Lesotho is a small developing country contained within South Africa. You and your team of academic researchers (10 in all) are spending the next two weeks travelling to different communities throughout Lesotho to test water sources for disease-causing pathogens. The testing you need to do is simple but requires significant assistance from the community – showing your team all the different locations where individuals get their water from, and places/methods for storing the water. You do not see the need to pay the community members, considering if someone asked you about your water source, you would not mind driving them up to the lake! The ultimate goal of the project is to understand the life cycle and characteristics of a specific pathogen, which is found only in this region of Lesotho. Several publications are expected from this research study. A comprehensive profile of this pathogen can help in many ways including development of chemical additives to make the water safe to drink. Is it ethical to conduct this research study? What will you do next? 

Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation and clearly state the ethical issue.

• The research team (10 people, including you) is going to Lesotho for two weeks to conduct research on the pathogen in their water source
• The goal of the research is to investigate the life cycle and chemical/biological features of disease-causing pathogen
• There are no stated benefits to the locals in their research proposal
• The results from this research could be used to develop chemical additives to make the water safe to drink.
• There is limited knowledge on the culture in Lesotho and what the indigenous knowledge is relative to the water
• The researchers will release publications on their findings of the pathogen
• The researchers will need the help of the local people to locate where the people obtain and store their water.
• Assume we have all necessary approvals needed for research
• The researchers are unaware of other researchers already working on a similar study
• Ethical issue: As of right now, the locals are not benefiting from the research in any way, and the academic researchers have no intentions to pay the community members.

Step 2 & 3: Define the Stakeholders and assess their motivations 

• Academic researchers:
  • Test the water in Lesotho for disease-causing pathogens
  • Understand the life cycle and characteristics of the pathogen
  • Write several publications from the research study and further your professional career
  • Possibly develop chemical additives to make the water safe to drink
  • Patent discover to possibly profit from findings 
  • Driven by social impact or fame in helping the local community
• Locals 
  • Provide location of water sources 
  • By providing access to the water sources, they contribute to the development of chemical additives in hopes of getting access to them for safe consumption of water
  • Vulnerability that stems from working with them may motivate them to stretch the truth and tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear.
• Your research university/institution:
  • The findings could add to their reputation, making them highly regarded
  • Disseminate the research found to make findings available for companies, open source research journals, and local community leaders
  • Strengthen new/existing partnership with other funding agencies
  • Open rooms for future collaborations within the area/country (e.g., new ventures)
  • Create opportunities for students to gain experience on social impact projects (and make impact) 
• Sponsors of the research:
  • Want to gain the benefit of discovering a new pathogen
  • Gain the opportunity to develop chemical additives against any harmful chemicals that are found in the water
  • Can potentially earn monetary benefit from the chemical additives that will be developed
  • Gain a better reputation and have their name attached in the breakthrough of helping treat water issues in another country
  • Publicity that will potentially aid in gaining funding for other projects or investigations
• Local government: 
  • Make sure the research team is not exploitative and does not cause any harm (mentally or physically) to its own citizens (for example, poison the water sources, etc)
  • Validates whether or not the water source in the area is safe to drink for the community
  • Ensure that the citizens have accessibility to the research
  • Ensure the area have some sort of benefit to the chemical additives that is developed if pathogens are found in the water
  • Building/expanding relationships with other funding agencies/countries 

Step 4: Formulate three alternative solutions 

Step 4:

1. Provide education from our team and any trusted local leaders and/or researchers to make sure locals are aware of the dangers. 

• Ethical Principle or code: Informed consent. This helps establish a relationship with the community and provides the awareness necessary for us to work respectfully. 
• Pros: 
  1. It would allow locals to make an informed decision
  2. We would be ethically correct
  3. It could save us from lawsuits in case something went wrong. 
  4. Locals are more likely to listen to a trusted local than outsiders

• Cons
  • Locals might decide to not participate in the case study.
  • Locals might change their behavior.
  • Worst case scenario: locals might not want the research done in their community.

2) Ask the government to assign some local leaders and supervisors to assist the research team to find the locations of the disease-causing pathogenic water 

• Pros:
  • Local leaders might also help facilitate the communication between the researchers and the locals 
  • Local government permission makes the research less intrusive 
  • Locals may trust us more if their government is helping us
  • Researchers will obtain guides or a map of the locations of the water source and storage location
  • Research team is still able to effectively conduct research
• Cons:
  • Might be more work to set up beforehand
  • Might cost a lot of money to train locals to properly extract the water sample (assuming locals do not have the education to do so)
  • Local government may not welcome the research team to conduct investigation on their water
• Ethical Principle: 
  • Respect for others: we would be communicating with local leaders to get their insight and expertise on the community, respecting them and their culture.

