Winning Global Health Ideas
03/20/2009
Sustainable solutions for pennies earn students big prize
In Mumbai, India, where 60 percent of the population or 2.5 million people live in slums, malnutrition is growing.
But where there is a need, there is an opportunity.
A team of four MBA students from Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies in Mumbai came up with a plan to address the problem of daily undernourishment in Indian city slums by selling full nutritious meals of 700-800 calories using vegetable peels. The vegetable peels are donated from hotels and hospitals and packaged with rice, beans and sugarcane in ready-to-eat packets. As part of the plan, women in the slums will be hired to compile these packets and be given a higher wage rate and free food packets for their family.
The cost for one meal: 10 cents.
Even by Indian standards, that's cheap. Team members said the competition is for a home-cooked meal at 15 cents - 50 cents higher than this plan.
So how can you sell something cheaper than home cooking?
In India, slum dwellers don't buy groceries in bulk, team members say.
Their idea, Aahar: Meals for Poor at 10 Cents, beat out 70 applicants from 16 countries to win the $10,000 grand prize in this year's Global Social Entrepreneurship Competition sponsored by the University of Washington Foster School of Business.
The competition, held from Feb. 25-27, invited student teams from around the world - and across fields of study - to find creative, sustainable solutions to problems of poverty in the developing world. Students not only needed to create an innovative product, but a business model to market it, and validations from some of the leading experts in business. Prizes totaling $20,000 were on the line, including the $10,000 grand prize sponsored by the Microsoft Corporation and two prizes sponsored by the University of Washington Department of Global Health.
Second prize went to Solar Cycle a plan from students at Brown University to use recycled plastic bags and low-cost reflective material (e.g. the inside of potato chip bags) for use in solar cooking and water pasteurization. A variety of solar ovens are already in use in a patchwork of locations across Africa. However, team members say these ovens are too expensive and their distribution too localized to address the massive scope of the energy problem in rural Africa. Meanwhile, bad water and smoke inhalation create a host of health problems.
Team member John Duffy Tilman sees no reason why this idea shouldn't be implemented.
"We are able to solve a problem. We are able to make a profit doing it and we are also able to provide employment both in making the material and reselling the product in the community," he said.
Third prize and the Investor's Choice Award went to West Africa Consumer-Protection Grid, a plan from students at IMANI in Ghana and Princeton University to stop counterfeit or fake pharmaceuticals in West Africa using a code that can be verified through a phone call or text message. Team members say one in three people in West Africa will come across a counterfeit prescription - some deadly like the faulty meningitis vaccine that killed 3,000 children in Niger.
"We are solving a complex global health problem with simple technology (mobile phones)," said team member Bright B. Simons from Ghana.
To hear directly from the student teams, check out the video interviews by Seattle Times editor Bruce Ramsey. For a complete list of team projects, go to the Foster School of Business.
Bobbi Nodell is a Communications Specialist at the University of Washington's Department of Global Health.
Thank you indeed for your great innovative works. thanks for sharing as well.
How slum dwellers minimize their different kinds of food consumption behavior? How long they will prefer ‘AHAR’.
— Muhammad Mahbubul Islam Bhuiyan on 2009-04-07
Congratulations to the winners. These great ideas that could be used worldwide to alleviate badlnutrition.
— Jose Angel on 2009-04-13
NMIMS MBA students bag 1st prize for providing an innovative solution for undernourishment
— Priti on 2009-05-14