Government, I'm talking to you

Hello from Guinea! The last stop of my Dare to Innovate tour which took me from Benin to the Silicon Valley and now finally to Guinea. Upon arrival, I moved back into the hut where I lived during my Peace Corps service. Back with my old family in my old neighborhood of  Kenende, also known as the “village in the town”. When I lived in Kenende two years ago, it was truly a village. We were not hooked up to the electric grid, we had severe water shortages, and you had to walk all the way into town to buy even the most basic necessities. Just after I left, we were hooked up to the grid and after the construction of a new hydro-electric dam, electricity is more or less stable.

Wednesday was the holiday at the end of Ramadan, so I put on my finest and took a stroll around the neighborhood to wish people a happy holiday. I saw firsthand the incredible change the electricity has brought. Kenende has built a commercial center where you can buy many goods and prepared foods. There is more excitement and more activity. I thought electricity would make life a bit easier for women working in the house and students at their books. I knew it would help the health center. But this I did not expect. Electricity accelerated development in my neighborhood.

The other big change since I was a volunteer in Guinea is the arrival of 3G. Whereas before I needed to walk 30 minutes to get to an internet café just to check for emails, I now follow my normal routine of answering emails first thing in the morning, from my hut, as I eat breakfast. The arrival of 3G and the fact that smartphone pricing has become accessible has democratized information. Entrepreneurs have access to a global network.

The Dare to Innovate Guinea team works incredibly hard (I’m sitting with them right now and they are banging away at an excel sheet) every day. They are truly supporting the development of young entrepreneurs. But every once in a while we need to pick our heads up from the weeds and look at what government can do to move the ball forward. Dare to Innovate cannot supply electricity or telecom infrastructure or roads (which we are still waiting for) or justice, but the state can. My takeaway is this. If you are living in West Africa and are in the government or have access to the government, fight for infrastructure development. We will be by your side valorizing your investment with entrepreneur development. We cannot do this alone. You cannot do this alone. Let’s do this together. 

Meghan McCormick is Founder, Chairwoman and Interim Executive Director of the Dare to Innovate Board of Directors. She currently helps businesses create value through disruptive change by working across disciplines. She believes that we will be faced with many challenges, but if we harness the amazing power of youth, think creatively and apply innovation with vigor, we can surmount any barriers and create a world where everyone has access to opportunity. Meghan is a Returned Peace Corps volunteer from Guinea, where in partnership with the Guinean Association for the Development of Private Enterprise, she focused on social impact innovation and social entrepreneurship in the town of Kindia. She is blessed to have the support of a nice strong, black cup of coffee and her American and Guinean families in all that she attempts.

Young, scrappy, and hungry…or what does Hamilton have to do with the Global Entrepreneurship Summit

I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot.

These lines are taken from the musical, Hamilton. There is so much I could say about this musical, but I’ll leave it at when is the last time that a Broadway musical influenced treasury policy? Hamilton is truly a phenomenon.

And I am truly obsessed. I heard the soundtrack for the first time almost a year ago and have listened to it every week since, oftentimes multiple times a week, oftentimes multiple times a day…in a row. I may be listening to it right now. It is my go to soundtrack. Now Lin-Manuel Miranda is a genius, but it is not just his brilliant rhyming, catchy tunes, and emotional prowess that brings me back every time. It’s the fact that he wrote songs that capture the essence of what we are doing in my favorite art form.

I’m just like my country, I’m young, scrappy and hungry, and I’m not throwing away my shot.

This is repeated throughout the musical by the title character, but is it a stretch to say that those words could have come out of the mouths of any one of our social entrepreneurs? Hamilton is about the making of a nation. Dare to Innovate is about the making of a new economy. Both put youth at the center. Both are fraught with rivalry, challenge, and bias but also hope, opportunity, and a chance for individuals to rise up. Both are revolutionary.

Look around, look around, how lucky are we to be alive right now. We have reached a tipping point. Entrepreneurship is on the lips of both decision makers and changemakers. Resources have begun to flow into developing nations to empower and enable their youth populations. We have been invited into the room where it happens. This is our moment.

