05/03 Spencer Moros

  1. 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.

2. 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.

3. 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.

 

Metrics of Success

  1. Maternal Mortality
  2. Profit

Long Term

  • Maternal Mortality
  • Number of people tested positive, and then pursued treatment
  • Number of districts / countries
  • Expansion into other Sub-saharan countries

 

Short Term – collected by DM on the ground reported back to Lehigh time digitally, along with PDFs of original documents

  • Catchment Population
  • Number of PHUs onboarded
  • Number of people tested positive
  • Number of test strip boxes sold
  • COGs and Overhead costs
  • Number of women tested
  • Number of clinics

04/26 Spencer Moros

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

Total overhead costs and returns are relatively stable compared to the past. However, this is difficult to accurately project due to the fluid nature of the current pandemic that is adversely impacting the global financial market. Given this high level of uncertainty, it is nearly impossible to estimate the conditions several months in advance at this point.

2. 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.

Out of Design Phase

Implementation Phase:

  1. Crowdfunding campaign during Summer 2019. This is a good fit for the venture because it shows the commitment and validity of the venture as a whole and allows us to achieve one of the main goals of the operation: a self-sustaining method of funding. Although this crowdfunding campaign is not directly self-sustaining, it contributed to the implementation of Ukweli Test Strips in Sierra Leone through the community health worker backbone that will create a self-sustaining system of revenue.
  2. World Hope International matched the crowdfunding campaign contribution. This is a good fit because of the aforementioned reasons above, but it also shows the commitment of WHI and formalizes that meaning of the word “partnership” to a greater extent than what was previously established.

 

3. 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. World Hope International – provide logistical support to the Ukweli operation as they are a well-known nonprofit organization with a presence already established in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  2. Community Health Workers – these form the backbone of the Ukweli system by a CHWs inherent level of trust and credibility within their communities. By leveraging this partnership, Ukweli is able to gain credibility with the people it aims to serve.
  3. Sierra Leone Pharmacy Control Board – approval from the organization allows Ukweli to legally distribute the test strips within Sierra Leone
  4. Sierra Leone Ministry of Health and Sanitation – Formal partnership still needed in order for the Sierra Leonean government to eventually take over the Ukweli system and manage its operation
  5. Liberian government- preliminary proposal in the works to expand into Liberia, the support of the Liberian government will be needed in order to make this partnership permanent and allow Ukweli to reach millions more people.

04/19 Spencer Moros

Blog Post #10

  1. Refine your Business Model Canvas

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

    1. Envirofit uses large distributors but also smaller, local businesses in order to distribute their product to more rural areas.  We can look at this and see how we might scale up in the future in order to make the test strip widely available
    2. Envirofit heavily focuses on the impact they’re making on the people, not necessarily the product→ when reaching out for funding proposals or competitions, we can use Envirofit as an example of how we should market our product.
    3. Envirofit does impact reporting where they call their customers to evaluate their products and collect information on cooking habits and what it’s being used for. We could translate this into our project through the testing of the WhatsApp communication system.
    4. Envirofit’s Impact of 1 Million Stoves highlights the company’s real-time data that they are collecting on their website.  Being able to include something like this on our website in the future could be incredibly useful for displaying our impact.
    5. Reel Gardening really focused on simplifying the gardening process and making it easy for users to participate.  Our test strip is designed to make it easier and cheaper for medical staff and patients to use.
    6. Reel Gardening provided a simple step-by-step tutorial for their users to even further simplify the process.  Our group could look at doing informational videos or messaging for CHWs and the women in the communities on the symptoms and risks of UTI/Preeclampsia going undetected.  Offer a more visual option.
    7. Reel Gardening offers an “Our Blog” section on their website.  It provides customers with information pertaining to gardening.  From different recipes to how to collect rainwater, Reel Gardening provides its customers with all information that’s relevant to the product.  Through our WhatsApp communication system, we can look at different ways to engage UHWs with the test strips and ultimately encourage increased testing.
    8. Greystone Baker has an open-hiring policy and not only pays its employees but also goes above in beyond in providing benefits for them.  Ukweli may not be able to fund benefits/opportunities like Greystone, but we can look at providing some sort of reward or benefits for becoming a UHW.  Making certification to be a UHW something that is exciting and exclusive, while maintaining our accessibility, could encourage word-of-mouth marketing between CHWs.
    9. Barefoot College really looked at spreading their knowledge through already established social networks.  For example, they trained grandmothers in order to educate and spread the use of solar power. Similarly, we are using already established social connections through CHWs to distribute the product.  We could also potentially look into using and encouraging certified UHWs to spread the word about Ukweli and the test strips to increase interest and testing.
    10. Barefoot College works to empower women directly by giving them the tools to establish solar power in their rural communities.  We could potentially look at a way to work directly with women so we know they’re seeing an impact and feel empowered to seek medical care.

