beach. Because we couldn’t resist the rate of $60/night for a cottage for three, we signed up.

As I was on my way out the door on Friday, John handed me an envelope and asked me to give it to Francis (Fuzz) Foster, the proprietor of Sand Island Cottages. I willingly took it, which gave me an opportunity to meet Francis on Saturday.

Francis’s family came to Kenya from the UK several generations ago. Francis is a bachelor of about 70 and has lived on the Sand Island property since the mid 1970’s. Francis no longer manages the property, but stays involved in the juice, jam, and fruit shop which is attached to his house.

Francis was pleased to see us (I expect it can get a bit lonely) and immediately took us around his house, showing off the family’s treasures. The house was like a natural history museum – horns of 50 antelope lined one wall, drawings of fish found on Tiwi Beach filled another, and photos of generations of the Foster family were hung on a third. We saw prehistoric giant clam shells and elephant tusks that were 8 feet tall.

Francis’s family settled in Kenya and owns a farm “up country” in addition to this property on the coast. They are well-known within the “white Kenyan” community and in many ways, Francis has preserved the way Brits in Kenya used to live. Sadly, Francis has no children and none of his family remain in Kenya. His sisters and brothers moved abroad where they live with their families and Francis has no one to continue the Foster family tradition at Sand Island.

While Francis’s family may be too far away to hear his stories as frequently as he or they might like, I hope that he continues to invite people like Cathy, Tanya, and me into his home to share the artifacts he has collected and the stories about Kenya during the last 100 years. While he will pass on, his legacy will live on through his stories.

Photos from the weekend at Tiwi Beach and in Mombasa

University of Michigan is hosting the Base of the Pyramid conference in Ann Arbor from September 9 - 11, 2007.

The conference builds on the growing global interest in enterprise-based strategies for serving the four billion poor at the base of the economic pyramid (BoP). In particular, the conference will focus on sharing the latest thinking on three of the most intriguing and timely issues facing organizations that are interested in developing enterprise-based approaches to creating mutual value with low-income communities. These include:
* Generating a deeper understanding of the landscape, including the opportunities and challenges for enterprise development, at the base of the pyramid.
* Understanding the development implications of a BoP approach as compared to other poverty alleviation strategies.
* Developing the new organizational capabilities required to achieve both business growth and poverty alleviation.

Early registration for the conference ends July 1. Until then, registration is $400 and non-profit organizations, BoP entrepreneurs residing in developing countries, and students are eligible for $100 discount.

For more information and to register, see http://www.bop2007.org/. Hope to see many of you there!

A few weeks ago, Francis, my colleague and friend, invited me to his family's "up country" home outside Machakos (about 2 1/2 hours from Nairobi). Francis is a driver for ABE and picks me up every morning to bring me to the office. Francis has helped me out alot here by giving me rides and helping with my errands. He has also taught me so much about Kenya.

Like many Kenyans, Francis's family has a plot of land which his father has divided between the sons. The plot Francis manages is about an acre, but on that land, he has decided to grow artemisia. Francis admits he doesn't how to farm, but wants to see if artemisia will grow on his land so he can introduce the crop to his neighbors and help them improve their lives. So far, the artemisia has done well, and all the time Francis spent listening to his colleagues talk about artemisia in the car has certainly paid off.

If Francis lived in another place, he would have already started a few companies and would likely be fairly wealthy. However, given his background and situation in Kenya, he is full of business ideas which he has not had an opportunity to try. Working as a driver, farmer, and father is tough work, but Francis manages it well.

I have so much respect for Francis and his family and was delighted to see that my colleague, Marc, felt similarly and wrote this blog post for the Acumen Fund blog.

I invite you to meet Francis in this video interview.

Last weekend, I went to the Masai Mara with my friends, Emma and Gail, who were visiting from New York. “The Mara”, as it’s referred to locally, is Kenya’s most popular game park and reportedly has the highest density of animals. In addition to the flat, expansive savannah covered by tall yellow grass, the Mara is attractive to visitors because vehicles are able to drive off the road and directly up to the animals. This, of course, makes for some fantastic photos and scarily-close views of lions, buffalo, elephants, and cheetahs.

Emma, Gail, and I stayed at Olanana, a spectacular tented camp. We were fortunate to spend three days with Joseph, an excellent guide and proud Maasai warrior. Joseph is smart, funny, and knows his stuff about the plants and animals in the park.

