Some technologies seem to take off instantly whilst others – no less useful – seem to just limp along.

Take mobile phones and toilets – two arguably useful and life-changing technologies. In just over forty years, around six billion people have managed to get access to a phone. Yet less than half that number has access to sanitation, despite the fact that toilets were invented at least 5,000 years ago. And, according to Ms Jaehyang So, water and sanitation manager at the World Bank, the number of new people with access to sanitation “is not moving very fast.”

That’s a problem. A lack of facilities, poor infrastructure, leaking sewage and the rapid spread of associated diseases cause billions of dollars in economic losses, and the lives of nearly 4,000 children each day. And, as the world’s population swells, things only seem to be getting worse.

Now, the World Bank has stepped in and it believes the key to tackling the problem is tapping into mobile phones. “What a mobile phone represents to a person today is a potential for prosperity. It connects them to the rest of the world,” says Ms So.  “What people sometimes don’t understand is that access to sanitation also gives people that chance out of poverty.”

The bank has just announced the winners of its Sanitation Hackathon (SanHack), a competition to build phone apps that can help improve sanitation in the developing world.

“It was one of the most innovative and risky things we’ve done at the World Bank”, says Ms So, describing the experimental competition that aimed to bring fresh thinking to an age old problem.

“We were a bit worried the challenge wouldn’t be very sexy, or data rich,” claims Edward Anderson, also at the bank. “Developers usually get excited about building apps for things like climate change, but not so much about fixing pit latrines in rural areas.”

The response, however, was quite the opposite. The competition attracted more than 180 apps, including everything from games to teach children about good hygiene to programs that track exactly how much a household spends on sanitation.

More than maps

Yet, most of the submitted apps focused on crowd-sourcing information and mapping it – and for good reason. “Mapping has been a huge game changer,” in sanitation, claims Ms So, allowing utilities and providers to know “who needs service, where the problems are, and where the community is growing.”

Due to the informal design and haphazard growth of slums, and remoteness of rural areas, very little formal mapping has actually been done.

“In these places, it’s less a case of building stuff on top of a map, and more building the map in the first place,” says Gary Gale, who runs community programs for mobile firm Nokia’s Here Maps. “The minute you have information on a map, it gives it a veracity that wasn’t there beforehand.”

(Read full story on BBC)

In recognition of the critical water challenges facing Kenya, where I currently live, let me share a bit of perspective from my own experiences chronicling of the challenges, the innovations, and potential solutions for water access across east Africa.

Enjoy!

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In the hot, dry and harsh landscapes of northeastern Kenya skirting the Somali border, hundreds of thousands of nomadic pastoralists continue to eek out a meager living from the land.

Yet in September of 2011, conditions were unbearable. It had been 16 months and counting since a single drop of rain touched down on the scorched earth, and the region was crippled by the worst drought in decades, forcing residents to survive near-famine conditions. The riverbeds were emptied, leaving nothing but dusty scars on the landscape. Carcasses of goats, donkeys and camels littered the side of the 370 km dirt highway between the two major towns of Wajir and Garissa, and thousands of people were forced to set up temporary shelters, kept alive by charity.

As result of global climate change, weather patterns are shifting drastically. The rains in the horn of Africa are becoming more sporadic, erratic, unpredictable and unreliable. However, a lack of rain alone does not produce famine. While some countries have the infrastructure, policies, programs and emergency relief services to be able to provide resources for their citizens in times of crisis, this area of Kenya, unfortunately, isn’t one of them.

When it comes to the basic necessity of water, the northeastern region of Kenya is plagued by both a lack of infrastructure and extreme marginalization. Inhabited by mostly ethnic-Somali pastoralists whose livelihoods depend on their livestock, people carry their homes on the backs of camels and move nomadically from one water source to the next. They don’t vote, and even if they did, their voice would matter little- the region has such little economic importance due to lack of resources, its primary purpose is to serve as a buffer between Kenya and war-torn Somalia. An aid worker once mentioned offhand that “the elected officials want to keep these people poor. That way, come election time, they can easily buy their vote and retain power.” Though this can’t be verified, it certainly is a common perception here.

Across the region, infrastructure is still the greatest challenge. 96% of sub-Saharan African agriculture is still rain dependent, meaning only 4% can actually grow and harvest crops when the rains don’t come, or during the dry seasons. Resources are vastly underused, and the lack of agricultural innovation and investment is tragic. There is water, underground and above ground, that’s not being tapped into.

For example, along the Tana River in Garissa, the Kenya Red Cross estimates that only 10% of rivers capacity is actually being harnessed. The African Development Bank has cited that the region’s lack of infrastructure- roads, housing, water, electricity, sanitation- reduces its output by 40%.

