Global X On The Edge

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2007-02-06T13:20:00.000-08:00

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Mobile phones in West Africa

2007-01-30T09:52:00.000-08:00

By now, most of you have realized that Global X is a big fan of mobile devices. Just in the past month, he has written about Apple’s iPhone (for the wealthy part of the world) and the MotoPhone (for the rest of the world).

Most recently, he wrote about Egyptian policemen and how they have been using their mobile phones to record screaming prisoners as they were torturing them.

Global X was therefore happy to discover TradeNet, a mobile-phone service based in Ghana. TradeNet sends market information via SMS, including prices and relevant news “to put more information into the hands of the producers and traders, making the market more transparent and efficient, and assisting stakeholders to make decisions about when to plant, what to grow, who to trade with, when to sell, and for how much.”

Interestingly, TradeNet also supports “buy & sell offers” so that a Nigerian grain trader can make an offer to a group of farmers based in Burkina Faso. No intermediaries need to be involved. The service is currently free, as TradeNet collects enough data about its users to sell targeted advertisements.

Junk mail on his mobile is not something Global X would wish, but he was nevertheless quite impressed that mobile phones were finally creating what several generations of African politicians have been avoiding: a free market.

Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Torture in Egypt

2007-01-16T10:02:00.000-08:00

By now, readers may have noticed that Global X is fascinated by new digital tools that are small enough to fit in one’s pocket and allow most human beings in the developed world (and many in the developing world) to become witnesses, if not reporters, of our planet’s suffering. He vividly remembers what happened to him when he was the witness of a deadly accident in the streets of a large western city last year (pictures here).

Global X is equally fascinated by torture and how some are currently trying to justify it, and has gone into a philosophical quest that has bored most of his travel companions, especially after his recent trip to Cambodia where he visited the Khmer Rouge S-21 Prison torture center (pictures here). And he has noticed that his teenage son now tries to avoid him, presumably insulted by his critical comments about 24, his son’s favorite U.S. TV show in which the main character, Jack Bauer (picture here), commits many acts of torture for “national security reasons”

Global X was therefore quite intrigued by several reports in the French media of Egyptian policemen who had recorded live scenes of torture with their mobile phones. His favorite French newspaper, Libération (article here), described last week a heartbreaking video showing a 21-year-old man screaming in pain as the witness brings his mobile phone camera closer to his face to get a better shot. The man is lying on the floor, his hands are tied on his back, and one can hear voices mocking him while a policeman inserts a stick in his rectum.

Global X was eager to find out what could prompt such violent behavior. As the most powerful nation is now validating torture as a way to gather information, and possibly even sending its own citizens to Egypt to be interrogated by less-scrupulous authorities, he wondered what terrible crime this young man could have committed. The facts: Emad al-Kabir, a bus driver, simply tried to put himself between the police and one of his relatives to avoid a fight. He was brought to the police station, tortured, then released without charges.

Apparently just an ordinary day in a police station… Except that a courageous Egyptian journalist named Wael Abbas decided to post the video on his blog, and an independent daily newspaper, Al-Fagr, looked for the victim to investigate the facts. As a result, the policemen responsible for the violence are now awaiting trial.

Then Global X discovered that Wael Abbas posted two more videos, this time showing a woman screaming in pain in another police station as she confesses to a crime. Her hands and feet are tied to a broomstick balanced horizontally between two chairs.

Global X wondered who made these videos and why. He found out that the policemen themselves shot them as they were interrogating the suspects, in part to humiliate them, but also to have proofs that they had 'confessed' to their crimes.

He also wondered what had happened to Emad al-Kabir, the bus driver. Global X found out that he is currently in jail for three months because he has “humiliated the authorities” by agreeing to describe to the media what had happened to him in the police station.

Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X meets OS X

2007-01-09T11:49:00.000-08:00

Global X is at MacWorld, to find out how Steve Jobs could cram OS X into a small device that fits in a pocket. Obviously, this may not become a mobile phone for the rest of the world (see previous post below), but it may become a valuable tool for those who need to blog on the go as they listen to a tune and take pictures while watching a movie and walking and surfing the Internet and talking on the phone and exchanging SMS, all of this at the same time. Something Global X has been aspiring to all his life...

This is not the first time that X goes to MacWorld. Last year, he saw his dream jacket (picture here). Later in 2006, he noticed another Apple logo on an unusual fruit (picture here).

What did he find this time? The iPhone, the coolest toy ever introduced under tight security (picture here) before drooling grown-ups and small children alike (picture here). Some adults looked sad, realizing they had to wait until June to be able to own it (picture here). One even claimed to be famous US TV character Jack Bauer (picture here) in the hope to get a pre-sale sample. No such luck!

Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

A MotoPhone for the rest of the world?

2007-01-02T09:22:00.000-08:00

Global X was recently reading The Economist on an airplane crossing the Pacific Ocean (picture here) when he noticed an interesting feature about mobile phones and the way wireless technology could possibly change the rest of the world.

According to The Economist, India is trying to catch up with China by signing 6.6 million new subscribers a month. India had 75 million subscribers in 2005, finished 2006 with 136 million, and is targeting 500 million by 2010. China already has 450 million mobile phone subscribers.

Many wireless technology experts claim that a country’s mobile phones high penetration rate is synonymous with higher development. Says one: “Where telephones lead, development follows.”

It is true that mobile phones are ideal to remain connected in areas where landline phones are not available and the mail is not a reliable option. One top executive in the mobile industry summarizes it that way: “An unemployed person with a phone suddenly feels part of the nation.”

True enough, but Global X wondered whether being part of the nation was enough of an accomplishment for someone who didn’t have a job. A reliable employment may be just what this person needs. Global X wondered whether mobile technology really did create employment and increased the wealth of nations, or, instead, if a high level of mobile phones in a country simply meant that this country had reached a stage where individual purchasing power was high enough to allow this kind of expense. In other words, which comes first: the phone or the wealth?

Global X noticed that fewer than 15% of Africans currently have mobile phones. If we were to send millions of mobile devices to Africa, would that mean that the continent would catch up overnight with the rest of the world? Is it that simple?

It is not. Technology, even as attractive as this one may be, is not the answer to mankind’s problems. Global X remembered that television was thought to be the great equalizer for all social classes. One could get the best education at a very low cost by simply sitting in one’s living room. And when the Internet reached masses in the developed world, it was often said that it was going to change everything because “knowledge is power.”

YouTube, which combines television with the Internet, is the ultimate cultural indicator tool in the US. Quite recently, videos tagged with Iraq attracted 20,000 visitors while a video showing a popular female star sunbathing in a skimpy outfit attracted a million visitors. If “knowledge is power,” wondered Global X, what kind of power is associated with this type of knowledge?

Nevertheless, it is obviously a good idea to distribute mobile technology to the masses. Motorola estimates that more than 80 percent of the world's population lives in an area covered by wireless networks. It recently introduced its new MotoFone, a mobile phone built specifically for emerging markets. Motorola chief technology officer Padmasree Warrior says that the phone was designed while taking into account emerging markets’ difficult conditions. As a result, the MotoFone’s battery delivers enough power to work for 400 hours in standby, thus enabling its use in areas where electrical outlets are rare. Its screen is quite large to better work with SMS (the primary use for mobile phones in developing countries) in reflected light, ideal in sunny environments. And of course, it is (relatively) affordable: it sells for less than US $50.

Fortune senior editor David Kirkpatrick recently said at the United Nations that “reducing the digital divide is necessary to reduce the global economic divide.” Global X still thinks that trade agreements and agricultural incentives have a bigger impact on the developing world than any cool electronic gadget. As he wrote from the Skoll World Forum last year, “while many human beings in Africa live with $1 a day, the average European cow gets about $2 a day in farm subsidies and various other subventions, and the Japanese cow receives $7.”

Gloabl X hopes that African farmers in the developing world will use their shiny new MotoFone to remind the rest of the world that wealthy countries spend $300 billion in protective measures and only $50 billion in aid to the developing world.

Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X is backing up

2006-12-26T09:20:00.000-08:00

Global X was recently enjoying some of the gifts offered by his generous colleagues (picture here) when he made his first decision for 2007. After hearing so many hesitations about his text blog and his photo Flickr (“It’s unsafe. What if something goes wrong?”), Global X decided to back up.

Yes, he is backing up all the data on his various Mac computers (picture here).

That decision was in large part prompted by a tragic accident that happened last summer to his son. A very cool dude (he was even interviewed on US television – see picture here), his son had bought himself a shiny new MacBook (picture here) with the money he had been saving for several years. A few weeks later, while having a drink with Global X, he dropped a glass full of orange juice on this brand new laptop. Global X rushed to the nearest Apple Store only to hear a sad verdict (picture here). All data was lost, including the young man’s compilation of dreadful, vulgar songs full of four-letter words, thus prompting Global X to think that, in truth, there is always a silver lining to every disaster.

Last week, Global X bought a cute portable hard drive and copied all his data (picture here), including his collection of over 2,000 pieces of music –exactly a whole week of uninterrupted music, without a single four-letter word (which is not surprising considering that the most contemporary musician Global X tolerates passed away in 1791). He also copied the pictures he has taken around the globe.

And reluctantly, he agreed to copy his son’s revived compilation of dreadful, vulgar songs full of four-letter words.

Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Torture in Phnom Penh

2006-12-19T09:59:00.000-08:00

Before going to Cambodia, Global X did some research on the Khmer Rouge regime, which is mainly remembered for killing at least a million people between 1975 and 1979, and possibly as many as 3 million (at a time when only 7 million people lived in Cambodia). One of the Khmer Rouge mottos was: "To keep you is no benefit. To destroy you is no loss."

While in Cambodia, Global X visited Tuol Sleng (picture here), the Khmer Rouge Security 21 prison, which now serves as the Genocide Museum.

Tuol Sleng was built to extract confessions (picture here) from prisoners who, in large part, had nothing to confess. They were tortured with electric shocks, searing hot metal instruments and hanging. Global X had a chance to view the torture instruments in display in the museum.

Prisoners were then killed with iron bars (picture here) pickaxes or machetes, but rarely shot because using bullets for this purpose was considered a waste. As Global X could witness, there were exceptions (picture here). Approximately 15,000 prisoners sojourned (picture here) at Tuol Sleng. Only seven survived.

Initially, Global X found it easier to concentrate on semantics rather than on the horror standing before his eyes (Rule #6: (picture here) While getting lashes or electrification you must not cry at all). According to Wikipedia, the word genocide should be applied only when violent acts are committed “with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.” Civil war doesn’t belong to this category, thought Global X, nor does eliminating political opponents (even in the millions). This museum should not be called the Genocide Museum, because it otherwise implies that an ethnic or religious group was trying to eliminate another. Which is not true.

This made Global X think about who should be held responsible for torture and other crimes against mankind. Indeed, Global X noticed that the people who were responsible for these barbaric acts were described, in the media and in the museum, as belonging to the “Khmer Rouge clique,” as if they were invaders from another country. The truth is, they were regular Cambodians.

A series of recent color pictures (picture here) actually shows middle-aged Cambodian farmers, carpenters, fathers and mothers, along with black and white portraits taken when they were “working” at S-21 a few decades before. They were just regular citizens then, as they are now. It just happened that during a short period of their lives, they were working as Tuol Sleng “employees,” along with another 1,700 prison staff.

It is proper to say that the Nazis were responsible for the Shoah. The truth is, they were Germans, who even elected Adolf Hitler to power. And, presumably, when Guantánamo Bay guards and those who made the decisions to hold captive human beings without trial or send them to other countries to be tortured are in turn brought in front of an international tribunal, the American people will not be implicated. Only the Bush Administration will be considered guilty of such acts.

The first lesson to learn here is that in order to deal with an ugly past, it is easier for a country to blame a minority, even when (and especially if) the majority went along with its crimes.

Global X also noticed that before being turned into a jail, Tuol Sleng was a high school. The buildings were first enclosed in electrified barbed wire. The classrooms were converted into prison (picture here) and torture chambers (picture here) and the windows were covered with iron bars and barbed wire to prevent prisoner escapes. Only birds could go through the wires (picture here).

After doing some research, Global X also noticed that several top level Khmer Rouge politicians were, in their previous lives, teachers or professors. Tuol Sleng’s chief interrogator and commandant, known as Comrade Duch, was a former mathematics teacher. He worked closely with Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, who had studied in the exclusive Lycée Sisowath and later received a scholarship to study in France before teaching French literature and history at a private school.

Second lesson from this visit: education does not bring wisdom, and people with the highest level of education can commit the most barbaric acts. After all, Stalin graduated first in his class at the age of 14, and Mao Zedong worked as an assistant librarian at Beijing University.

As Jawaharlal Nehru said:

It is well for us to realize that the great increase in knowledge in the world does not necessarily make us better or wiser ... A clever monkey may learn to drive a car, but he is hardly a safe chauffeur.

And Theodore Roosevelt:

A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car; but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad.

As he was leaving Phnom Penh, Global X bought a book, Le Portail (The Gate), in which the author, French archeologist and anthropologist François Bizot, tells what happened when he was arrested in 1971 not far from the Angkor Wat temples by young Khmer Rouge fighters. His captor: Comrade Duch, who was to become Tuol Sleng’s chief interrogator. He told Bizot: "It's better to have a sparsely populated Cambodia than a country full of incompetents!"

François Bizot survived to tell his story to the French and international media. They simply decided to ignore him. The West had lost all interest in Southeast Asia, what with the Indochina debacle and the humiliation in Viet Nam. The few westerners who paid attention to him were leftist students who demonstrated in the streets their support for Chairman Mao, Unclo Ho (Chi Minh) and the Khmer Rouge’s Democratic Kampuchea...

Third lesson learned: As Global X remembers from his Latin class, Vultu an natura sapiens sis, multum interest (To appear wise is not the same as being born wise).

Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X is in Phnom Penh

2006-12-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

Yes, Global X ran away from a Court of Justice (see previous post) to get on several airplanes, first to Boston, then back to San Francisco, then off to Hong Kong for a brief stopover, then to Singapore for a longer stopover, to arrive finally in Phnom Penh a few hours ago, exhausted but so happy to be on solid grounds again.

It is unclear what Global X is really doing in Cambodia. The rumor has it that he has been seen on a motorcycle and reading trashy French novels by the swimming pool of his fancy hotel.

The truth is slightly different. Yes, he has been cruising Phnom Penh on a motorbike, but it is to follow a fabulous French social entrepreneur, Sebastien Marot, head of Friends International.

And the novel he has been reading (a bit trashy, it is true) is about the Holocaust, denial, survival and forgiveness. Global X thinks that it is the best way to prepare himself to the visit to the Cambodian Genocide Museum, which he will relate in a later post.

Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Global X goes to Court

2006-12-05T09:19:00.000-08:00

Global X was very flattered when many faithful readers wrote personal notes wondering why he had not posted last week:

Global X, are you OK?

Global X, where are you?

Global X, we miss you!

A few fans even started an online rumor:

Maybe Global X has lost his Tréo. Or worse –he traded is iMac for a Dell and doesn’t know how to use it.

Global X needs to explain that he was simply dealing with the justice of his adopted nation. Yes, he went to court. No, not as a defendant (Global X hardly gets a parking ticket a year), but as a potential member of a jury.