In one of our many Land Rover rides, Joseph taught us about the future value of cows. In rural Kenya, investing in cows can yield higher returns than banks, the stock market, or real estate. A female cow could cost a bit less than $100 and a bull a bit more. If you were to invest $1,000 today on nine heifers and one bull, within a year, you would have 19 animals in a year, plus you would have received dividends of milk throughout the year. Doubling your money in a year isn’t bad, but it does seem like a risky business.

Traditionally, Maasai have measured their wealth by the number of cows they own. However, at a time when families need to be able to save money to send their children to school and put metal roofs on their houses, it’s important that there are a variety of investment options. Better to limit risk a bit and diversity investments by enabling access to banks, savings groups, and capital markets, in addition to livestock.

Photos from our trip to the Mara

Two weeks ago, when we were in Mombasa, Susan, a friend from DC who was visiting, was walking along the beach and a young man stopped her.
“Where are you from?”
“America”
“How’s our brother doing?”
“Um, who’s that?”
“Obama!”

Susan was shocked. How did a Kenyan beach wanderer know about a contender for the Democratic nomination in the U.S.? I’m sure many of you know this, but Barak Obama’s father was born in Kenya and Barak visited Nairobi and his family’s village last summer.

My Kenyan friends and colleagues have frequently told me about their excitement about the prospect of Obama becoming president. They’re optimistic about the assistance Kenya might receive should the U.S. elect “a Kenyan” and tell me how they hope they would be able to get visas for the U.S. if Barak were president.

In the shuttle on the way to work last week, I was reading a New Yorker article about Obama. The first page of the print-out included a small, grainy, black and white photo of Barak. My colleague Rhodah recognized his face and said, “You’re reading about Obama? I hope you will vote for him!”

Kenyan elections will be held in November and people talk constantly about politics. They are amazingly well-informed about local politics, as well as international politics (or at least what is happening in the U.S.). While I should no longer find it surprising, I still think it’s significant that Kenyans follow the Democratic primaries in the U.S. while most Americans don’t know the name of the Kenyan president, or any African president for that matter.

New Yorker article about Obama

Last weekend I went to Mombasa to celebrate Elana’s birthday. Susan, a friend from DC, was visiting and we were joined by Stella, another friend. The weekend was a relaxing one at the beach with activities including swimming, sunbathing, snorkeling, and enjoying the Mombasa nightlife. The beach in Mombasa is beautiful and the resorts that line the coast north of the city are spectacular. Because it is so accessible (via a discount airline, train, and busses), Mombasa is a popular weekend destination for people from Nairobi. Photos from our weekend in Mombasa in my web gallery.

One of the striking things about Mombasa is the diversity of its people. For centuries, immigrants from the Middle East and India have come to Mombasa and have set-up shop as traders and business owners. Many families have now been in Mombasa (and throughout Kenya) for four or five generations and are thoroughly established as Kenyans.

I don’t have much experience with Middle Eastern immigrants in Kenya, but have been struck by the strength of the Indian community. Certain neighborhoods in Nairobi are predominantly Indian and Indians (referred to as Asians) have a reputation for being insolated. Perhaps most striking is that even four of five generations later, Kenyan “Asians” speak with Indian accents.

Indians in Kenya have built large businesses, made significant contributions to the local economy, and employed many many people. Perhaps because of their success, they face discrimination and it is not uncommon to hear disparaging remarks. On her way from the Mombasa airport, Stella’s taxi driver casually remarked, “Asians are buying up all the houses on the beach. They now own everything around here.”

I think about how Indian Kenyans are able to be so entrepreneurial and successful in starting businesses in a place where so much bureaucracy and bribery is required to get anything done. How can their example serve as a motivating one, rather than cause resentment? Many Kenyans are also very entrepreneurial but lack resources to grow their businesses beyond the roadside fruit stand. What needs to happen so they can succeed in starting and building enterprises which can also make large contributions to the economic growth of this country?

This video interview is with Winifred, my colleague Rachel's nanny and housekeeper. Winifred lives with Rachel's family, takes care of her children when Rachel and her husband are at work, and cooks and cleans for the family.

Winifred has her own baby who lives with Winifred's mother, allowing Winifred to work and provide for her family. In Kenya, it's common for middle and upper class families to employ full-time nannies and housekeepers. Many times, these women leave their husbands and children "up country" and go home on a monthly basis to see them.

While this is certainly not an ideal situation, employment options are limited for poorly-educated single mothers like Winifred and working as a nanny will allow her to provide basic provisions for her daughter.

Meet Winifred in this video.