One of my favorite moments in the musical is when Hamilton, Lafayette, Mulligan, and Laurens meet by happenstance in a bar. Hamilton exclaims, “What are the odds the gods would put us all in one spot poppin’ a squat on conventional wisdom, like it or not;” The four go on to play crucial roles not just in the Revolution, but also in the making of America. These anti-slavery youth of diverse backgrounds put orthodoxies aside and built an innovative, world-moving economic, philosophical, and political system. That moment of the play brings fate and possibility roaring together and puts you on the edge of your seat wanting. Next week I’ll be attending the Global Entrepreneurship Summit and these are the types of meetings I am expecting (no pressure to the organizers). The Summit will bring together young entrepreneurial leaders from around the world. My hope is action. My goal is non-conventional collaboration. History is happening and we will not throw away our shot.

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Meghan McCormick is Founder, Chairwoman and Interim Executive Director of the Dare to Innovate Board of Directors. She currently helps businesses create value through disruptive change by working across disciplines. She believes that we will be faced with many challenges, but if we harness the amazing power of youth, think creatively and apply innovation with vigor, we can surmount any barriers and create a world where everyone has access to opportunity. Meghan is a Returned Peace Corps volunteer from Guinea, where in partnership with the Guinean Association for the Development of Private Enterprise, she focused on social impact innovation and social entrepreneurship in the town of Kindia. She is blessed to have the support of a nice strong, black cup of coffee and her American and Guinean families in all that she attempts.

Rumble in the Jungle

Who inspires you?

Who motivates you to keep going when the going gets tough?

For some, it’s a friend. For others, it’s their mom or dad. For many, it’s Muhammad Ali.

This week, the world mourns BBC’s “Sporting Personality of the Century” who died last Friday after battling Parkinson’s disease for over 3 decades. Most people know Muhammad Ali for his accolades inside the ring― with 56 wins and 37 knockouts, this three-time heavyweight champion of the world is widely considered the greatest boxer of all time. What people may not know is that outside the ring, Ali was a philanthropist, social activist, and United Nations Messenger of Peace.

In 1967, he refused to fight in the Vietnam War citing his religious right even though it cost him 3 years of his boxing career. In 1981, he talked a suicidal man off the ledge of a hotel building in Los Angeles. In 1990, he negotiated with Saddam Hussein for the release of 15 American hostages.

Throughout his life, Muhammad Ali was an inspiration to professional athletes and people everywhere to stand up for what they believe. A symbol of courage, “he stood in the face of [racial abuse and discrimination] and refused any suggestion that he be anything other than himself.”

It is that courage that drew people to him, that motivated the likes of Tommy Smith and John Carlos, Arthur Ashe and President Obama.

As I reflect on the life of Muhammad Ali, my mind drifts to Zaire, Africa; to that famous fight in 1974 when Ali beat boxing great George Foreman, to the fight known as the Rumble in the Jungle. And I find myself thinking about who inspires me, about who motivates me to keep going when the going gets tough.

I am inspired by the many young African women and men that I met these past couple years, women and men whose lives are a rumble in the jungle. They are entrepreneurs and teachers who stand in the face of poverty and corruption every day, going 15 rounds and getting back up again. To me, they are the Muhammad Alis of their countries fighting hard to be the best version of themselves and to inspire others to do the same.

#howhighisup

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Dave Emnett is the CFO of the Dare to Innovate Board of Directors. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin from 2013-2015. He is also currently a second year International MBA candidate at the University of South Carolina.

One More African Invention

It was October 2013. After three long months of training, I was officially a Peace Corps volunteer. I had finally arrived in Boukombé, a village they say rests at the end of the world, a village that was to be my home for the next two years.

That first week, I met M’Po, a young Beninese man of 25 years of age. M’Po was living with my counterpart at the time, helping the family until he went back to school to become a teacher. He was nice enough to show me around the village and introduce me to everyone.

As time went on, we became great friends. On really hot days, we would sit under the tree by my office and talk about life.  One day, we were discussing our dreams and ambitions for the future. I told M’Po, “I want to be a serial entrepreneur. I want to solve problems and create things that no one has ever created before.” M’Po thought for a minute and then he expressed a sentiment that irked me for the rest of my service, a sentiment that still irks me today.