04/07 Spencer Moros

Blog #9

 

  1. Develop a Business Model for your venture using the Osterwalder Business Model Canvas. 

 

Value Propositions

For mothers in Sierra Leone, our Ukweli Test Strip is a simple, affordable testing strip for UTIs and preeclampsia that could save their lives and increase their quality of life by identifying potential health issues.

Customer Relationships

Co-Creation

User Communities

 

Channels

Community Health Workers

 

Customer Segments

Women in Sierra Leone 

Community Health Workers 

 

Revenue Streams

Funding from Organizations

Selling of the actual test strips to CHWs

 

Key Resources 

Test Strips (OEM)

CHWs

Intellectual→ Connections on the ground Hassan and his connections, data collection, 

Human→ Hassan, Allieu, Bockarie

Financial→ Funding from world hope and other organizations

Cost Structure 

Sell strips to UHWs/NICs to distribute to the catchment population–>bottle of strips cost 50,000 SL

 

Key Activities

*big idea 

For the Lehigh team, we need to continuously be 

  • Communicating and directing on-site UHWs (Ukweli-certified Health Workers) 
  • Collecting, storing, managing, and communicating data from fieldwork to necessary stakeholders
  • WhatsApp communication with CHWs in order to maintain relationships 

 

Key Partners

World Hope

CHWs

Hassan, Allieu, Bockarie

 

  1. List ten lessons from the Business and Operations model of the Aravind Eye Hospital.

 

  1. Franchise system for eye care, same delivery and quality
  2. Important to identify those who need help in the first place
  3. Developing a system which integrates the communities
  4. Hub-and-Spoke model: base hospitals, vision centers, managed hospitals
  5. Use technology to increase accessibility
  6. Fixed pricing which takes into account 
  7. Focus on non-customer, grows market
  8. Gave a lot away for free, had those who could pay cover the costs of the free treatments
  9. Created competition by training other hospitals and cheaper consumables, result is beneficial to patients
  10. Cost is not directly related to quality or efficiency of care
  11. OWN THE PROBLEM – create compassion, encourage people to act

03/24 Spencer Moros

Post #8

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

  1. Only ask people what you yourself would do.
  2. Presentations must be short and concise in order to keep the audience’s attention.
  3. Do not try to satisfy everyone or you’ll have a product which is too broad and does not satisfy anyone.
  4. Money will follow truly revolutionary ideas which are executed well, should not be sole driving factor.
  5. The idea you have must be novel or use a novel approach.

 

Articulate your value propositions for your diverse customer segments. 

For the mothers in Sierra Leone, who are susceptible to UTIs and Preeclampsia, our Ukweli Test Strip is a straight forward, affordable testing strip for UTIs and Preeclampsia that could save their lives and increase their quality of life.

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

Our Total Available Market right now is all the mothers in Sierra Leone.  That would be a catchment population of about 3 million women by next summer. Our Total Addressable Market is the women that are currently served in our catchment population, so women who have a Ukweli Certified Health Worker in their community who has test strips. So far we have reached about 250,000 women by training CHWs in their communities.