 3) Recruit and train locals to do help with research

• Ethical Principle or code: Invading communities that do not want outsiders
• Pros:
  • Locals are more likely to trust locals
  • Researchers wouldn’t be contaminating the environment
  • It would allow researchers to see if locals already have methods to clean the water.
  • Helps validate our intentions 
• Cons:
  • It would take longer to train the locals
  • Unsure if researchers can trust the locals to do the work correctly
  • Researchers would have less control over the case study

 

Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate

• As a researcher, we have our own agenda, but if we are planning to release several publications, a true protective researcher will look for a more in-depth connection with the community and its people. For research to be successful, it needs to be supported by different parties, and in this case with the people that actually know where the water sources are. In addition, for the research to become successful in the long-term, we must establish some type of connection with them so the communities will become more open to other related research or partnerships like these in the future. They are crucial in communicating our findings, intentions, and recommendations on reducing exposure to the pathogen. Chemical additives are an innovation that we can only speculate about developing, however we can create a mutually beneficial relationship if we work with local leaders and relevant stakeholders such as water agencies. This can be formed by building a relationship with village elders / local community leaders / past Lesotho researchers so that we have the trust of respected people to ease our transition into Lesotho.

 

Step 6: Select the best course of action

• Because Lesotho is a small developing country, their people and communities may not understand how pathogens/diseases work or even not believe they exist. Therefore, educating the people is critical, because allowing them to know what is going to happen may allow them to be more accepting of research, and if they could benefit from the research, in this case, better quality of water and sanitation. In addition, it is important to involve any current leaders and/or researchers who have the trust of their communities, likely have indigenous knowledge, or can help facilitate our experience working with the community. For example, if there are any local water agencies, we can collaborate and exchange information on our work and intentions. They can 

 

Step 7:

• Economic: 
  • Although constantly testing the water may become expensive, possibly installing a pH, bacteria reader or some type of low cost purification method that consistently runs, could help cut down the costs for testing multiple times. 
  • In Lesotho, the research findings may lead to clean water which means less deaths caused by water, which in turn leads to more people alive to give work and contribute to the economy 
  • If increasing tourism is something the local government chooses to pursue, they can learn how to communicate dangers of this pathogen as well as the work that is being the traffic of new people coming in would increase the country’s economy since they would be spending money in country 
• Social: 
  • The community would have common ethical requirements that does not involve someone getting hurt from participating in the research and having the choice to understand what the research is about
  • Lesotho’s government and locals will have a mutually beneficial relationship with the researchers, research institution, and sponsors; trust between them will be created, possibly leading to future endeavors together
  • People of Lesotho who are curious about the research will have access to the findings, and can conduct research of their own using ours as a starting point. This could also spark intellectual curiosity in the locals, maybe causing them to pursue more education or working to change the way they source their water.. 
• Environmental: 
  • Testing which water sources are much more cleaner, can prevent the possible spread of diseases. If certain water sources are identified as contaminated, we can learn how this can be communicated to the community to inform them of our findings and recommendations until chemical additives are developed. Certain regions have a specific area where they mainly get their water from, so it may be likely that their food that they eat (crop) and their livestock would be using the same water source. 
• Technology: 
  • Irrigation systems can be constructed for locals to source their water from uncontaminated sources; one example of this are ram pumps that use the air pressure and water flow from river streams to pump water. This eliminates the need for power and could help substitute where people source their water until chemical additives are developed. Building irrigation systems could also benefit from low cost filtration.  

• While trying to develop a low-cost syringe for the developing world context, you (the designer) hit a cross-roads. Constructing the syringe to auto-disable after a single use, an important safety feature, significantly adds to the cost of the design – making it potentially unaffordable for some hospitals and clinics. However, if you don’t add the safety feature, you are enabling the potential for the spread of disease. How do you as a designer proceed?

Using the Ethical Decision-Making Methodology:

Step 1: Determine the facts in the situation

• Task: develop low-cost syringe for use in a developing world
• Possible safety feature: Auto-disable after a single use
  • Pros: limits the spread of disease from one person to another
  • Cons: adds a significant cost to the design, reducing accessibility
• Ethical Issue: If the safety feature is added, less people will have access to the syringe, but there is a guarantee that disease won’t spread through the syringe. If the safety feature isn’t added, more people will have access to the syringe due to its lower cost, but there is a risk of disease spreading.

Step 2: Define the Stakeholders

• Hospitals/Clinics/Doctors: will be the ones using the product
• Patients: will be the ones receiving the product and its benefits
• Manufacturer: produces the product and sells to hospitals and clinics
• Designer: is the one in charge of designing the product and determines whether or not the safety feature is added

Step 3: Assess the motivations of the Stakeholders

• Hospitals/Clinics/Doctors: they want to save people using the product, want to help as many people as possible
• Patients: want to safely receive vaccines using the syringe
• Manufacturer: wants to optimize sales and profit, make as many and sell as many as possible; isn’t concerned about what the purpose of the product is, more focused on the money tied to it
• Designer: wants to help people with an accessible and affordable product, ultimate goal is to contribute to greater good with the product