He said, “I wish I could create things, but I can’t.” When I asked him why not, M’Po said, “because I am not white, because I am African.” M’Po believed that Africans are incapable of inventing things without the help of a white person. He believed that God had given white people the power to invent but not Africans. We debated the subject for hours that day, but I couldn’t change his mind. For the next month, if I knew I was going to see M’Po, I came prepared with an African invention or an African start-up to present to him as proof that Africans can and do invent. But no matter how many times I brought him a new example, he still seemed unconvinced.

And so, I find myself even today wanting to present one more African invention to M’Po and to every young African that thinks they can’t invent, because you 100% can. Because you are just as inventive as anyone else, anywhere else in the world.  All you have to do is dare to innovate.

As proof, I’ve highlighted here three articles, one from online platform Ventures Africa, one from newspaper The Guardian, and one from business magazine Fast Company. Each article is a list of African inventors, African innovations, or African companies, who are inventing, who are innovating, and who are changing the world.

I’ve highlighted one more example from each article, follow the links to read more!

10 UNDER 30 AFRICAN INVENTORS SET TO CHANGE THE WORLD

23-year-old Subomi Owo-Odusi from Nigeria just innovated the gas station business model. His app FueledUp is designed to spare Nigerians the trouble of sleeping in lines while trying to get gas in times of scarcity, like in the current crisis. With a swipe of your finger FueledUp will deliver gas right to your vehicle and even fill it up.

Africa innovations: 15 ideas helping to transform a continent

24-year old Cameroonian engineer, Arthur Zang, just invented the Cariopad. This patented touch screen medical tablet helps healthcare workers do cardiac tests at far away and remote areas. Zang’s invention will help millions of people that suffer from cardiac problems get diagnosed even if they live in rural areas.

The World’s Top 10 Most Innovative Companies of 2015 in Africa

Eneza Education, a Kenyan start-up, creates education content that can be accessed on low-end cell phones. Kids between the ages of 11 and 18 can use their virtual classroom to study math, science and education through quizzes and mini-lessons.

Dave Emnett is the CFO of the Dare to Innovate Board of Directors. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin from 2013-2015. He is also currently a second year International MBA candidate at the University of South Carolina.

Change your business model, change the world

Let me just come out and say it. I am a nerd. And the nerdy topic that I get most excited about is business model innovation. As I write this, I can feel my team rolling their eyes; I talk about business models all the time. I think a quality product is important and customer engagement even more so, but an innovative business model is the foundation for ground breaking innovation.

Let’s look at the Ford Motor Company. When Henry Ford incorporated his company, he was one of hundreds of American car manufacturers. Ford cars were good, but there is no evidence that they were the best. Just like many of his competitors, a Ford got you from Point A to Point B.  The real reason that Ford is one of the three American car makers left standing is their business model innovation.

Start with wages. Fords were cars for the masses and therefore reducing the cost of the car was important. Logically, you would source the cheapest labor possible and have them work as hard and fast as they could for as little money as they would accept. Ford turned this logic on its head paying his factory workers $5 an hour (to put this in context, his cars cost $290 in 1924) so that each one of his workers could afford one of his cars. He made his own market right in his own factory.

Pricing and distribution were another crucial Ford innovation. Ford brought leasing to the automobile industry making his cars even more accessible and adding a second, diversified revenue stream to his company. He also invented the dealership model. Carrying inventory is expensive. Ford pushed that burden onto an independent dealer network creating a favorable cash flow positioning and balance sheet for his own company.

And I haven’t even talked about the assembly line.

When working on your business, do not just think about what you want to sell, but how you can design a system of turning raw materials into revenue in a way that fits with your product strategy. Maybe you too will become obsessed with business model innovation.

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Meghan McCormick is the CEO and co-founder of Dare to Innovate. She is a systems thinking passionate about using innovation to deliver value to communities, companies, and consumers. She’d love to help you make your business model more innovative. You can reach her at Meghan@daretoinnovate.com.

Collaboration is Boundless

Despite being the new guy at Dare To Innovate, and also blogging, it was not difficult to land on a subject for this week: collaboration. It can be as simply defined as “working with someone to produce something”. This broad encompassing “something” could refer to a new tech gadget, a house, a questionnaire, a new made up game for children to play. Individual groups may collaborate, and individuals may collaborate with groups. I will be giving a DTI-related example of the rather plain, and yet perhaps most profound collaboration: a simple working relationship between two people with a shared goal.

