Meeting Minutes

[October 02, 2012 @ Muddy Charles Pubb]

Update- Events around MIT Campus

  • SEID: Primarily targeting ways of making use of ‘pro-bono’ work out of MIT Sloan for non-profit organizations
  • International Development Fair @ Sloan: Very Small Development Fair
  • Practical Education Network (PEN):
    • MIT $100K Competition
    • Interested in introducing ‘practical education’ to the Third World
    • If people are exposed to solving ideas practically, they will begin to incorporate this train of thought in everything that they do including exploring new business venture
    • Case: Paper is too expensive in Ghana to create origami
    • Take-away: Explore using even lower cost materials such as recycled garbage
  • Terracycle:
    • Popular Social Entrepreneurship Venture
  • Instructables(apparently came out of the MIT Media Lab)
    • Very Good Format
    • What can be transferred to the developing world
    • What is the ‘duct tape’ of the developing world? Perhaps it is not our place to figure this out.

Sideways Moment:

Commodity in their Creativity? People need to feel that they are able to solve their own problems.

If the medium is the internet, there may not be a model of communication in the developing world to allow for that communication.

FOCUS

  • What is our focus? Our main unifying goal?
    • Providing Tools for Empowerment or giving People the Tools to Help Themselves is important.
    • Desire: Having an idea that is going to work right away and that is sustainable.
    • It is very tricky to brainstorm something that doesn’t sound like a nice non-profit or a government dependent organization.
  • Requirements:
    • Needs to Make Financial Sense…Creativity is a Commodity
    • Question: Are we selling the ability to be creative or are we selling their creativity to other people?

Brainstorming

Product Entrepreneur Center in one location–>and one in another.

  • ‘Instructable-esque’: Allows for these ‘Product Entrepreneur Centers’ to share solutions and problems with each other.
  • Space Level Exchange:
    • How do you overcome the capacity or infrastructure preventing groups working on similar situations from running parallel projects, perhaps by creating networking centers…etc. ?

Question: Should we only be concerned about the specific technology available to clients until we decide who is our target audience]

Interesting Reference:

  • “The Blue Sweater“- Jacqueline Novagratz
  • Message: Empowerment as a part of a marketing strategy…

BootStrap Hacker Space:

  • Dancing around Micro-Finance slightly…Micro-Finance, perhaps, more on a grassroots level than Kiva.

Development of Projects into Finished Projects:

D-Lab Space: A ‘boot-strap’ Mobile Hacker Space

  • Thought: Should we look into talking with D-Lab people in order to explore the platform problem (e.g. resource availability, etc.) Isn’t D-Lab more experienced with focusing on solutions created in the Developed World and imposed into the Developing World and scale that solution instead of harnessing the local creativity.
  • “If its cheaper to fix it than replace it, there is a shop that does it.” – PEN

Question: How is knowledge transferred?

  • Primarily between people in the same shop as more of an inheritance or technical training (apprenticeship of olde).

Definition-

  • Hack: Modification created by the End-User

Micro-Venture Capital

  • In certain parts of the world, an idea has been proven profitable but it cannot scale up in communities throughout the world.
  • If we can convince investors that the innovator who improved the ‘bag’ has added value to the original bag, perhaps that is an avenue for additional revenue from the bag, there is a chance for investment and additional revenue for the innovator…but who owns the design…who will manufacture and distribute the newly improved bag.

Inspiration: Legit Entrepreneur [Quirky]

Random Thought: Competition

  • A competition which we have merchants propose products they would like to be improved and the winner receives a financial reward offered by the merchant.
  • ~Micro Venture Capital Competition or ~Mobile Application Hack-a-thon

Random Thought: Outsourcing R&D

  • An Innovate Salone (Competition System)
  • Micro-Venture Capital ($$$ and helping)—> Hacker Space–> A Micro Venture Capital Incubator

Random Thought: Manufacturing

  • Micro Venture Capital –> Crowd-Sourced Micro Venture Capital–> Kickstarter
  • Benefits of Micro Venture Capital:
    • Wisdom of Local Business People and Global Partners who can invest on a Micro-Level in the Idea:
      • Community Input
      • Spreads Idea
      • Establishment of an ‘Innovation’ Network
  • Small Scale Manufacturer–> Demand Goes Up without having to hit a certain scale in order to manufacture or scale.

Random Thought: Branding

  • There is a story here…a connection…a brand
  • Invention and the Inventor are a product in themselves…
  • Just like seeing the Chef who made your dinner plate–> Humanity in the Brand (e.g. Tom’s Shoes)

Brainstorming II

Quirky Process {Quirky.com}:

  • Idea Submission (w/ attached fee)–> Community Input (Focusing on Local)–> Competition (KickStarter Type System)–> Small Scale Manufacturing (Hacker Spaces)–> Local Distribution (and perhaps International)–> Quirky but Hands-On…
  • A Micro-Loan for Tools & Resources for the Soldering Iron… in order to produce a prototype of the product and payback the loan via product sales.
  • Provide a specific piece of equipment to fulfill a need, keeping costs down and limiting the possibility of purchasing un-necessary equipment.
  • Hacker Space is a Resource Place: Reliable Center for electricity, water, space, internet etc. (e.g. iHub Kenya)
    • Resource space for prototyping and small-scale manufacturing.

Wrap Up Minutes

  • Powerpoint Slides on Potential “Micro Quirky KickStarter VC Incubator”
  • Research: “Micro Venture Capital”
  • Brainstorm a ‘Quirky Name’: Inspiration…Physical…Empowerment…Creativity

___________________________End of Week 05 Meeting_______________________

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October 4, 2012

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