While rains may be uncontrollable, famine isn’t. The ability to access, harness, and distribute what lies atop or just beneath the surface is perhaps both the greatest failure and opportunity of the region. This photo-essay explores the current situation of water in Kenya’s driest areas, and the multiple efforts of private and public organizations working around the region to fix it.

My latest piece for BBC Future’s Matter of Life & Tech column explores the growing debate of technology vs content in the e-learning space, by looking at Kenya’s new eLimu tablet.  Check it out!

eLimu: ‘T’ is for tablet computer

BBC Future; Matter of Life & Tech
February 5th, 2013
Jonathan Kalan

In a tiny classroom tucked inside one of Nairobi’s sprawling slums, the 34 class eight students of Amaf primary school wait anxiously for the 4 o’clock bell.

At this time, twice a week, headmaster Peter Lalo Outa instructs students to put away their textbooks, assembles them into groups, and pulls out seven sleek tablet computers for the after-school lesson. One day, the students watch a video explaining the process of composting manure. On another, they’ll watch the animals they study come to life through videos, pictures, and interactive games.

“Our curriculum in Kenya is like a punishment to children, they feel they have to do it because it’s compulsory,” explains Outa. “With these tablets, our students really enjoy learning.”

Amaf school is one of two institutions piloting software by eLimu, a Kenyan education-technology startup that develops apps and content for small, touch-screen, wifi-enabled Android-powered tablets.

“We’re using the tablet as a tool through which information, ideas and passions can grow,” says eLimu founder Nivi Mukherjee,

eLimu works with local teachers, partners and developers to design localised, digital content meant to push primary education beyond the typical “chalk and talk” approach common in many classrooms. The start-up wants to show that digital content can be cheaper, better, and more effective at getting kids to learn.

“Our books have a limit,” says Outa, “but these tablets go beyond – with videos, photos and more practical learning.”

In Kenya, education is still one of the country’s biggest development hurdles. Although primary school was made free in 2003, resulting in nearly 100% enrollment, today less than one third of primary school pupils possess basic literacy and math skills for their level, according to Uwezo, a four-year initiative researching the state of education in east Africa. On any given day, 13 out of 100 teachers are absent from school, it says.

“Overcrowding in classes, inadequate teachers, and lack of learning and teaching materials” are all enormous challenges to education, admits John Temba of Kenya’s Ministry of Education.

Splash and flop

eLimu may be the latest attempt to harness technology for education, but it’s certainly not the first. For decades, organisations have been using technology to broaden universal access to information and make learning more interactive.

(Read the full story here)

For the past two months, I’ve been contributing to a column for BBC Future, called Matter of Life & Tech. The column highlights “Ideas and technology that could change the world. Hi-tech or low tech, developing or developed world, we profile the innovators and inventors who are finding solutions to the world’s problems.” 

You might want to check it out every once in awhile . In any case, here are a few of my recent pieces for the column.

Mobile phones call out for fresh water- http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121102-mobiles-call-out-for-fresh-water
An innovative system being tested across Kenya allows people to access drinking water at the touch of a button.

Nomadd; Cleaning solar power’s dirty side- http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121119-cleaning-solar-powers-dirty-side
The simple device that could finally allow solar panels to be located where they would get the most sun. A tech-fix to a grubby problem

iPhone Apps; Therapist that are always on call- http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20121129-a-therapist-thats-always-on-call
Smartphone apps that act as surrogate “therapists” for conditions like depression and anxiety are becoming increasingly common. But there is still a lot to understand about how – and if – they work.

Last year while traveling across the region, I stumbled across Living Goods, an incredibly innovative social enterprise in Kampala, Uganda, that uses an Avon-Lady style delivery system for essential health products. I wrote a feature for Beyond Profit Magazine titled “Door-to-Door Healthcare” highlighting their approach and impact.

Last week, Living Goods was also featured by Tina Rosenberg in the Fixes column of The New York Times, with photo contribution from The (BoP) Project.

Check out the piece here- it’s a great read!

Penda Health’s first clinic is tucked off the main road in Kitangela. Several signs (including a branded foot bridge!) around the area make it easy to find.

(*Editors Note; Post originally appeared on NextBillion, July 24, 2012. )

What’s the secret to attracting 300 patients a month to a brand new, three-room health clinic in a sprawling industrial area? It might be the free manicure/pedicure women receiver after paying for a full “head-to-toe” checkup, but more likely, it’s the value of Penda.

Wildebeests aren’t the only things migrating across the plains of the Serengeti this season.