A true citizen of the world, Global X recently took on a new citizenship, which came with a few benefits. Being able to vote and being invited to serve justice are certainly among the most interesting features. And he carries a shiny new passport in his left jacket pocket, close to his heart, the old passport being in the right pocket, for memory’s sake.

So... Global X was recently invited to sit on a jury for an interesting trial. A poor fellow was taking his previous company to court. He claims that he was sacked because he had complained to authorities that his company (a transportation outfit) was not fulfilling its safety obligations. Eager to side with the oppressed, Global X listened carefully to the description of the case only to realize that he possibly had a conflict of interest: Global X knew the CEO of the company. Which is not surprising, as Global X knows everybody.

The Judge’s verdict was clear:

Monsieur X, you shall not serve on that trial.

Still eager to perform his citizen’s duties, Global X volunteered to sit on another jury. This time, a poor fellow was being judged for driving under the influence of illegal substances without a driver’s license, as it had been revoked when he was previously arrested for driving under the influence of similar illegal substances.

In that case, Global X had to disclose to the presiding Judge that he had been previously the victim of a car accident, provoked by a driver who had ingurgitated far too much strong liquids of a kind clearly inappropriate for safe driving. Once again, the Judge’s verdict was clear, albeit a bit more casual:

Global, you will not serve in my court.

Do not despair –Global X will be invited again to serve after the new year.

When he is not in Court, Global X keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Dinner with Bill Gates

2006-11-21T09:03:00.000-08:00

The past two weeks have been extremely eventful for Global X.

First, as you may remember, he ran into Esther Dyson in a café, while he was drinking hot cocoa and she was eating chocolate (too spicy, she said).

Then Global X had lunch with a fellow blogger who had just returned from Afghanistan. Over vegetarian curry she offered him three land mines (yes, land mines), which he carefully pushed towards the 19-year old Berkeley student who had joined them for lunch.

Then Global X went to Berkeley where he ran into Mickipedia, the diva from Hollywood who lives the most interesting life. Highlight: while most people drive to Burning Man across the desert in the blistering heat, she flies there in a private plane.

And if that were enough, Global X ran into Theresa Williamson, the social entrepreneur from Brazil who was a finalist at the Tech Museum Awards. Global X wrote about her just a year ago as he knew she would do very well. He also met the Tech Museum's new director, Peter Friess.

Finally, Global X had dinner with Bill Gates, a fairly well known tech entrepreneur who has recently become philanthropist. Nothing to report on this dinner, except that the chocolate was not too spicy. And that no land mines were given away.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

An explosive lunch with a social entrepreneur’s daughter

2006-11-14T09:16:00.000-08:00

For a few minutes last week, Global X escaped the virtual world in which he is so comfortable and met a few human beings in the real world. As he was having a cup of hot cocoa in a trendy dot.com café in the San Francisco Bay Area, he noticed a woman eating chocolate with several would-be entrepreneurs: Esther Dyson.

Yes, Esther Dyson!

According to Wikipedia (Global X is SO jealous –he doesn’t have a Wikipedia entry yet), Esther Dyson is the daughter of a physicist and a mathematician, and the sister of a digital technology historian. After graduating from Harvard, she worked for Forbes and in investment banking, and is now the head of EDventure where she evaluates the impact of emerging technologies on societies.

Global X will forever cherish their conversation, which was almost as deep as the one he had with Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus:

You are Esther Dyson?
Yes.
I am Global X.
Oh! Global X. So that’s YOU?

Of course, one can’t convey with words the tone in which she whispered these last three words. Global X heard passion, but several witnesses mentioned boredom and lack of interest instead. Global X thought they might be jealous...

Encouraged by such a positive adventure in the real world, Global X had lunch with Heidi Kühn, the social entrepreneur who recently kept a fascinating blog when she was traveling to Afghanistan, where she met President Hamid Karzai.

After ordering lunch (vegetarian curry for Global X), Heidi Kühn mentioned that she had brought a few souvenirs from Afghanistan. Never one to turn down a bribe, Global X was expecting a bag of white powder straight from the poppy fields of Afghanistan.

Instead, Heidi Kühn reached deep into her purse and proudly extracted three mines. Yes, land mines –explosive devices that are usually buried into the ground and will explode when triggered by a vehicle, a person or an animal. Not the kind of souvenirs to be shared with friends over lunch, thought Global X.

As Heidi Kühn mentioned that one of these mines could go off with only 4 kg of pressure (“That’s the weight of a baby”) and that there were currently 70 million such mines buried in 70 countries around the world, Global X carefully pushed the three mines towards Heidi’s daughter, Kyleigh, a 19-year old Berkeley student who had joined them for lunch, and took a picture. Then he retreated back to the virtual world.

The Mystery of the Cross-Eyed ShoZu Chihuahua

2006-11-07T09:31:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, Global X was attending Mobile 2.0, a conference that brought together experts and thought leaders from all aspects of mobile application development and web technologies.

He had a chance to reflect on the Next Phase of the Internet, one where computers (as we know them) are not the main link to the Web but mobile devices that one carries into one’s pocket, purse or backpack. Two billion mobile phones are currently in use, most of them in industrialized countries and in the most developed areas of China. However, the next billion will be sold in developing countries, where the infrastructure doesn’t allow for reliable Internet connection. This is how the next billion human beings will discover the Internet –on a mobile device.

Global X is already convinced of that, he who already spends most of his non-sleeping hours attached to his Tréo (luckily, his wife has not yet discovered that he hides his electronic device under his pillow).

At Mobile 2.0, Global X met with Tony Fish, author of Mobile Web 2.0. His 21st century mantra: “Attention is Queen, and Metadata is King.” Which tells you the level of the conversation at the Mobile 2.0 conference –hermetic and far-reaching.

He also heard about the Mystery of the Cross-Eyed ShoZu Chihuahua. A poor fellow, a self-professed design geek from Berkeley, lost his fancy Nokia 6682 mobile phone on a train between San Francisco and San Jose. The person who found it (and who didn’t return it despite the owner’s frequent vocal and SMS pleas) started taking pictures, not realizing that this phone was equipped with ShoZu, a cool application that automatically uploads all pictures to a Flickr account. That’s how the whole world discovered “pictures of the family of the person” who stole a cell phone, including a picture of a cross-eyed Chihuahua.

A similar adventure happened to a fellow who stole a Sidekick, another model of smartphone. His friends and relatives can be seen by the whole world.

Is there a lesson for social entrepreneurs (besides being careful with their mobile phones)? Yes. They should give away these devices so that all citizens can report on the world's misdeeds.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Anti-corporate commercials on the Internet

2006-10-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

Global X was recently at the Online Community Summit, where he was bribed to speak about social networking and where he had a chance to contemplate the ultimate personalized laptop computer. While he was there, he was also introduced to two corporate campaigns that badly backfired when online users got into the picture.

General Motors (GM) recently invited Website visitors to create their very own commercial for the new Chevy Tahoe, a huge car built on a truck chassis and commonly referred to as a sports utility vehicle. GM pre-selected the visuals and the music, and Internet users had the opportunity to add their own words. Big mistake!

One Netizen came up with these words:

Hey, 2,325 U.S. kids have died, 16,653 have been injured, and up to $2 trillion will be spent to keep our oil supply safe. If you support the troops you'll get out there and use some of it! Chevy Tahoe: Don't let all that blood go to waste.™

Another ad showed engine pistons pumping with the following slogan: Yesterday's technology today. Yet another video, which showed the Chevy Tahoe zooming through sand dunes and reaching the top of snow-caped mountains, said: Global warming isn't a pretty SUV ad. It's a frightening reality.

Of course, GM removed all controversial ads from its Web site, but some of them can be found on YouTube, as Global X found out after entering 'Chevy Tahoe ad' in the search box.

There is a lesson here for social entrepreneurs: don’t assume that all online visitors will agree with your mission. Be careful if you open your online community to all Netizens, as you may be surprised by the result...

A better way to get feedback is to ask your existing constituents (not the whole online population) to tell their stories. Jackie Huba, author of Creating Customer Evangelists writes: “It certainly eliminates the drive-by digital graffiti vigilantes. A few hundred submissions of authentic, homemade videos would be pretty remarkable and some nice word of mouth. The ethnographic research alone from a free-form program like that would be invaluable.”

Global X discovered another interesting campaign, also tied to a SUV –this time a Hummer, which, like the Chevy Tahoe, is made by GM. Fast-food global company McDonald’s has been giving away millions of toy Hummers in children’s Happy Meals. If you don’t think it’s such a good idea, you can use the Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic™ to say what you think of this marketing partnership.

Global X particularly loved these:

Ronald McHummer Sign-O-Matic™

2006-10-31T08:57:00.000-08:00

Lunch with Christiane Amanpour

2006-10-24T14:21:00.000-07:00

Barely recovering after his 15 seconds of glory (Global X knows Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus!), Global X went on with his glamorous life and had lunch with CNN Chief International Correspondent Christiane Amanpour.

She shared with him her passion for solid, facts-based reporting. Journalists are very much like social entrepreneurs, as they share the same mandate –to change the world. However, journalists should do so without an agenda: “The truth by itself can change the world.”

Passionate about her mission, she is convinced that “journalism has a unique role in education. It should help us maintain a community, build a consensus, and above all, help us understand global news.”

But like most reporters coming from traditional media, Christiane Amanpour doesn’t fully understand the passion the younger generation brings to digital media, especially their unlimited taste for those small video clips they find on You Tube or on her own network.

She complains that an Internet video player’s small size cannot bring the emotions, the sounds or the visual cues that a large screen can bring. “But didn’t we complain about that when we started watching movies on TV sets with VCRs and DVDs rather than on large screens in movie theaters?” thought Global X as he was taking notes on his minuscule Tréo.

Size doesn’t always matter –the art of story telling is what counts. One just needs to observe teenagers as they watch videos on their iPods the size of a business card to realize that the message goes through. Whether it’s in Time magazine or on time.com, whether it’s on CNN or on cnn.com, new technology can bridge the gap between generations and help us understand the world (should we try in the first place).

Global X and Christiane Amanpour talked about other very important topics. For example, they compared notes on their favorite cafés in Paris. Global X claims to be an expert in that field. He noticed that Christiane Amanpour was very knowledgeable as well.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

I know Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus!

2006-10-17T09:49:00.000-07:00

Not so long ago, Global X was bragging that he personally knew two MacArthur “Genius” Fellows –Jim Fruchterman and Victoria Hale. Looking for another opportunity to drop famous names on his blog, he was carefully watching the news to see what his next topic of conversation would be.

The big news came on Friday morning. As he was conducting his usual board-related business over breakfast (yes, Global X is on the board of a few social benefit organizations), he was interrupted by two txts, also called SMS, received on his mobile phone.

The first one came from Untangled to announce that Apple was launching a (Product) Red iPod to help eradicate AIDS in Africa. Excellent, thought Global X, as it gave him an excuse to buy a new iPod and appear socially conscious at the same time.

The second message came from France and simply said MY a le Nobel. It was pretty clear to Global X that MY was Muhammad Yunus and that the Nobel Prize had to be about peace.

Global X knows Muhamamd Yunus very well. They met once for approximately two minutes. They exchanged 14 words. Here is the whole conversation, as well as Global X remembers it:

- May I take a picture of you?
- But of course.
- Thank you very much.

How did this meaningful, deep, conversation occur? Global X was at the Skoll World Forum at Oxford last spring when he noticed that Muhammad Yunus was having lunch by himself on a bench in the main lobby. Eager to strike a conversation about the positive impact of micro-lending ventures on poverty in Bangladesh (a country X knows quite well), Global X convinced Rachel, his google.org friend, to pose with the Master. She didn’t need to be asked twice, as she has always been a great fan of his.

Then Global X noticed a few other well-known social entrepreneurs who were too shy to ask but obviously were eager to have their picture taken with their idol. That’s how Global X took pictures of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus with Sakeena Yacoobi, Vera Cordeiro and Albina Ruiz.

Global X is now eagerly checking his Tréo to see what the next big news will be. He already knows that he didn’t get this year’s Nobel Prize for Literature, despite his grandiose and epic blog. Global X checked his Flickr: no, he doesn’t know Orhan Pamuk personally.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Costly mistake

2006-10-10T09:28:00.000-07:00

The other day, Global X received a pleasant e-mail form the other side of the Earth. The writer, a social entrepreneur based in Paris, was asking very nicely if she could meet him to discuss her social benefit venture next time he is in the City of All Lights.

Even though Global X receives many similar requests, he thinks of himself as a gentleman and immediately responded to let the social entrepreneur know that he would be delighted to listen to her story. He even provided a couple of dates when they could meet face-to-face.

The response, which was almost immediate (taking into account the time-zone difference), shocked him. It said:

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! That’s exactly what we wanted from this guy!!!! He understood that he MUST meet us!!!

Good for us!!!!!

We successfully passed the first hurdle!!! Yesss!!

Next: let’s ask him for a couple of dates where we could meet him (let’s make it clear that we shouldn’t wait too long to meet...!!!!) (In truth, let’s give him only one date, and he will manage, right?)

What do you think?

Hugs and kisses!!!

PS –Let’s not wait too long before writing him back!!! Let’s make sure he remains hot on us.

Global X had to read this message several times to understand what had happened. Obviously, this social entrepreneur was so excited to have caught his attention that she wrote an e-mail to her colleagues, not realizing that she was actually sending it straight to Global X’s e-mail box.

It is fair to say that Global X has gotten cold feet since receiving this message. This French social entrepreneur will have a difficult time warming him up to her venture.

The lesson is clear: beware the send button!

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Room to read

2006-10-03T09:32:00.000-07:00

Global X first met John Wood in United Airlines’ Red Carpet Club in Chicago. Actually, he only noticed a profile on him in the New York Times Magazine, but he knew that the opportunity to meet face-to-face would present itself very soon. That happened last week when Global X and John Wood had lunch together (with another 20 guests).

Before becoming a leading social entrepreneur, John Wood received his MBA at Kellogg and worked as a marketing manager at Microsoft in Australia. As he was trekking in Nepal, he discovered that school children had access to very few books (if at all). He left his cushy corporate job to become the “Andrew Carnegie of the Developing World.” Through Room to Read, his social benefit organization, he built 3,000 libraries, compared with 2,800 for Andrew Carnegie. He has also published 77 children’s books in seven languages that were of no interest to traditional publishers.

John Wood likes to describe his mission in six words: "World change starts with educated children." Such accurate branding didn’t come naturally to him. His social venture was initially called “Books for Nepal,” which didn’t leave much room to grow and scale. As he likes to put it, “branding is just like dating: all the good ones are taken!” The organization’s very low overhead (5%) didn’t help either.

Room to Read now has overhead close to 10% (still quite low), and its goal is “to help 10 million children gain the lifelong gift of education” and become the Oxfam of global education. Global X wishes he had watched those school children as they discovered giraffes, sharks and human beings on the moon in the books brought by Room to Read.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Newsweek's cover stories

2006-09-26T12:56:00.000-07:00

Global X was shocked (shocked!) when he noticed what Newsweek’s editors had selected for their cover stories this week.

[Disclaimer: In the past century, Global X went on several assignments for Newsweek’s international editions, including a voyage to Cameroon where he made a fool of himself as he insisted on interviewing the Prime Minister in French when the politician was eager to speak English instead. Global X learned that day that even in bilingual countries like Cameroon, one prefers to speak one’s maternal language. Next time he goes to Quebec, Global X will remember to speak French.]

