Wild Asia is a social enterprise working to support the conservation of natural areas and the communities dependent upon their resources. We work primarily by forging partnerships with individuals and businesses that are socially and environmentally responsible.
Elevyn is published in Wild Asia’s latest feature for October 2008. Check out the article.
Update 01 August 2009: Wild Asia is now www.wildasia.org
The Nut Graph is an independent Malaysian news site that aims to provide space for columnists and reader comments from as broad a political spectrum, and from as many sectors of interest, as possible.
The Nut Graph’s Business Development Manager Cindy Tham dropped by for a chat with Mike Tee and Puah Sze Ning to find out more about Elevyn, the Soning Craft online store and the Sinompuru Women’s Group. Cindy wanted to write an article for a new column on the website that tells of how people and organisations creatively promote their ideas, brands, products and services on the internet.
Read the article here – Technopreneurship for Social Change.
On 28 August 2008, we released an early beta version of the Elevyn website to a very small group of users, testers and friends. During the period, we’ve made some product sales on the pilot project store and received plenty of helpful feedback on both the website design and in the buying experience.
We would like to thank all who have responded. A special mention in particular to the buyers – Amy Tan (buyer #1!), Helene Amundsen (first international buyer all the way from Norway!), Su Li (from Wild Asia), Cindy Tham (from The Nut Graph – look out for our interview there) and Su Mei (Elevyn evangelist spreading the word out everywhere she travels!).
Your participation has enabled us to refine and improve the site. Thank you for your support, we really appreciate it!
Sze Ning has just set up our Elevyn fans page on Facebook. It’s a great way to keep in touch with us, see what we’ve been up to and get involved in some of our decisions like the date we go live.
So do join in, the audacity of this project needs your positive energy to spur us on to do the things we have to.
“Raised with volunteer trips abroad, climate change on TV and everything ’save the world’, today’s generation is more aware of the world and doing good than ever before. When it comes to getting jobs, however, we are still trying to figure out one simple thing: how do you make money and change the world?“
Quite possibly the best thing I’ve read in a long while! Great for social entrepreneurs and folks aspiring to more meaningful jobs off the beaten path, “Occupation: Change the World” is the result of a year-long research to find answers to the golden question above.
The book is available as a free PDF download at www.myoccupation.org. It’s also meant to be shared, so pass it on!
p/s: Thanks to Azlan Petra for the heads-up!
In my years in technology, I’ve seen cumbersome expensive softwares sold to enterprises and governments to make them more ‘economically competitive’. But I’ve always wondered the impact of these softwares on the environment and communities where these organizations operate.
My concern, it creates a more factory like atmosphere for employees, or worst case, enable enterprises to scale their negative impact.
I think innovation is a key element to improve the quality of life for all, but, a framework on how we apply such technology is necessary.
Here are some questions I, sometimes think about when designing elegant solutions:
1. Can my product be used by the bottom 90% of the pyramid?
That’s a big part of the world’s population whose earning capacity is very low. Can they afford to use my product. Is it easy enough to use without manuals that have to be translated.
For example, the motoman project, by Bernard Kisher, brings “non real time internet” to rural areas, in the absence of electricity, no phone lines, no satellite dishes, no direct link to the internet.
(I hope to visit this pilot project site in a couple of months and will update the blog soon for those interested..)
2. Is it small scale?
That is, can it directly help one person, off the shelf, and eventually managed by that person or village. Can that same effect be replicated for many villages.
For example, do I need a huge hydro electric dam built to bring electricity to a rural area, or is there a more low cost, sustainable solution using solar or wind. Below is a project by Blue Energy:
3. Importantly, does my technology allow for creative expression?
Does technology completely replace the human element, or provide the space for the individual human to be more creative.
I suppose, with Elevyn, we try to increase the amount of the selling price artisans get from 6% to 85%. What this means, is that they can spend more creative time working on 1 quality item rather than having to build many items, in a short period, to get the same revenue.
I’ve always been interested in frameworks, (technical ones like Ruby on Rails or Symfony, because although it doesn’t restrict the creativity of my end product, it makes sure that I don’t have a messy, spaghetti like coding engine), to more conceptual frameworks, like the above.
Sometimes, the simplest form of innovation can go a long way, as demonstrated by the Q Drum.
Climate change has required people in developing nations to travel greater distances to retrieve water for everyday use. The Q Drum eases the task, even for children, to fetch up to 50 liters of water over flat terrain.
The Q Drum was designed to be simple, cost effective, keep the weight on the ground, be durable, and to have no moving parts or handles that could break.
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