Build a Changeshop
Changeshop is your online storefront for showcasing your initiative, interacting with investors, and gaining support.
Connect. Innovate. Grow your impact.
Be a Changemaker
We help
- innovators
- advocates
- investors
obtain the resources needed to build
a better future.
a better future.
catalyze the ideas needed for
a better future.
a better future.
discover the innovations needed for
a better future.
a better future.
Jacqui Cutts
has created Changemakers changeshops for her Safe Mothers, Safe Babies organization, a motorcycle ambulance service, solar lighting for rural obstetric care, and empowering photography for indigenous women.
Andre Blackman
is an advocate who is passionate about promoting innovators in public health using new media and social networking.
Paul Basil's
Villgro Innovations Foundation provides funds and expertise to rural enterprises in India through Changemakers changeshops.
Jacqui Cutts is a firm believer in participatory design and collaborative entrepreneurship: creating social solutions not for underserved populations, but rather with the local communities. As founder, president, and CEO of Safe Mothers, Safe Babies (a nonprofit organization working to reduce maternal and neonatal mortality in Uganda), Cutts is also a woman who knows how to
get things done. "My greatest desire is to restore pregnancy, childbirth, and childhood to protected times of growth and development, in which maternal and child mortality are the exception and not the rule," she said. "The single greatest resource to improve maternal and child health is the people that need the
improvement." If innovators fail to engage with their target consumers, the odds of a project making a long-lasting difference in people's lives will never be very high-a point she proved in a 100-page thesis that explored the root cause of failed development initiatives. Her thesis earned her Departmental Honors at Vassar College in New York.
Blackman is excited about how technology and new ways of thinking can produce Public Health 2.0. Because public health and new media are both focused on the people, he believes there should be parallels in how they both interact. He looks for ways to use tools such as social media, mobile technologies, and integrated offline engagement to generate dialogue and new ideas for greater impact.
Blackman has worked on health communications for organizations including the Centers for Disease Control, National Institutes of Health, and other government and private health organizations. He is co-founder of the FastForward Health Film Festival and managing editor of the Pulse + Signal blog.
Blackman likes to highlight individuals, organizations and projects that come up with great ideas for empowering communities to lead better, healthier lives on Pulse + Signal and via Twitter as @mindofandre. His aims to equip health professionals with the understanding of these new tools and how they can be useful for crafting meaningful movements.
"In this new era of two way conversations, open innovation and an abundance of information, we're at a great place where we can help change lives for the better on both small and large scales," he says.
Blackman has participated in conversations about HIV/AIDS, mobile health, health disparities and new forms of health journalism. He served as an expert commentator for the Changemakers Innovations For Health and Patients - Choices - Empowerment competitions, where he shared his thoughts about the future of public health, elevating patients' voices to improve health outcomes, and "reverse innovation."
"The mission of Changemakers aligns perfectly with what I'm about these days--making the world a better place by encouraging innovation and new ideas to flourish," he said. "Everyday, around the world, people are getting connected with the tools and resources they need to answer the question: 'How do I make this situation better for myself and my community?'
"Changemakers gives them a voice--and in this time in our lives, nothing is more useful."
Villgro, a Chennai, India-based innovation incubator, is offering a $10,000 grant for an initiative that demonstrates, by its activities on Changemakers changeshops, potential for significantly improving the lives of the rural poor in India by providing services, technologies, and products. "That's what we mean by innovation: something that creates value for the customer, for the end user," said Villgro founder Paul Basil. "In our case, the end user is the rural poor." Villgro has a decade-long track record of helping promising new ideas become sustainable market-based solutions. It believes that good ideas can come from anywhere, but they require money, mentoring, training, and valuable networks to grow. This is what Villgro has provided to more than 50 innovations such as a solar-powered egg incubator, a weeder for closely-spaced crops, and an affordable small-scale brick-making machine. They have a good eye for good ideas: A Villgro-funded voice device for people with speech disabilities was created by an inventor who was subsequently named a 2011 Technology Review "Innovator of the Year." By providing funding to Changemakers Changeshop owners, Villgro is extending its approach to social change. Because it is an organizer of the groundbreaking Unconvention conference, Villgro knows the value of bringing together people from many fields-innovators, investors, media and "wantrapreneurs"-to make the connections that advance and accelerate social change objectives. Basil is an Ashoka Fellow who has offered his insights and advice to Changemakers community members over the years. His own drive to make a difference led him from mechanical engineering to environmental conservation to community development, and ultimately to help local social entrepreneurs turn their initiatives into lasting enterprises. "The desire to become a social entrepreneur led me to a search for ideas, and I finally landed up in the world of grass-roots innovations," he said. It will be exciting to watch Villgro, a pioneering funder of Changemakers changeshops, spot and fund innovative projects in this "open growth" environment. Changemakers community members will have an opportunity to learn how funders identify investment worthy projects, and how fellow changeshop participants support each other's success.
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