Step 4: Formulate (atleast three) alternative solutions

1. Design the syringe with the safety feature: While it reduces accessibility in the beginning, there is a guarantee of no disease spreading. From the designer’s perspective, this does grant peace of mind on one end, with disease not spreading, but it is upsetting that not as many people will be able to access it. As time goes on, the designer hopes that hospitals will see how effective the single use syringe is and be incentivized to invest in it. These are all concerns more for the manufacturer though, since they will be the ones producing the physical product and selling it to hospitals. If sales go up, so will demand, so maybe the manufacturer will be able to mass produce it to give a lower cost per unit.
2. Design the syringe without the safety feature:  Designing it without the safety feature allows for the syringe to be accessed by a lot more people. Hospitals and clinics will be more willing to purchase the syringe if it’s made this way, but the trade off is that there is a greater risk of disease spreading if the hospital workers don’t use it properly. One of the purposes of the syringe development is for it to be low cost for developing countries, so this design allows for greater affordability.
3. Design the syringe without the safety feature but establish a training protocol for use: One of the main concerns about the syringe not having the safety feature is that it will be used improperly and spread disease. The safety feature is too costly to reach the number of people desired, but it is important. To balance out the lack of the safety feature, a teaching program could be designed to show hospital workers who will be using the syringes how to use them in a way to prevent spread of disease. This can include re-using the syringe only on the same person by keeping it stored under their name so they have the same one during their next visit, or teaching employees how to properly sanitize the syringes between use to limit the spread of disease.

Step 5: Seek additional assistance, as appropriate

• Inner reflection: Long term, I believe investing in a safety feature to prevent the spread of disease and misuse of medical equipment is important. However, by decreasing the capacity hospitals have in treating patients with syringes that are a bit more expensive may prove to decrease the potential for beneficence hospitals intend to have. Also, it becomes more costly to waste the syringe in the event of a misinjection. From my experience, medical equipment that makes contact with bodily fluids tends to be used only once, with training on disposal to ensure it does not circulate again. With proper training regimens to help reinforce proper handling and safety procedures, the need for an auto-disable can be circumvented by focusing on the human error that accounts for the reuse of syringes.. 

Step 6: Select the best course of action

• Based on the given alternatives, I would feel best choosing the third course of action, designing the syringe without the safety feature but establishing a training protocol for employees to go learn and follow. Ideally, the syringes would be made with the safety feature, but because this limits accessibility to many, I would feel best choosing the option that helps the most people. The learning protocol would aid in limiting the spread of disease, all while keeping the product itself low-cost for buyers.

Step 7: What are the implications of your solution on the venture?

• By choosing the low-cost alternative, my venture will be able to reach as many people as possible. It will allow for more people to be treated, all while keeping the design simple.Through offering training, the repeatability of my product, training program, and its use can be easily achieved in other countries, achieving the greatest sense of beneficence. I can sell to more hospitals and clients, allowing for more patients to receive what they need through syringes that staff are trained to use, rather than designed for staff to use. The teaching program will allow for disease to be contained, so that there is a greater overall well-being in the communities that use the syringe.

Refine the detailed income statement for your venture for two years (at six month intervals) or a more appropriate time scale. Explicitly state the assumptions that underlie your financial model.

 

Income Statement: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yq3ZQ3kK9MLOXV2PaozkikcXMM_1Lj37P_1Wl8RNGCQ/edit#gid=1922107350

 

Please click the link for the most detailed information. The assumptions below are summarized using information from the document above. 

 

Assumptions:

• Sales Projections: Period is 160 days each, each muffin is being sold for SLL1500, 500 units of each product will be sold per day, products will be sold at the bakery and at kiosks
  • Period 1: 
    • 500 muffins/day in Makeni 
    • Revenue = SLL120,000,000
  • Period 2: 
    • 1,000 muffins/day in Makeni, 500 muffins/day in Freetown Location 1 
    • Revenue = SLL360,000,000
  • Period 3: 
    • 1,200 muffins day in Makeni, 1000 muffins/day in Freetown Location 1,500 muffins/day in Freetown Location 2  
    • Revenue = SLL648,000,000
  • Period 4: 
    • 1,500 muffins/day in Makeni, 1500 muffins/day in Freetown Location 1, 1,000 muffins/day in Freetown Location 2 
    • Revenue = SLL960,000,000
• COGS:
  • Raw materials (ingredients) = SLL156/Unit
    • 500 units of each product will be produced per day = SLL78,000/Day

• Production costs = SLL485/Unit
  • 500 units of each product will be produced per day = SLL242,500/Day
• Helpers’ Wages = SLL5,823,000
  • ~2 Helpers/500 Muffins
• Bakery Specialist Wages = SLL8,734,500
  • 1 additional specialist per location (bakery already has 1, so we will have a total of 2 per location and only have to pay the additional one ourselves)

• Operating Expenses:
  • Supervisor salary per period is SLL38,820,000
  • Supervisor associate salary per period is SLL7,277,031

 

Refine the Business Model for your venture based on your revenue model. You may use the Osterwalder BMC to refine your business model but prepare one or more visuals that explain how your venture will work and accomplish your BHAG.

 

Business Model

 

The graphic below shows how our venture is going to work. The supervisor and supervisor associate oversee all activities – setting up manufacturing, building partnerships, looking at social and economic outcomes in long term. Betteh Bakery will have helpers who are in charge of purchasing and processing ingredients, while the specialist ensures the muffin recipe is done to completion. Muffins can be purchased at the bakery directly, at kiosks the bakery will be setting up throughout the city, or through the street vendor network. Through those distribution methods, we will be able to reach communities.

 

Develop an M&E plan for your venture.

• Clearly list all assumptions.
• Identify short-term and long-term success metrics.
• Identify specific methods to measure the metrics.