Newsweek’s cover story in Europe, Asia and Latin America (that covers a large part of the world) is “Losing Afghanistan.” The feature, actually titled The Rise of Jihadistan, starts with:

Five years after the Afghan invasion, the Taliban are fighting back hard, carving out a sanctuary where they—and Al Qaeda's leaders—can operate freely.

Newsweek reporters Ron Moreau, Sami Yousafzai and Michael Hirsh write that as they were getting closer

to a mud-brick village within sight of the highway, [...] a young Taliban fighter carrying a walkie-talkie and an AK-47 rifle pops out from behind a tree. He is manning an improvised explosive device, he explains, in case Afghan or U.S. troops try to enter the village.

They conclude:

It is an all too familiar story. Ridge by ridge and valley by valley, the religious zealots who harbored Osama bin Laden before 9/11—and who suffered devastating losses in the U.S. invasion that began five years ago next week—are surging back into the country's center.

In the meantime, the US edition (also dated Oct. 2, 2006) has a cover story on Annie Leibovitz, the contemporary photographer who has produced “many indelible images of American pop culture.” Pop culture indeed.

Annie Leibovitz is tired and nursing a cold, and she' s just flown back to New York on the red-eye from Los Angeles, where she spent two days shooting Angelina Jolie for Vogue. [...] Jolie, a pilot, suggested shooting on an old airfield near the desert, with motorcycles and small planes among the props. (She flew herself to the location and the next day, Brad Pitt buzzed up in his plane.)

Can you do more glamorous than that? Probably not.

Newsweek’s editors may assume that Americans do not care about global news, but that the rest of the world does. They think that a light story is perfectly adequate for the US market, while a story critical of US foreign policy will do very well abroad.

They may be right. Global X likes to tell the story of this European newsmagazine that tested two potential covers –one about the local political scene, one about sex. The test results were very clear: when asked which magazine they would buy, most respondents (70%) chose the one with the political story on its cover. To double check, the publisher decided to run a split issue –half the copies were printed with the political story on their covers, the other half had the sex story. The results were the same –only reversed (30/70)! On the newsstands, sex won over politics. Plus ça change...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

MacArthur Genius

2006-09-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

Global X likes to drop names. He loves to point out to those who don’t mind listening to him (and even those who do) that he hangs out with elite social entrepreneurs, movie stars and artists. Now, he can also rightfully claim that he knows a MacArthur genius or two.

As he was falling asleep last night reading a fascinating article in The Economist, he noticed an e-mail on his Tréo announcing that the MacArthur Foundation had just selected its 2006 “genius” fellows. He was happy to see that he knew one of them quite well. Actually, two of them.

Global X and Jim Fruchterman have crossed paths several times recently, including at Berkeley for the Global Social Venture Competition, and at Oxford for the Skoll World Forum.

It is not so surprising that Jim Fruchterman is considered a genius. After all, he is a rocket scientist (literally, that’s what he did at CalTech). MacArthur describes him as a “technologist modifying cutting-edge technologies to create affordable devices that aid the visually impaired and others underserved by traditional commerce.” This is true. But there is more to Jim than his professional profile indicates.

Global X had a chance to hear him talk about his teenage son. They went together to the World Economic Forum at Davos, and Jim even asked him to blog for Social Edge. Global X also had a chance to appreciate Jim’s sense of humor, as is reflected on this picture, where he tells the world why he does what he does.

Global X also crossed paths with another 2006 MacArthur genius, Victoria Hale, a “pharmaceutical entrepreneur navigating regulatory processes to develop affordable drugs for neglected diseases and to deliver them around the world to those most in need.” What this means: Victoria launched a pharmaceutical company to develop affordable drugs to treat deadly diseases affecting the world’s poorest populations.

Confronted to such talent, Global X decided to be humble, at least for the day.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Tagging

2006-09-12T09:24:00.000-07:00

Global X is a big fan of Web 2.0 interactive tools, as they can help social entrepreneurs post online content to describe their mission and their passions. He is often invited to speak at conferences to explain why Flickr, Blogger, YouTube and MySpace are important to those who work for social benefit organizations.

However, he recently noticed that keeping a blog or a flickr was very much like winking to a lover in the dark –it may not have the impact that one would expect. Actually, it may not produce any impact.

While admiring his very own flickr, Global X discovered that his most popular picture (by number of comments and number of hits) was not one that he expected. He thought it would be the picture of his teenage daughter proudly exhibiting her first-ever credit card, or his wild son being interviewed by CBS after being the witness of a tragedy, or, why not, a beautiful shot of Global X in the nude.

No, his most popular picture is one of a computer. Mind you, a gorgeous laptop, a black MacBook with a flashy white Apple logo, introduced by Apple very recently.

What can explain such success? Why would so many people click on that very picture? Because it was properly tagged. As soon as Steve Jobs announced that a new laptop was introduced, Global X rushed to the local Apple store (where he is quite well known and called by his favorite nickname --Globe), took a quick shot of the new MacBook with his Tréo 650, uploaded the picture to his Flickr as he was walking back to his cubicle while wondering how he could convince his COO to get him one.

As he reached his desktop (a mighty cute Mac Mini), he realized that hundreds of visitors had already discovered the picture on his Flickr. Apparently, Global X was the first to post a picture of the new computer, and the picture was easily identified by search engines as it had the right tags attached to it ("apple" and "macbook").

The lesson learned here: yes, social entrepreneurs should tell their stories online, but they should also make sure that the rest of the world knows where to find them. As Global X has found out, there is no point in winking in the dark to one's beloved.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Burning Man

2006-09-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, Global X was not able to go to Burning Man this year. Again.

Many things seem to be getting in the way around the first week of September, like back to school day or This Thing Called Work. Apparently, launching a billion dollar company gives you more free time, as it was reported that Larry Page and Sergey Brin, co-founders of search-engine-company-turned-advertising-conglomerate Google, were again making their pilgrimage to the Black Rock Desert, along with another 38,987 people.

Rather than drive all the way to Nevada, Global X just sat in front of his Apple computer and visited the scene remotely. He first went to Mickipedia’s Flickr, where he was shocked (and envious) to discover that his friend didn’t drive to Burning Man --she flew there in a private jet. Seeing this picture, another friend said: “Not very ‘burning man’ like. But very Micki.”

Then Global X looked at some of the 56,000 pictures on Flick tagged “burningman.” He had to go through hundreds of pictures of men wrestling in the nude to find what he was looking for: a series of pictures taken by Fabrice Florin, a digital media entrepreneur currently leading NewsTrust. Fabrice Florin asked fellow “burners” (as they are called at Burning Man) this burning (!) question: "What's your wish for the future?”

The 75 pictures he posted on his Flickr tell us more about the world as it is now than the way it should be. Burners want an end to hate, a regime change, more love and clean air, more regime change, joy, free ice cream, more money and fewer things, more scalable toolkits for sustainable communities, perpetual hapiness, red skys (sic), true love, more love, to be loved, AIDS eradication, world peace, freedom from fear, felicidad, a new religion, happy dogs.

Simply put, burners want to be happy, to have a future and more future and even more future. Some even want to be blinded with beauty. Global X couldn't have said it better.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Jackson Pollock, c'est moi!

2006-08-29T09:20:00.000-07:00

Quite recently, Global X received an e-mail from an admirer who wrote: “X, you may want to visit this Web site. It will be an opportunity for you to display your unlimited creative talent.”

Used to receiving many unwanted messages about miracle growth lotions, youth pills and ways to find wealth quickly, Global X at first dismissed the e-mail.

Eager to uncover his creative talent, Global X nevertheless couldn’t resist very long and finally clicked on the link. The result is here. “Better than Jackson Pollock himself,” said his wife, a very intelligent woman who knows when to avoid a controversy. Global X agreed and thought there was nothing else to say.

However, Global X discovered that there was more to the story. The original program was actually written by Michal Migursk, a Web designer with Stamen Design in San Francisco. Miltos Manettas, who belongs to the Neen Manifesto, later “borrowed” the code to write the Jackson Pollock application, and “forgot” to give proper credit.

The folks at Neen have an interesting philosophy on ownership: “Please, try to understand the way we work at Neen: we consider all visual/audio material as everybody's property. It's more cool like that.” More cool [sic.] or not, Global X thought that this was an interesting way to think about art, technology and creative rights...

As for Eric Stamen, here is what he has to say these days: “I'm no longer interested in receiving any politically-oriented email, or being solicited by any politically-oriented group via snailmail, or having any politically-oriented conversations, that don't have as their explicit and stated aim the impeachment and subsequent arrest of President George Bush and Dick Cheney. It's time. Just so you know.”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Geekcorps and TSF

2006-08-22T09:39:00.000-07:00

As he was vacationing in the south of France, Global X discovered an interesting social benefit organization (after spending much time on ThinkFast!, Global X doesn’t use “nonprofit” any more, but "social benefit," “social impact” or “public benefit”).

TSF, which stands for Télécoms Sans Frontières (Telcos without Borders), is just like Médecins sans Frontières / Doctors without Borders / The French Doctors. But instead of sending doctors to remote places facing major disruptions, TSF sends telecommunications experts to quickly build a basic wireless infrastructure and help displaced individuals communicate with their relatives. The message most often said is simply: “I am alive!”

Launched in 1998 by a France Telecom engineer, TSF covers Europe and Africa from their headquarters in France, South America and the Caribbean from their Nicaragua office, and Asia from Bangkok. Within 24 hours of a disaster (whether it’s a natural catastrophe or a social emergency), TSF can set up live Internet connections and temporary mobile networks to help NGOs (such as Oxfam and World Vision) better coordinate their efforts, or to help displaced individuals communicate with the rest of the world. Their partners include FranceTelecom, Vodafone, Cable & Wireless, AT&T, Alcatel, and Inmarsat for satellite communications.

Always eager to improve French-American relationships, Global X did some research and found out that a US-based social enterprise did similar work. Started by Ethan Zuckerman a year after TSF, Geekcorps sends information and communication technology (ICT) experts to the developing world to teach communities “how to be digitally independent.” The main difference is that Geekcorps usually works on long-term efforts while TSF often concentrates on emergency relief.

Geekcorps is currently looking for a French-speaking Linux expert for a four-month assignment in Bamako, Mali: “In addition to that warm and fuzzy feeling that comes from doing good, daily challenges and rewards are guaranteed.” Global X wishes he knew how to configure multi-head/user Linux boxes, work with LTSP server/thin client setups and UUCP messaging. He also wishes he knew who Ruby was...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Bad week for Global X

2006-08-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

Global X had a very bad week.

He was supposed to climb Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe (4,810 meters, almost 16,000 feet). He had been training for a year with his teenage son. They spent several days in Chamonix, in the French Alps, going through painful tests with a professional guide. Global X passed them all, including motivation, physical strength and resistance to high altitude sickness (his 13-year old did somewhat better, but Global X prefers not not write about this).

The bad news came the night before leaving, as Global X was packing his bag and his son's for the two-day and one-night expedition: a snow storm was approaching very quickly and all the guides were cancelling climbing expeditions above 8,000 feet. Mont Blanc 2006 had become Mont Blanc 2007. Rather than stay in rainy Chamonix, Global X drove back to rainy Paris.

Once in Paris, Global X found out that Capital, the leading business show on French television, was going to air the interview he gave a few weeks ago. Global X called his friends and relatives, watched the show with his family, only to realize that his interview didn't make the final cut.

To bury his sorrow, Global X went to the new Musée du Quai Branly, where artifacts from Africa, Oceania and the Americas are now displayed in a new building next to the Tour Eiffel. There he noticed a caption describing man: "Un pénis pourvu d'une bouche" ("just a penis with a mouth"). Global X told his wife that he hoped he was much more than that. Her silence was eloquent.

A very bad week indeed...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

An animated dinner in France

2006-08-08T09:16:00.000-07:00

Global X, who is vacationing in the south of France, was very proud to be driving even further South the other day to discover several interesting cities in Spain, including Barcelona (where he enjoyed Gaudi's architecture) and Gerona (where he visited the recently-rediscovered Jewish ghetto).

He was also looking forward to having the opportunity to use his basic knowledge of Spanish, until he found out that the actual language spoken in that area was not the Spanish he learned in high school (Castelano), but Catalonian, a language significantly different.

Global X did a little research and found out that Europe was actually struggling with the issues of cultural identity and regional languages. For example, the French who live in Brittany are now requesting to learn the language of their ancestors, while those who live in the Basque country want to be independent from the rest of Spain, and those who live in Corsica are eager to break up with France...

At the end of the day, Global X realized that it was easy for a "white goods" manufacturer to build a refrigerator in Belgium and sell it all over the European Union, a unified market of 350 million wealthy, well educated citizens. But those same citizens actually have significantly less flexibility than that same refrigerator: they can't actually relocate to another country because, quite likely, they won't be able to communicate with their new fellow citizens.

For example, a Danish doctor may not be able to practice in Portugal, even if her diploma is recognized by the local authorities, unless she speaks Portuguese or her patients speak Danish. And a French lawyer from Brittany, who learned French and "Breton," will have a difficult time practicing anywhere outside his home country for the same linguistic reasons.

Always eager to solve the world's most critical problems, Global X came up with the ideal solution over dinner with a few French friends: he proposed that English become the official language of the European Union and that all EU citizens learn English besides their native language. Global X is convinced that within a generation or two, all Europeans will be able to communicate with their fellow citizens (not to mention most of the rest of the world) and live wherever they please within the Union. They may ultimately decide that learning one language is actually enough...

To make his point quite clear, Global X concluded his passionate speach with: "If that sounds like the US model, so be it." Needless to say, the dinner didn't end very well...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog, although he has not posted a lot in the past two weeks as his Tréo doesn't work outside the US.

Swapping

2006-08-01T09:25:00.000-07:00

Just this morning, Global X was interviewed by Radio France. A reporter tracked him down in the South of France, where he is vacationing with his family, to talk about swapping --house swapping, that is.

Global X told the reporter (Paul Biondi) that he believes in humankind. And in the Internet. This is why for the past three years, he has registered on HomeExchange, one of the leading Web sites where vacationers, eager to discover exotic destinations without camping out with friends or relatives, post glamorous pictures of their homes in the hope to connect with other travelers ready to exchange houses.

As he described it, Global X is now the proud temporary "owner" of a beautiful mansion in the South of France, while the real French owners sleep in his very own bed and drive his very own car back in the US. "Is this scary?" asked the journalist. Not really, for someone who believes that overall, mankind is fairly decent about day-to-day decisions (Global X is a bit more skeptical when it comes to large scale events, like the current situation in the Middle East).

But Global X also mentioned that hype was a crucial part of mankind's way to communicate. For example, it was clear that the house in France came with a cat "who likes to spend his days outside." True enough. Unfortunately, it appears that the cat in question likes to spend his nights in the master bedroom... (Ha-choo!)

Global X couldn't help but notice that the airplanes landing at the local airport fly right over the house. "This isn't really a problem," explained the owner when they met to exchange keys, "as there are only three scheduled flights a day landing here." Global X will remember that the operative word here is "scheduled." How about all the "unscheduled" flights bringing thousands of tourists from all over Europe, or the many flights that help student pilots learn to land in extremely hot weather? Global X is having ample opportunity to discover the "unscheduled" noise, as the reporter noticed when a British Airways flight was making its final approach.

