Inventors Without Borders (IWB)
Location
Teenage inventors solving real problems concerning food, water, sanitation, energy, shelter for the 90% of the world that survives on $1 a day.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Field of Work
other
If Field of Work is “other” please define in 1-2 words below
Poverty alleviation
Year project started (or projected start date) (yyyy)
2008
YouTube Upload
I will be providing this prior to Oct 15, 2008.
Project URL (or link to any media coverage)
What is the primary problem your venture is trying to address and how are you addressing it (or planning to address it)?
Millennium Development Goal #1, which is to Halve Poverty and Hunger by 2015.
IWB’s mission is to alleviate poverty by promoting the creation of inventions to provide food, water, sanitation, energy and shelter to the ‘world’s other 90%’.
What makes Inventors Without Borders® (IWB) compelling:
1. In developed countries, teenagers have plenty of money, time, and intelligence, but limited opportunities to make substantive impact on the world.
2. 90% of the world lives on $1 a day.
3. Elaborate engineering competitions, such as BEST and FIRST Robotics challenge teens to consume enormous resources to construct robots to solve contrived missions (e.g. folding laundry) which have limited direct impact on society.
4. Teenagers will face problems more complex and daunting than has ever existed in history and thus need advanced skills sooner than ever.
IWB links these four realities by hosting competitions, challenging teams to create mechanical inventions (e.g. human-powered generators, portable water- desalinators, electricity-free refrigerators) to address problems in developing countries concerning food, water, sanitation, energy, and shelter.
We identify real-world challenges from a variety of sources such as Rotary International and Engineers-without-Borders and structure them into exciting competitions where inventions are judged using numerous criteria (e.g. watts produced/kilogram weight, watts produced/$ cost-to-build). Teams are also challenged to address business, economic and social-political dimensions (e.g. ownership and financing models, how power structure of community is impacted by introduction of new technology). Mentors will coach IWB teams on engineering, business, and social entrepreneurship.
Competition winners will be rewarded with funding to install their invention in a community most in need. The ultimate reward for them is seeing their invention lifting people out of poverty.
Another IWB project is starting a new movement called ‘Open-Source Inventions’ to promote the donation of royalty-free patents for alleviating poverty. Many promising patents are deemed “unprofitable” and kept locked way and inaccessible to those in need. IWB will research patents for their potential for alleviating poverty and approach the patent-holders to donate the rights for their use in specific developing countries. We base our model on the work of Open Architecture Network and Institute for OneWorld Health.
Our principles:
• learn/grow through serving others
• learn to think systemically to understand the “why’s” behind the “what”
• noble achievements during youth transforms that individual forever
• never too young to make a difference
Name Your Project
Inventors Without Borders (IWB)
Describe Your Idea
Teenage inventors solving real problems concerning food, water, sanitation, energy, shelter for the 90% of the world that survives on $1 a day.
Innovation
Project Description
Teenage inventors solving real problems concerning food, water, sanitation, energy, shelter for the 90% of the world that survives on $1 a day.
Unique and different
IWB is unique and different in tackling one of humanity’s biggest problems, poverty and hunger, directly through the creation of technical inventions and also indirectly through the creation of legions of future social entrepreneurs.
IWB benefits society by channeling the energy, intelligence, and affluence of teenagers in the developed world that otherwise would be underutilized and underdeveloped to alleviate poverty in the developing world.
IWB provides these teenagers the structure, mentorship, and vision to apply their considerable resources to create technological innovations to address the need for food, water, sanitation, energy, and shelter for the 90% of the world that lives on a dollar a day.
Through their participation in IWB, the teenagers gain invaluable real-life skills and character development to benefit them and their society for their entire lives. The extensive mentoring that IWB provides the IWB participants extend beyond engineering and business to include social responsibility and entrepreneurship.
The more difficult the challenge, the richer the skill growth. The nobler the endeavor, the deeper the character growth.
IWB competitions and activities produce useful technological inventions to alleviate poverty and at the same time create a pipeline of social entrepreneurs who will shape the political, intellectual, and cultural landscape for generations to come.
