Audio & Video: Silicon Valley Tech Awards

My work involves helping, mostly, grassroots non-profit organisations in developing countries figure out how to use mobile technology in their work. In 2002 I was running a primate sanctuary in Nigeria, and I was due to stay there for another year or so. I broke my leg, which was actually a very good career move, as it turned out, because I ended up back home in the Channel Islands, where I was born. I was asked to try and find out how the national parks could send messages to get the communities around the park really involved in the conservation effort. Unfortunately I couldn’t find anything that did that which didn’t require the internet. A few months later I was waiting to watch Match of the Day with a bottle of beer, and I suddenly thought: how about plugging a cell phone into a computer with a cable? You can then send them all a message, they can respond, and you can start to engage with them in a two-way, almost immediate fashion.

So when I wrote FrontlineSMS I didn’t really have any particular use in mind. It was really just a general communication platform to allow non-profits to spread whatever message they wanted to spread, but other uses have really blossomed. It’s running rural healthcare networks in places like Malawi, it’s running agriculture projects in places like El Salvador and Cambodia, and it really can do almost anything. These kinds of technologies are hugely powerful because they can [unclear] very quickly. For us, we get football scores, we order pizza, we text our friends and organise a Friday night, but in countries such as Zimbabwe it can be a lifesaver for people.

I came from the north-western part of Bangladesh. Every year we get flooding, and during the flooding one third of the country goes underwater. Eighty-one per cent of the rural population don’t have access to electricity, so it becomes very difficult during the monsoon season. That’s the reason I thought we should design a very portable, unique solution for the community by converting the traditional kerosene hurricane lantern into a solar hurricane lantern. It’s low cost, it produces more light, it is environmentally friendly, and it offers opportunities for landless people. We have converted the traditional country boats into solar-powered boats, which generate all the electricity. The electricity is stored in different batteries; in the morning people bring their lanterns on the boat to the charging station, and in the evening they get their fully recharged lanterns. Our improved light opens up a lot of opportunities. Because of light, people have additional hours in the night: the students are studying and getting good exam results, and at the same time the mother and father can get involved in other income-generating activities. When I go to a house and see a child smiling, or see a mother working or stitching [unclear] with the light, getting access to more income, that means a lot to me.

The idea for World of Good came about in 2004. We are focused on alleviating poverty in the developing world. For women, there is a tremendous amount of opportunity to bring higher wages to those who take work into their home. These women were just negotiating wages based on what they thought they could get in the tourist market. They had no idea what it actually cost to make the product, and oftentimes they were making less than $2 a day. We created a free website that collects information about how much it costs to make a product, and then translates that information against a local minimum wage. So it might tell them: based on what you told me about how long it took you to make it, this is what you should actually be earning if you’re going to earn at or above your local minimum wage. Currently the Fair Wage Guide is being used in 66 countries. We’ve been very successful in the fair trade community, we’ve engaged almost a thousand different organisations, and we’ve touched 27,000 workers directly. We continue to grow the numbers every year. You see the power of what information can do to bring change to their lives.

Transcript edited from YouTube’s auto-generated captions for accuracy.