That said, Global X enjoys living life like a native, and hopes that his counterpart doesn't mind his "musical" neighbors and the "friendly" neighborhood bar at the corner. The Radio France journalist promised to investigate.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Emily and Steven are breaking up

2006-07-25T09:28:00.000-07:00

Global X just noticed a fascinating picture on his friend’s Flickr. Mickipedia (yes, Global X has friends with cool names) took a picture of a billboard in Los Angeles, one that has raised quite a few eyebrows in the recent past.

The billboard shows an open letter from Emily to her (soon-to-be-ex) husband Steven. We don’t know who Emily is, but we certainly know what she thinks of the man she married: he is “a dirty, sneaky, immoral, unfaithful, poorly-endowed slimeball.”

First, Global X wondered what part of that sentence bothered Steven most when he first read it...

Then, Global X did some research and found out that Emily kept a blog on the Internet, in which she describes how she discovered that her husband was copulating with her best friend, and the revenge she was planning.

If the Kiva Chronicles are “the real-life story of a couple who decided to change the world, one loan at a time,” the Emily Chronicles can be best described as “the real-life story of a couple who decided to air their dirty underwear, one below-the-belt blow at a time.” It is the kind of “literature” one enjoys reading on the office computer while pretending to work during the summer heat.

But then Global X noticed that the blog was a bit odd. First, the grammar and punctuation were perfect, quite unusual on most amateurs’ blogs, especially if they are written by women who just found out they have been betrayed. Global X also noticed that Emily was posting every single day, a rare achievement for someone who has two full-time jobs –a career in real estate and one in marital revenge. Then Global X noticed that the billboard she refers to, located next to Steven’s office, was in New York. Mikipedia’s picture was shot in Los Angeles. New York, Los Angeles: two cities in the US where media and entertainment are a strong part of the local economy...

After doing a little more research, Global X found out that neither Emily nor Steven exists (although one could argue that every man is potentially a Steven), and that the billboard was just a very clever way to promote a new TV series that will start airing in the US mid-August.

Global X is now eager to watch how social entrepreneurs will use this viral marketing model to promote their work. A few ideas: "I was Bill Drayton's Fellow,” “Is Muhammad Yunus lending money to someone else?,” “Secret cameras at Davos,” “I was not invited to the Skoll World Forum.”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Lunch at Google

2006-07-18T09:04:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Global X was invited to have lunch at Google, the Internet-based company organizing all the information available to mankind while doing its best not to be evil.

Global X was not surprised when he entered the lobby to find out that he had to register on a computer to receive his security badge. What bothered him, though, was that he had to sign an electronic NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) even before knowing what he would eat. They don’t even dare do that in the most expensive French restaurants...

The next step was even more troublesome. The computer (no evil machine, mind you) asked Global X for his citizenship, a question that he had not been asked for a very long time, certainly not to have lunch. A true global citizen, Global X entered “none,” which seemed to satisfy the machine. The label was printed, but Global X could feel a sour taste in his mouth.

While waiting in the lobby, Global X had a chance to watch a monitor where live searches were displayed. Every second, a new topic would appear, and it was tempting to imagine the human beings typing these key words somewhere on the planet.

Global X took notes of the most interesting queries: “child foreskin removal photographs,” “amour femme,” “mating black panthers,” “flake duty lyrics,” “banana docks café mobile,” “hand geometry,” “café de paris, london...”

Before he could watch more of these lifestyle vignettes, Global X was invited to enter the main building. As to what was served and what was discussed during lunch, Global X can’t tell. He signed the NDA.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Watching football

2006-07-11T09:41:00.000-07:00

Along with another one (or is it two?) billion human beings, Global X watched the final of the World Cup, in which Adidas (France) and Puma (Italy) fought to be consecrated World Champions.

He watched the first half of the game in a public park, where French and Italian flags were flying high. The crowd roared when Zidane marked the first point after only seven minutes, and roared again when the Italian team got even.

Global X watched the second half in a Senegalese restaurant in a Hispanic neighborhood, which explains why the TV was set on Univision and all commentaries were in Spanish. There, spectators were anxious and nervous, then terribly sad when Zidane was ousted after hitting another player.

At the end of the day, Global X realized that Swiss bank UBS was right (see previous post below). Italy did win, which may imply that economists are better at forecasting popular games than at dealing with mankind’s financial future.

Global X also went back to Tony Karon’s June column, in which he addressed the cultural and political aspects of the game (again, see previous post below): “France fields a team in which all but one, sometimes two, players are of African or Arab origin.” Could this explain Zidane’s brutal reaction to Marco Materazzi’s insults? Some Italians boast that their team is “purely Italian,” especially compared with the French team, with players whose parents were born in West Africa, the Maghreb and the West Indies.

This may be another case where popular games and political reality brutally intersect...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Watching soccer

2006-07-05T10:08:00.000-07:00

Global X thinks of himself as a true citizen of the world –living in a country thousands of kilometers away from where he was born, carrying multiple passports when he crosses borders, multilingual at the office and at home, multicultural in his outlook...

But in many aspects, he is just like any other human being who, along with another billion or two, has been glued to a television set in the past few weeks to watch the World Cup.

That forced him to do a little research on the topic.

First, Global X noticed that many people are watching the game. According to the Indian media, up to 32 billion people will watch this year’s World Cup, which is truly outstanding considering that at the latest count, only six billion people live on our planet. This must be an extreme case of marketing spin. Or dead soccer fans reaching out from their graves.

Then, Global X looked into the art of fortune telling, also called economics in some circles. In a fascinating document, ABN AMRO (pdf file) wrote in March that, looking at the betting markets, “the absolute favorite to lift the World Cup is – not surprisingly – Brazil (23%), followed at a respectable distance by England (12%). Germany is given a 10% chance of winning.”

But the bank’s economists did not agree with the betting markets: they preferred an Italian victory in the World Cup final, “as it would make consumers and producers more confident, which would translate into higher consumption and investment. It would also help Italy to improve its image, which is good for exports.”

But wait –ABN AMRO also thinks that the projected outcome of their model may, in fact, be a final between Brazil and France, where Brazil would win. (Actually, France defeated Brazil in quarterfinal.) In April, UBS (pdf here) predicted that Italy would be the world champions, after winning against Brazil.

Altogether, Global X was impressed by their models (especially compared with the popular vote), as the two actual finalists (Italy and France) are among the top three countries mentioned in these reports.

Global X also read “Legal Determinants of World Cup Success,” (pdf here) an interesting paper by Mark West, a law professor at the University of Michigan. He loved his conclusion: “In the 21-country specification (with a whopping .409 adjusted r-squared) as in the 49-country specification, French origin was significant. Perhaps teams from countries with systems based on the French model (such as 1998 champion France and 2002 champion Brazil) perform well due to the remaining vestiges of the Napoleonic Code that somehow remove discretion from coaches and managers in the same manner that that civil law system curtails judicial activism.”

Global X also looked at Tony Karon’s June column on the cultural and political aspects of the game. About globalization: “Last season, the coaches of the top five clubs in England's Premier League were Portuguese, Scottish, Spanish, French, and Dutch. Three Dutch coaches are bringing non-Dutch teams to the World Cup; most African teams are coached by Frenchmen and Germans, the English team by a Swede, and Portugal by a Brazilian.”

About racism: “France fields a team in which all but one, sometimes two, players are of African or Arab origin. The racist politician Jean-Marie Le Pen actually complained in 1998 that the World Cup winners were "not a real French team."”

About citizenship: “Dakar-born Patrick Vieira marshals France's midfield, while Paris-born Khalilou Fadiga stars for Senegal. [...] In recent weeks, a Dutch effort to expedite the citizenship process for Ivoirian striker Salomon Kalou fell afoul of that country's new chill on immigration. If it had succeeded, Kalou would have been in the bizarre position of playing against an Ivory Coast team that happens to include his brother, Bonaventure.”

At last, Global X looked at the business side of the game. And he found out that the actual winners of this World Cup were Nike (which sponsors Brazil), Adidas (France), and Puma (Italy).

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

The Brilliant Team

2006-06-27T09:46:00.000-07:00

The other night, Global X met with Larry Brilliant and his team. Larry was recently hired to run google.org, Google’s corporate foundation.

Larry has a fascinating background. A doctor and epidemiologist, he was part of the WHO team that eradicated smallpox from the face of the earth. He also founded The Well, possibly the first online community, which got him significant visibility in the world of technology and in Wired and Time magazines.

In case that wouldn’t be enough, he also launched the Seva Foundation, a social benefit organization that helped two million blind people get their sight back. And he helped the WHO again recently, this time to eradicate polio.

When he was awarded the TED Prize last year, he had a chance to present his “one wish to change the world:” a global early-detection and early-response system for infectious diseases.

It will be interesting to monitor Larry Brilliant’s work at google.org. One thing is clear: he is already building a very talented team, as Global X witnessed the other night. It is an exciting time in philanthropy: just when billionaire Warren Buffet helps fellow-billionaire Bill Gates save the world, Larry and Sergey hire Larry to contribute to this effort. There is hope!

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Howard Rheingold & Paul Saffo

2006-06-20T13:22:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, Global X attended the NetSquared conference, where he ran into Howard Rheingold.

The social networking guru reminded us that technology was neutral: “It's only a tool to disseminate the message.” As a result, Global X has been using one of his quotes in his recent presentations: “What we know and what we tell people about what we know is more important than the tools we use."

This is something that social entrepreneurs should keep in mind. Whether they want to start a blog, speak in a podcast or launch a wiki, they should first decide what they want to communicate and to whom. The tool is not as important as the message.

Speaking of tools: Howard Rheingold also mentioned that mobile phones & SMS were already having a huge impact in the developing world. Three billion mobile phones have been sold already, most of them in the first world and China. “The next three billion will be even more important to mankind,” predicted Howard Rheingold.

Paul Saffo noticed that we were currently going through a huge shift in the way we use media. For the first time in modern history, we can get back to the press. In the recent past, all we could do was read newspapers, listen to the radio or watch television. They were passive media. “With Web 2.0, you can fight back and you can even produce content.”

But at the same time, one shouldn’t put too much hope into this new technology. Many books, published in the 50’s and 60’s, showed that television would bring world peace and education for the masses. It has in fact become just a terrible wasteland.

Paul Saffo also mentioned that in the 30’s, airplanes were thought to bring peace to mankind. People would become "airminded:" from an airplane, they would be able to realize that borders were just abstract lines on a map, not geographical realities, and that we are all inhabitants of the same planet. Then World War II started...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

The new Web

2006-06-13T09:11:00.000-07:00

Global X was recently at the NetSquared conference, where he learned about the new Web (also known as Web 2.0) and the impact it is having on traditional media.

Dan Gillmor, the founder of the Center for Citizen Media, a Berkeley/Harvard joint venture, introduced himself as "a recovering journalist." He noticed that the best reporters on the Guantanamo Bay prison scandal were not professional journalists, but an independent civil rights association, the ACLU (of which Global X is an active card-carrying member).

Dan Gillmor pointed that such success was due to the fact that the new Web was not Read Only (as it was initially), but Read & Write. “Anybody can now be a producer.”

This crucial difference was echoed by Ethan Zuckerman (activist, blogger, geek). He noticed that in 1995, new Internet users would use the Web primarily for e-mail. Then in 2000, they would use it to read content. In 2005, new Web users create content and upload it, whether on MySpace, YouTube... or Social Edge. The Internet is not Read Only anymore, but Read and Write.

Hong Eun-taek knows that. He is the International Editor for OhMyNews, the Korean online citizen journal. He is now convinced that Korea is a nation of citizen reporters...

The only rule that we should keep in mind is that accuracy, fairness and transparency are still valid for bloggers and journalists. Be warned, though: objectivity is not required!

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

One laptop per child. Or a mobile phone?

2006-06-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

At the NetSquared conference, Global X had a chance to hear Michail Bletsas talk about the One Laptop Per Child project, a spin-off from the MIT Media Lab “$100 laptop” initiative. It was initially launched by Nicholas Negroponte after he returned from Cambodia, where he had seen the sad state of primary education. Apparently, the Khmer Rouges’ first victims were teachers...

Michail Bletsas emphasized the fact that the laptop they are producing is “not a personal computer, but a connected computer.” Indeed, “child-to-child communication is almost as important as child-to-Internet communication.”

That’s why these laptops will have a feature comparable to Bonjour on Apple computers currently running OS X –the possibility to exchange data (such as instant messaging) even where no Internet connection is available.

Michail Bletsas also thanked Steve Jobs for lowering the price of flash memory while producing millions of iPods. Rather than use hard drives (the most fragile piece on a computer), the laptop will have a 512 MB flash memory chip to store data.

How realistic is it to produce a $100 computer? Michail Bletsas is optimistic. “Half the price of a computer is for sales, marketing, and distribution, and a quarter is to support obese software.” The challenge is now to pre-sell enough laptops to governments in developing countries to start manufacturing the $100 laptop. Quite a challenge, as it turns out...

Global X wonders whether mobile phones are not the answer. HP, Intel and Microsoft have all reached the same conclusion: the killer app for the developing world is not the PC, but the mobile phone. It is indeed the ideal business tool to connect the unconnected.

This year, 800 million phones will be sold worldwide, compared to 200 million personal computers. With 90 million mobile users, India has a 9% penetration rate, compared with 2% of the Indian population that has Internet access. SMS may not be the perfect tool for illiterates at first sight, but actually a Reuters-founded initiative is launching a service using icons to help farmers in developing countries have access to local commodities prices.

The $100 laptop or the $10 mobile phone? Stay tuned...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

It’s Time for KickStart

2006-05-30T09:02:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, Global X wrote about Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, the two social entrepreneurs who founded KickStart, the organization formerly known as ApproTEC. Their main product: a foot-activated pump that can irrigate several acres of land, which they sell in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali.

Global X recently noticed that Time Magazine had realized how important these two social entrepreneurs were.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

A social entrepreneur on media advocacy and social justice

2006-05-23T09:57:00.000-07:00

Last week, Global X had lunch with Gillian Caldwell, the Executive Director of Witness, the international human rights organization launched by Peter Gabriel to help small organizations use video in their human rights advocacy campaigns.

“Teaching how to use video equipment is the easy part,” she said. “The difficult part is to teach the strategic use of video for social change –how to use video as an advocacy solution.”

Gillian Caldwell mentioned the case of feminicide (yes, that’s a word) and torture in Ciudad Juarez and Chihuahua, the areas in Mexico where over 400 women have been killed since 1993 and where the authorities rely on torture to force suspects to confess. She also mentioned the recruitment of children soldiers in Congo, where children sometimes only seven-years old are recruited into the army to fight the civil war raging there.

Witness was able to help. “A video can have a catalytic influence if it is aired at the right time and at the right place.” But it is important to make the distinction between human rights activists (who have a clear agenda) and journalists (who should remain neutral).

Gillian Caldwell is a risk taker. Before leaving for Russia to investigate women trafficking, she felt the need to update her will before leaving.