Since arriving in Guinea I have met a lot of new people, both inside the DTI network and outside of it, and I have also reconnected with people I worked with here in the Peace Corps. It’s incredible how quickly during our conversations we delve into the exploration of new ideas, the reworking of old ones, and possible realizations of said ideas. The desire to collaborate is ever present in this country of incredibly social people. It is inspiring, encouraging, and makes our work all the easier. We connect entrepreneurs with the knowledge they may need or find interesting, and we help them to join with each other and create a support network that fosters exchange and collective collaboration.

An entrepreneur I wish to introduce here is one of the more extraordinary individuals that I have had the pleasure of working with. Samba Sory Camara (pictured) has a dynamic place in the DTI Guinea world. He was one of our agricultural trainers in the AIP pilot; he also was one of our competition winners, and is about to start an agribusiness with two of our other “Agropreneurs” in Kindia.

Samba Sory is truly driven. He sees opportunities to expand his knowledge and takes them. He has an impressive CV of technical training and certificates, and has said that since growing up in Mamou in an agriculture community he has only wanted to start his own large scale farm, creating integrated farming and livestock systems. He is highly qualified, incredibly well informed, and yet has the unabashed and modest desire to learn from those he believes have valuable insights. He immediately sought me out to develop his agribusiness ideas, and I was so impressed by his knowledge that I recruited him for our team of trainers for the upcoming, expanded AIP.

Our collaboration has been incredibly beneficial, and perfectly exemplifies the kind of work and results DTI strives for. Samba Sory and I have helped each other to bring together the new AIP training team, create partnerships between DTI and local government, and write grant proposals for business and community development initiatives. He just recently won the Total Guinea Challenge, and will receive enough money to fully fund his own agribusiness. We also wrote a strong grant for a community called Kinyaya that he has worked with frequently providing technical trainings for years. He brings ideas to me, I give my input, we discuss, and then we create. I run plans and questions by him, he responds with thoughtful consideration, and we move forward.

It is exciting to see where we will go next. Samba Sory is eager to play a role in our participatory Training of Trainers and AIP Curriculum Development Workshop later this summer. We will both help support the network of farming cooperatives in Kinyaya where he and his associates will start their collective agribusiness. There are differences in our backgrounds that are key to the perspectives we hold. But, since we both are working towards supporting a movement of young entrepreneurs and farmers, we do not get lost while debating details, and nor is there competition for ownership or recognition in what we produce.

Pure and simple, it is a fruitful collaboration between individuals. I am not the foreign expert showing the locals how it is done; he is not the local guide who shields the foreigner from realities on the ground. We engage in open and honest discourse, weighing all information and options, and we frequently ask others to collaborate with us. This is key: collaboration does not have boundaries or limits. Everyone has something to contribute from his or her experience. Dare to Innovate helps people in its networks like Samba Sory follow their dreams and harness their potential; and people like Samba Sory help Dare To Innovate realize its vision and discover the wealth of knowledge and resources that exist around and within its networks.

“If you have an apple and I have an apple and we exchange these apples then you and I will still each have one apple. But if you have an idea and I have an idea and we exchange these ideas, then each of us will have two ideas.” – George Bernard Shaw

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Zach Bachtell is Chief Programming Officer of the Dare to Innovate Board of Directors. He is currently working in Guinea, supporting our Agropreneurs with technical and business development. He is also currently a second year Master of Science candidate at American University, where he studies Development Management.

Innovation in Programming and Financing Must Go Hand-in-Hand

“Last year the world spent $300B in international development and can you honestly say that the world is $300B better?…” And then we were off to the races. Last Tuesday, Dare to Innovate pitched at the 1776 Challenge Cup, a global startup competition for a chance at venture scale funding. After three cycles of watching our entrepreneurs pitching at the Dare to Innovate Competition, the tables were turned and we were the ones on stage trying in two minutes to convince a panel of strangers that our idea was better than the other 24 ideas pitching.

Spoiler alert: we did not win. Although our pitch was compelling, our user need great, and our market sizable, the judges decided to support other companies. Why I am publically sharing this defeat? Because first of all, we all need to be more open about our failures and secondly, this competition brought to the surface thoughts on funding in the for-benefit sector that have been percolating for some time.