 

In order to succeed in monitoring and evaluating our venture, we have split success metrics between sales and reduced malnutrition. Our long-term metric is successfully decreasing the malnutrition rate in Sierra Leone by 13% in five years, so the rate goes from 38% to 25%. Our metrics for success in the short term are dependent on our sales. If we are able to achieve our sales projections, we will succeed in terms of business operations. In order to do this, we have to hire a supervisor, supervisor associate, baking specialists, and bakery helpers. By dividing the laborious aspect of our venture between bakers and helpers, we will be able to have the employees necessary to work in producing the food products, and the supervisor will monitor our progress over time. Newtrition helpers will assist in sourcing and processing ingredients through peeling and cutting vegetables, and other labor-intensive tasks. Baking specialists will be responsible for working inside Betteh and baking the muffins.

 In order to keep track of our sales, our supervisor will oversee how many muffins we are able to sell from our initial production number of 500. Since we will be selling muffins from the bakery and through market kiosks we set up, the supervisor will be responsible for distributing muffins amongst our different sale locations and tracking overall sales. They will also be responsible for marketing our product. The supervisor associate will be responsible for shadowing and assisting the supervisor so that when we are able to expand into a different area such as Freetown, they understand the nature of the work they must put in to succeed. Once we can track our sales, we will be able to gauge the frequency behind the consumption of the muffins prior to scaling. Though our venture is primarily focused on reducing malnutrition, we have to establish a system that allows our muffins to become consumed regularly and gain desirability as we scale and our venture becomes more well known. Through achieving this first assumption, we can proceed to measure the long term metric of reduced malnutrition through collecting periodic data analysis of the change in micronutrient deficiencies once we have steady-state operations. 

Through our partnership with World Hope, we will leverage their connections to government affiliates and health clinics to designate a data collector who will aid in providing and managing testing for future Newtrition students to analyze. With an increase in sales, we can assume that there is an increase of consumption of our products; this positive trend can be used to determine consumption habits and understand if we are reaching our target demographic of children under 5. We can approach this through conducting monthly screenings through the communities we have set up bakeries and kiosks within. As we are able to screen and inform mothers about their children’s health, we can promote our product as an affordable method of feeding their children with the nutritional value they need for healthy development. Logging the mothers who arrive with their children will allow us to maintain a record of the success of our products; weight gain and gradual health development, and help us get a sense of the effectiveness of our products.

Develop a detailed income statement for your venture for two years (at six month intervals). Explicitly state the assumptions that underlie your financial model.

 

Income Statement: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1yq3ZQ3kK9MLOXV2PaozkikcXMM_1Lj37P_1Wl8RNGCQ/edit#gid=1922107350

 

Please click the link for the most detailed information. The assumptions below are summarized using information from the document above. 

 

Assumptions:

• Sales Projections: Period is 160 days each, each muffin is being sold for SLL1500, 500 units of each product will be sold per day, products will be sold at the bakery and at kiosks
  • Period 1: 
    • 500 muffins/day in Makeni 
    • Revenue = SLL120,000,000
  • Period 2: 
    • 1,000 muffins/day in Makeni, 500 muffins/day in Freetown Location 1 
    • Revenue = SLL360,000,000
  • Period 3: 
    • 1,200 muffins day in Makeni, 1000 muffins/day in Freetown Location 1,500 muffins/day in Freetown Location 2  
    • Revenue = SLL648,000,000
  • Period 4: 
    • 1,500 muffins/day in Makeni, 1500 muffins/day in Freetown Location 1, 1,000 muffins/day in Freetown Location 2 
    • Revenue = SLL960,000,000
• COGS:
  • Raw materials (ingredients) = SLL156/Unit
    • 500 units of each product will be produced per day = SLL78,000/Day

• Production costs = SLL485/Unit
  • 500 units of each product will be produced per day = SLL242,500/Day
• Helpers’ Wages = SLL5,823,000
  • ~2 Helpers/500 Muffins
• Bakery Specialist Wages = SLL8,734,500
  • 1 additional specialist per location (bakery already has 1, so we will have a total of 2 per location and only have to pay the additional one ourselves)

• Operating Expenses:
  • Supervisor salary per period is SLL38,820,000
  • Supervisor associate salary per period is SLL7,277,031
• EBIT:
  • Corporate tax rate in SL is 30% (https://tradingeconomics.com/sierra-leone/personal-income-tax-rate)

 

Identify two SPECIFIC funding sources for the design phase of your project and two SPECIFIC funding sources for the dissemination (implementation / distribution / commercialization) phase of your project. For each funding source, explain why this is a good fit for your project, and what SPECIFIC aspect of your project might the funding source support.

 

Design: 

• Food Systems Vision Prize (Grant of $200,000) if we win. We are currently semi-finalists.
  • FSVP could aid in giving us the initial funding to cover short term expenses necessary to kickstart our venture; bike and fuel for transportation, kiosks for selling our products at market, wages for our initial employees and laborers, food production equipment such as dehydrators, mills, and blenders, and packaging materials. Through the business plan we have created, being able to conduct our fieldwork with having this amount of fundraising will significantly aid in gathering the people and items necessary to make our venture run after our fieldwork.
•  Lehigh University
  • Since we have yet to establish anything concrete in Sierra Leone, part of the design phase funding towards the venture must come from the University and GSIF Malnutrition researchers. Since we do not currently have a food design specialist, it is up to us to understand the needs of Sierra Leoneans and what resources we have to work with over there. For now, we are responsible for translating our research and into experiments with recipes that are affordable, nutritious, and flavorful according to us. Using resources like the internet, we can calculate the nutritional value of our products as well as being able to order supplements that our recipes may require, which can be hard to source during fieldwork and in Sierra Leone in general. GSIF/Personal funds are more expendable than in Sierra Leone, therefore our investment in our design helps mitigate the costs we may incur when trying to implement our ideas in fieldwork and for our employees after we leave.

