Our project is about family connections – thus the name, FamConex.

We plan to test mobile phone technology to preserve cultural and family ties, support adolescent identity formation, and document changes in culture among children whose families live on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Among the families we are working with, one branch of the family came to the US long ago, invited as part of a program to hire agricultural workers. Members of these branches are legally in this country; many are US citizens.

Still the families have close ties in both countries. Regardless of how established they may be in a US metropolitan area, the soul of family life may be rooted in a small village in Mexico. Families are likely to return to Mexico for significant life events - to be married, to celebrate a daughter’s 15th birthday, to be buried.

Our hope is to provide families with a network of mobile phones capable of running social media applications such as Twitter. Ideally we would then be able to test the efficacy of various social media applications, gathering quantitative data on the ways in which family and cultural ties, along with identity markers, are supported by the media. We would gather qualitative data as well.

As a pilot, we would begin with five sets of iPhones, with five phones on each side of the border. We would then place all users into a Twitter group and ask them to provide us with information on group use. Over the course of the year we would test at least one other social media technology with the iPhone. This pilot project would help us identify any issues that the project might run into, and would tell us whether our idea is feasible.

We are looking for free, off the shelf applications where possible, and find that these are available among the third party applications developed for the iPhone. Twitter is a good example of what we are looking for: members of our participating families can “follow” one another, and can allow us to follow them during the data collection period. Mobile Facebook is another answer.

There may be other applications down the line that may not even have been developed yet. We think that by collecting data on which aspects of mobile communication might support our goals, we and others will be in better shape to identify the most useful technologies for our purposes in the future.

Business Overview

Imagine paying $10 per month to light your home with a single kerosene lantern or cooking dinner on a campfire in your kitchen. Amazingly, over half the people in the world do not have access to safe and affordable products to meet their basic needs for these simple tasks like cooking meals, lighting homes, or purifying water. As a result, billions of people suffer from preventable illnesses, deplorable living conditions, and energy poverty. Surprisingly there are hundreds of affordable products that can safely meet people's daily needs, save people money, and conserve the environment. If these appropriate technologies exist then why are billons of people who live at the base of the economic pyramid not using these products? To address this problem, we have established PowerMundo, an innovative marketing, wholesale distribution, and micro-franchise company that connects people living in poverty to a network of sustainable resources. We manage a worldwide distribution network for clean technology products and support local economic development in emerging markets. As a result, we improve people’s lives, create employment opportunities, and conserve natural resources.

Initial Target Market

After reviewing eight Latin American markets (excluding Brazil), PowerMundo identified Peru as one of the largest underserved markets for appropriate technology. In Peru, 9.2 million people use traditional biomass cook stoves and 7.5 million Peruvian’s live without electricity. Worse yet, 20,000 Peruvians die each year due to respiratory infections. Similarly, the two leading causes of death for Peruvian children under the age of 5 (excluding newborns) are from pneumonia and diarrheal diseases. Many of these health problems are directly related to indoor air pollution and poor sanitation. To reverse these startling statistics, PowerMundo is targeting the most economically disadvantaged areas of Peru where millions of people lack access to affordable appropriate technology solutions. Following our success in Peru, we will scale up our operations to reach other Latin American markets and other underserved areas of the globe.

 AfriAfya, North America,a 501 (c) 3 was established to leverage an innovative approach for knowledge management of community driven health and development through Information Communication Technologies (ICT’s). We wish to raise funds to explore the impact and logistics of a community Smartphone library to benefit marginalized post conflict countries in eastern Africa. Helping communities gain access to needed Health and Development information.

Most North Americans don’t realize that more lives will be saved in eastern Africa in the next ten years by effective use of Information Communication Technology (ICTs) disseminating health and development knowledge we already have than by laboratory or medical research. This may not be true in the rest of the world, but it is in rural post conflict eastern Africa.

In the most marginalized and conflict ridden places in the world, the biggest barriers to Community Health and Development are lack of knowledge and a shared community distrust of outside knowledge. We know how to reduce the risk of infectious disease but in many cases Health Knowledge disseminated by Health Workers from outside the community is misinterpreted or rejected.  And so, outside Health Workers distribute treated mosquito netting which is then used for fishing or wedding veils.

We believe social change will come as a result of communities using knowledge because they have been part of the generation process and will feel ownership of the content and the technology by which it is delivered. It is the our responsibility to raise the funds necessary to bring this basic health and development information to those how need it most in post conflict eastern Africa.

By partnering with global consumer electronics companies we can more effectively create a self-sustaining lending program for mobile technology and health and development content. We have already been working closely with the largest global consumer and media research companies in order to develop effective program evaluation studies. Such research will be critical to demonstrate the value of large scale deployment to our consumer electronics partners. 

We are applying for this grant in order to create the structure necessary to 1) raise funds to implement this program and 2) to establish additional corporate partnerships in the consumer electronics field in order to assist in the technology needs of the program.

In the first phase, we wish to raise funds to conduct a pilot which explores the impact and logistics of a community Smartphone library for easier access to needed Health and Development information. Information dissemination and improved health and literacy through the successful lending and return of mobile technology are our measure of success in the first year. 

In the second year, we want to focus on building self sustainability in the program. If community members begin to improve health and create businesses based on mobile technology – such as market price or availability services, our ability to scale this program to national or even global is greatly facilitated. Sustainability, improved health statistics and micro business development are the measures of success in the second year.

Year three, having demonstrated the value of the program to community health, literacy, and micro business development, we will seek to raise investments from social investors and companies to develop a global mobile library system for the worlds marginalized population.