Project plan
• Create business plan (completed)
• Incorporate as 501(c)(3) nonprofit (progressing)
• Determine design challenge for first IWB competition (completed - design/construct a combination wind/human-powered electrical generator for <$500)
• Develop judging criteria and award categories
• Fund-raise, acquire sponsorships
• Build demonstration invention to test feasibility of construction and ease of judging (progressing)
• Liaise with local schools and regional Science and Engineering fairs/competitions to promote IWB
• Determine competition venue
• Create marketing campaign using web 2.0; create media kit
• Find/prepare volunteer mentors, judges, coaches
• Organize competition logistics, build testing apparatus
• Establish partnerships with social-entrepreneurship organizations (e.g. Ashoka-YouthVentures, Engineers-without-Borders, Rotary International) for sourcing real-world challenges for subsequent IWB competitions
• Establish partnerships with engineering competitions (e.g. FIRST and BEST robotics) for synergy
• Create comprehensive team manuals addressing foundational engineering, business, social-entrepreneurship principles
Partnerships
IWB has not yet, but is planning to establish partnerships with Rotary International, Engineers Without Borders, Innocentive, and MIT’s D-Lab to source real-world engineering problems for future IWB competitions.
IWB has not yet, but is planning to establish partnerships with ISWEEEP, FIRST, BEST Robotics, and Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, and Teen Second Life to co-produce future IWB competitions.
IWB has not yet, but is planning to establish partnerships with National Center for Appropriate Technology, Design for Development, Design for the World, Design for Social Impact, Lemelson Center for Study of Invention and Innovation, and Design Altruism Project to refine the structure IWB competitions and for mentorship resources.
Impact
Impact
IWB is just starting so the following are intended impacts:
• Within five years, growth to 40 Regional IWB Competitions each offering two annual design challenges yielding potentially 127 cumulative inventions targeting poverty relief.
• In communities installing IWB inventions, 50% of population is lifted from poverty (living on $1 per day) within 24 months.
• Assuming 200,000 villagers per IWB-impacted community, potentially 10,270,000 villagers lifted from poverty within 7 years.
• Within two years, IWB’s Open-source Inventions project yields 10 donated royalty-free patents for alleviating poverty. The S.C.O.R.E. oven, Lifestraw®, and Adam Grosser’s Electricity-free Refrigerator are priority targets.
• Within three years, 500+ young adults attribute their IWB participation as instrumental in acquiring critical real-world skills (e.g. systemic thinking, entrepreneurship) and in motivating them to pursue social entrepreneurship at least part-time.
Every IWB participant will be transformed forever by their experience. Never again will they consider themselves too young, too inexperienced, too irrelevant to solve their world’s problems. So in addition to the direct impact of the inventions created through IWB, IWB also creates legions of young social entrepreneurs whose impact on society will be exponentially greater.
Effectiveness
IWB is in early stages so we have not served anyone in the intended population yet. But our primary targeted population is the global impoverished, which numbers close to 5 Billion people. Our secondary targeted population are teenagers in developed countries, which numbers close to 200 million.
How do you engage and impact the community?
IWB will reach out to teenagers aged 14-19 through a variety of channels:
• Directly contacting high school science, math, and social studies teachers
• Participation in homeschooled associations and conventions
• Participation in science, engineering, and robotics competitions
• Directly contacting youth service clubs such as Interact and Key club
• Directly contacting scouting, in particular Venture Crew
• Web 2.0 – blogs and Youtube and their schools
How do you measure this impact?
See response above to question on impact.
Obstacles
• Structuring inspiring competitions where inventions are judged on-stage in a visually exciting and entertaining yet substantive manner.
• Funding
• Legal issues concerning intellectual property – who owns the inventions? Are they donated to IWB, retained by the inventors, donated to the targeted community, etc?
• Integrating the business, political, socio-economic, and engineering dimensions of bringing inventions to market. Most participants will rush to design and build. We need to mentor them to consider all of these dimensions since they are addressing complex real world problems, not just building a better mousetrap.
