Meeting w/ Joost Bonsen
Location: Mr. Bonsen’s Office
Date and Time: November 09, 2012 @ 10:00 ET
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Mechanisms for transforming local designs into local manufacturing into local business ventures.
- Find a mechanism for top ideas to be introduced to the local marketplace.
- Open Ended (as long as not political related)
David Moinina Sengeh- Innovate Salone
- Change this handout culture, political statement, etc.
- Aspire big (Innovate Africa), look at what you can prototype and try (Innovate Salone)
Local Experimentation (e.g. Latin America, Africa)
Local Businesses: Local Designers and Manufacturers
- Good Idea, hard to make people believe it unless they see someone who can do it (e.g. through TV shows, radio shows, etc.)
- Bottleneck: Lack of knowledge that entrepreneurship is possible or communication.
- Telling of the story in order to prompt those to take action…Encourages action…Inspirational…Poses a challenge…Identification of those already doing it or help those who are trying and need a boost, capture those stories…What are the existing stories and what are the upcoming ones?
The majority of people have difficulty learning from abstractions, concrete examples are very important.
Stories…good but insufficient in the beginning.
- Incremental Design Kits: Modification
- Physical Examples: Recipes
- Markets: Focus on 1-3 Categories
- Don’t focus on the base of the pyramid
- Example: A network of blacksmiths with business spinoffs, turn smith business into a fabrication, fixer to factory (e.g. The Wright Brothers)
Who does everyone count on as far as connections to the outside?
- Merchants- Businesses, Blacksmith- Fabrication, Designers-Community
Honeybee Network: Documentation of Local Innovations
- Pedal Operated Washing Machine
- Micro-Windmill Battery Charger
“Peace Corp.” –> “Smith Corp.”
- Either a Blacksmith steps up and plays the local networker
- Tag Team: Local Blacksmith and Local or International Engineer
- Tour of Villages in order to market program through “Word of Mouth” and “Show and Tell”
Why we should focus on Engineers?
- People are very good at modification…a full on creative recipe made from scratch is very difficult…
- Blacksmiths are Engineers who are most likely to create the greatest modifications and are the most ripe crowd who we can scale up their operations.
Tools Kits
- Starter Kits via Our Catalog (exploration of a long tail)
- Physical Show and Tell of Tool Kits via Blacksmiths in ‘Smith Corp’
- Submission of Future Kit Ideas (potential additional income)
‘Show and Tell Circuit’ Visiting Blacksmith
- 3D Printer: “Show and Tell” of ‘Winning’ Designs via 3D Printers
- Exploration of local Blacksmith Shops in order to expose local Innovations
- Local Reporting of Blacksmith Needs and Desires to Scale Up
- Demo of New technology (e.g. D-Light, smartphones, multiple uses of mini drills)
Fostering Local Innovation
- Offer Apprenticeships (for a modest fee) via Maker Camps to train the youth through a community focused Maker Space
- Corn Hand Sheller (D-Lab)
- Mod, Fab, and Repair for multiple uses for improved technology or to modify current products to either save time and money or make money
Future Resources to Explore…
- Adam Smith: Wealth of Nations; Pin Factory
- Ashoka: Local Impact Entrepreneurs
Muumba 