Last week I had the opportunity to spend two days in a Maasai village in Tanzania. I had gone to Arusha with Eric and Marc from Acumen Fund to spend the weekend with Keely and take some time to meet Tanzanian farmers that ABE works with to grow artemisia. I had mentioned to my colleagues in Arusha that Eric and I would love an opportunity to spend the night with the farmers, but hadn’t heard back so I thought it wasn’t going to happen. Fortunately, they had read the email and had been thinking about how to satisfy this strange request. After assuring my colleagues that we understood that we would not have a real bed to sleep on and that we knew the village would lack modern conveniences, my colleagues agreed to make arrangement for us to stay with a Maasa family about an hour outside Arusha.

We spent the day interviewing and video-taping a group of 15 farmers who work together to grow artemisia. Each of them told stories about how their income has increased as a result of the new crop and how they can now afford to sell their children to school and put metal roofs on their houses. They can now even afford to buy the malaria medication that the plant they are growing is used to make.

At one point, we stopped to take a soda break and noticed that the farmers we all talking about us and laughing. I asked my colleagues to translate and found out that they were excitedly spreading the news that Eric and I would be spending the night with them.

That evening, the family ceremoniously slaughtered a goat in our honor as we sat around a fire sitting on short three-legged stools chatting with my colleagues from ABE and the farmers. One of the farmers asked why we were visiting them in Tanzania and Eric and I did our best to explain our work and our relation to them. We explained that we were all connected – Eric (Acumen Fund) has the money which it gives to Jocelyn (ABE in Nairobi) who in turn gives the money to Peter (ABE in Arusha) who gives it to the Maasai farmers in exchange for their artemisia. The smiles on the faces of our hosts when they realized that we are working together and that the supply chain of which they are an integral piece stretches around the world, was unforgettable.

As I mentioned in my last blog post about ABE, it still blows my mind that ABE’s scale and reach in East Africa is so large. That this company is able to work with thousands of small-scale Tanzanian farmers (including this group of Maasai) is incredible, as they have had to overcome so many logistical and infrastructural challenges to make this happen. Through our interviews and by getting to know these farmers, Eric and I were certainly able to see the social impact on the lives of these people and truly feel inspired by our work with ABE. Stay tuned for the video that we are making for the company.

Until then, check out this short video I developed about what I’m doing at ABE and these photos from my trip to Tanzania.

Read Eric's account of our visit

My friend, Maryanne, recommended her hairdresser, Daniel, and I made an appointment. I expected the salon at the Holiday Inn to be swanky, but I did not expect my hairdresser to be Swiss. When I met him, I figured he had come here with someone or had grown up in Kenya. However, I was surprised to learn that he applied to a classified add in Zurich recruiting European hairdressers for a Nairobi salon.

My first instinct was to think that the expat and mzungu influence was so strong in Kenya that not only do development agencies import talent from abroad, but this mentality has extended to hairdressers. I brought this up with another friend, Elana, who had another perspective. Elana goes to an Ethiopian hairdresser in Nairobi because the woman’s hair is like hers. We want confidence that the person who cuts our hair knows how to handle it. We’re all vain in some ways and hair is an important piece of the way we look. Elana thought it was natural to seek a stylist who has experience with people whose hair is like ours. While I still can’t imagine seeing an Italian hairdresser in Bolivia or India, perhaps seeing Daniel in Kenya is not as disturbing as I initially thought.

Last week I traveled to Nakuru, 3 hours north of Nairobi, to interview farmers ABE is working with and film them for a video project Eric and I are doing. While I knew that ABE was working with 7,500 farmers throughout East Africa, the scale of our operations was much more impressive than I expected. In my work with Scojo and SHEF, I learned how difficult it is to achieve scale and develop a network of agents (producers, distributors, entrepreneurs, etc.). It takes many social enterprises years to build a network of 200 or even 1,000 agents. As I passed farm after farm growing artemisia and ran into farmers working with our company, I wondered how ABE was able to achieve this scale in only two years.

What can other social enterprises learn from ABE’s example? My sense is that a primary advantage ABE had was an enormous influx of capital (in the form of a loan) from Novartis who pushed the company to expand rapidly. With millions of dollars up-front, ABE could open country offices, hire extension workers, purchase vehicles, and procure the inputs necessary to enable the farmers to begin growing artemisia.

Second, the company’s founders and directors knew they had to reach scale to succeed. A small producer of artemisinin was not going to sell its products to the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world and a measured approach to growth would not work. Therefore, they scaled quickly because that was the only option.

