Congratulations to our five Scale X Design finalist teams on their amazing pitches at last night’s Pitch Night in Brooklyn! Thank you to all our supporters who joined us at New Lab and on Facebook Live for our first-ever Scale X Design Challenge. We are thrilled to announce the 3 Scale X Design Challenge winners who will each receive an award of $150,000.
CHAT!- Cambodia
CHAT! harnesses the reality of young urban factory workers in Cambodia, integrating both entertainment and technology to provide cost-effective and high-impact heath education through a unique combination of hands-on training, relatable video dramas and mobile games.
Krishi Utsho- Bangladesh
Krishi Utsho (KU) is a micro-franchise network of small kiosks that sell agriculture inputs, supplies and services to these farmers, particularly women, in rural Bangladesh.
Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST)- Tanzania
MAST is a mobile application that shortens the time, reduces the cost and simplifies the process for individuals to claim their land rights.
We hope you’ll continue following along on the journey of all the teams as they scale their innovations to impact the lives of millions!
Congratulations to all our Scale X Design Accelerator teams on their inspiring pitches at last night’s Pitch Practice in Atlanta! And thanks to everyone who came out to Atlanta Tech Village to join us for our first-ever pitch event. We are thrilled to announce the 5 Scale X Design Challenge finalists who will compete in NYC on Thursday, January 26 at 7pm. Join us on Facebook Live next week!
CHAT!- Cambodia
Worldwide, young people are leaving their families and migrating to urban areas to seek work. While these workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, traditional NGO programs are ill-equipped to reach them. CHAT! harnesses the reality of young urban factory workers in Cambodia, integrating both entertainment and technology to provide cost-effective and high-impact heath education through a unique combination of hands-on training, relatable video dramas and mobile games.
Chomoka: Digitizing Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs)- Tanzania
For the 2 billion adults without a bank account, Chomoka aims to take traditional village Savings and loans groups and bring them into the digital age with a user-friendly mobile application that provides a pathway to formal financial services by documenting users’ credit histories while streamlining and simplifying the transactions of informal savings groups.
Journeys of Transformation- Rwanda
When women gain the means to contribute financially to their household, it can upset long-held power dynamics within the family, often leading to conflict and even violence. Journeys of Transformation is a training program that empowers couples to improve communication, positively transform the balance of power between husbands and wives, and reduce the incidents of intimate partner violence.
Krishi Utsho- Bangladesh
While small family farms and plots feed the majority of the world’s population, there are few businesses that cater to their needs and constraints. Krishi Utsho (KU) is a micro-franchise network of small kiosks that sell agriculture inputs, supplies and services to these farmers, particularly women, in rural Bangladesh.
Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST)- Tanzania
For the millions of Tanzanians who don’t have documentation proving they own their land, MAST is a mobile application that shortens the time, reduces the cost and simplifies the process for individuals to claim their land rights.
In East Africa it is more common to see land marked as “not for sale,” rather than “for sale.” People put up these signs because it’s the main way for them to safeguard their property without formal land rights. If landowners don’t have proof of their property rights, they could fall victim to bad land transfers or even land grabbing.
The CARE team in Tanzania is working to make it easier for families to claim their land rights with our Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) solution. MAST is an open source application used on smartphones to help individuals claim their land rights. The technology is inexpensive and 3 times faster than traditional GPS methods!
The CARE Scale by Design Accelerator and Challenge aims to showcase innovative programs like MAST. We spoke with team members Jane Mgone and Thabit Masoud about what it’s been like to participate in the Accelerator so far. How is it helping them tackle the biggest barriers to scaling the innovation?
“It’s really helping us to think through what it would look like to scale and how to design for scale,” Jane said.
While the Accelerator has pointed a spotlight on land issues in Tanzania, unfortunately, the funding for this small pilot in 3 villages has ended for CARE. Another organization is picking up the pilot but will only be reaching about 40 more villages, which remains just a scratch on the surface. How do we keep this promising innovation from the metaphorical graveyard of abandoned pilots?
Whitney Adams, Senior Advisor for Design and Innovation, reflects that this isn’t an uncommon story. “Unfortunately, organizations like CARE are constrained by available donor funding and sometimes promising innovations simply don’t have their next donor or path to scale lined up. The project has to end and staff move on to the next job. We hope the Accelerator will help teams think about the big picture from the beginning. How do we scale outside this one project? What would a realistic business model look like at scale?”
Instead of relying on donors or the public sector to pay for scale, the team is considering a business model to make MAST self-sustaining. Can the service be sold directly to landowners? Our current estimate puts the cost around $30 per plot. But what if we could get it down to $10 per plot? Would we have a customer and a sustainable innovation then?