NYU Professor Paul Light wonders whether social entrepreneurship comes from early life experiences. In Gillian Caldwell’s case, there is no doubt that social justice was important to her from the beginning. She vividly remembers the paintings by Leon Golub that were hanging in her parents’ living room, paintings about torture, the CIA and the Vietnam War.

Interestingly enough, Leon Golub echoes this social entrepreneur’s preoccupations: “We traverse the mine-fields of modern consciousness and modern technology and it is dangerous terrain.”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Everyone is a change maker

2006-05-16T09:50:00.000-07:00

Not too long ago, Global X had lunch with Bill Drayton (in California) and with David Bornstein (in New York). Interestingly enough, both men addressed the same topic: “Everyone is a change maker.”

Bill Drayton, the well-known founder of Ashoka, told Global X that he liked talking about social entrepreneurship to college students: “They understand what is at stake. They also realize how important social entrepreneurship is to their lives, and how relevant it is to them personally, and to their friends and relatives.”

His point: “Social entrepreneurs should work with all these change makers who are so eager to help and so talented.” This is echoed in this week’s online discussion on the Edge – Engaging youth to be social entrepreneurs.

David Bornstein gave a crowd of aspiring social entrepreneurs, including this one and this one, some valuable advice: “You should start building relationships now with the kind of people you want to work with five years from now. This is true whether you are in college or later.”

He also told StartingBloc Fellows that after going to McGill, he became a computer programmer and dreamed of owning a Jaguar. Then he decided to write. He found out about the Grameen Bank (Village Bank) and spent five months in Bangladesh, where he met Muhammad Yunnus. The rest is history –or at least a very important book.

His point: “You may not have noticed it if you read the newspaper lately, but there are actually more social entrepreneurs than terrorists.” Everyone is a change maker indeed.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

A moral obligation

2006-05-09T10:44:00.000-07:00

Last night, Global X was invited to the premiere of An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore’s movie about global warming.

This was not the first time that Gore and X met. They had lunch last fall to talk about Generation Investment Management, which prompted Global X to post the question: Is Al Gore a Social Entrepreneur?

They also had dinner last winter at Stanford after the former Veep gave his “global warming” presentation to Silicon Valley personalities, such as Jerry “I founded Yahoo in my dorm room” Yang and Vince “I invented the Internet Protocol” Cerf.

Global X remembers that the centerpiece on each table represented the Earth, but was made of ice and melted as the dinner proceeded. The remaining water was used to water the pear trees just outside the building...

There are two things to remember about the chat Al Gore and Global X had last night: Saving the planet is not about politics. It’s a moral obligation. And every social entrepreneur should see the movie to be prepared in case we need to evacuate 50 or 60 million people who currently live around Calcutta and Bangladesh if and when the sea level rises abruptly.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Death, technology and new media

2006-05-02T10:57:00.000-07:00

As he was having a leisurely drink after work with his teenage son on Thursday night (hot chocolate and lemonade), Global X was the witness of a tragedy.

They were about to start their favorite conversation (about electronic gadgets), when Global X realized that his son was not paying much attention, but was concentrating instead on what was happening in the street. This is not untypical behavior coming from a teenager with an exotic hair cut, but the look on his face clearly indicated that he was beyond boredom –it was fear.

Global X quickly realized that what was happening outside the café was more interesting than discussing the new features of the laptop that Apple Computer was about to launch.

To summarize: a man had collapsed at the wheel of his car, gone through a red light, switched lanes, hit another car, killed the driver on the spot, hit a few other cars and started a huge fire. Without thinking, Global X grabbed his Tréo, rushed to the scene, and started taking pictures (he did make sure that his son was safe and onlookers were helping the injured).

He then uploaded his pictures to his Flickr, straight from the scene, using the cellular network. Some of his pictures were on the Internet before the firefighters reached the scene of the accident.

How is this relevant to social entrepreneurs? Because the digital tools that we now carry in our pockets give us the power to reflect on the world and report on most rulers’ misbehavior without having to ask permission from those who own the press and other broadcast media. The social entrepreneur who best understands this is Gillian Caldwell at Witness.

But we should keep in mind, as fellow social entrepreneur Ami Dar likes to remind us, that such electronic tools can also be used the wrong way. The Internet may very well become as important an invention as the printing press was in the past Millennium, but one should remember that Gutenberg’s invention made Mein Kampf possible.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Guy Kawasaki on the Art of Innovation

2006-04-25T11:02:00.000-07:00

Global X was at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Seattle, where Guy Kawasaki gave a fascinating presentation on the Top 10 of the Art of Innovation. There is something to learn here for social entrepreneurs.

His Top 10 list:

1. Make meaning
It's not about making money or a faster chip. It's about changing the world.

2. Jump to the next curve
Slightly better (20%) is simply not enough. Jeff Bezos didn't create a bookstore with a few more books, but from 250,000 to 2 million!

3. Don't worry, be crappy
First Mac: 156 K of RAM! No hard disk! No software! But what a revolution! Don't ship crap, but ship something before it's perfect. Ship. Then test! (Maybe not for medical devices!)

4. Churn, baby, churn
As soon as you have launched version 1.0, get ready for version 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc. Revolution is not an event. It's an ongoing process.

5. Polarize people
You should create what YOU want to use, and shouldn’t be afraid to polarize people. It’s OK if some people hate your product, as long as a few love it.

6. Niche thyself
You should provide a unique product and service that provides value to consumers.

7. Make a mantra
Think of two or three words to explain what you do. It shouldn’t be a mission statement, as it may take you two days in an offsite to come up with something decent. Think quick: FedEx is about Peace of mind, Nike about Authentic athletic performance, ... Target? They democratize design.

8. Follow the 10/20/30 rule
10 slides max in a PowerPoint, even if you have an hour
20 minutes for the PowerPoint presentation. The rest is Q&A
30 point font, because you are dealing with people who can't see very well (they are all above 40!) and they can read faster than you can read it aloud.

9. Make evangelists, not sales
A Nike shoe is about power and liberation. It’s not just cotton and molded plastic made in developing countries

10. Let a hundred flowers blossom
Listen to the people who buy your service, not those who won't –it’s impossible to convert an atheist. And if they use your product in a different way than you expected, so much the better!

11. Don't let the bozos grind you down
The worst kinds of people you will talk to are successful entrepreneurs who tell you not to launch your venture. You trust them, and you may actually be wrong. Thomas Watson (IBM, 1943) said there was room for only five computers in the world. Western Union in 1876 didn't believe in the telephone. Ken Olsen (DEC 1977) said 'There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home.' May successful entrepreneurs can't embrace the next curve.

Guy Kawasaki was not an exception. He turned down the chance to apply to the CEO position at Yahoo! (a job worth $2 billion), because he was still thinking equipment (he was then with Apple) rather than Internet.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

This social entrepreneur wants to “use the Web to go beyond the Web.”

2006-04-18T00:29:00.000-07:00

Global X was at the Nonprofit Technology Conference in Seattle, where he spoke about “Blogging, tagging, flickring for the cause: New tools and new strategies."

He also attended a presentation by Ami Dar, the social entrepreneur who asks the right questions: now that everyone is online, what do we do next? How can we all work together to have a bigger impact?

Ami Dar first showed that the geopolitical map has changed dramatically in the recent past. The cold war is over, and as a result nobody gets shot while crossing a neighborhood in Berlin. Spain, Portugal and Greece now have democratically elected governments –they had military dictatorships not so long ago.

Our business cards have also changed. Twenty years ago, we simply had our address and a work phone number. Now, we display a fax number, our mobile, one or two email addresses, our URL, our AIM screen name, and how to reach us by Skype or visit our Flickr, MySpace, and blog.

And yet, says Ami Dar... The Net is also a great tool for spreading hate, as Global X reported not so long ago in From connecting to organizing (2/4).

Moreover, there are millions of missed opportunities. How about those two neighbors who want to solve the same problem but don't know of each other? Or these Muslim women who want to launch a women's center but don't know of each other either? Civil society has exploded, and there are now six million NGOs around the world, and they most likely have solutions for almost every problem. But how do they share their experience?

Ami Dar thinks that the new online tools that help us share and maximize resources are simply not enough. We have to reinvent tools so that those people who share similar concerns can physically meet where they live, work and study to actually change the world.

This social entrepreneur is ready to “use the Web to go beyond the Web.” It will be fascinating to see how Actions without Borders evolves in the very near future. Ami Dar is impatient: “If not now, when?”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Karen and Robert

2006-04-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

At the Skoll World Forum, Global X ran into Karen Tse, a former public defender and ordained minister, as she was talking with Robert Redford. She runs International Bridges to Justice, the organization she launched to bring change to the administration of criminal justice in China, Vietnam and Cambodia. She brought her infant son Noah to the ceremony where she received the 2006 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship. Will Karen and Robert make a movie together?

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Robert Redford, social entrepreneur

2006-04-11T10:47:00.000-07:00

At the Skoll World Forum, Global X had dinner with Robert Redford. He was not sitting too far from Sir Ben Kingsley either, but being jet lagged, Global X decided to concentrate on one guest at a time. He talked about movies with the man who launched Sundance, the festival where independent filmmakers show their work and learn form fellow directors.

Robert Redford is a social entrepreneur in his own right. He identified an economic problem with social ramifications (Hollywood’s monopoly over the production and distribution of movies) and identified a solution with both social and economic overtones: a gathering place for independent filmmakers.

Global X couldn’t help it but tell him that one of his favorite movies of all times was “And the river runs through it,” a movie that Robert Redford directed in 1992. Often described as “a fly-fishing movie,” it is really about issues of biblical proportions: the good son and the bad one...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Scaling among social entrepreneurships

2006-04-11T10:44:00.000-07:00

At the Skoll World Forum, Global X ran into Steven LaFrance (whose name would have been Monsieur Stéphane Pinel de la France had the Louisiana Purchase not happened) and his partner Michael Lee. They are currently working on a paper, “Scaling Capacities: Supports for Growing Impact,” in which they highlight lessons in building organizational capacity to support scaling among social entrepreneurships. Their conclusions will most likely be shared on Social Edge in the next few weeks.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

The Condom Couple

2006-04-11T10:32:00.000-07:00

While Global X was at the Skoll World Forum, he ran into Dr. Susana Frazao F F Pinheiro and Jeremy "Captain Canada" Millar, two Oxford students who want to launch a new kind of condom company. When asked what market they were trying to penetrate, the social entrepreneurs became quite secretive, except to say that potential users (mostly do-gooders and fellow social entrepreneurs) will be very sensitive to their new approach. Global X will report on any progress made on that front...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

This entrepreneur is very social

2006-03-31T03:36:00.000-08:00

At the Skoll World Forum, Global X ran into Muhammad Yunus, the social entrepreneur who was able to lift 70 million people out of poverty.

He is not only a successful social entrepreneur, he is also a gentleman adored by women.

He was recently seen at the Skoll World Forum with Sakena Yacoobi, who launched the Afghan Institute of Learning, Vera Cordeiro (Renascer Child Health Association), Albina Ruiz (Ciudad Saludable) and Googlette extraordinaire Rachel Payne.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

A social entrepreneur on how to make money

2006-03-31T03:13:00.001-08:00

At the Skoll World Forum, Global X ran into Martin Burt, the social entrepreneur who launched Fundación Paraguaya, an organization that has already supported 30,000 microentrepreneurs, who in turn have created 19,000 new jobs. Two years ago, he took over a bankrupt agricultural school and turned it into a sustainable enterprise that helps young people learn to think of themselves not as “poor campesinos” but as “rural entrepreneurs.”

“We want to make sure that our country’s inhabitants become citizens,” he told Global X over a drink at Oxford. “It’s not about growing tomatoes. Campesinos have been growing tomatoes for centuries! It’s about how to make money while growing tomatoes. Our goal is to teach the poor how to make money, so that they have a chance to become true citizens of their own country.”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

To stream or not to stream?

2006-03-31T02:55:00.000-08:00

At the Skoll World Forum, Global X caught Peter Wheeler, the chair of FutureBuilders, as he was watching on his laptop the Social Edge live video stream of the very session that he was attending at the Skoll World Forum.

Global X, ever the French philosopher, wondered whether this was a case of massive deconstruction, or whether it was a way to tell the rest of the world that he was there without actually being there, or simply that he was going through an existentialist phase: to stream or not to stream?

Global X is at the Skoll World Forum. He also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Social Entrepreneurs in China?

2006-03-31T02:45:00.000-08:00

Today at the Skoll World Forum, Joshua Ramo (with Kissinger Associates), reminded us that 400 million people have already escaped from poverty. But to further raise rural income and improve overall life conditions, China must go through a major urbanisation phase. He also mentioned that the Chinese authorities are very pragmatic: genetically modified food is widely accepted, in large part because food security was still an issue in the recent past, and everything is done to avoid facing the famines of the 19th and 20th centuries.

He Fan, an economist, likes to say that “there are a lot of similarities between raising a five-year old and advising the Chinese government.” One has to be patient and make them feel comfortable and confident in their own capabilities so that they can reach adulthood (in the case of his son) or join the international community (in the case of China). But it is important to move slowly: sometimes, the Chinese authorities are not sure whether N.G.O.s are not in fact A.G.O.s –Anti-Government Organisations.

Considering the social upheaval that China is currently facing (massive urbanisation and globalisation), there is no doubt that social entrepreneurs have a major role to play there. Karen Tse, whose organisation concentrates on criminal law in China, reminded us that the word for ‘crisis’ in Chinese is both ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity.’ The perfect mantra for a social entrepreneur…

Global X is at the Skoll World Forum. He also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Blood & Gore

2006-03-30T02:28:00.000-08:00

That’s how Al Gore and David Blood were tempted to call their venture. They settled on Generation Investment Management instead.

Global X already wrote about Al Gore’s new life, and there is no point in going into more details.

However, Global X could tell that the audience at the Skoll World Forum was fascinated when this “recovering politician” talked about the correlation between carbon intensity and profits.

Whether because of consumer demand, high prices, or government regulation, companies will have to reduce the level of carbon usage over the long term. This is an important criteria for Generation’s analysts, which explains why they have invested in Toyota rather than GM.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Provocative question

2006-03-30T02:08:00.000-08:00

During Ian Goldin’s presentation at the Skoll World Forum, a Skoll social entrepreneur dared ask Global X: “What is he doing here? Since when has the World Bank helped, or even recognized, the work of social entrepreneurs?”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Ian Goldin on European cows

2006-03-30T02:04:00.000-08:00

Ian Goldin, a vice president at the World Bank, was delighted to know that his organisation’s reports were actually useful (read the post below). He mentioned some interesting data, well known but worth repeating: while many human beings in Africa live with $1 a day, the average European cow gets about $2 a day in farm subsidies and various other subventions, and the Japanese cow receives $7…

In other words: wealthy countries spend $300 billion in protective measures and only $50 billion in aid to the developing world.

Global X is at the Skoll World Forum. He also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Bunker Roy on Gandhi and the World Bank

2006-03-30T01:46:00.000-08:00

At the Skoll World Forum, Global X had a chat with Bunker Roy, the Indian social entrepreneur who launched the Barefoot College in 1972 to help poor, rural, often semiliterate villagers get some decent education.

To describe how difficult it was to launch his social venture, he quoted Gandhi: “First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win.”