03/20 Spencer Moros

Post #7

Start: communicating more honestly with each other for the good of our work and hold each other accountable in a healthy way that does not sacrifice the mental well-being of each team member.

Keep: the checking-in on each other to see how we are each doing both personally and professionally, and continue motivating each other through encouragement/positive reinforcement.

Stop: being frustrated and taking it out on other team members, and stop completing work for someone without asking when another person is assigned to that task.

Small Goal: Help the mothers of Sierra Leone

 

Big Goal: Create a self-sustaining system that changes the way maternal conditions are identified and followed up with appropriate care

 

Procedures/Relationships: Thus far, whenever we are unsure of which direction to go in as a group, we defer our thoughts to Khanjan and he will usually talk us through any challenges and reason with us why we should or should not do something. Generally speaking, we are able to come to a consensus without issue. I believe that we each respect each other enough to listen to what each individual is thinking and how we can get to our desired end result for whatever task is at hand.

 

02/28 Spencer Moros

Post #6

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 work absolutely requires IRB approval from both Lehigh and Sierra Leone. Our strategy involves not including identifiable information from our data collection, although we are collecting biospecimens. Also, we plan to ensure consent is obtained before the tests are administered and before the data is collected.

 

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?

 

  • Explain the problem/opportunity being addressed from a macro perspective – a bird’s eye view can be the world at large, country, region (and/or relevant combinations). Use your judgment.

 

      • Highest Maternal Mortality rate in the world 
      • Little to no access to easy to read and affordable test strips 

 

  • Explain the problem/opportunity from a micro perspective – how does the problem affect the individual, the family, or relevant entity? What secondary problems does it cause?

 

      • Can lead to miscarriages, or even death of the mother/baby
      • May lead to ostracization of the woman because she did not have a healthy birth
      • Mother is undeniably traumatized by the event

 

  • Explain your approach and exactly how your proposed solution is supposed to work.

 

      • We plan to take the issue on from a community perspective – important to involve current community structures in the solution
      • Have respected community figures with good reputations recommend the test strips to surrounding health outposts
      • Train health workers in the community to use and read the strips
      • Have the health workers refer the women to the proper healthcare facility

 

  • What larger context/system does your project exist in? Illustrate how the various constituent sub-systems work together, and how the system interacts with external systems?

 

      • System of Community Health Posts (CHPs) spread out throughout the region and their associated Community Health Workers (CHWs)
      • Works in tandem with this existing system

 

  • Summarize what has been done before. What did you inherit this semester?

 

      • So far permission have been obtained in country to sell the strips
      • Work with World Hope International to educate people in the community about UTIs and preeclampsia
      • Sell strips to CHPs

 

  • Discuss the results of literature reviews, prototyping, experimentation, interviews, simulation, or modeling. Essentially, any work you have done this semester and plan to do.
  • Work Done

 

        • Developed a more structured and accessible data structure
        • Making a system of communication for trained health workers

 

  • Planned Work

 

        • By summer/July 2021, Ukweli should have a catchment population of 3 million

 

  • Identify research/design challenges and detailed plans to address them 
    • Compliance in data collection – build incentives into the system
    • Verifying the data which is collected – have a secondary system of scanned hardcopy documents in addition to online forms

 

 

02/21 Spencer Moros

Blog #5

1. List ten things that make you feel human.

  • Creating wood burnings (artwork)
  • Sympathizing with other humans or living beings
  • Enjoying listening to music
  • Creating plans to achieve a variety of tasks based on logic and prior experience
  • Learning new information – intellectual wealth
  • Making up my own opinions about various topics
  • Stress about non-life threatening situations (getting schoolwork done, maintaining social relationships, etc.)
  • Determining what my goals are each day as well as longterm
  • Feeling close to someone else
  • Having the freedom to do as I please

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

Specifically discuss

1. Why should I engage?

I must engage in order to efficiently and successfully use my skills and effort to give aid to those who need it. If I completely disregard the stakeholders who I am looking to impact then there are two negative outcomes which are negated by successfully engaging. One of these outcomes is that the solution I create is not integrated into the lives of the stakeholders and my efforts in essence were for nothing. The other outcome is that the solution is forced upon those who I believe can benefit and it damages the existing system and creates a feeling of disdain for outside support in general. Thus not only would it negatively impact myself and the community but also the broader swath of individuals looking to provide aid.

