S.E.VEN Fund Mini-Grant Competition Winners Selected
Seed Grants for Innovative Projects in International Development
Innovative research adds new dimension to international development debate
March 17, 2008 – CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS— The Social Equity Venture Fund – S.E.VEN – today announced the winners of the SE.VEN Fund Mini-Grants Competition, an ongoing program that invests seed funds in innovative projects in the field of Enterprise Solutions to Poverty. The five winners, selected through a competitive review process, were chosen for their entrepreneurial approaches to Enterprise Solutions to Poverty.
The winners are:
Maternova – Maternova is a new web portal, that will bridge the fields of social entrepreneurship and international maternal & neonatal health. This site will organize, highlight and share innovation in order to spur more rapid development of appropriate technologies to reduce neonatal and maternal mortality in low-income countries.
Empowerment of Students Through the Entrepreneurial Approach –This project focuses on empowering students in Las Vegas, New Mexico to become future entrepreneurs through structured curricula and applied projects. The program builds on the idea that small towns that lack healthy economies need to empower their graduating students to think outside the box and into the entrepreneurial realm to fuel growth and future career opportunities.
Top30Under30 Innovative Entrepreneurs Exhibition (InEx) – “Ideas meet capital” – Innovative Entrepreneurs’ Exhibition) is one of the major highlights of Top30Under30 Inaugural Awards (www.top30under30.com) billed for October 21-25, 2008 in Nigeria. This grant will support InEx Fellowships enabling young African entrepreneurs to meet with leading finance and investment institutions.
The Role of Universities in Building A Culture of Civic Responsibility, Interdependence, and Prosperity – This roundtable event held in Kigali, Rwanda in March 2008 focuses on laying the groundwork for higher education to play a central role in developing citizens to sustain a strong civic culture and develop the entrepreneurial skills necessary for creating a successful and equitable economy.
Documentary— This seed grant will fund the early stage development of a documentary film profiling entrepreneurs.
The S.E.VEN Fund runs its Mini-grants Competition three times annually; submissions can be made online at http://www.sevenfund.org/submit-mini-grants.php. “S.E.VEN’s mini-grants program allows us to seed-fund audacious and integrative projects in the field of Enterprise Solutions to Poverty,” says Andreas Widmer, co-founder and Director of S.E.VEN. “The mini-grants program is an important vehicle that supports innovative programs that might not otherwise be funded.”
The Mini-grants Competition was supported by a grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
About the S.E.VEN Fund
S.E.VEN (Social Equity Venture Fund) is a virtual non-profit entity run by entrepreneurs Michael Fairbanks and Andreas Widmer whose strategy is to markedly increase the rate of diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty. We do this by targeted investment that fosters thought leadership through books, films and websites; supporting role models – whether they are entrepreneurs or innovative firms – in developing nations; and shaping a new discourse in government, the press and the academy around private-sector innovation, prosperity and progressive human values.
About the John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org) serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in the areas engaging life’s biggest questions. These questions range from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness and creativity.
Competition Winners
Maternova
Maternova, a new web portal, will bridge the fields of social entrepreneurship and international maternal/neonatal health. This site will organize, highlight and share innovation in order to spur more rapid development of appropriate technologies to reduce neonatal and maternal mortality in low-income countries. As its core business proposition, the site will showcase a sleek, design-conscious e-index on maternal and neonatal health innovation for low-income countries. The issue of women dying in childbirth is one which is an issue of human rights, equity and indeed economic development. One baby dies every three seconds, one woman in labor and delivery every minute. In sub-Saharan Africa 1 in 22 women will die in pregnancy and childbirth. While ‘technological fixes’ alone are insufficient in this space, disruptive innovations can play a role in decreasing costs and increasing the effectiveness of the health system. Many organizations are focused on using foreign aid to more effectively deploy current technologies in the field. But no one entity is facilitating knowledge sharing at the early stages of the technology pipeline for maternal and neonatal health. This interactive web-based knowledge-sharing site would connect all groups working on neonatal and maternal health innovation—whether non-profit or for-profit—placing the technologies and population need center stage.
Primary Investigator-Meg Wirth, MPH
Innovative Entrepreneurs Exhibition (InEx)
“Ideas meet capital”
The S.E.V. EN Fund Grant will provide seed money for planning and organizing the Innovative Entrepreneurs' Exhibition (InEx). It will contribute in large part to making the Exhibition possible and sponsoring the InEx Fellowship Program. The grant will help to bring 10 outstanding candidates below the age of 30 who are creating the next chapter for Africa to the event. InEx is one of the major highlights of the Top30Under30 Inaugural Awards (www.top30under30.com) billed for October 21-25, 2008. InEx will run for two days between the hours of 14.30 – 15.45 hrs on Thursday October 23 2008 and Friday October 24 2008 respectively. These young entrepreneurs, who require financing to fuel their vision and take their business to the next level, will have the unparallel opportunity of pitching their ideas for a maximum of 10 minutes before some of the best names in the Investment community.
Primary Investigator-Ayodeji Adewumni, www.top30under30.com
Empowerment of Students Through the Entrepreneurial Approach
This project focuses on empowering students in Las Vegas, New Mexico to become future entrepreneurs through structured curricula and applied projects. Las Vegas is an example of a small town with limited economic opportunities. Empowering the town's next generation of students to become future entrepreneurs by combining the potential of high school students with local business mentors can help build students' enthusiasm for entrepreneurship, and the vast potential in the business/technological world.
Primary Investigator-Manuel J. Garcia
The Role of Universities in Building a Culture of Civic Responsibility,
Interdependence and Prosperity.
The objective of the Rwanda roundtable is to lay the groundwork for higher education to play a central role in developing active and critically thinking citizens who are capable of building and sustaining a strong civic culture as they develop the entrepreneurial skills necessary for creating a successful and equitable economy. Rwanda education leaders and an international team of educators from the US and France will 1) discuss the goals of education change in Rwanda, 2) develop methodological and content-based strategies that integrate civic education into curricula at all levels of education and 3) articulate the desired outcomes of the Roundtable and put in place some measures to achieve them, including research, relationships among participating organizations, and teachers' workshops.
Primary Investigator-Sondra Myers, Ph.D, University of Scranton
Documentary Film
This seed-grant will fund the initial steps in developing a feature-length documentary film being produced by Worthy Entertainment, which profiles entrepreneurs from the developing world.
Primary Investigator-Sarah George, Worthy Entertainment
About the S.E.VEN Fund
S.E.VEN (Social Equity Venture Fund) is a virtual non-profit entity run by entrepreneurs Michael Fairbanks and Andreas Widmer whose strategy is to markedly increase the rate of diffusion of enterprise-based solutions to poverty. We do this by targeted investment that fosters thought leadership through books, films and websites; supporting role models - whether they are entrepreneurs or innovative firms - in developing nations; and shaping a new discourse in government, the press and the academy around private-sector innovation, prosperity and progressive human values. The S.E.VEN fund was established through a generous grant from the John Templeton Foundation.
About the John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation (www.templeton.org) serves as a philanthropic catalyst for discovery in the areas engaging life's biggest questions. These questions range from explorations into the laws of nature and the universe to questions on the nature of love, gratitude, forgiveness and creativity.
Entrepreneurs create products, services and jobs. They expand economies, improve people's lives, provide employment (high and rising wages) and bring about competition. A competitive environment, in turn, gives rise to efficiency, meritocracy and further innovations and entrepreneurial drive.
The potent combination of entrepreneurship and technological innovation can forge an environment that is conducive to further enterprise, involving even government policy in supporting entrepreneurship and innovation.