During his keynote speech at the Skoll World Forum, he quoted Gandhi again: “India doesn’t need mass production. It needs production by the masses.” Could this possibly explain why India is now behind China in manufacturing cost-effectiveness?

Global X (and the rest of the audience) had a good laugh when he showed a picture of a group of puppeteers and explained that the puppets were made of recycled World Bank reports.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Solving technical problems

2006-03-30T01:29:00.000-08:00

Global X was able to solve his technology problems. If you care to read the details, here they are. Global X keeps a Flickr with his Treo 650, a mobile phone / Palm PDA / camera that works on a CDMA network in the US. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work on the GSM network that most of the world (with the exception of Japan) has adopted. It certainly doesn’t work at Oxford…

His solution: Global X takes a picture with his Treo, beams it by infrared to his old Palm Tungsten C, on which he writes the title and the caption. He then uploads the digital file wirelessly to his Flickr using Oxford’s Wi-Fi network.

Complicated? Yes, but more effective than the Morse code.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Arriving at Oxford

2006-03-28T13:43:00.000-08:00

This is a bad start. Global X's Treo died over the Atlantic, somewhere between SFO and LHR. The result: he has no pictures of his first dinner at Oxford, even though he was sitting next to Robert Redford and within speaking distance of 30 Skoll Entrepreneurs and Sir Ben Kingsley. Extremely annoying...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Why Mozart helps social entrepreneurs

2006-03-21T09:41:00.000-08:00

Last week, Global X had lunch with Luis Zsarán, maestro of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Asunción, Paraguay.

The eighth child of struggling farmers, he became a social entrepreneur when he founded “Sonidos de la Tierra” (Sounds of the Land) in early 2002. The program, which engages entire towns in supporting music education and performance, now works in 18 towns, with 1,700 young people involved.

Luis Szarán told Global X: “Young people who play Mozart by day do not break windows at night.” He also likes to point out that singing or playing in a musical ensemble imparts discipline, self-esteem and teamwork.

He also told the story of a mother and her teenage son who used to fight every night –often physically. She told Luis Szarán: “I didn’t know that a little piece of wood could have such a positive impact on our lives. Since my son started the guitar, he plays a little music every night after dinner. Just for me.”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

KickStart: Social entrepreneurs use technology (and more) to eradicate poverty in Africa

2006-03-14T11:01:00.000-08:00

Last week, Global X had lunch with Martin Fisher and Nick Moon, the two social entrepreneurs who founded KickStart, the organization formerly known as ApproTEC. Now in its 15th year of existence, KickStart is operational in Kenya, Tanzania and Mali, and is about to expand into six new African countries.

Martin Fisher, who has a PhD from Stanford, is based in San Francisco. He first discovered poverty in Peru as a graduate student, then in Kenya on a Fulbright Scholarship. That’s where he met Nick Moon, who was raised in India and Singapore, and who started his career as a woodworker and carpenter in a commune in London.

While trying to help Africa, they first made a few mistakes. They recall a roofing tiles venture that was subsidized in such a way that it did more harm than good. “Yes, it was a good training opportunity for the kids, but the whole thing fell apart when we left,” recalls Nick Moon. “We should have offered it to an entrepreneur, and I am sure it would still be in business!”

They launched Appropriate Technology (ApproTEC) in 1991 to help rural people escape from poverty and to kick-start sustainable economic growth in developing countries. “We are in the business of eradicating poverty. To do that we design, distribute and sell irrigation equipment,” says Martin Fisher. In other words, they use a business approach to solve a social issue.

Their product: the KickStart Super-MoneyMaker pump, a foot-activated pump that can irrigate several acres of land, which they sell for US $95. They just introduced a smaller pump at US $35.

“Africa has gone from non-cash to a cash-economy in one generation,” explains Martin Fisher. “We help small farmers with skills and a small piece of land to generate cash, because cash can buy health, education, security…”

Their biggest challenge is to convince people who live in a desperate state of poverty and are quite risk adverse to spend half their annual income on a single tool. The process can take up to nine months.

Microfinance is not an option: “It works well in cities, but not so well in rural areas, where the acquisition cost of each new customer can be as high as US $300 per person.”

As for giving away the pumps for free, these two social entrepreneurs, who remember the mistakes they made in their youths because of their “socialistic ideals,” think it just wouldn’t be fair. “Who are we to decide who should get a pump for free and who shouldn’t? Besides, it would be patronizing.” And their venture wouldn’t be sustainable.

Ironically, one way to lower the production cost of the irrigation device is to relocate manufacturing facilities from Africa to China, where labor productivity is much higher for mass production… Who said that social entrepreneurship was easy?

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Why poor countries are poor

2006-03-10T15:29:00.000-08:00

While reading his favorite blog, Global X noticed a link to an article by Tim Harford, a columnist for the Financial Times and author of The Undercover Economist. If you wonder why poor countries are poor (and what social entrepreneur doesn’t?), you may be surprised to learn that “the clues lie on a bumpy road leading to the world’s worst library.”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Lessons from the Global Social Venture Competition

2006-03-07T11:03:00.000-08:00

Global X learned a lot from his experience reviewing business plans for the 2006 Global Social Venture Competition. For example:

• Think Internet
One of the “double bottom-line” business plans Global X had to review was an interesting Web-based service to help non-profits become more efficient. It looked all good, until Global X tried to visit the venture’s Web site, only to realize that the founders had omitted to build one, or even to register an URL. A Web-based enterprise without a Web site? This business plan was quickly discarded.

• Details are important
The founder of another promising venture wrote in his bio that he was looking forward to a career in the health care industry. Very nice...except that this venture had very little to do with the health care industry.

A few highlights of the selection process:

• Tim Spicer, with the eCompanies Venture Group, and Rachel Payne, with google.org, had no hesitation selecting a plan. That was just the beginning...

• Things got more interesting when Stuart Davidson, Managing Partner of Labrador Ventures, started crunching numbers while presenting a business plan. No, he was not checking his e-mail on his Tréo.

• Jackie Khor, with the Rockefeller Foundation, defended a business plan with great passion while Doug Solomon, with the Omidyar Network, listened carefully.

• Rachel Payne (google.org) was also very eloquent about an interesting online venture.

• When we couldn’t reach a consensus, which happened a few times because several of the business plans were outstanding, Jerry Engel used a clever trick. It worked!

• And the winners are...
Adura Technologies
SEED Capital
SunFire

Jim Fruchterman, the founder - president - CEO of Benetech, previously a rocket scientist (literally) and now the ultimate social entrepreneur, was our keynote speaker. Divine!

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

The Global Social Venture Competition

2006-02-28T12:30:00.001-08:00

Global X was recently asked to review five business plans with a double bottom-line –new ventures that can be financially self-sufficient while having a positive social impact. These social entrepreneurs are part of the 2006 Global Social Venture Competition.

In the next few days, he will write about Adura Technologies, BrightLight Innovations, CharityForum, SpeakShop, African Leadership Academy.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Don't subsidize the poor, says Indian social entrepreneur --again!

2006-02-21T04:19:00.000-08:00

Last week, Global X had a chance to have a smoke with Amitabha Sadangi, the Indian social entrepreneur from New Delhi who said, not so long ago, that it was wrong to subsidize the poor.

Amitabha Sadangi has spent more than two decades doing rural development work, mostly in India, and he can be quite passionate about this issue.

A few NGOs recently distributed irrigation devices for free, without offering the right training to the recipients. The result: the families who received it were disappointed, as they didn’t really know how to use them properly.

They complained to their neighbors, who in turn decided not to buy the irrigation device, thinking it was a waste of money or that they may get one for free at a later date.

Quite a few recipients simply didn’t take good care of the irrigation device. As one fellow economist recently put it, it’s just like giving away cars to teenagers: don’t be surprised if they don’t maintain them properly. If you want them to take good care of it, you should sell them the cars in the first place.

Our social entrepreneur is now back in New Delhi, where he leads International Development Enterprises (India). Global X expects to hear from him again soon.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Is there a market for virtue? (2/2)

2006-02-17T09:29:00.000-08:00

If capital markets are fairly indifferent to corporate social responsibility, where does this leave us? What should we do, if anything? The decision is up to individual consumers, says David Vogel. In other words: us.

The first step is to face the fact that corporate social responsibility begins with individual consumer decisions. Make sure to buy products built by companies with decent corporate social responsibility initiatives. Your individual behavior will positively affect the companies’ financial metrics, including the stock price. This is one way to ensure that corporate social responsibility and financial success are directly correlated.

The second step is to realize that regulations, tax policy and the legislation can force corporations to behave in a socially responsible manner. Asked where European companies were standing on that front, David Vogel explained that Europe was moving mush faster than the US, thanks to a combination of regulation and consumer awareness. Think of this next time you are about to elect your representatives.

Corporate social responsibility can become a powerful reality, but we shouldn’t expect corporate tycoons and hedge fund managers to build it for us. It’s up to us, as individual customers and citizens, to make it happen if we wish. We can all start by reading David Vogel’s book, The Market For Virtue.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Is there a market for virtue? (1/2)

2006-02-14T09:22:00.000-08:00

The other night, Global X had a chance to hear David Vogel talk about corporate social responsibility. Professor Vogel teaches Business Ethics at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. He is also a professor in Berkeley’s Political Science department.

David Vogel’s main question was: “Is there a market for virtue?” Another way to look at it: by and large, the stock market doesn't penalize socially irresponsible companies, but does it reward virtuous companies?

David Vogel took the example of Gap, the world’s largest clothing retailer. The company doesn’t run sweatshop and is very good at disclosing potential social issues.

Does it benefit from such virtuous behavior? In some ways, yes: the staff is certainly more comfortable and there are no demonstrations at their headquarters or picket lines in front of their stores.

But there is no clear financial benefit. The retailing industry is a very competitive business, and at the end of the day, consumers make the ultimate decision. Overall, fashion, style, price, quality and colors are more important than virtue.

Another example: When she was CEO of HP (Hewlett Packard), Carly Fiorina launched several socially responsible initiatives. No one talked about these initiatives when she was asked to leave. There were all about the bottom line.

On the other side, one can argue that capital markets do not penalize corporate irresponsibility either: certainly, Enron was not punished for its lack of virtues! Google is currently facing significant PR issues with its decision to add censorship to its service in China, but has not been penalized by the market.

“Corporate social responsibility does matter, but it’s not a critical issue. It’s not important enough to be central to business strategy. In truth, capital markets are fairly indifferent to corporate social responsibility,” concludes David Vogel.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Naming rights for toilets in Africa

2006-02-09T09:09:00.000-08:00

Today, Global X had a chance to talk with Cori Stern, a Hollywood screenwriter who recently posted an interesting comment on a previous blog: “One of the proudest moments of my life thus far was when I finally saw the completion of the girls' toilets at the school some friends and I built at a refugee camp in Ghana!”

Global X picked up the phone and called Cori Stern. For the past three years, she has been involved with the Buduburam Refugee Camp in Ghana, a place where 40,000 refugees, mostly from Liberia, have been living for 15 years.

She convinced her friends back in the U.S. to help her raise money to build a school in the camp. “Kids are very vulnerable, especially if they don’t have parents,” she told Global X. She also noticed that toilets were not free in the camp: “It’s hard for boys, but even more so for girls.”

Cori Stern and her friends did build the school, and also funded a sustainable business to cover its operational costs. The girls on the picture are posing next to the toilet as it was being built. They are very pleased.

Two donors were so proud to have contributed to this effort that they asked the toilets to be named after them. The toilets on this picture are therefore called “The Alex Borstein & Jackson Douglas Toilets in Buduburam Refugee Camp, Ghana.”

Social entrepreneurs, keep this idea in mind: you can significantly improve the lives of many women and young girls in developing areas. Just don’t forget to offer the naming rights of the toilets you are building to the people who financed them!

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

From connecting to organizing (4/4)

2006-02-07T09:36:00.000-08:00

At the 2006 Summit of the Innovation Funders Network, Global X had a chance to run into Lawrence Lessig, the Stanford professor who wrote Free Culture, The Future of Ideas, and Code & Other Laws of Cyberspace.

Professor Lessig chairs the Creative Commons project. His point: right now, the Web is mostly RO / Read Only. We have access to great content, which we consume by reading it online (news) or downloading it (iTunes songs). What should we do to get the Web to become RW / Read & Write?

Teenagers are already there: 57% of them create and share content on the Internet, often by re-creating existing, copyrighted content. The AMV (Animé Music Video) movement is a good example, as explained in this Financial Times article.

Professor Lessig is fighting (sometimes in front of the U.S. Supreme Court) to bring balance in the discourse: There is room on the Internet for proprietary content and for common sense.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

From connecting to organizing (3/4)

2006-02-03T09:30:00.000-08:00

Global X had a chance to listen to another fascinating speaker at the 2006 Summit of the Innovation Funders Network: Clotilde Fonseca, Executive Director of the Fundación Omar Dengo in Costa Rica.

The main point of her presentation: we all know what computers do FOR us, but we shouldn’t forget that they do things TO us as well. She asked a key question: how do computers and networks affect us?

She introduced the concept of cognitive divide, which sits on top of the well-researched technology divide, and greatly affects children. Depending on their exposure to technology, children don’t think or behave the same way in all parts of the world. The cognitive divide may have a long-term impact on their lives: how they think, how easily they fit in a new collaborative work environment, how comfortable they are in a networked context.

As a researcher from Harvard put it: “While the ‘digital divide’ makes computer technology an elite domain, a ‘cognitive divide’ may hinder some students' school performances and, eventually, their professional success.”

Should social entrepreneurs start bridging the cognitive divide?

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

From connecting to organizing (2/4)

2006-02-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

Not so quick, says Ami Dar, Executive Director of Action without Borders. It is true that the devices that we now carry in our pockets (mobile phones and wireless PDAs) can level the field by facilitating communication and data gathering. But what if these tools fall into the wrong hands?

Ami Dar gives an example: it would be easy for a group of racist extremists to send SMS to their fellow members telling them how to avoid the police as they burn a mosque in London, a synagogue in Paris or a Turkish shelter in Berlin.

Actually, isn’t it the way rioters in Paris avoided the police when they were burning cars last year? The terrorist attacks in Madrid’s train stations were also carried out by mobile phones connected to explosives.

Moral of the story: technology is not clean per se. France uses nuclear technology to generate 90% of its electricity and be less dependent on the Middle East, while other nations such as North Korea may use it to blackmail the rest of the planet. Mobile communication is just the same: it can be used to locate Turkish shelters and evade the police after burning them, or to locate areas where fish is abundant and feed a village in Somalia.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

From connecting to organizing (1/4)

2006-01-31T09:09:00.000-08:00

Global X ran into Howard Rheingold at the Innovation Funders Network 2006 Summit.

For those who don’t remember, Howard Rheingold wrote The Virtual Community in 1993, and Smart Mobs ten years later. He has gone from connecting to organizing.

Howard is convinced that social networking is our species’ key to survival. We keep inventing technologies that help us remove barriers, whether it’s the alphabet, the printing press, or now the Internet. They all serve the same goal: to better network and share information with other members of our species –the faster and the wider, the better.

What is fascinating now is that billions of people carry in their pockets tools and devices that were worth a fortune not so long ago –mobile phones. Why? Because they need it, not only to communicate, but also to improve their lives. Howard Rheingold mentioned fishermen who are now able to find out where to fish thanks to GPS and SMS.

