A Shared Mission: Bridge for Billions and Yunus&Youth
“We want to expand knowledge beyond boundaries to accelerate and support solutions that address social problems in a financially sustainable way”- Cecilia Chapiro, CEO of Yunus & Youth
Businesses can address social problems, while being financially sustainable. This belief drives both Y&Y and Bridge for Billions so when we saw the opportunity to increase our support to businesses who do just that, we decided to collaborate. Yunus&Youth was co-founded by Cecilia Chapiro, from Argentina. Through her time working at Grameen Creative Lab in Germany, Cecilia received hundreds of emails from young people who were searching for help to build their social enterprise. It bothered her that so many passionate entrepreneurs were lacking the resources they needed to make their businesses a reality. She was also frustrated by the money and time that was wasted by these inexperienced entrepreneurs who didn’t have the tools or knowledge to make their business a success. She felt compelled to take action and traveled to Bangladesh to meet with Muhammad Yunus and pitch him the idea of an online mentoring program for social entrepreneurs. After three months in Bangladesh, Professor Yunus endorsed the project and called it Yunus&Youth.
For the past three years, the Y&Y team turned its mentoring program into a fellowship program for early stage entrepreneurs, and after a successful pilot has completed two program cohorts and is now starting the third one. When starting this third cohort, they were looking for a different way to incorporate the training to develop a business plan when they came across Bridge for Billions and they chose our platform to structure this component of their program.
The 25 Y&Y fellows from the third cohort have been selected from over 300 applicants based on a variety of factors including: innovation, business model, and team structure. All the projects chosen have a social component to their business. Here are some of the awesome projects that are currently going through the Y&Y and Bridge for Billions program:
Samuel Malinga- Sanitation Africa- Uganda
Founded in 2015, Sanitation Africa’s mission is to give low income households access to safe sanitation. Samuel was born in Kumi, Uganda and moved to Kampala for high school, where he was a day student. Every day on his walk to and from school, he would see the poor sanitation facilities that were available to the community that surrounded him. This lack of access to safe facilities lead to constant intestinal issues and even cholera outbreaks in the community. Once he completed his Engineering Degree, Samuel decided to return to that community to determine what their specific needs were in terms of sanitation. During his time, there he discovered that the problems facing the community included unsanitary toilets for those people who do have toilets, the areas are inaccessible by cesspool trucks so the latrines can’t be emptied, and the lack of use for the dried cake of sludge once it’s treated.
With the challenges of the community in mind, including the lack of funds, Samuel set out to create a solution. He and his team came up with a toilet that was affordable without compromising the quality and ensuring no groundwater contamination with fecal sludge. With the help of the Bill Gates Foundation, they were able to prototype and develop a pump that would make the emptying of latrines an easier process. They are currently in the process of scaling up their process for converting the waste into briquettes that can be used for heating.
It was during this development process that Samuel realized his need for a mentor, especially for his marketing and finance strategy since convincing people that sanitation could be profitable, even though 90% of the Kampala population uses onsite sanitation facilities like latrines and septic tanks, has been a difficult task. It was in this search for a mentor that he came across Yunus & Youth. Through their program, he’s found committed mentors who have helped him refine his different strategies. For Samuel one of the biggest benefits of using Bridge has been that it reminds him of what he needs to do within his business. Especially in the initial steps it has helped him focus on the products that will bring him the greatest revenue, which has been a helpful reminder that he can’t focus on everything all at once.
Juan Giraldo- WANKU — Ecuador
Serial entrepreneurs Juan Giraldo was disillusioned with his previous product which couldn’t scale globally and was looking to build a business where Ecuador, his home country, would have a competitive advantage in the global market, when Juan and Nicolas Estrella remembered the teas with aromatic herbs and flowers that their grandmothers gave them for stomach aches when they were young. From these fond recollections sprung the idea of capitalizing on the untapped medicinal herbs of the Ecuadorian Andes.
Together they took a road trip to southern Ecuador, where in Chuquiribamaba, they met Don Miguel Tambo. Not only did Don Miguel and his family house the two, they also explained to them how they’ve been living from the harvesting and selling of these herbs, but the tradition is slowly being lost because their children must move to larger urban centers to make a living. The spent a couple days helping Don Miguel harvest the herbs and then they tried the drink which is known as the “water that heals” in the region. The recipe was one passed down through generations in Don Miguel’s family, and they were astounded because it was so delicious. During their time, there they also observed the poverty that many of these farmers live in. On one hand, they have a product of extremely high quality that should be shared, and on the other they’re living on few resources. This was when they proposed to Don Miguel the idea of marketing and selling his recipe to the United States and using him as their herb provider as a way of cutting out abusive middle men who take advantage of the needs of the farmers. Don Miguel was on board and that’s how WANKU was born. However, Juan and Nicolas were aware that if they’re the sole buyers of these farmers then they’re only minimally helping them. So, they’ve decided to start a non-profit, to which WANKU would donate a portion of their profits, to support these agricultures through training programs, and by aiding them to find global clients.
Yunus and Youth has provided Juan with an exceptional network of peer support through the community of fellows. He has also gained wonderful mentorship from their network of mentors. Thanks to the online platform “I’ve been able to refine the needs of my customers and put in black and white the needs of the farmers who are another customer to us.” He’s been able to refine his business model, and has received invaluable financial advice for his current round of angel investment through the mentors provided by Yunus. WANKU is currently in the process of crowdfunding. If you’re interested in trying this ancestral Andes beverage check them out here!
Lorna Okeng Atim — TeleMuseum Digital — Uganda
Lorna Okeng Atim hopes to redefine the way that we interact with history and how we interact with and disseminate African culture. She was inspired by a visit to a museum after reading an article by the UN that named Uganda as the most ethnically diverse country in the world. She visited the Ugandan museum to learn more about this ethnical and cultural diversity, and she was disappointed by the lack of information available. The Kasubi Tombas of the Buganda Kingdom had information about the Buganda Kingdom, which had done a great job promoting and preserving their culture, but it burnt down. However, since there was no digitalization or documentation on the artefacts much of the information was lost. Since she has a strong technology background, Lorna began to brainstorm ways to place these museums and culture sites online. She began to think about how we can reimagine the way we preserve and interact with culture. She decided that technology, especially immersive technology like Virtual Reality, could be the perfect way to ensure that people interact with the culture and history on a personal level.
TeleMuseum Digital is currently in the process of creating partnerships with museums in order to create a prototype of an experience based on the content available to them. While Lorna is confident that the technology is available to make this idea a reality, what the technology can do is limited by the access that she has to artifacts. While developing the prototype, Lorna has been attending pitch nights in order to promote and refine her idea. For her, the online platform has been extremely helpful since judges at these pitch events have been asking her the questions that she’s already considered when completing the tools on Bridge’s platform. The structure of the platform where each step builds off of the other has also been a favorite part of hers. Lorna’s end goal with TeleMuseum Digital is to ensure that people experience African culture and African history in a unique way.