2. How must I engage?

I must engage in terms of three perspectives: environmentally, economically, and most importantly socially. To environmentally engage means that whatever my project is it should not negatively affect the environment which would lead to further issues down the line. Economic engagement is ensuring that the solution is financially feasible for the stakeholders, and hopefully even brings economic benefits to the community (jobs, money, etc.). Lastly, social engagement is making sure that the solution and the system which is implemented follows the social values of the community and the method that they things are introduced do not offend any parties.

3. With whom must I engage?

I must engage with other experts in the field which I am working, however the most important population to engage with is the stakeholders who will ultimately be the end user/beneficiary.

4. What kinds of challenges, opportunities, and approaches should I care about?

I should care about the social impact of the project and an essential challenge/opportunity that I must care about is creating a system which is sustainable instead of just developing a technology/practice and throwing it at the stakeholders and expect them not only to use it, but to also develop their own system. An approach I should care about is using local sources and integrating them into the system. This provides legitimacy that I am trying to do good with the stakeholders, and the locals are much more knowledgable than I could ever be.

5. What might my epitaph read?

“Pain and challenges in life are a present and not a burden. They are the most transformative events one can experience, and proper understanding and response only positively influences one for the better.”

02/14 Spencer Moros

Blog #4

 

  1. *Based on your life experience, skills and interests, what would a design process that is both uniquely yours and effective look like? 

My design process is heavy in the area of empathy. By nature I care deeply about others and I find the most important step in the process is empathizing and truly understanding the struggle of those who I want to help. Too often a problem is said to be a problem for someone who really doesn’t see it as such. This leads to ineffective, unnecessary “solutions”. Additionally, approaching the process as such insights that make the remainder of the process much easier. Such an example of this is prototyping. In many cases, the prototype is made then brought to the end user and problems are identified and then the prototype is altered. By incorporating the stakeholder from the start much of these issues are mitigated.

  1. *Identify your three most important stakeholders and list five UNIQUE attributes for each one of them. 

Mothers→ low income, located in rural areas of Sierra Leone, price sensitivity goes up during the wet season, Religions: Islam and Christianity, low education level 

World Hope International→ Organization, Core Values: Transformation, Sustainability, Empowerment, and Collaboration, Christian, Motive: “To empower the poorest of the poor around the world so they can become agents of change within their communities.” (https://www.worldhope.org/about-us/), some staff members located in the U.S. and Makeni, Sierra Leone

The ordinary citizen of Sierra Leone: this is a key stakeholder because of the importance of mothers in the Sierra Leone household. Attributes include: dependence on the mother’s contribution to the household, personal interest/stake in the life of each mother, ability to encourage/support the mother throughout their pregnancy, influence on the mother’s mental well-being, and the motivation they may provide the mothers to seek better health when they think about how their health (the mother’s health) affects the whole family unit.

 

  1. *Identify three ways in which you will validate your project concept, technology, usability, and business model.

Validate Business Model→ Does it solve a real burning problem? Yes, Sierra Leone has the highest maternal mortality rate in the world.  A lot of women go untested for UTI and preeclampsia which can lead to birth complications. Competitive advantages over other ventures? Strong community connections on the ground, incredibly important for distributing and gaining trust from CHWs. How do they solve the problem now? Currently people in rural areas of Sierra Leone visit Community Health Posts (CHPs) to receive basic medical care, however they are normally not screened by any diagnostic test due to lack of resources.  

Validate Usability→ How does it compare to the user experience of alternative

Approaches? 9 parameter UTI test strip→ much more expensive, more complicated with 9 vs the 3 our strip has (color scheme harder to analyze). How easy/difficult is it for each stakeholder to interact with the product? CHWs are shown how to use it and read the results during training. Will people use your product? Already have UHWs purchasing and using the test strips.