So this is all good, isn’t it? Not so fast, answers Ami Dar, the Executive Director of Action without Borders. Technology can fall into the wrong hands...

More tomorrow.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Chindia (3/3)

2006-01-28T08:52:00.000-08:00

Deutsche Bank recently published a wonderful visual essay on China and India, depicting key similarities and differences between the two emerging economies poised to change the global economic landscape. It’s available in pdf here.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Chindia (2/3)

2006-01-26T08:55:00.000-08:00

China’s economy is about twice India’s, with annual growth rates of 9% compared with 6% for China. Why has India grown so slowly in the past 20 years compared to China?

Indian officials like to claim that democracy is the culprit, especially when they talk to Western experts. The reasoning goes like this: we want to change, open up the economy, privatize state-owned companies, streamline the bureaucracy... But democracy always gets in the way. The Indian press is free, and we have multi-party elections. We must work in an environment of coalitions and constant political opposition. China doesn’t have these constraints.

This is a lame excuse, of course. India has failed (comparatively to China) because the government has never concentrated on the fundamentals, especially infrastructure and women’s education. India may have excellent business leaders and outstanding computer and telecom engineers, but the highway network is in terrible shape, trains run on an unpredictable schedule and electricity is quite simply erratic. More than half Indian women are illiterate. And corruption and red tape are pervasive.

The facts:

• India has 200,000 km of highway (125,000 miles); China has 1.4 million km (870,000 miles).

• India spends $2.5 billion a year building roads; China spends 10 times as much ($25 billion).

• Shipping freight by rail costs three times as much in India as in China.

• Goods can take 12 weeks to reach the US from India. It takes less than three weeks from China. And geography is not the main reason.

• Electricity costs twice as much in India as in China.

The result, according to a recent Fortune article, is that “firms in India pay far more than rivals in China to produce, distribute, and export their products.” This has nothing to do with democracy, does it?

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Chindia (1/3)

2006-01-24T21:21:00.000-08:00

Is India the new China? Last year, Davos was all about the Middle Kingdom. This year India is one of summit's eight main themes. Jim Fruchterman, CEO of Benetech, will blog live from Switzerland and will undoubtedly report on what is being said (and not said) about India.

In the meantime, Global X thought it would be helpful to compare the two largest nations in the world (by population) and try to compare their paths.
Twenty years ago, India and China were very similar. Both were large, rural countries with GDP below $1 trillion and per capita income of less than $1 a day.

Interestingly, both countries opened up their economy at the same time. As soon as Mao died in 1976, China’s Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping moved away from a centralized economy. Starting in 1992, the Chinese economy was welcoming global competition and foreign trade. India opened its economy at the same time, when the IMF bailed out the country, thus averting default.

Today, India’s economy is about half China’s, with annual growth rates of 6% compared with 9% or more for China. A third of the Indian population still lives on less than $1 a day, while only 13% of Chinese do. China exports six times as much as India ($600 billion vs. $100 billion).

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

No Toilets in African Schools? Girls Drop Out

2006-01-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

Social entrepreneurs who deal with education for young girls, especially in Africa, may want to read a recent article written by Sharon LaFraniere in the New York Times about the lack of toilets in African schools.

Young African girls often reach puberty and start facing the realities of menstruation in schools that have no facilities for girls (or for boys, for that matter), “no water, no hope for privacy other than the shadow of a bush.” They simply drop out. The United Nations Children’s Fund estimates that 10% of African girls skip school during menstruation or drops out entirely because of lack of decent sanitation.

Social entrepreneurs can have a positive impact. A Unicef report mentions that enrollment rates for girls between 1997 and 2002 in Guinea went up 17% after improvement in school sanitation. The dropout rate fell by an even bigger percentage.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

The Hidden “Gendercide” (2/2)

2006-01-12T09:01:00.000-08:00

If DCAF is right and 200 million women are actually “missing” from demographic charts, then we should think in these terms: the number is very similar to the 190 million human beings who died during the conflicts of the 20th century, the most violent in human history so far (Hitler, Stalin and Mao being significant contributors to the death toll).

Such a demographic “deficit” implies that each year approximately 2 million women are killed through violence that is directly related to gender, a number comparable to the people who die of malaria (1.27 million) and HIV/AIDS (2.8 million) each year.

Another way to look at it: women aged between 15 and 44 are more likely to be injured or die as a result of male violence than through cancer, traffic accidents, malaria and war. Combined.

A more graphic image: violence against women causes every 2 to 4 years a mountain of corpses equal to the Jewish Holocaust.

“The list of horrors is endless. The picture is all too clear. We are confronted by the slaughter of Eve, a systematic gendercide of tragic proportions,” affirms the DCAF report.

Theodor H. Winkler, the Centre’s Director, concludes: “We need to act now. The deeply rooted phenomenon of violence against women is one of the great crimes of humanity. There cannot be any room for complacency in face of slaughter, maiming, rape and degradation of women. We cannot live with it. We cannot close our eyes to it. We cannot hope that it will simply go away. We must act. Now.”

Social entrepreneurs, now is indeed the time to act.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

The Hidden "Gendercide" (1/2)

2006-01-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Global X was dispirited while reading an article in The Economist about women in developing countries.

Titled ominously “No place for your daughters,” with headings such as “Women in a dangerous world” and “Counting the victims,” the article quoted a study issued by the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of the Armed Forces (DCAF).

Global X spent some time this weekend reading the report, which is available in pdf format here. Interestingly enough, the report was originally written under the auspices of the Swiss Foreign Minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, with financial support from the Swiss Ministry of Defense. A TV documentary based on the book is apparently under preparation by Amnesty International.

The bottom line: women live in a very insecure world indeed.

According to a United Nations demographic report, up to 200 million women and girls are demographically “missing.” This is a nice euphemism to explain the fact that millions of women are being killed each year, or are dying through neglect and mistreatment.

It often starts before birth, as many fall victim to gender selective abortion. It goes on right after birth, through infanticide, as boys are often preferred to girls. The next step: baby girls are given less food and medical care than their brothers.

Teenage girls often become victims to sexual offenders, to “honor killings” and to acid attacks (most often for refusing a suitor). DCAF mentions that 5,000 women are also burnt to death each year in “kitchen accidents” because their dowry was insufficient.

These numbers are staggering, but this gets even worse when the figures are compared with other global facts, which Global X will do in his Thursday post. One thing is already clear: social entrepreneurs should concentrate on this “gendercide” in the 21st century.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Facta, non verba

2006-01-06T08:56:00.000-08:00

The New York Times published a great editorial in its first issue of the year.

Global X shares the feeling: Facta, non verba. Deeds, not words. Assez de paroles, des actions !

Social entrepreneurs, a lot of work awaits you in 2006!

Making Poverty History in 2006
The New York Times
January 1, 2006

It was a banner year in 2005 for big speeches from global leaders about fighting third-world poverty. But if any of their promises are going to come close to being kept, 2006 must be a year of action.
[...]
It is past time for global leaders to put the Millennium Development plan they hatched back at the turn of the century into real action and make poverty history. It's time to channel real money into ground-level, village-based water programs, to actually spend money on a malaria vaccine and AIDS drugs and mosquito bed nets and school feeding programs. There are ways to bypass corrupt local governments, and funnel aid directly to those on the ground who need it.
[...]
The world needs no more speeches in 2006 about global poverty. The six million children under 5 who die every year of diseases that can be easily and cheaply treated do not need more lofty goals. Nor do the 40 million young people still unable to go to school, or the 300 million Africans who lack access to clean water. The time for talking is over.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

For this social entrepreneur, the sky is the limit

2006-01-03T09:10:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, Global X attended the Tech Museum Awards ceremony in San Jose (the one in California). He looked so dashing in his tuxedo and black and white Alain Mikli glasses that he had no difficulty meeting important people.

He ran into Benetech’s Jim Fruchterman and the team of Human Rights in China. He will write about them very soon.

He also ran into Gilbert Clark, who launched Telescopes in Education (TIE) so that students can operate telescopes in real time from their school computers. They can even download images of celestial objects. As he put it, he has built “a robotic telescope that can be controlled from classrooms anywhere in the world.”

Here is a social entrepreneur who uses basic technology (personal computers, simple software and the Internet) to help children discover a new world. Mr. Clark fully deserved to be one of the finalists of the Tech Museum’s Education Award.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

On the road again

2005-12-23T23:57:00.000-08:00

Even cowboys need to take a vacation. Global X is currently on a road trip on Route 66, somewhere in Arizona or New Mexico. He left without his Mac, and he won’t blog until his return in 2006.

Don’t cry! He took his Tréo with him, and you can still visit his wimoblog (wireless mobile blog) to see what he is up to.

Nauru stranded without a plane

2005-12-23T08:49:00.000-08:00

Global X is a big fan of Pablo Halkyard's World Bank PSD blog.

Last week, Pablo ran a great story about Nauru, a country-island whose wealth came from bird droppings. Apparently, the country is going bankrupt while trying to reinvent itself by gathering foreign intelligence for the US. It just lost its only airplane in the process...

Global X was wondering if more stories like this will be written in 50 years about oil-producing countries...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Theresa Williamson, the social entrepreneur from Rio (3/3)

2005-12-22T08:55:00.000-08:00

Theresa Williamson, the social entrepreneur from Rio, was born in England from a British father and a Brazilian mother. She was raised in the U.S., and she describes herself as “a product of globalization.”

One thing she discovered as she was launching Catalytic Communities is how important it is to know oneself. This may be true in any profession, but it is even more so in social entrepreneurship. “Even though I have a Ph. D. in City & Regional Planning, I knew all along that I was an activist, not an academic.”

It is also crucial to be knowledgeable about fundraising. She started when she was 9 years old, raising money for UNICEF. Her father taught her what a matching grant was: “I discovered that if I could raise $2, my dad would actually send a check for $4. That had a huge impact on me.”

Being creative is also a requirement to succeed in social entrepreneurship. Right now, Theresa Williamson is raising money through PledgeBank, a very innovative way to involve the whole community in her efforts. Her pledge: "I will set up a $10 monthly donation to CatComm (or $120 annually) but only if 199 other people will too."

Our global social entrepreneur also knows about direct marketing and the impact of rewards. She is offering a trip for two to Rio. Just in case!

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Theresa Williamson, the social entrepreneur from Rio (2/3)

2005-12-21T09:02:00.000-08:00

Theresa Williamson launched Catalytic Communities in 2000. She had noticed that many communities were very good at innovating at the local level, but they couldn’t share their innovations with other communities. Conversely, they couldn’t learn from other communities’ solutions. “I realized that there was a need for a urban municipal solution database, one that would track all the solutions to the same problem, be it an open sewage system or any other city planning issue.”

Theresa Williamson first searched for a mentor. She approached Jeremy Rifkin, a visionary thinker who is president of the Foundation on Economic Trends. “He told me that my idea was a winner. That helped me a lot.”

Her personal background was also extremely helpful. Both her parents are economists: her mother was with the World Bank, and her father (John Williamson), is with the Institute for International Economics.

One can imagine the dinner conversations in the Williamson household. Considering how quantitative her parents are, Theresa Williamson was a bit worried about her dissertation, which is quite unconventional. The fact that she received an award for best Ph. D. dissertation in International Planning by the Association of Collegiate Schools of Planning must have helped her come home at night!

In his next post, Global X will tell what this social entrepreneur from Rio, who describes herself as “a product of globalization,” learned as she was launching Catalytic Communities.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Theresa Williamson, the social entrepreneur from Rio (1/3)

2005-12-20T08:46:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago, Global X met Theresa Williamson, a social entrepreneur who strongly believes in fate. As she was at the University of Pennsylvania completing her Ph. D. dissertation in City Planning, she received a job offer to work in Rio.

This was her lifetime ambition. Born from a British father and a Brazilian mother, she knew, since she was 12, that she wanted to live in Brazil. She even wrote all her papers in high school about that country.

However, as she was packing to move there, she found out that the job description had been changed. She was not interested in the position anymore. But that didn’t stop her.

“That was fate! I decided, right there and then, to start a nonprofit!” she says. She jumped on the opportunity, realizing that she was free, like most 25-year olds are. “I had no children, no mortgage; I was not even in a relationship. If I were not going to jump then, was I ever going to do it? I prefer to regret what I did, rather than regretting what I didn’t do.”

She did it. Theresa Williamson, the social entrepreneur from Rio, launched Catalytic Communities in 2000.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Case study: What happens when a social entrepreneur hits the blogosphere (4/4)

2005-12-16T09:03:00.000-08:00

Latest update:

• Since Kiva entered the blogosphere, Matt Flannery resigned from his day job and became a full-time social entrepreneur.

• Kiva now has such a backlog of users that the organization took the opportunity to expand. They started operations in Kenya and Tanzania. “I posted these on our Web site and within 24 hours, we had raised $2500 in loan capital. There was no email or blog announcement. People just find out when we list businesses and swarm onto our site.”

• Kiva was recently covered in the Village Voice.

• Matt Flannery was recently interviewed for the Wall Street Journal. Kiva will probably be included in a larger article about how to get involved in micro-finance.

• Matt Flannery adds that the blogs are useful not only for promotion, but also to get new ideas. It also shows you how people perceive you. “In many cases, people were taking the concept to places we didn't anticipate. People were seeing it as a bigger idea than even we had considered.”

• Even people in Africa started reading the blogs. Some entrepreneurs noticed that they were being viewed all over the world, and “this makes them feel more responsible to pay back the loan. The Internet is creating a reputation for them that will keep them more accountable.”

• “The European Tribune recently covered us, thus creating another big surge. We now have many users from Canada, England, Australia and The Netherlands.”

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Case study: What happens when a social entrepreneur hits the blogosphere (3/4)

2005-12-15T08:59:00.000-08:00

Matt Flannery, founder and President of Kiva, and PR expert Krista Van Lewen, told Global X what happened after Kiva entered the blogosphere.

On October 28, Kiva ran out of businesses to fund. “Traffic numbers were greatly affected by the fact that users could not do anything on our site after that date. It quickly became public knowledge,” says Matt Flannery. “We think we would have maintained much higher numbers if our site had been able to fulfill the demand.”

Indeed, Kiva’s Web site visits are largely driven by whether or not visitors can fund developing-world businesses. Amazingly for Kiva, very few people complained that they could not lend money. They just waited.

Third lesson for fellow social entrepreneurs: Be prepared to be successful. You may actually get what you wish!

Tomorrow, Global X will give the latest update on Kiva: the Village Voice, The Wall Street Journal, the European Tribune…

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Case study: What happens when a social entrepreneur hits the blogosphere (2/4)

2005-12-14T08:55:00.000-08:00

“First we got picked up by BubbleGeneration, then by DailyKos. Our daily traffic went from 320 to 3,200 in three weeks,” says Matt Flannery, founder and President of Kiva.

PR expert Krista Van Lewen adds: “On November 1, BoingBoing picked us up, and that gave us 30% more visits than DailyKos. Kiva recorded 9,976 unique visits that day!”

This is the yellow bar on the November graph. [Please note that the scale on this graph is different from the October traffic graph posted yesterday. It would be misleading to put them next to each other.]