Jane and Thabit have been sharing concepts and ideas learned throughout the Accelerator with their colleagues. What is the key thing they want you to know about what they’ve learned? “We really need to think outside the box, aside from doing traditional work.” Jane wants to know, “How can we have a greater impact? How can we do something that the people really want and need, something that can spread like wildfire throughout the world?”
Through the Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST) project, CARE Tanzania has piloted a participatory and innovative approach to measure land plots through a mobile application technology. The software was developed by the private US company Cloudburst and was piloted in three villages, funded by USAID. The project was introduced to government officials both at the national and the local level before implementation. Over a period of 3 weeks the application mapped 910 land plots and the same number of Certificates of Customary Rights of Occupancy (CCROs) were issued to villagers. Out of these 31% were issued to individual women. Another 3% was co-owned by women and 13% was issued to couples. The remaining 53% was for men. These percentages of land being accessed by women are much higher than the national average of land titles owned by women (around 20%). This provides evidence that land registration can be executed in a relatively short period of time in a way that takes into account land rights of women. The sofware application simplifies the land registration process; it is an easy-to-use, open-source smartphone application that facilitates mapping by trained young villagers (girls and boys) verification by village land adjudication committees. It is also low cost, transparent and time effective. The methodology is five times faster than manual mapping and three times faster than the methodology which uses conventional GPS technology. Watch this video to learn more!
Jane Mgone | Coordinator, Knowledge Sharing and Learning | CARE Tanzania
Jane Mgonestarted with CARE in 2014 and currently Learning plays a key role in supporting CARE to achieve its new business model by 2020 through enhancing knowledge sharing and learning so that CARE can be more innovative and improve communication. As a coordinator, she is at the center of communication and information lines within the organization and interfaces with other departments to improve the use of modern technology and software as well as to conduct research regarding learning methodologies, best practices, and innovative opportunities. Jane has received a Masters of International Relations from the University of Leicester, and she has over five years of experience in the Department Sector with a focus on knowledge management and communications.
Mustapha Issa | Program Coordinator | CARE Tanzania
Mustapha Issastarted working with CARE in 2015 and works coordinating initial project mobilization with the Government of Tanzania (GoT) and other stakeholders. As Program Coordinator, he is responsible for conducting outreach and public awareness related to land rights, organizing training courses, and building capacity with regard to the key land laws and legal processes related to the formalization of land rights in the Iringa district. He is an engineer and environmentalist with five years of experience in Geographic Information System (GIS) and land surveying.
Thabit Masoud | Director Technical Unit, Natural Resources and Climate Change | CARE Tanzania
Thabit Masoud is a forester with MS degree in Conservation Biology from the University of Kent and Canterbury. Thabit has coordinated various projects and programs cultivating forest conservation and development thinking and has over 20 years of experience working with government and for CARE in overseeing and coordinating natural resources management projects and programs, with a more recent focus on community based adaptation and resilience against climate shock.
Shelina Mallozzi | Deputy Country Director | CARE Tanzania
Shelina started with CARE in 2014 and has an extensive background in program management for leading pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer and Novo Nordisk and most recently served as the technical writer for a local Tanzania NGO that was awarded two programs from USAID and CDC. Shelina has a Bachelors in Biology from Harvard and a Master’s in Business Management/ Public Health from Yale.
Paul Daniëls | Country Director | CARE Tanzania
Paul Daniels, a Dutch national, started his international career as a Junior Professional Officer with the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA) in the Middle East and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Mexico. He has a bachelor degree in Business Economics of the University of Brabant and a Master Degree in Development Economics of the University of Amsterdam. After his tenure with the UN he started working for international NGOs. He was a Coordinator for cross border Rural Development Programming in Afghanistan with the International Rescue Committee (IRC), being based in Peshawar. He also served as a Deputy Director for IRC in the same location. Subsequently he became IRC’s Country Director in Georgia and Vienna, Austria. The Vienna program was a resettlement program for Bosnian and Iranian refugees to the US. Following his tenure with IRC he joined UMNCOR as a Country Director in Armenia, where he was instrumental in setting up a local micro-finance organization, AREGAK, with a portfolio of 6 million dollars. From UMCOR he went to work for Mercy Corps in Lebanon and then joined CARE as Program Director for Somalia, being based in Nairobi, Kenya. During this assignment he was forced to close all CARE’s operations in South/Central Somalia because of threats by the Al-Shebab movement. After three years he was appointed to Program Director in Sudan just before the separation of North and South Sudan. Since July 2012 he is the Country Director of CARE in Tanzania. His two adult children are or have been working as officers for international NGOs in the Republic of Georgia and Libya. While in Kenya his family adopted a 2-year old who is now attending school in Dar es Salaam. During his tenure with CARE in Tanzania he worked with his team on a new strategy for the Tanzania office, WEZESHA, which is based on the CPR recommendations, in line with the CI strategy and focuses on women empowerment and climate change adaptation.
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