Dare to Innovate is in the business of creating the conditions for West African entrepreneurs to succeed. So far we’ve done that primarily through a high touch model involving extensive recruiting, in-person training, and one-on-one mentorship of entrepreneurs. And it’s worked. 28 social enterprises owned by 78 youth have come through our program and these companies are projected to employ over 260 people by the end of the year. And we did all this with a remarkably tiny budget. So now it’s time to scale, and that’s where the trouble begins.

Our goals are primarily social, but our operating model (and philosophy) demands that we make a financial profit. We have several initiatives in-flight that we believe can get us there, but in the world of development funding experimentation is not encouraged and in the world of venture funding, profits need to be maximized. Social innovation is risky, takes time, and also takes money. So do we apply for grants or seek investors? What are we?

Let’s say you are a startup looking to create the next Faceboook (apologies for the somewhat dated cliché). You are able to recruit co-founders and early employees with the promise of an IPO and billion dollar valuation. You can take on credit card debt and live off ramen (or rice) for the promise of a great financial return. But let’s say that instead of a billion dollar valuation, you are looking to impact a billion lives. To get to that scale, it goes without saying that you’ve discovered a financially viable operating model, but you can’t pay the rent with lives changed.

This world has put a lot of hope in the for-benefit sector, but if we want this small, but growing group of daring social innovators to lead global change, we need to commensurately grow funding opportunities designed for this type of enterprise. Innovative solutions need to go hand-in-hand with innovative financing. According to the Rockefeller Foundation, innovative finance solutions have made significant contributions to development. But, only $10 billion dollars have flown through these mechanisms, representing less than 0.4% of the $2.5 trillion gap in funding needed to reach the Sustainable Development Goals. For our part, Dare to Innovate is experimenting with how we invest in our entrepreneurs so that we can fund more businesses and do so more aggressively. What would that model look like on a global scale?

If social entrepreneurs excel at one thing, it is designing for constraints, so we do not worry that we will find a way to finance our growth. In the meantime, let’s all get serious about designing funding models that work for entrepreneurs trying to design funding models for those who want to change the world with innovative organizations.

Tweet @daretoinnovate if you want to hear our pitch and if you are compelled to invest, shoot me an email atmeghan@daretoinnovate.com. We are going to make development more effective, we are going to make you money, and we are going to prove the value of the for-benefit sector.

The Science of Compassion and Why Our Brains Matter

“Each time I’m in the position to open a person’s skull, it’s extraordinary to me to recognize that this is where we live. What you see are these hills and valleys of the brain that are sort of pinkish, blood vessels coursing over the surface and there’s a membrane with fluid, pulsating and matching the rhythm of your heart. Just think: this is the very essence of who we are.”

These are the words of Dr. James Doty, Stanford neurosurgeon and Founder and Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. He’s on the cutting edge of emerging studies on how the brain and the heart speak to one another, and what he’s discovering may have the power to transform not just individual lives, but to reshape what he calls the “baggage of evolution”, or the fight or flight response that is linked to violence and tribal conflict. 

I recently had the chance to listen to an interview with Doty conducted by Krista Tippett, American author, entrepreneur and host of the public radio show and podcast, On Being. In the interview, Doty spoke of our brains and their evolutionary hardwiring toward human connection. From his research, Doty claims that by exercising compassion with others, our world becomes a more vibrant place. 

As Doty continued to speak, he outlined the origins of this hardwiring to connect.

“Unlike other species, human beings require being cared for by our parents for several years before becoming independent, which has created very powerful neurological pathways that bind us with our offspring,” said Doty. “Our very evolutionary roots, then, are imprinted with these neurological pathways, making us feel good when we connect with others. There have been many studies where people are put in isolation for a time and their worlds fall apart. Ultimately, you cannot transform or transcend your circumstances without going outside yourself and connecting with others because when you do so, your physiology works best. It’s hardwired to do so.”

For centuries, our brains have been imprinted with this desire and need to connect with others — particularly our offspring — for optimal performance. In this way, our brains will almost always choose what the familiar over the unfamiliar. 