Summer’s arrived in America, Kenya’s long rainy season has finally come to an end, and as predictable as the seasons the annual migration of young American expatriates into and out of Africa is well under way. This year, entering stage right: summer interns and recent college graduates looking for experience. Exiting stage left: Harvard, Wharton, and MIT’s MBA Classes of 2014, looking for whatever’s next.

Things weren’t always this streamlined. For decades, the great continent of Africa was slotted into fulfilling two roles for America’s young and restless: As a place to “find yourself,” the pinnacle of soul-searching to be attained in some mud hut drinking cow blood with a Maasai tribe (or something equally and equivocally cultural), or as a place to repent sins and/or selflessly serve the rest of humanity — perhaps educate, clothe, feed, or “civilize” those very same Maasai.

Africa was a temporary settlement camp for America’s young agents of virtue and wayfaring soldiers of the backpacker’s army, intent on dirt-cheap exploration or humanitarian salvation. It was not the kind of place Americans came to build a resume — until now.

Today, the continent is taking on a surprising new role for some American Gen-Y circles: As a jumping point — a place to actually “make yourself” rather than “find yourself.”

…Read on Huffingtonpost.com

To say the least, it’s been a wild ride. I’ve continued my travels throughout Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, and Rwanda, while also venturing the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and exploring the vastly different context of social enterprise there. I had a month long visit to Jordan, and several weeks back in the USA. Though I’ve now covered over two dozen social enterprises in different fields, the journey goes onward.

The past few months have been a period of quiet reflection, introspection, and analysis of The (BoP) Project. I have taken many of my findings and experiences, and begun to apply them in different areas. In Amman, Jordan, I taught a 5-day seminar for Columbia University’s Global Center on visual communications & stories of social change as they relate to social enterprise creation. Back in my home state of Connecticut, I gave a working presentation, “Potential over Poverty; New Narratives for Development” at the Global Health & Innovation Conference at Yale University, which chronicled the history of narratives and imagery used in development through present day. As I continue with my work, these real world applications and manifestations of my discoveries become ever more important.

These days, The (BoP) Project continues to be funded by and interspersed with a great deal of personal freelance work around the region, both in written and visual journalism. I’ve done my fair share of blogging about interesting things I’ve learned; Perceptions of Africa, the Generation Y ‘social good’ movement, and how some places aren’t always as bad as they seem; as well as working to bring pressing, unique, inspiring, and off-beat stories from the continent to the world.

Here are a few recent highlights; The Global Water Challenge (Public Radio International/America Abroad. Photo-essay), With Conference in Mogadishu, TedX is Officially Everywhere (CS Monitor),  The Gray Area of Gay Refugees (PBS Newshour/ Global Post), African agriculture boosted by water pump (Global Post),  Kenya’s Upcoming Elections Suggests Troubling Times for the Economy (Think Africa Press), In a Pristine Rainforest, The Rare Okapi (The Boston Globe).

Anyways, as the social enterprise ecosystem of east Africa has grown and shifted during this time, so too has the dynamic of The (BoP) Project’s reporting. Yes, it will continue to document and share the growing stories of social enterprise and innovation across the region. Yet it will also begin to dig deeper into the root causes, forces and drivers of this movement. It will examine the ecosystem as a whole, not solely it’s exciting moving parts. Ultimately it will take, in small strides, a look at the real impact of this movement itself. I will be first  expanding, then sharpening and narrowing my lens, probing deeper into physical and social impacts of these enterprises. I will look at the ecosystem as a whole and ask “is this working?”, adding, most importantly, “How can this be done better?”

New social enterprises are springing up nearly every day in Nairobi- currently there are over 50 social businesses started by Americans operating in east Africa alone, and the overwhelming majority have been started by Americans under 30 in the past 4 years. Now, a flood of impact investors are following suit. Everyone is looking for opportunity in Kenya, yet I believe that some must step back an take stock of all the excitement. In the midst of this rising tide, I seek to ask why, and how.

Leveraging my on the ground experiences, conversations, and networks, I will begin to explore the answers to some of these questions- in blog and lengthier feature article format- and provide further insight into the rapid transformation of the social enterprise space in east Africa, and beyond.

Lastly point; The (BoP) Project is beginning to seek places to showcase it’s work and findings- galleries, conferences and more. If you happen to have any ideas or suggestions, please feel free to drop me a line!

I hope you continue to read, engage, and question with me!

With regards from Nairobi,

Jonathan

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and the world of social entrepreneurship may seem strange bedfellows. One is constantly in the media for its good, the other for bad. One demonstrates economic empowerment, the other an absence thereof.

