In This Issue

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Greetings!

This issue, we'll start with the breaking news that Scale-Ups Phase I project, the Augmented Infant Resuscitator, has just won a $250K award from the Saving Lives at Birth Grand Challenge. Congratulations to Scale-Ups Fellow Kevin Cedrone and his team (see below for details). 
 
Other Scale-Ups fellows are active in Nepal, Tanzania, Ghana, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Zambia, and India, conducting user-needs testing, building prototypes, establishing supply and demand chains, building teams, and establishing the relationships with partners key to success in all of the above! 
 
This fall, Scale-Ups will be accepting Phase II fellowship applications from MIT alumni. Applications will be due October 4 and guidelines available here at the end of August. For more information contact Eric Reynolds.
 
Finally, we have great updates from the Harvest Fuel Initiative below and are working behind the scenes on our R&D program. Read on for all updates and news!
NEWS FROM THE FIELD : SCALE-UPS FELLOWS 
Shawn Wen - PortaTherm - Nepal

Scale-Ups Phase 1 Fellow, Shawn Wen, is just back from Nepal where she explored business partnerships and conducted a focus group for PortaTherm, the low-cost, electricity-free incubator she has been working with for more than a year. The focus group explored the ease-of-use for health workers to prepare the phase-change material packets needed for PortaTherm. Her results were surprising - what she imagined was burdensome was well-received by health workers for its flexibility. Read blog.

Kwami Williams - MoringaConnect - Ghana

For Kwami Williams and the MoringaConnect team, the past month has been full. They have incorporated as a LLC and pursued purchase orders while deepening ties with the start-up and agribusiness sectors in Ghana. Meanwhile, they continue work on their motorized Moringa seed sheller and have made a list of oil presses to source. With Kwami and MIT student Chandler Johnson working in Ghana this summer, MoringaConnect cofounder Emily Cunningham has been managing US operations. Read blog.

Jodie Wu - MultiCrop Thresher - Tanzania 

Global Cycle Solutions, developing the MultiCrop Thresher in Tanzania, has new faces on its team including Hope Gabone, MultiCrop Thresher Project Manager and Liaison Officer, and Project Engineer Godfrey Mwinama. Joining them for the summer are April Zhu (D-Lab alum and rising senior from Wellesley), and Elliot Avila (rising senior from MIT- left forground). In July the team headed into the field with a commercial thresher and Elliot's prototype, while they worked on a prototype developed by local innovator Bernard Kiwia in the shop. Read blog 

HARVEST FUEL INITIATIVE NEWS : STAFF + SITE VISITS
Meet Biomass Fuel Specialist Dan Sweeney
Dan Sweeney (pictured in Colorado State shirt) joined D-Lab in July as our solid biomass fuel research associate. Originally from Colorado, he holds a PhD in mechanical engineering and spent this past year in Sweden as a Fulbright Fellow investigating biomass thermal conversion in a pilot-scale gasifier. Dan flew directly from Sweden to Uganda and Tanzania to start work on the Harvest Fuel Initiative. What a better way to get started in D-Lab than in the field?
Slide Show: HFI in Uganda & Tanzania

Sylvia Herzog, of The Charcoal Project - our partner for the Harvest Fuel Initiative -, just returned to New York from Uganda and Tanzania where she visited existing and prospective HFI enterprises. She says, "It was so exciting to see the progress our groups were all making and the impact they are having on local communities." See her slide show giving glimpses into the work and teams at Teso Women Development Initiative, ARTI Tanzania, Nakabale Development Group, and Green Bio Energy.

SCALE-UPS IN THE NEWS : WECYCLERS + LEVERAGED FREEDOM CHAIR
Wecyclers in the News
Scale-Ups Fellows continue to accumulate accolades and awards for their work. In June, Bilikiss Adebiyi and her Lagos-based social venture, Wecyclers, were chosen for the Echoing Green fellowship. They were also featured in Spur magazine, this month's US issue of Marie Claire, and were the subject of a documentary, My Africa Is: The Lagos Chronicles, and a half-hour interview on internet radio show Impact Africa. Congratulations to Bilikiss and her team!
Augmented Infant Resuscitator in the News

Phase I project, the Augmented Infant Resuscitator (AIR), has won a grant from the Saving Lives at Birth Grand Challenge, sponsored by USAID, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and others. AIR gives instant feedback to healthcare workers performing newborn resuscitation. The award goes to Mbarara University of Science & Technology in Uganda, where the project will be piloted. Scale-Ups fellow Kevin Cedrone will co-lead the technical development of the device from Boston.

Leveraged Freedom Chair in the News
Jeff Cleveland, who suffered a spinal cord injury at age 16, climbed New Hampshire's Mt. Washington using a Leveraged Freedom Chair. At 6,288 feet, Mt. Washington is the highest peak in the Northeast US. Jeff provided a dramatic demonstration of just what the LFC can do for wheelchair users around the world. The ride was also a fundraiser for Adaptive Sports Partners of the North Country, a non-profit organization that provides sports and recreation activities for people with all types of disabilities. Read blog.
SCALE-UPS FELLOWSHIP PROGRAM 2013-2014
Scales-Ups Phase II Applications Due October 4
The Phase II Scale-Ups fellowship is a 12-month program that provides a $20,000 grant and access to customized mentoring and skills building resources as well as partnership cultivation opportunities. Phase II projects enter the program at a stage when a technology concept is relatively proven and applicants have already gained a base understanding of the need addressed and the target market. Product and enterprise development are the focus of the fellowship. Guidelines here by August 30. Contact Eric Reynolds for further information.
About D-Lab Scale-Ups

Located at D-Lab, MIT's fast-growing and highly regarded educational and technology development program, Scale-Ups was created to identify and support technology-based ventures with potential for wide scale poverty alleviation.

 

Since launching Scale-Ups in 2011, the program has established a fellowship program for MIT-affiliated social entrepreneurs, a technical assistance program for social enterprises in the developing world, as well as a program that identifies technology development and dissemination projects in collaboration with companies which have both a social

mission and wide distribution channels in Base of the Pyramid markets. A new D-Lab class, Design for Scale, will run this fall.

 

Current Fellowships Projects

 

Augmented Infant 
Resuscitator
 

Scale-Ups was created in 2011, with generous support from Abdul Latif Jameel Community Initiatives (ALJCI), to identify and support technologies with potential for wide-scale poverty alleviation. 

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