 

4. Give three examples of something very interesting you learned from a friend that was a completely alien concept to          you.

1: Fraternities

  • Call people you barely know “brothers”
  • Unique power dynamic
  • Only common factor between all is that you are the part of the same organization
  • Pseudo-religious rituals

 

2: Halal Foods

  • Inability to eat certain foods due to the method of slaughter
  • Concept that restaurants designate themselves as Halal and consumers can only trust that it is true
  • Massive impact on day to day diet of many people

 

3: Video Games

  • Interact with people through voice and virtual characters without seeing them face to face
  • Relationships are more about the interactions of two characters with personalities than anything else
  • Sitting in front of computer for hours inside
  • Create new persona totally independent of any other aspect of life

02/09 Spencer Moros

Blog #3

List the top 20 questions your team needs to answer to advance the venture forward. Categorize the questions if necessary.

  1. Who are the people we are seeking to impact?
  2. How is the impact distributed across different groups?
  3. How does Ukweli’s success in Sierra Leone impact the international system?
  4. Why do we care about making an impact?
  5. How is this realistically translated into their lives?
  6. How can our model be applied to similar countries?
  7. How is our impact measured?
  8. How does this venture empower women?
  9. What type of connections do we need to branch out of the Bombali District?
  10. What is the future of this venture?
  11. What are the challenges that we are encountering on the ground right now?
  12. How do we leverage our existing social network to expand operations?
  13. What are other ways we can strengthen the CHW network within our control?
  14. How can we organize data in a way that is easy to understand and accessible?
  15. What is some data we already have?
  16. What is some data we still need to collect?
  17. What are some realistic ways we can quantify the success of our project? (e.g. comparing maternal mortality rates in Ukweli vs. non-Ukweli tested mothers and the challenges associated with timely data collection)
  18. How could additional funding assist in our efforts?
  19. How can we construct a reliable and sustainable chain of communication with UHW?
  20. Are there more effective methods to increase accountability/oversight?

 

Develop and Visualize the Theory of Change (Logic Model) for your venture. 

 

Inputs Outputs Outcomes
Money/operations funding

Partnerships w/ health workers + World Hope

# of women tested positive

# of women tested in general 

# of UHWs trained

# of boxes bought by UHWs

The maternal mortality rate of women tested vs not tested 

*Lower maternal mortality rate alongside tangible data

Establish a network outside of our current base of operations

Start mobilizing Ukweli beyond Bombali district

 

SPRING GOALS

  • Bylaws on the roles/responsibilities of UHWs: Zach 
  • Organize a data collection method that creates an easy way to compile relevant data in a way that can be easily presentable: Spencer, Noah, Anneke
  • Establish a chain of communication with Ukweli Certified Health Workers via WhatsApp: Skyler
  • E4C Systems approach article: Zach 
  • Proposals/abstracts submitted to IEEE
  • IRB approvals finalized/submitted/approved for US and Sierra Leone: Rohan
  • Service Level Agreement (SLA)
  • Submission of Grants to external funding sources: Anneke
  • Presentation of quality control outcomes of test strips: Rohan
  • Implementation of PHU Data collection books
  • Create database of each form to observe trends and running total of # of CHWs trained, amount of strips sold, $ which has been invested

 

SUMMER GOALS

  • Finalization of IEEE Paper 
    • Idea: discussing leveraging the existing social network and the outreach of CHWs and associated training successes/pitfalls in the process
  • Implementation of By-Laws to the UHWs by Hassan
  • Submission of grants to external funding sources: Anneke 
  • Implementation of PHU Data collection books 
  • Establish connections/possible operations outside our current realm of operations (Bombali District)
  • Initiating the proposed chain of communication with the UHW
  • Utilize data from the fieldwork to generate more marketing to support project, specifically $ / lives saved (culmination of other data = number of positive tests, referrals given out)