Archive for Emerging markets
Social Entrepreneurship in Africa: Innovation that Serves Others
In Conquering Innovation Fatigue, we begin with an examination of some of the reasons that people pursue innovation. Not all innovation is driven by a desire for wealth. In fact, a large number of innovators are more interested in seeing their work make a difference in the world than in becoming rich (many want both, but the desire to see real results from one’s work is often essential). Social entrepreneurship and humanitarian innovation provide evidence of this. In the book, we highlight Empower Playgrounds (EmpowerPlaygrounds.org), the non-profit innovation engine that is bringing educational success to thousands of African children by creating playground equipment that generates power for LED lamps that children can take home so they can study and do homework after the finish their chores at home. Something as simple as a portable electric lamp, charged by innovative playground power generators, makes the difference between educational failure and graduating with opportunities for college. Many thanks to Ben Markham, the CEO of Empower Playgrounds, for recognizing the need and driving so much collaborative innovation to bring hope to western Africa.
Another great story out of Africa is the Forbes article, “Can This Bicycle Save Lives In Africa?” by Stephanie Finch. After achieving international success with his bicycle innovations, Frederick K.W. Day noticed that many streets in Africa were lined with abandoned, broken down bikes that quickly fell apart on the rough streets of Africa. He also saw that the huge diversity of bikes being sent to Africa made it very difficult for mechanics to repair due to lack of proper parts and tools for the diverse designs. He is now working to bring rugged, low-cost, easy-to-repair bikes to Africa:
Through his World Bicycle Relief charity the ponytailed entrepreneur hopes to put millions of sub-Saharan Africans aboard special heavy-duty bikes designed to withstand the continent’s rugged roads while carrying 200 pounds of cargo–enough for a weaver to bring his rugs, or a farmer to tote his produce, to market. Moreover, he aims to promote a self-sustaining bicycle economy with regional operations assembling the bikes and area mechanics trained to repair them.
Frederick is making many changes in the bike as well as crafting a business model for distribution and maintenance that will meet the needs of many parts of Africa. It’s not about getting rich, but about truly making a difference in the world for thousands of people. That’s inspiring innovation!
What are your favorite examples of altruistic innovation or social entrepreneurship helping Africa?
Innovation Trends: Smartphones and Agriculture
One of the interesting trends in emerging nations is the rapid spread of mobile phones without first moving to landlines. Millions of people who don’t have landlines and may not have the infrastructure for them are able to benefit from cell phones. As cell phones increasingly become smart, offering a variety of apps and services, their smartphones can change the way people work and live. That includes the way they farm, including they way they apply pesticides, apply water, manage the soil, and harvest crops. Look to agriculture and the related fields of water and soil management for added value in coming years.
Lindsay Corporation (no relation) recently announced a new cell phone application to help farmers track and control their automated irrigation systems such as the Zimmatic® system. Here’s an excerpt:
Lindsay Corporation, maker of Zimmatic® irrigation systems, announces the introduction of FieldNET Mobile—pivot control for smartphones. The new feature allows growers to fully control and monitor their irrigation pivots anywhere through the convenience of smartphones.
“FieldNET Mobile provides a labor-saving innovation with the convenience of web-enabled phones,” says Reece Andrews, GrowSmart™ product manager at Lindsay. “With full control and monitoring from anywhere, growers are more efficient with their time and always know the status of their irrigation systems.”
FieldNET Mobile’s graphical interface supports most industry-leading smartphones, including the iPhone®, Droid® and BlackBerry®, according to Andrews.
FieldNET is an award-winning web-based irrigation management system. With the addition of FieldNET Mobile, growers can view the current status of all their pivots in one list, receive system alerts, arrange pivots by predefined groups, view water usage reports and receive a history of pivot runtimes.
Innovators are already considering many other smartphone-enabled opportunities for improving the way we farm and manage water around the world. We look forward to seeing what we can do to further improve the quality of life through better agriculture practices enabled by the power of smartphones. Stay tuned!
