RDVP Class 1/3/2005: Trip Reports

The RDVP fellows re-grouped for the new year with a bit of a solemn start. Rather than focus on the reading (a chapter of Linked: The New Science of Networks, by Albert-László Barabási, on the growth of the internet and the risks/vulnerabilities), we reported briefly on the project-related travel that we had done in the past month, and reflected on the contributions that the RDVP could make with respect to the tsunami in Southeast Asia.

Trip Reports

Durga Pandey

Durga was in India, and mentioned some successful programs, one that had taken 150,000 children aged 9 to 14, either dropouts or those that never enrolled, and gotten them into school. Part of the process was to place them in a special camp for 12-18 months, and that was often enough to get them close to an "age-appropriate" grade. Enrollment rate was 95%, but more impressive, the retention rate was also 95%. Initial opposition from government-paid teachers (who occasionally collect paychecks without showing up in the classroom) has turned around given the success of the program. Durga also mentioned a UNICEF project that started in 6 districts in the early 1990's, and has achieved some success and built up a lot of expertise. He thinks that replicating their findings and approaches into the other 16 districts would have a big impact; that will likely be the focus of what he does in 2005.
Stuart encouraged Durga to think about IT tools could be used to link people in communication. Also, look to the gaming community which has proven the abiility to create compelling environments where hundreds of thousands of virtual identities interact. Every successful IT project has some social aspect to it, he said.

Steve Ketchpel

I gave a brief report of my trip to the Dominican Republic, which I've described elsewhere in this blog.

Helen Wang

Helen spent two weeks in China, meeting with a host of interested parties, including China Mobile, venture capitalists, micro-entrepreneurs, Motorola. She learned a couple of important lessons for her project: 1) The pricing of communication services was higher than she realized (Only the value-add subscription price, not the air-time communication charge is revenue-shared by the mobile carrier to the service provider) 2) Microentrepreneurs will need significant training to help them with the marketing of their businesses, probably by face-to-face training. On the plus side, their seemed to be good support for a listing service that she described, with nearly all expressing interest at a price point in the $4/mo range, and some willing to pay $15/mo. Newspaper advertising (their primary existing outlet) is substantially more expensive. They do have cell phones, so could use an SMS-interface to posting. VC response was split by age: younger partners tried to fit into a for-profit model, and when Helen pushed back, were uninterested; older partners saw the social benefit and expressed willingness to support, with personal money rather than the firm's fund. She also thought that China Mobile might be interested in burnishing their public image with some socially responsible programs, since their viewed as making "too much" money, to the point that they've had offices set on fire. Describing the role of the Chinese government, she said that they were interested only if an idea from the US also brought money from the US. Therefore, Helen was investigating foundations like Skoll, BMW, and Goldman Sachs that promote international efforts.

Carlos Miranda Levy

Carlos talked about the Christmas web site that he'd created, attracting 6 million visitors with some 18 million banner views, though the e-commerce component (selling holiday ring tones) gneerated only $93 for his share of the revenue (195 downloads sold). The banner advertising did a little better, netting $2,600. He shared the numbers, he said, as a demonstration of just how hard it is to make money in a content provision business.
He also spoke about his investigations into some of the recent generation web tools out there: Moodle, Civic Space, Drupal and MediaWiki. He praised them as powerful tools that were very easy to setup. Indeed, he has since created a CivicSpace site at http://www.reliefpage.com to enable us to start a conversation about tsunami relief efforts.
In terms of his project, Carlos conducted some interviews of students at El Limon in the Dominican Republic, and was worried by the lack of dreams that he found among them. They were, he felt, going along rather than being proactive. He didn't see a belief that they could change things or even that thigns could be different. He was also somewhat pessimistic about the state of education among the adults, claiming that without the fundamentals in place, they really didn't have the basic tools to deal with complex concepts or teach.

Mans Olof-Ors

Mans also traveled to the Dominican Republic, sharing some of my experiences, but also attending a whole other set of meetings that Carlos had organized. Mans commented on the dichotomy between wealth and poverty, sometimes existing side by side in the DR. Some of the wealthier neighborhoods are comparable to Europe; indeed, grocery stores there are indistinguishable from their European counterparts in terms of their range of goods. He also saw more businesses per capita in the DR than anywhere else he'd been, but this was out of necessity: they couldn't find another job, so they figured they'd better find something to sell. He described a lack of continuity, pointing primarily to government projects, such as new roads that are abandoned when presidential administrations change, but saying that it also occured at the private level, with houses just going vacant. He feared that the chain of 136 telecenters that are the pet project of the new first lady will share the same fate when the administration changes. He also noted a lack of distinction between public and private sectors, specifically the Fundacion Global, a "Non" Governmental Organization that was founded by the current president (after he was voted out in 2000. When he was re-elected in 2004, he retained his seat as head of the NGO as well.) Government meetings occur within the foundation buildings, and many officials serve dual roles in the government and the foundation.
Specifically for his project, he thought that the DR might serve as a good pilot project for an information service for BOP producers. Inespera is tasked with national price stabilization and setting, but their efforts cover only about 2% of the market. He thought there was the opportunity to become an information provider covering weather, crops, and prices, and turn it into a commercially sustainable business. He pointed out that the DR is pretty well wired, including kiosks to handle betting, even in remote areas. Also, Mans visited both informal markets and formal (government-sponsored) markets. Although the formal markets were supposed to have better prices, and they were geographically close, there were more people at the informal market.

Jose Arocha

Suppressing a severe cough, Jose told us about his trip to Venezuela. He successfully completed his two goals:

1. Clarifying the project vision with existing partners
2. Lining up new partners (a student volunteer organization, an NGO fostering social entrepeneurship among high school students)

He also mentioned the challenge of community building in a violent barrio, with some 2M people. Although a tough neighborhood, there is civic participation and telecenters. He was hoping to setup a portal for the community that would enable the creation of virutal community through cell phones. He did a little work on clarifying his post-RDVP plans, an found very positive support.

Farai Chieza

Farai, a new fellow, arrived from Zimbabwe.