Summary for the 6-week period, in daily unique visitors:

• Average for the week of October 1-7: 320
• October 13 (the BubbleGeneration effect): 968
• Average for the week of October 15-21: 650
• October 27 (the DailyKos effect): 7,261
• Average for the October 28-31 period: 3,200
• November 1 (the BoingBoing effect): 9,976
• Average for the week of November 5-11: 1,000

Thanks to a terrific idea (online micro-lending) and a very good press release, traffic went from 320 unique visitors a day to 1,000, with peaks close to 10,000.

Matt Flannery and Krista Van Lewen confirm that they had no real control over what was happening to Kiva’s presence in the blogosphere: “Over 200 blogs covered us in the span of two weeks, but we never posted comments or tried to get on more blogs. Or fewer.”

Second lesson for fellow social entrepreneurs: Get the news out, even if it means that you may lose control.

There is a third lesson, a painful one. “We ran out of businesses to fund on October 28,” explains Matt Flannery. One would think that most social entrepreneurs would dream of gaining so much visibility, so quickly. Things turned out a bit differently. Tomorrow, Global X will explain what happened next to Kiva.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Case study: What happens when a social entrepreneur hits the blogosphere (1/4)

2005-12-13T10:20:00.000-08:00

Last week, Global X had breakfast with Matt Flannery, founder and President of Kiva, the online microlending venture that recently got a lot of attention in the blogosphere. Krista Van Lewen, Kiva’s PR expert, joined us to talk about what happened during these six weeks on the Internet. And in Africa.

This is a great lesson for all social entrepreneurs, who don’t always know how to control the power of the Internet to help them change the world (read Chip Giller’s comments here).

It all started when Kiva sent a press release on October 12. Traffic (usually 320 visitors per day), started to build up immediately, until it was picked up by a relatively small blog (BubbleGeneration) on October 13. Traffic went up dramatically for a couple of days (to 968), then went back down to 650 visitors, but still at a much higher level than before the press release was issued.

Then, on October 26, DailyKos, one of the most-read blogs in the blogosphere, picked up the news about Kiva. The day after, Kiva reached a peak traffic of 7,261 unique visitors.

Here are the numbers of daily unique visitors, as shown in yellow on the above graph, for the month of October:

• Average for the week of October 1-7: 320
• October 13 (the BubbleGeneration effect): 968
• Average for the week of October 15-21: 650
• October 27 (the DailyKos effect): 7,261
• Average for the October 28-31 period: 3,200

On average 3,200 unique visitors went to Kiva during the last four days of October, a 10x increase over a typical day before Kiva issued their press release.

First lesson for fellow social entrepreneurs: yes, PR works on the Internet – but it works even better with the magic of a product or service that people are looking for, combined with good timing.

But be warned: blogs can get out of control very quickly. Tomorrow, Global X will explain what happened next.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Chip Giller, A Beacon in the Smog (3)

2005-12-12T08:58:00.000-08:00

Chip Giller, the founder and President of Grist, talked to Global X over lunch last week. Here is more advice to help fellow social entrepreneurs around the world.

Use humor: “The situation on the planet is quite grim,” says Mr. Giller, before listing poverty, imbalance in international trade, and overpopulation as major issues that need to be addressed. But precisely because these issues are dramatic, it is important to bring some humor to the conversation. “Otherwise, the debate could be far too cynical.”

Empower your staff: “Trust them fully and wonderful things will happen to your organization. But first, you have to build the best team. And for that, you should spend the money to hire the best people.” Mr. Giller is very proud of his team of 16 (plus 2 interns): “It’s a great crew of people!”

One may want to add one more piece of advice to Mr. Giller’s list: Be an optimist! Undoubtedly, Mr. Giller is an optimistic social entrepreneur. Grist has doubled its membership in the past two years, from 250,000 to 500,000. “We want millions of members!” concludes Mr. Giller.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Sleepless in Sudan

2005-12-09T09:05:00.000-08:00

While reading the Private Sector Development blog this morning, Global X noticed a post on Sleepless in Sudan. It's definitely worth reading:

[...] An aid worker diary from Darfur, Sudan: real stories, random observations and occasional rants on the lives of Darfur’s two million displaced people and the somewhat bewildered humanitarian agencies who are trying to help them. Sleepless in Sudan is just another website on just another violent conflict in Africa – but uncensored, direct and without the sugar-coating that the tightly controlled and highly politicized environment demands from the official sources.

Would tell you more about myself, but don't really want the Sudanese government to kick me out of the country for this... [...]

Sleepless in Sudan has a Yahoo e-mail. Let's hope that Yahoo doesn't disclose her real identity to the Sudanese authorities...

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Chip Giller, A Beacon in the Smog (2)

2005-12-08T09:09:00.000-08:00

When Chip Giller, the founder and President of Grist, talked to Global X over lunch last week, he mentioned a few ideas that could help fellow social entrepreneurs around the world, and others whose bottom line is also social change.

The most important piece of advice for social entrepreneurs: “Be persistent!” Mr. Giller says that he had to approach “100 people” before meeting the person who was going to help him succeed. “Have faith in yourself. Go out there and talk about your mission to as many people as you can. Keep trying!”

Understand your audience: “Grist is not a green information network!” says Mr. Giller, who previously worked for a trade newswire targeting Washington insiders, which, in his own words, was very dry. “Grist is just the opposite. We use humor to reach the right audience.”

Focus on key target demographics: “The Internet is the perfect medium to reach Gen X and Y. It is widely accessible, instantaneous, perfect for these generations who get their news only from the Web.” As a result, 50% of Grist’s audience are in their 20s and 30s. And very few are members of traditional environmental organizations. They believe instead in communities and social networking.

Tomorrow: More advice from Mr. Giller to fellow social entrepreneurs.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Chip Giller, A Beacon in the Smog (1)

2005-12-06T08:57:00.000-08:00

Last week, Global X had lunch with Chip Giller, the Founder and President of Grist. Michael Beneke, a polyglot who serves as Grist’s Director of Development, also attended the luncheon.

Grist is an influential Web site that delivers news and commentaries about the environment, with an attitude. Grist’s motto is alternatively “Gloom and doom with a sense of humor” and “A beacon in the smog.”

Mr. Giller, who is 34, previously worked for Greenwire, a newswire covering environmental and energy policies for Washington politicians. Subscriptions cost several thousand dollars a year, and it didn’t reach the masses.

Mr. Giller also realized that traditional environmental organizations, like the Sierra Club, attracted mostly middle-aged affluent citizens with no clear political agenda. In the meantime, the younger generation tended to be cynical and to avoid environmental groups.

Mr. Giller launched Grist to address both issues of demographics and audience. He has been quite successful, as Grist now records approximately 500,000 unique visitors a month, many of them women in their twenties and thirties.

In his next blog, Global X will discuss Mr. Giller’s advice to fellow social entrepreneurs.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Social Entrepreneurs in Nicaragua

2005-12-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

Global X has a good friend, Diana Reid, who keeps an interesting blog here.

The most recent entry tells the story of Chris Berry and Jean Brugger, a couple of social entrepreneurs in Nicaragua whose foundation provides school uniforms for students, university scholarships and hands-on job training.

To ensure an ongoing source of funding, the team built the Piedras y Olas Hotel and Resort in San Juan del Sur. It provides money for the foundation and on-the-job training for students who are learning about tourism, business and economics at nearby Nicaraguan universities.

“When he set up the business structure back in 2002, Berry had no idea that he was on the bleeding edge of social entrepreneurship,” writes Ms. Reid here.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Leo Burnett is seeking a non-profit organization...

2005-12-02T09:25:00.000-08:00

Global X has a good friend, Diana, who recently wrote:

"I came across this press release regarding ad agency Leo Burnett seeking new non-profit partners and thought it might be worth flagging this for your social entrepreneur community."

This friend was right. To summarize:

“Advertising agency Leo Burnett USA is seeking a non-profit organization as a prospective client partner. Burnett is looking to grow a new or unknown entity into a powerful and recognized brand, putting its full range of marketing services behind the partnership. Interested organizations are encouraged to visit packagedgood.org to submit proposals for consideration.”

The (creative) force be with you!

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Blaise Judja-Sato, Cameroon’s Social Entrepreneur (2)

2005-12-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

When Blaise Judja-Sato talked to Global X over lunch last week, he mentioned a few ideas that could help fellow social entrepreneurs around the world.

Paraphrasing Ann Cotton (blog here), Mr. Judja-Sato emphasized how crucial it was to involve the local community from the very beginning. “Find a good local partner who will be like your eyes on the ground and who will open doors for you, a partner who will facilitate everything.” Also, make sure you have the support from the local government.

It is also important to create a strong board of directors. “Board members will help you open doors,” says Mr. Judja-Sato whose board includes luminaries like President Nelson Mandela, experts like the president of The Vaccine Fund and the CEO of International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI), and a Wharton professor of management and public policy.

Mr. Judja-Sato also likes to use public relations to tell his story and reach potential donors. He has been recently profiled in leading US publications, such as Newsweek and Forbes.

Mr. Judja-Sato is making a difference in Mozambique, and soon in other African nations. Social entrepreneurs the world over should learn from his experience.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

No Work and No Play

2005-11-30T10:12:00.000-08:00

Global X is a big fan of James Surowiecki’s weekly column in The New Yorker. This week’s Financial Page is of particular interest to him, as it covers labor productivity in Europe and the United States. Mr. Surowiecki first compares American work ethics with the European pursuit of leisure. He then deepens his reflection by writing about the strength of European labor unions, and group vs. individual decision-making. A fascinating (and short) read.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Blaise Judja-Sato, Cameroon’s Social Entrepreneur (1)

2005-11-29T10:18:00.000-08:00

Last week, Global X had lunch with Blaise Judja-Sato, the social entrepreneur from Cameroon who founded Village Reach in 2000 to take care of the last mile in medicine distribution.

Mr. Judja-Sato’s profile is quite unusual. Born and raised in Cameroon, educated first in France (applied mathematics and telecom engineering) then in the US (Wharton MBA), he was a successful telecom executive when he got the social entrepreneurship call.

In 2000, he raised more than $1 million for relief efforts after a major flood in Mozambique, a country that had gone through a 20 year-civil war. Like many aspiring social entrepreneurs, he identified an important problem and quickly came up with a sophisticated solution.

The problem: “We had brought food, clothes and medicine from Europe and the U.S., but everything remained stuck at the Maputo airport,” says Mr. Judja-Sato.

The solution: “To solve the last mile problem, I decided to launch the FedEx for relief!”

The reality was actually far more daunting than he initially realized. “I am glad I didn’t know how difficult it would be!” he now says.

In his next blog, Global X will discuss his advice to fellow social entrepreneurs.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Riots in France

2005-11-28T14:19:00.000-08:00

Global X was still thinking about Al Gore's comments on the riots in France when he received an advertisement for a toy. It shows a burning Peugeot with three rioters dancing around it. The graffiti on the car says something about the police that wouldn’t be proper to translate here.

This is a spoof, obviously, and quite a funny one. The text says: “Buying this toy will help you recreate the very special ambiance of the riots in the suburbs that defined our times.”

The text at the bottom adds that the toy will be “available shortly in your favorite store, as soon as it has been rebuilt.”

Social entrepreneurs know that humor is great tool to address serious matters. On the other hand, it is easier to make fun of dramatic social events than to provide long-lasting solutions. Like jobs and decent housing.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Al Gore on the riots in France

2005-11-23T13:41:00.000-08:00

When Global X had lunch with Al Gore last week, the former Vice President of the United States commented on the civil unrest in France. Mr. Gore immediately offered a metaphor to explain the frustrations simmering in housing projects.

He used Bowlby’s theory of attachment in children: by smiling, crying or clinging, babies expect to increase proximity with their caregiver.

However, the French society at large never gave the appropriate response to its large West and North African immigrant populations and their cries for help. Sadly, France didn’t protect its minorities from social harm. The vandalism that has spread to communities plagued by poverty and unemployment is similar to children fighting back against a caregiver who didn’t protect them.

Social entrepreneurs know how to hear cries before they become screams of pain. France should listen to them.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog.

Al Gore, Social Entrepreneur?

2005-11-21T09:33:00.000-08:00

Last week, Global X had lunch with Al Gore, the former Vice President of the United States. “I am a recovering politician!” said Mr. Gore before talking about business, politics and how both interconnect in his new life.

Mr. Gore is now Chairman of Generation Investment Management, a privately held investment firm with offices in Washington and London. “What’s so special about Generation,” said Mr. Gore, “is that sustainability research plays a crucial role in forming our views on the quality of the business, the quality of management and the valuation of the company.”

As he defines it, sustainability research is the analysis of implications of long-term economic, environmental, social and geopolitical challenges on shareholder value. Mr. Gore provided examples of Generation’s research topics:
- Poverty
- Climate change & global warming
- Ecosystem services
- Biodiversity
- Pandemics
- Demographics & migration issues
- Public policy
- Energy transition
- Science &Technology
- Communications & the Internet

By integrating sustainability research in an investment analysis framework, Mr. Gore is having a substantial impact on the global financial community at large. "There is a sea change underway," said Mr. Gore before mentioning Abby Joseph Cohen’s recent report published by Goldman Sachs: The Growing Interest in Environmental Issues is Important to Both Socially Responsible and Fundamental Investors. As a result, Mr. Gore may have become a social entrepreneur in his own right.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog

Sex and soap opera: how to free women, one radio show at a time (2)

2005-11-16T09:05:00.001-08:00

Mr. Ryerson, the social entrepreneur with Population Media Center (PMC), also mentioned a radio series aired in Ethiopia that had such an impact on the local population that a Ph.D. and two Masters dissertations were written about it at Addis Ababa University. A woman listener told the impact of the program on the issue of marriage by abduction:

“These practices have prevented us from sending our girls to school even though they are only 12 years of age. This is because we were afraid that they would be abducted on their way to school. Our first child was married at the age of 14 after she was abducted. We were worrying for years as we thought that our second child would face a similar fate.

At present, however, the radio drama focusing on abduction and sexual violence that you have presented to the public, and the discussions conducted on these topics, have aroused considerable popular indignation. Unlike in the past, special punitive measures have been taken by community people against offenders involved in such crimes. As a result, we have no worry in sending our girls to school.”

Of the 15,000 letters Population Media Center received from listeners in Ethiopia, several hundred report that they named their daughters Fikirte, after the positive female role model in the program.

This social entrepreneur was able to create a new role model for the next generation of African women by simply using broadcast media. This is social entrepreneurship at its best.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog

Sex and soap opera: how to free women, one radio show at a time (1)

2005-11-14T10:47:00.000-08:00

Not long ago, Global X had dinner with William Ryerson, a social entrepreneur who has spent more than three decades in the population field. In 1998, he founded Population Media Center (PMC) to educate men, women and teenagers about family planning and HIV/AIDS prevention.

His main tool? Soap operas.

Mr. Ryerson relies upon the Sabido methodology, named after the former executive of a Mexican TV network who first started using soap operas to solve social and health problems in the 1970s.

Mr. Ryerson described a radio serial he helped produce in Tanzania. The main character, a truck driver with many sexual partners along his route, contracted AIDS. In a survey, 88 percent of the listeners said that the program convinced them to change their own behavior by limiting the number of sexual partners and using condoms more often.

Global X also keeps a wireless mobile photo blog