What do you see as future applications of smartphones in agriculture? Interested in working with us to explore the IP landscape and innovation opportunities here? Give us a call!
Related reading:
Top 50 Innovators: Is a new world order emerging?
Aside from being a taxing week in the U.S., mid-April is also when BusinessWeek Magazine publishes its top 50 list of the most innovative companies all over the world. This year’s rankings are definitely pointing to a trend I’ve talked about before: That a majority of companies recognized as top innovators are based outside the U.S. Check out this video for some insights:
In the 2010 Bloomberg/BusinessWeek annual rankings of Most Innovative Companies, 15 of the Top 50 are Asian—up from just five in 2006.
The list is dominated by companies from Europe, Asia, and for the first time, South America.
Bloomberg/BusinessWeek’s Most Innovative Companies report has been published each April since 2005, although in the beginning it was the Top 20 list. The results are based on a 21-question poll to senior executives around the globe. The 1,590 respondents, who answered anonymously, were asked to name the most innovative companies from outside their own industry in 2009.
What many will find surprising, I think, is that when Bloomberg/Businessweek started ranking innovators in 2005, only six of the Top 20 were headquartered outside the U.S. A third of 2005′s American champs (3M, Starbuck, eBay, etc.), no longer make the Top 50.
Check out the article & the Top 50 list here.
No need for an outlet with this battery charger
When an earthquake shook Haiti’s capital Port au Prince in January, communicating by cell phone was impossible. The cell towers high in the hills of the capital city that covered most of the island nation became inoperable. But a new palm-sized fuel cell that turns water into electricity might be a game changer in developing nations and disaster areas.
About a billion people in emerging countries have cell coverage, and those people could communicate via mobile phone very inexpensively in the near future—without the need for electricity.
A new device called the H3 charger is promising on-the-go charging even when you are away from a wall outlet. You can read about the H3 here and here.
Innovators at Stockholm-based myFC, came up with the H3 charger, which relies on portable fuel cells. I checked out their web site, and was impressed to learn the company was awarded as one of the top ten fastest growing clean tech companies in Europe at the Cleantech Connect Awards in November. (Cleantech Connect brings together Europe’s’ leaders in the clean and green technology space, recognizing growth and innovation in the sector.)
The H3 charger is nearing commercial release in Scandinavia this year and will eventually make its way to the U.S. next year. The price tag is around $40 to $50, and is about the size of a sandwich.
So if you are planning a wilderness trek next year, you’ll need some water, the charger and a few small tea bag-sized fuel packets containing hydrogen fuel. Then simply pour water into the reaction chamber, add the packet and wait for the chemical reaction between the water and the fuel pellets.
Half a million daily is a lofty goal for P. & G.
What if you could add more than a half million new customers to your business EVERY DAY, for the next five years? Make that 548,000 new customers, to be precise.
That’s what Procter & Gamble’s new chief executive Robert McDonald says he’ll be doing for the company. He wants to do this by continually expanding P. & G.’s reach beyond its core markets of the United States, Western Europe and Japan, and start winning over new customers in places like Nigeria, India and Somalia.
But its competitors Unilever and Colgate have already enjoyed a longterm presence in many of these emerging markets!
One industry analyst describes the upcoming challoenge as a brutal knife fight that will be fought in shampoo, detergent, deodorant, with no one rolling over. I imagine that is a pretty fair prediction.
Many are wondering how a company that built itself on selling premium products at premium prices can shift to selling an array of low-priced products for consumers who often live on only a few hundred dollars a month or less. After all, these new customers may even have to be taught how to use P. & G.’s prodcucts.
But the naysayers need only look to the incredible potential of these markets where P. & G. has already been laying the groundwork to be inspired:
Today, sales from developing countries are doubling every four years. P.& G. has annual sales of $25 billion from developing countries, compared with $8 billion eight years ago. Procter already operates in 80 countries, selling its wares everywhere — large superstores in cities and tiny storefronts in remote villages.
So what will the marketing strategy look like in places like China and India? Check out this article for a fascinating read: