Organic Oasis is a sustainable food enterprise that overcomes food sourcing challenges for communities in arid regions by selling backyard aquaponic systems. Through a partnership with Philanthropiece, a Colorado-based NGO, Organic Oasis is working in a pilot site in Baja, Mexico. They will spend six weeks designing two aquaponic systems, a smaller unit to be tested by a local family business and a second, larger unit to be built in coordination with community members interested in learning about aquaponics. Subsequently, Organic Oasis will be able to quantify the demand and potential impact of such systems in developing communities in arid regions.
Running Water International (RWI) aims to improve the lives of developing world communities by providing appropriate solutions to the global water crisis. RWI plans to employ and train local people to produce, sell, and install affordable and effective household water treatment products, ensuring access to safe and clean water throughout the developing world. In future years we also intend to extend our offerings to include water supply and sanitation solutions. RWI is a system integrator, connecting communities with existing water resource solutions to best serve their needs.
Telecentros Comunitarios will work with communities in Ecuador to address the technical feasibility, financial requirements and operational costs to implement self-sustained, locally managed, internet protocol (IP) based Telecenters connected to the Internet. The implementation will allow communities to access global information, knowledge, and cultural exchange, potentiating the implementation of applications such as tele-education, tele-medicine, micro-financing and micro-insurance. The funding of this project can be extensible to other Latin American countries.
AYZH is a venture founded on the belief that sustainable development is incomplete without economic empowerment and without the interests of women at its core. Our process starts with understanding the wants and needs of the world’s most impoverished women. We then engage innovations developed in university labs that meet those needs. Historically, such innovations has been challenged by supply chain inefficiencies and a lack of market testing. Therefore, AYZH is working with companies focused on aligning their core business activities with corporate social responsibility to test, manufacture, and disseminate these innovations to local distributors. We imagine a world without poverty, create solutions to meet that vision, and connect stakeholders with the solutions they need to start alleviating poverty one woman at a time.
Rocky Mountain Hops (RMH) is developing a Colorado hops industry while promoting the ‘local to local’ relationship. Partnering with small farmers and local Native American Indian tribes, the team will help develop a sustainable regional hops industry that will support Colorado agriculture and the Colorado microbrewers industry. RMH will consult with Colorado farmers on hops cultivation and will fill a current void by building a sustainable processing facility to process the hops plant. Research done by the CSU Specialty Crops Program shows there is great interest and promise in Colorado to grow a hop industry due to its sunny and dry climate. There is also increasing popularity of hops due to their unique chemical properties including anti-cancer and estrogen-mimicking compounds beneficial to human health. It is RMH’s goal to promote and change the face of the industry.
Cradle of Tea intends to bring a traditional tea brewed from the leaves of the coffee tree to US and European markets by leveraging the existing supply chain for Ethiopian coffee. With minimal capital investments and by generating employment in harvesting, processing, and on-site packaging, Cradle of Tea’s pursuit of sustainable economic development will add value to an existing raw material that has not yet found significant value in export markets but that already exists in the hands of the rural poor. The enterprise’s core goal is to help alleviate poverty through alternate income creation. With production and market verification, the team asserts that the coffee leaf tea model developed in Awassa city can be replicated elsewhere in Ethiopia, and in other developing world nations. They plan to leverage an existing non-valued resource and open the door to an entire new line of beverages.
Latin Health Inc pairs the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Pathology and the College of Business’ Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise (GSSE) program to improve health by preventing dengue and other health challenges in developing countries. The business model combines the goals of improving individuals’ health and decreasing environmental degradation while creating business opportunities for low income families. The organizational structure is based on a multi-tier marketing mechanism to provide education along with a low cost distribution system. The resulting business enterprise will effectively manage the supply chain by operating as a marketing intermediary between the manufacturer of the health promoting products and the final consumer. Initial plans will focus on mosquito resistant window coverings, and the same business model can be used to sell and distribute a variety of health related goods and green products that promote environmental and social welfare.