• Securing a reliable source of information regarding challenges in developing countries that lend themselves to technology solutions feasibly produced by intelligent, motivated teenagers.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
Financing source
(or how do you expect your initiative will be financed)
IWB will be financed through numerous small to medium-sized grants from engineering intensive industries. These grants would be focused on underwriting the costs of the IWB competition or cover IWB operating expenses. The IWB participants by virtue of their accomplishments in IWB would be extremely attractive candidates for employment in these industries. Initially, the targeted sponsors are petroleum and chemical industry corporations in the Houston area. In addition, sponsorship from private foundations that focus on social entrepreneurism, invention, and youth development will be sought. Eventually, revenue from the sale of IWB inventions and membership dues would be another source of financing.
Aside from financial sustainability, how do you plan to grow and sustain your project?
IWB will pursue a growth model similar to Foundation for the Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) where local communities provide volunteer leadership and pursue fundraising to host local chapters. IWB will provide the blueprint and continued consultation for implementing IWB competitions, for community outreach, for sourcing developing world problems as potential IWB competition challenges, and for the mentorship that develops advanced skills in the teenaged inventors. IWB will provide “turn-key” kits and consultation for starting new IWB chapters. Growth will result from several mechanisms:
• Explicit recognition and award given to competing IWB teams for recruiting new IWB participants and founding new chapters
• Viral marketing via IWB participants and sponsors using social networking and related Web 2.0 tools
• Media campaigns at local, national, and international levels
• Continued participation in social entrepreneurship competitions and the exposure they provide
Finance details
Will be shared if requested by members of the Changemakers judging team.
Creative funding
None yet, but certain to employ in the future.
Other non finance needs
Adult mentors knowledgeable in engineering, business, political science, and social entrepreneurism. Supportive and engaged school administrators and parents who reinforce the lessons learned through IWB. Local private and public organizations willing to provide volunteers, sponsorship, and locations to hold IWB competitions.
The Story
Motivation
In the next 24 hours, over 27,000 children under 5 will die, most from preventable and treatable causes.
Cholera, a bacterium that many people haven’t even heard of, kills more people a year than numerous other illnesses.
I became aware of these problems in 2005 when we my family and I went to the World Expo in Nagoya, Japan. I saw the Doctors Without Borders mock-up of a refugee village and realized that millions of people around the world die because they can’t get something that we take for granted. Most people can’t get clean water. Here in the United States you can just turn on the faucet and water clean enough to drink comes pouring out.
I was moved by that experience and asked myself what I could do to help since I am not interested in becoming a doctor. I am interested in becoming an inventor and have been creating mechanical things since I was 7 such as a robot that cleaned up the floor using a sponge and water pump. I have been building robotics individually and on various teams for over half my life. While the experience has been a tremendous learning opportunity to learn math, engineering, and teamwork, I want to do more to help people in developing countries that are in dire need. I would rather spend my time and talent solving real problems rather than contrived problems, such as building robots to navigate obstacle courses or to hang laundry.
So in 2005, I formed the idea of starting a club where teenagers compete in teams to build mechanical inventions to help people in real need.
IWB’s motto is “Young inventors solving REAL problems around the world. Never too young to make a difference.”
Awards
None, yet.
Broader context
IWB is at its essence structured mentoring enabling teenagers aged 14-19 to learn critically important skills through the design, construction, and implementing of mechanical inventions in the developing countries to alleviate poverty. IWB makes it easy for teens to impact their world through creating tangible machines to alleviate poverty. And in the process, gain valuable skills and experience with social entrepreneurism, project management, engineering, marketing, and financial analysis. Finally, IWB creates a generation of future social entrepreneurs as a result of their intense participation in IWB competitions.
Ongoing
IWB will serve as a continuing source of inspiration throughout my life. In my early 20’s I envision serving as a board member and President of IWB to grow it globally. In my 30’s, IWB will serve as a launching pad for numerous related social ventures such as IWB spin-off’s and I would continue to mentor the IWB leadership team. In my 40’s, IWB would be source of inspiration for my children to pursue social causes and entrepreneurism. Into the last decades of my life, I would work to integrate IWB into the standards and curriculum of schools in developed countries. Every teenager should have the opportunity to participate in an IWB type experience. Their character would be transformed forever.
What is your age?
14
How did you hear about this competition?
From a news feed about Youth Venture from Ashoka.
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