Third, artemisia offers returns to farmers that are far greater to what they previously saw growing maize, wheat, beans, or other crops. Without having to work much harder, farmers could double or quadruple their incomes. This was an easy conversion to convince farmers to try and farmers were encouraged to continue using some of their land to continue growing the staple crops.

Finally, ABE has seen that once the early adopters in a region do well, the followers are eager to jump onboard. Other models, like Scojo and SHEF, can only take on one entrepreneur in an area, limiting the bandwagon phenomenon that ABE could take advantage of.

Some of these factors are particular to ABE’s case, but I do believe it can be viewed as a good example of rapid growth in the social enterprise space. I would love to hear comments from others about what we can learn from this example and how it could be adapted to other organizations.

More photos from my trip to Nakuru

I had an opportunity to interview the children of my colleagues, Lisa and Rachel. I started with one-on-one interviews with the kids which were a bit awkward beacuse they were camera-shy at first. By the time I got the three of them together for this interview, they were much more gregarious.

By five, Kenyan kids speak at least three languages fluently (English, Swahili, and their family's tribal language). These kids spoke English with each other and at school so, as you can see, their English is perfect.

Meet Adam, Melissa, and Leon.

More photos of the kids at the end of this album.

We were in Amboseli enjoying our safari when Jacqueline called Eric to tell him to rush back to Nairobi the next day to meet Tom and Ann Friedman at the airport. Apparently, after several years of trying to get Tom interested in writing about Acumen Fund, Jacqueline was finally able to track him down on vacation in Tanzania and pique his interest in a piece about social investing and Advanced Bio-Extracts (the Acumen Fund investee where I am working).

Of course as soon as we heard that Tom Friedman was coming, we all shrieked with excitement as we tried to figure out what the schedule would look like and who would attend the meeting. Fortunately, I was able to negotiate a seat at the table as an ABE team member.

I drove to the ABE artemisinin processing facility in Athi River with the CEO, Patrick and a shareholder, Rob. In the car we discussed what Patrick’s main talking points would be and I shared as much as I knew about Tom Friedman. About fifteen minutes after our arrival, Eric, Nthenya, Tom, and Ann pulled up and we began our one hour meeting.

Tom was charming during the meeting and started off with, “I believe the pessimists are usually right, but I know that all positive change in this world has come from the optimists. So, I’ve decided to throw my cards in with them and am in the good news business.” He was interested in learning about ABE’s project, seeing the factory, and hearing about how we have been able to secure social financing from organizations like Acumen Fund.

I haven’t had many run-ins with famous people, so having an opportunity to meet and then correspond with Tom (to provide additional information about the company and review drafts of the piece) was a real thrill. But, most exciting was the see the piece in the New York Times early this morning and think maybe this piece will encourage more people to get into the game in Africa and think about building or investing in companies here.

I have pasted the piece here. Read More...

On Saturday, I spent the day at the house of my colleague, Rachel Okeyo. Rachel and her sister, Pam, cooked a magnificent feast of Swahili, Luo, and Chinese dishes and their hospitality was heartwarming.

Rachel and her family live in a quaint three bedroom house on the outskirts of Nairobi. The house is filled with all the furniture and electronics that any upper middle class family in the U.S. or Europe has, and is tastefully decorated with beautiful masks from all over Africa.

One thing that is different about Rachel's house (compared with upper middle class homes in the U.S.) is that there is no running water inside. Once a week, water dribbles out of the tap behind the house and Rachel stays up all night filling buckets of water so her family will have enough to drink, bathe, clean, and flush the toilet for the week. It's shocking to me that today in Nairobi, an upper-middle class family living in a nice house in a safe neighborhood would not have access to running water. This is a family ready and able to pay for access to water and there is no one to supply it. The government is clearly unable to meet the demand and no private sector player has come in to fill the gap.

Meet Rachel Okeyo in this video interview

This photo shows the water tap behind the house with the small buckets which are used to fill three large buckets to hold the week's supply of water. More photos at the end of the album.

Inspired by Global X's short video interviews at the Skoll World Forum, I decided to embark on a video interview project of my own and get to know some of the people I interact with on a daily basis a bit better.

On Friday, I interviewed three young women who work in the "canteen" - tiny restaurant - at my office. ABE and about five other companies rent space in a large house converted into an office in Muthaiga, on the outskirts of Nairobi. These women bring us tea every morning, serve our lunch, and clean up our dishes in the evening.

In the interview, I asked them to introduce themselves and describe how they think Kenya will be different in five years.

Meet Beldine, Dorine, and Victoria