So how do these two pieces of information relate to one another? If our brains are evolutionarily hardwired to connect with others and they default toward familiarity, then we tend to extend our connective fibers toward those who are “like” us, whether in language, ethnicity, mannerisms or blood. When we are put in positions of being fearful, we often shut down (fight or flight response) and gravitate toward familiar experiences (people who act like us, think like us) in an attempt to create a sense of safety. Meanwhile, however, we’re kept on pins and needles, wondering if we’re going to get attacked. 

This “tribal response” is often what drives deep divisions between groups of people, heightening the illusion of “difference” in our common humanity.

Most interesting to note, is that Doty shares that the brain doesn’t distinguish between an experience that is intensely imagined and what is real. “Ultimately, what people don’t recognize is their power of intention to change everything.”

In other words, by way of intention we can manifest new practices and create entirely new senses of “familiar” in our own bodies and minds. How it works is if you are thinking of doing an action, that part of your cortex starts being stimulated. As Doty states, for example, studies have shown that if you think about working out, your brain will actually begin firing as if you are working out.

And as it relates to other people, just like exercise strengthens certain muscles over others, by exercising compassion, you can break down artificial barriers of separation by looking at another person who seems very different and seeing similarities with more clarity. By doing this, suddenly our world becomes a vibrant place and even more suddenly, we are able to recognize the incredible aspect of humanity in every person, and that every person has the potential to change the world.”

To the Dare to Innovate community: what’s remarkable about you change-makers is that although you differ in location, nationality, belief structure, language and ethnicity, the work that each of you is doing is exercising compassion within yourself and others in your communities. From user-centered research to designing your businesses with the community in full focus — that’s empathy! You’re not only developing the economic status of your country, but also the humanity of your nation, region, our world. Do you notice differences between yourself and others in your country? Different backgrounds, ethnicities, even tribes? What keeps those differences alive? What might break them down? 

And dare you transform those differences into connections? Dare you transform our humanity? How might you?

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Hilary Braseth is Founder and Vice Chairwoman of the Dare to Innovate Board of Directors, and presently works with an innovation and design consulting firm in San Francisco, CA. In short, Hilary believes in integrated, authentic self-understanding, human relationships and cross-sectoral collaboration as the most viable means for catalyzing a sustainable future. Hilary is a Returned Peace Corps volunteer from Guinea (2011-2014), where she worked in waste management & recycling, ecotourism, entrepreneurship and empowerment.

The Next Big Clip!

This Sunday is one of America’s largest most important media events of the entire year: The Super Bowl. For those who don’t know, the Super Bowl is fantastic finale of of the American football season, and it’s typically the most watched American television event of the year. For many, like myself it’s also an opportunity to watch some of the most entertaining television commercials out there.

But in 2010, one of the biggest commercials of the Super Bowl season wasn’t on TV at all, but rather online. Its sponsors, the makers of Old Spice, a deodorant for men, were worried that the commercial would be too outrageous even for the Super Bowl. They were wrong. Within a month, this comedic and clever Old Spice commercial was seen over three million times, and as of yesterday, it’s been viewed over 52 million times. It is the definition of a viral video. In fact, in the month proceeding the release of this video, sales for Old Spice sales more than doubled!

Viral videos aren’t just a phenomenon of the United States. Such videos have taken the form of music videos out of Korea (this video was viewed over two billion times) and of course innumerable international football videos like this one of two of the greatest players of all time. I remember from my times in Guinea that some these videos are super popular even where accessing the internet can be expensive and time consuming.

While some of these videos take a lot of time and money to make, others were filmed with equipment that’s less advanced than the camera on my phone, like this video of a dog honking a car horn. Last year Dare to Innovate also launched it’s first attempt at video making with this series of videos on entrepreneurship (take a look!).

All this is to say that viral videos are the next big way to get known especially for companies trying to sell a product as we can see from the Old Spice videos. Further, while many companies in America have managed to successfully leverage this new format, I know that even enterprises in places like Guinea and Benin could use these videos to better promote their products and services.

So I have two challenges for you. Do you know of any viral videos promoting a new local enterprise in your country? Shoot us a message on Facebook of a video that catches your eye and explain what you think makes it great!

Abraham Chen is Founder and Treasurer of the Dare to Innovate Board of Directors. He is currently an MBA/MS in Design Innovation student at the Kellogg School of Management’s MMM program. Abe believes that everyone should have the chance to reach her full potential. You can reach him at abraham@daretoinnovate.com