New Blood

I posted an intern notice to find a new intern to travel and stay in Tanzania for three months, replacing Joel as he comes back to the states. Within 3 days I received almost 150 CV’s. It was an unbelievable turnout that attests to this new generation of people interested in social enterprise as a career. The vast majority of respondents have been those in or just out of school. There has been a good mix of MBA and design students and a few people interested in changing career paths. We’ve even had a few people who are retired or semi-retired looking to give back to the world. After a long search I finally settle on Sekhar Suryanarayanan and Kathryn Nevard. Sekhar has worked for a large consulting firm on projects all over the world. He desired to practice his Project Management skills without the safety net of a very large MNC before accepting the challenge of an MBA program. Kathryn is a Peace Corp volunteer currently working in the Gambia. It’s amazing that these two people, who have very different work background both found a sense of purpose in desiring to work in Africa for this project. The combination of the two of them fulfills the specific needs of this particular type of work. I think it takes a combination of real world, on the ground implementation from ground up and top down. In this case the top down is large MNC projects with budgets 100X plus ours. The ground up is working and living in the Gambia in a community of a couple of hundred people. It’s a combination of dirt under your fingernails as you drag the parts together in the middle of nowhere and boardroom financials, spreadsheets, and PnL statements. I’m excited to have them work together because I think they are both highly motivated, really smart, and passionate about changing the world.

The First Customer

Joel is doing amazing work in Karagwe. Against all odds he put a pilot project into place with a local entrepreneur. Today Runyoro Shops in Kayanga Town signed up their first customer. Joel negotiated the term sheet, brought the lights into TZ and to the store, and set up the transaction for the enterprise. This will go a long way to proving community uptake and capacity. It will show that we can remove much of the project risk and that they projects are profitable. We can then secure other investment with which to expand this project and bring in additional products and services. This pilot will also allow us to test the lights themselves to see if people like them. This pilot will also exemplify that this type of service enterprise can work; people pay their bills, the transaction operates properly and the technology fits a need. 

The store is in Kayanga town. It is connected to the grid. Customers include other vendors’ currently using kerosene, as well as people just outside of town that are not connected to the grid and still rely on the small, handmade lanterns. Robert, who owns the store, plans a radio advertisement. I hope Joel can get a recording of that! Joel managed to put into action all that Dave and I have been discussing for the last 12 months at his kitchen table. It’s an exciting time for this project. Despite a difficult time adjusting expectations to the African way of doing business, and despite the hiccups that we experienced with large bureaucracies, we are fast on our way to accomplishing the short term strategic goals for the project and long term goals of lighting our small piece of Africa. A lot of “ifs”, more than our share of dubious looks, and many knowing smiles got us this far. Together with the many people on the ground in Tanzania as well as all those working hard here in the US we will realize our project plans.

I can hear in Joel’s voice however that he is ready to come home. I can hear too that he is anxious to finish the action items he has left. He is committed to this project through his real time on the ground experience and seemingly won’t rest until he can feel he finished his part. It’s exciting to me to have inspired that level of commitment. Among the dissigno team he has the most real, on the ground experience of any of us and has become a valuable asset! I hope that we can formulize his experience so that we can capture the lessons learned. They have been hard fought ones. Joel has the scars to prove it, and I hope that we are able to put them into processes so that this becomes if not easier, certainly at least understandable. He has really made the process up through his experience on the ground.