Water, Internet, health, education...

Replacing internet cafe with a private connection

Average mountly cost for one hour internet cafe access per day x 30 days = $ 120.00 per month.

• Having one private internet connection via GPRS and notebook in Bunabumali $…….

Cost for Virtual Private network providing :

• ….
• ….
• ….
• „„
• ….
• …..
• …..
• …..

This is the next step in the GSON education program

Replacing Kerosine lamps with solar

In many regions of India and Africa that are not connected to the power grid, kerosene lanterns provide much of the lighting. Problem is, kerosene lanterns can be unsafe and cause respiratory problems; they’re also generally pretty dim and are a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. D.Light President Ned Tozun tells us that, while no one would argue replacing kerosene lanterns is a bad idea, technologies such as LEDs and solar panels have just started to become cost-effective replacements. And D.Light is a trying to make a real dent in the kerosene lantern problem.

What we could set up is a lamp modifying service and desing a a LED kit that can be build into the traditional kerosine lamp moddled on the yelllow lantern.

Solarled lightning / wiring example

Designing sustainable products for the consumer that spends just $2 a day can be a dual challenge: The goods have to be cheap and eco-friendly. That’s the hurdle facing D.Light, a startup that is officially announcing its products this morning. The company, which is in the process of moving its offices to Shenzhen, China, from Mountain View, Calif., is making three LED and solar-based lighting products that cost just $10 to $30 and are meant to replace kerosene lanterns.

— D.Light: Solar-Powered LED Lights For the World’s Neediest « Earth2Tech

The description of your product, service of technology

Naïade is a stand-alone drinkwater disinfecting unit that purifies water from all biological pollution. All it needs is the sun. In order to purify drinking water from arsenic and fluoride contamination, adaptations on village scale are made available by Clean Water Now.

Clean Water Now! initiates sustainable development in villages that lack electricity by providing on-site disinfected drinking water, to ensure:

• better health
• less child mortality
• less drudgery for women and children
• reduction of use of fossil fuels
• better productivity and economic development
• eradication of the Guinea worm
• significant reduction of diarrhoea and tropical diseases like cholera, typhoid fever, hepatitis A, dysenteria.

In what ways is your product, service or technology innovative?

VillageTalk has taken the Naiade concept a step further and turned it into a mini powerstation since next to water the second major challenge in rural areas is to replace expensive fossil fuel with clean enery, essential to connect to the modern world. More and more Africans have a mobile phone and recharging bateries is always a challenge.

• By adding a mini computer to the Naiade it doubles as a webserver connecting the community to internet. A service that can be expanded to serve as a fully functional internet cafe, without the traditional overhead.
  

From a technical point of view our apprach is not unique, however the business model differs dramatically from traditional development initiatives. In the old approach Naiade was only available after upfront payment of the the full cost of the system, which has proven to be next to impossible because all kinds of budget constraints at community, governement and NGO level.

Our approach is complimentary to the work carried out by NGO’s, if available. In Bunabumali there isw no NGO involved, but in many other areas they will be.

Under the new franchise bussiness model the infrastructure is selffinancing, becuase we use a subscription model, which means, provided you meet a few basic requirements, a community can get started in a mater of weeks.

The largest part of the monthly subscription fee is retrieved from the savings that are result of introducing this modern technology. At the same time it will create local jobs because each Naide doubles as mini community business center.

Competition, substitutes & differentiation

Who are your main competitors?

• ICT: Inveneo

• Water management: not applicable
  

• What is the competitive advantage of your start-up company?

- No dependence on development aid

- No depandence on state financing

- The lowest operational overhead possible

- Selffinancing

- Job creation

• Which products, services or technologies may substitute yours?

• In what ways does your service, product or technology surpass other alternative?

Customers

• What need does your product satisfy and what will be your positioning strategy?

VT VillagePump is based on a default Naïade, a stand-alone drinkwater disinfecting unit that purifies water from all biological pollution. All it needs is the sun. In order to purify drinking water from arsenic and fluoride contamination.

Basic community disinfected drinking water benefits include, but are not limited to:

• better health
• less child mortality
• less drudgery for women and children
• reduction of use of fossil fuels
• better productivity and economic development
• eradication of the Guinea worm
• significant reduction of diarrhoea and tropical diseases like cholera, typhoid fever, hepatitis A, dysenteria

In addition VillageTalk uses the spare cacity of the unit to solve a number of basic issues to make a major impact on the sustainable development of rural Africa, in a format that does not rely on development aid, but uses the best practices described in “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” and offers a business model that provides all ingredients for selffinancing.

• LED lights replacing parafin lamps.
• community Internet access.
• batery recharging.
• community radio.

• Who are your customers: what is your target market, which customer segment are you taking away from your competitors and how many ‘new’ customers are you going to reach?

• What is the total size of this target market?

xxxxxx people within a 100 KM radius of Bunabumali.

• What growth do you expect for your market?

25 % per year once the basic network is fully operational.

• What market share do you think you will reach and how long is this going to take you?

• What price are your customers willing to pay for your product and why?

USD xxxxx per month

Intellectual property

• How can your business idea or competitive advantage be protected?

• How are you going to approach the issues of intellectual property and patenting?

Realization of the start up / profitability

• Is your product, service or technology feasible?

• Are there any legal obstacles?

• How are you going to implement your service, product or technology?

• What are your main costs?

• What is the estimated profit?