 

Dissemination:

•  World Hope International 
  • Through our partnership with World Hope, our overhead costs are significantly reduced because of having the space of Betteh Bakery to work within. Since they cover utility and rent costs, we are able to keep production costs low meanwhile having the added benefit of branding and trust through our partnership. World Hope / Betteh Bakery carry more weight in Makeni than Lehigh might; through the credibility we gain, we are able to work within the established network and trust World Hope has with the community, making it easier to sell and spread word about our products.
•  Lehigh University
  • When we go to Sierra Leone, we will be responsible for bringing ingredients and equipment such as the dehydrator, cooking instruments, and mill to be able to arrive ready to instruct our bakers how to create our recipes. Before our venture begins to sell products, we are responsible for covering the initial costs of goods sold. Additionally, to begin advertising our products beyond just word of mouth, bringing marketing supplies such as stickers will depend on us because it will be difficult to begin spreading awareness of the Newtrition venture without some kind of visual to keep us in the minds of our customers beyond the time they consume our products.

 

Identify five specific partnerships that you need to forge to advance your project forward with the ultimate goal of positively impacting at least one million people. Describe exactly how that partnership might help you achieve scale and why that entity might be willing to work with you.

 

1. Mothers and parents of children in Sierra Leone: if we receive support from the community, they will keep us in business. Without them, there is no purpose to our project. They are the consumers. They can help in marketing our products through Word-of-Mouth and social media apps like Whatsapp, and they might be willing to work with us because our goal is to help them and the rest of their community. We want to establish an overall improved well-being in their health. 
2. People in the community who have some experience or potential in running a social enterprise. We have to create partnerships with people who are willing to bring our venture further and run the management operations. Newtrition is a legally structured, social enterprise that will need a team of people to manage central operations after Lehigh exits their role in the project. Having this team of people will advance the project further because they will help expand the project and create more opportunities for children with malnutrition to access our products 
3. People in the community who are willing to work to bake our food products, people who are looking for jobs. Although our venture is not focused on creating new jobs for people in Sierra Leone, one of our goals is to make connections with people who can work to produce food products. This is important because we need a mass population to be involved in production to be able to make a higher production of food. A larger production is important because as our venture grows and word of mouth spreads, we will have more mothers and families who will want to purchase our products, and we have to keep up with demand and increase production to get our products to everyone
4. We need to make connections with people who are willing to participate in our venture and are data personnel. These people are important for our venture because they can work with the health departments in Sierra Leone and obtain data about malnutrition. We need this data because it will help us see if our venture is actually making progress and an impact on malnutrition. We can also use this data to identify which cities or areas of Sierra Leone are still undergoing severe malnutrition. Identifying these areas will help us target those villages so we can provide our products to those who really our products to ward off malnutrition
5. We need to maintain our partnership with Betteh Bakery. We are using their bakeries to use their materials to make our products, so the people we hire in charge of making our foods can use their facilities. Our partnership with Betta bakery is important because without them, we would not have the materials for food product production. Our partnership with them is a foundation of our venture, and the use of their materials will allow our venture to continue food production that will help millions of people access our products through sales 

End to end solution

During production, hiring women for the bakery will be key for placing the responsibility of production in the hands of the customers we seek to impact and empower. Their judgement and expertise coupled with partnerships with different farmers and vendors for the ingredients and equipment needed will establish a relationship to keep our producers supplied with what they need for consistent, quality products. Wholesale market purchases will allow the bakery to get the cheapest price on ingredients depending on the number of vendors who have purchased our products. Our vendors purchasing from the bakery in wholesale quantities will allow the bakery to profit off its production yield meanwhile being able to sell the products individually at market at a profitable price. The faster our vendors are able to sell our products, the more incentive and capital the bakery will have to produce more, which will allow us to begin scaling our production and maximizing profits for our workers to benefit from as costs drop and our market grows.

Ten practical lessons from the business (revenue) models of ventures we reviewed today (or others you research) as they relate to your venture.

1. Focusing on training workers and giving them the tools they need to succeed in your business opens your labor market to anyone willing to work
2. Open Hiring Models are an efficient way around attracting unskilled laborers who may not have conventional job qualifications.
3. Providing products that work around potential customer constraints such as space or time creates inclusivity and simplifies the processes necessary for customer use, which increases the market outreach.
4. Brand associations aid in boosting the recognition and market a venture is able to pitch itself toward.
5. Establishing a distribution standard allows a business to track and manage consistent returns.
6. Encouraging self-sufficiency by allowing workers to take initiative to network and train others allows for the venture’s outreach to expand beyond its point of origin.
7. An open source business model like Barefoot College’s allows for people in different countries to be able to replicate and expand the venture.
8. Partnering with community leaders allows for target customers to get the products and services that are aimed at empowering them meanwhile being distributed by trustworthy people.
9. Reinvestment initiatives like Reel Gardening’s buy one donate one model allows customers to have a part in helping expand the venture’s outreach.
10. Tailoring production to the specific needs of communities ensures that a product can have its intended impact throughout a range of different conditions.

Malnutrition Business Plan

Ten Lessons from Aravind Eyecare

The complex issue is approached with a simple operation; was expanded through setting up a network of eyecare centers and using training and outreach camps to build up staff and to begin finding patients in need of treatment.

 

Rather than worrying about financing the project, emphasis was placed on getting to know patients and village locals to build a relationship on trust rather than approaching paternalistically. By seeing oneself in the people they are helping, they are able to operate on empathy.

 

By branding eye care as an issue that “sees” no difference in demographics with a mantra/belief, the venture is universal for patients and providers alike to be involved with. 

 

Establishing ownership in small communities empowers people to take responsibility and come together; the locals take the initiative to address and make others aware of the problem and solution, making it easier for eye care personnel to assess, diagnose, and treat patients at one time. 

 

Catering to the obstacles people have such as transportation and organizing the different levels of eyecare necessary for patients increases the efficiency of the system and eases the process patients must go through to be treated; if these are uniform, eye care services can treat more patients with less room to get off schedule.

 

Working with available equipment and fixing the price at a relatable, affordable price point makes the service inclusive for the people who need it the most.

 

Lowering the cost of communication and necessary face-to-face interactions through telecommunication prevents overwhelming, and for patients and providers alike to get the information they need in a timely fashion.

 

By charging only those who can afford the service at market price, and providing the service for free creates competition that ineffective systems cannot compete with. A system that is more productive and affordable than others can make up for the profits other systems lose out on.

 

Emphasizing domestic manufacturing and sourcing of employees and materials creates sustainability, which will lower the cost of services as the business is able to scale.

 

As the business scales, continuing to focus on quality and addressing an issue that ranges across all demographics fosters consistency and sustainability that can be emulated by other countries and systems with similar obstacles.

List five compelling take-aways from the Art of the Start. 

 

1. It is critical to have a mantra for your organization – allows for everyone to have a core mindset

 

1. 10, 20 30 – Presentations. The 10, 20, 30 technique is important to make sure that the audience knows we are knowledgeable about our presentation
   1. 10 slides in pitch
   2. 20 minutes
   3. 30 pt smallest font 

 

1. Don’t ask people to do something you wouldn’t do
   1. There is no way you can expect someone to invest in you if you wouldn’t be a user of your own project/product

 

1. It is important for our team to create our Milestones, Assumptions, and Tasks (MAT). If we learn to use MAT consistently, it will allow us to understand our project goals. MAT will help us divide our tasks among our group evenly which will allow us to be more efficient while working on our project milestones that will lead towards the achievement of our goal.

 

1. It is important to have a team with a diverse set of skills. The more diverse our group is, the more perspectives we will have to be able to analyze and reflect on our project to make more improvements to our work. Different people with different skills can have different tasks in our project, and all these skills combined will result in a successful project and presentation.

 

Articulate your value propositions for your diverse customer segments.

 

For mothers who want to ensure the food safety of their children, our muffins and puddings allow children to receive the micronutrients they need on a daily basis, all while enjoying a tasty snack. 

 

For mothers who want to add health benefits to the meals they cook, our fortified bouillon cubes compliment every dish while adding nutritional value that is not available in other competitors like Maggi.

 

Discuss your Total Available Market and Total Addressable Market. List all your assumptions and hypotheses.

 

• Total Available Market: 
  • 470,000 children in Sierra Leone that are malnourished and/or stunted

 

• Total Addressable Market: 
  • Let’s assume that we can reach 1% of the market initially – realistic assumption because we are starting in one region before expanding to others.
  • 470,000*0.01= 4,700 children
  • This is realistic because our past taste testing showed that 98% of mothers in SL would buy our product to feed to their children. We cannot reach the entire country at once, which is why the 1% assumption was made. We hope that in the coming years, our market share grows and we reach more kids. The more kids we reach, the lower malnourishment and stunting will be prevalent in SL. Our product competes on value, not price (which is affordable), so it strengthens our presence in the market. There are no comparable products currently in the food market, which also helps in reducing the elasticity of our demand. This leaves people who want to make sure their kids are nourished properly with no other choice than to purchase our product.

Summarize and report on the results of the SKS exercise. 

 

For our SKS, we decided we are going to start doing more team-bonding exercises because they provide everyone with positive reinforcement. We all enjoyed learning what other people’s perspectives of us in the project were, and it definitely provided us all with reassurance and made us each confident we were doing our part on the team. We also decided that we are going to start becoming more involved with past members. Our team has 2 members who did the project last semester, and 4 new members who just joined. Since we are new members, we see each other more often because of the Tuesday seminar. It seems there is a slight disconnect between us and the past members. Each person does their part, but the dynamic between the 4 new members is different from the dynamic of the team as a whole, clearly because the new members spend more time together. We want to work on tightening this divide.

We want to keep the team dynamic between us 4, and extend it to the rest of the team. We all get along really well and enjoy each other’s company. I am so glad to have become friends with my new team members, and definitely want to keep the love we all share for each other. Our self-motivation is apparent in our ability to focus on our roles and how we are able to come together to address concerns and new directions in our research. We have began to encourage one another to lead more, so we have a healthy balance of supporting one another.

We want to stop simply giving updates at our meetings and teach each other more. A majority of our weekly meetings with our advisor are focused on simply giving updates, but they are not as in depth as they could be. If we each become more in depth with our updates, the rest of the team will become more knowledgeable on each aspect of our project and have a better holistic understanding of it. To change this, we intend to begin taking more time during team meetings to teach one another about the work we have accomplished rather than just updating one another. 

 

Develop a detailed Collaboration Plan for your team clearly articulating your Goals (Small g and Big G), Roles, Procedures, and Relationships.

 

Our big goal as a team is to begin to teach and inform each other about our individual work in the project. We are all very dedicated to our individual work, and have done a lot of research within our work individually. In many cases, if our other team members knew about the information we learned about, it would greatly benefit their own research too. Additionally, it is important for us to be aware of what everyone is working on to have a more well-rounded knowledgeable background of our project. Our small goals as a team include communicating more with past team members. Prior to the trip, it would be helpful to establish better relationships so we can understand their approach and how we can prepare ourselves for potential obstacles they experienced. The questions they gained from their fieldwork and time researching can help guide the goals we pursue and better prepare us for getting the answers we need to push the venture forward.

Our roles in our team consists of having small projects as subsets of our big project goal, which is to alleviate childhood malnutrition in Sierra Leone. Each one of us is working on one specific thing to contribute to our project as a whole. Samantha is working on developing new recipes to test during our summer fieldwork, Gabby and Evelyn are leading our application for the Food Systems Vision Prize to win a grant, Robert is working on developing the recipe for moringa-fortified bouillon cubes, and Kayla is working on writing the research paper based on past fieldwork. We proceed with our goals by developing a timeline of when we want to complete different tasks to complete these smaller projects within our malnutrition project as a whole. As a group, we hold each other accountable for completing these goals. Our relationship as a team is a strength of ours; we have a great group dynamic while working on our project together and outside the project, however we want to continue to improve our relationships in our team by teaching one another about our work to ensure we are knowledgeable beyond our individual roles and prevent knowledge gaps from forming between one another. Although our dynamic places transparency as one of our core values, teaching creates security for our group’s ability to speak on the efforts we have put forth, fosters the opportunity for us to suggest potential revisions or topics for one another to explore and anchors the groundwork we have all put in for one another. Despite now being separated physically from one another, we have more incentive to be each other’s checks and balances. 

 

Does your work require IRB approvals? If Yes, articulate your detailed IRB strategy. If No, explain why you don’t need IRB approval and identify situations when you might need IRB approval. 

 

Our project does not require IRB approval because:

1. We are working with a vulnerable population
   1. Pregnant women and children in Sierra Leone
2. Identifiable public information
   1. According to the federal regulations, human subjects (pregnant women and children) are living human beings about whom an investigator obtains data through interaction or intervention with these individuals
3. Informed consent 
   1. In our project, we will have interviews with women and children; we will have to explain the purpose of the research to them beforehand, in order for them to understand the purpose of our project 
   2. The interviews are completely voluntary; it will obtain verbal consent 
4. Questionnaires
   1. The questionnaire is split into two sections. The first section is for each mother to get an understanding of her life, her children’s life, and her family’s eating habits, and the second section is split into questions about each of the three recipes and the food that each child tries is dependent on their age.

 

The only time where we will require IRB approval would be if:

1. Risk of harm in social and behavioral sciences
   1. Invasion of privacy 
      1. Asking if whether or not women have had abortions 
   2. Breach of confidentiality 
   3. Study procedures 
      1. Risks are specific for time, situation and culture 
2. If our study assigns human subjects to study activities based on an undesirable or unflattering physical characteristics as assessed by members of the research team 

 

Develop an outline for your mid-semester presentations. What supporting evidence will you provide for each point? How will you boost your credibility every step of the way?

 

1. Introduction to Malnutrition in Sierra Leone/Prevention of Stunting for Children 
   1. Give quick statistic on overall malnutrition in the world

 

1. 1. Narrow it down by discussing the issue in Sierra Leone
      1. Statistic on malnutrition in kids and how it leads to stunting
         1. Statistics provide credibility
            1. They also provide a greater understanding of the rates of malnutrition/stunting, diseases and other catastrophes in Sierra Leone 
      2. Talk about factors that cause malnutrition
         1. Lack of nutrient dense foods
         2. Economic, political and geographical barriers in SL that prevent people from receiving sufficient amounts of life necessities 
            1. HIV/AIDS (deadly infectious diseases), malaria in women; high mortality rates; poverty and infrastructure (has kept clinics and medical hospitals from helping the community)
         3. Kids aren’t breastfed – many are given water instead
            1. Causes malnutrition at a very young age 
      3. Talk about how mothers are discouraged from seeking help because they are blamed for the malnutrition in kids and are sometimes shamed for it
         1. Although many mothers are not educated, or have no form of education; some of these mothers have no background on breastfeeding, which is worrisome for the health of their children 
2. Our Approach
   1. Developing nutrient dense foods that fit within the tastes of the community
      1. Muffins
      2. Pudding
      3. Bouillon Cubes
      4. Peanut Butter Recipes
   2. Taste Testing in SL
      1. Have people try our different products and let us know if they like it or not, and give us any other feedback on it
      2. Provide certain explanation on the purpose of our research to children and mothers in order for them to further understand our project
         1. We will be provided with a translator 
      3. Taste-testing– For the children, we will observe their facial expression and reaction to each food. For children 18 months and younger, we will rely on behavioral observations and the help of their mothers to gauge whether or not they like each food they try.
   3. Expand on Relationships in SL
      1. Through communication and individual contribution to the community of Makeni 
      2. Employees at World Hope International (WHI) will not be conducting research, but they will help us connect with community health workers (CHWs) and community members. The pre-established relationship will help us build trust with members of the community.
      3. Current partnership with Bettah bakery: joint partnership with World Hope and local Wesleyan church
3. Larger Context
   1. Provides work for bakers and vendors
   2. Adds to their economy – purchase of ingredients, new products in their market
   3. Helps to provide vitamins and increase health in children and women through the use of preservatives in the food products
      1. Prevent vitamin deficiencies 
4. What’s Already Been Done
   1. Muffins are in late stage
   2. Pudding is in late stage
   3. Relationships with bakers and vendors already established
   4. Research further preservatives to use in muffins and pudding
5. Work Done and Planned this Semester
   1. Done – N/A Yet
   2. Planned
      1. 3-4 new recipes
         1. Puddings and muffins 
      2. Figuring out which preservatives to use
         1. Acid Ascorbate and Soda water to preserve freshness and color in the food products 
         2. Run trials for these preservatives and figure out the packaging for these foods

1. List ten things that make you feel human.

1. Laughter
2. “I appreciate…”
3. Sharing food 
4. Physical touch
5. Music
6. Teamwork
7. Being listened to
8. Being invited into conversation
9. Name acknowledgement
10. Being surrounded by diversity

2. Articulate your philosophy of engagement as it pertains to your work with the GSIF / LVSIF.

When I think about my philosophy of engagement, I believe one thing I want to reinforce is a new way of building the community up. In order to engage an entire community, I believe we have to question how we spread an idea that is convincing enough for one community member to tell their neighbor about. Individually for mothers, it is tough to juggle daily duties alongside having to provide the food for their children to eat. I intend to engage them as the primary messenger for their communities because they are seemingly more responsible for the welfare of their children, so they . By introducing food products that aim to tackle nutrient deficiencies that are produced, transported, and sold completely by recognized community members, we launch a system that leverages the connections they/we have established to provide goods that retain familiarity. Whether this familiarity is using local ingredients or complimenting local cuisine with our food products, I want to maintain consistent authenticity that dignifies the work they do and creates genuine recognition within the community. If we could engage local schools by offering samples of our product, I think we can capture the appeal of our priority consumers (children) and capture the attention of their mothers and teachers alike, we reinforce the idea that our products are not just needed to tackle malnutrition, but are desired by those raising the next generation. If they recognize a food product their children are especially fond of and provide them health benefits other foods cannot at a competitive cost, I believe only then do we engage our customers in understanding and supporting a cause bigger than the food itself. Growth stunting is something that can be prevented if the community becomes aware of a new food product. Challenges to consider include sustainability of our products as part of a daily diet and operationally after we leave. We need this to be a product that continues to garner sales and new attraction, so our observations in the country will be crucial in understanding customer behavior, quality control within our product, and how to create accountability and transparency between bakers and vendors. We can add a salary incentive for the yield of quality food products our bakery creates, ensuring our bakers are careful with their resources and create the best possible products for our children. To extend the shelf life of our peanut butter banana pudding, we intend to bake the pudding prior to going to the vendor site, and having vendors cut fresh bananas to be added into the pudding. This simple engagement allows the browning of the bananas to begin at the point of sale rather than earlier made with the peanut butter pudding. The question of extending the shelf life is also something I am attempting to address by creating bouillon powder that can be used as a seasoning for a variety of foods. If I find that moist bouillon is preferred in taste tests, that will help create servings consistent with consumption habits. Allowing a lower shelf life should reflect consumption time that is short relative to the time of the purchase. Another factor to consider is how the actual nutritional value from the ingredients we use locally may vary from what we calculate. This can only be addressed in a clinical study that a future team conducts to study the effectiveness of our products.

 

For my epitaph, I hope for it to identify me as someone who empowered disadvantaged communities to overcome domestic issues. I want solutions that don’t reflect the work I put in, rather the design that the community members bought into and then worked to make the envisioned change a reality. In foreign cultures, I believe the best way to immerse oneself is to communicate as much as possible with those who welcome you. While I can do my best to tweak the food products and plan in the months leading up to August, the most meaningful feedback will be reflected in our fieldwork, which should only open up more questions for our team and future fellowships to address. The perspectives of Sierra Leoneans matter the most in addressing a systemic issue the community will be responsible for maintaining. If we create competition amongst distributors of Maggi cubes or other food products, how may our workers be perceived by others? If our competition can motivate them to consider join us, how can we ensure they advertise our product to customers?