In fact, the most internationally known ‘enterprises’ in the Eastern DRC, a region plagued first by civil war, then ethnic conflict, and now roving militias funded by foreign militaries, seems perhaps as far from ‘social’ as you can get. Brutally controlled mines, illegal logging and poaching, raw mineral extraction, the list goes on.

But here’s where we may be wrong.

“UNEP study confirms DR Congo’s potential as world environmental powerhouse but warns of critical threats; Social entrepreneurs hold key for job creation and ‘green economy’ transformation in DR Congo”

Green economy in DRC? Social entrepreneurs? Wait, what?

A major Post-Conflict Environmental Assessment of the DRC, partially released in October 2011 by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) underlines the global significance and extraordinary potential of the country’s natural and mineral resources, and puts social entrepreneurship in the spotlight as a way to help realize it.

It seems that DRC’s tiny ‘social economy’ has been a natural outgrowth of the failure of the state, the informalization of the economy, and the collapse of social services. This led to, as the report puts it, a spontaneous creation of community managed “associations… found across natural resource based sectors – agriculture, mining, forestry, fisheries and water” that continue to thrive to this day.”

I spoke to Hassan Partow, the DR Congo programme manager at UNEP, who worked on the report, and he filled me in further. “While the DRC may institutionally/administratively be a ‘failed state’, it boasts a very dynamic and robust society” he wrote in an email. “As a result, social and environmental entrepreneurship has great potential. However, due to the lack of vision  and policy support, the potential of these social enterprises has remained stifled in the form of non-profit associations.”

Yet these social entrepreneurs do exist, and given the vast wealth of natural resources the DRC holds, if resources are harnessed properly by local communities and entrepreneurs, they could be significant catalysts for economic and social development. As just one example, the DRC has the second largest forest carbon stock in the tropical world-giving it a clear major stake in the carbon market.

Weeks after learning about this report, as I bounced through Eastern DRC’s Ituri region, I kept my eye out for stories that could perhaps shed some light on this revelation.

The first man we met in Bunia, the quickly recovering capital of Ituri, was Kalongo Rwabikanga (pictured below). He was, by all definitions, the kind of guy I was looking for.

An inspiring Congolese man in his 30s, his organization Synergie Simama has brought together the work of ten local grassroots organizations around Ituri after the conflict, to empower and assist disabled and vulnerable communities through vocational training, physiotherapy, surgeries, education, and much more.

Kalongo left Bunia in 1999, when Congo’s second war broke out, to pursue a Masters degree in community development in Nairobi. “I left with an objective”, he told me, “because the situation in Bunia needed to change. There was a lack of knowledge about development, and if I had the opportunity to go to Nairobi to acquire the skills, I could return to help the community”

Despite tempting job opportunities elsewhere, he in fact returned in 2004, and saw a tremendous increase in the number of people left disabled from the violence, and realized a single project could not take care of everyone.

Treating disabilities is different from treating other illnesses. Malaria can be treated in a week- yet orthopedic surgery, or physiotherapy, is a long process.  With limited budget support from Irish Aid and Catholic Blind Missions, Synergie Simama asks for direct community participation. People give what they have- If they don’t have, they don’t give. Many don’t have, so Kalongo decided  “let’s increase the community capacity, so that the community can effectively contribute to the process of rehabilitation”

As a result, Synergie Simama now has several vocational training centers that teach sewing, tailoring, carpentry and welding, and help disabled individuals become economically independent and re-integrate into their communities. The organization also has begun large-scale agricultural activities. With a tractor, they help two communities (which were in direct conflict nine years ago) cultivate acres of communally-shared land. Apart from an increase food in the community, the families are able to sell the excess and generate some income to contribute to the rehabilitation process.

“Reducing community poverty, and bringing the community together to help people with disabilities” is how Kalongo puts it.

In Bogoro village, the site of a brutal one-day, 200 person massacre back in 2003, we arrived just one day before Bogoro Muungano Kwa Maendeleo (BMM) was to graduate its fourth class. A sewing vocational center for at risk and disabled women, BMM (students pictured at right) is one of Synergie Simama’s most successful projects. The following morning, 15 women would take off on bus to their home villages armed with new skills, and a brand new sewing machine. According to Kalongo, 70 percent of graduates find or make work for themselves after the program.

Though I often write to shift the narrative of Africa toward a more positive tone, even I must confess, I did not expect to see such signs of hope and community-based entrepreneurship in the eastern Congo – and there are many more examples. And it’s not just the business that’s important to them. “We are clearing our minds of war,” one man told me.

Many of the social enterprise examples we explore on NextBillion are in relatively stable environments. Looking at the DRC, I have begun to wonder: What is the role of social enterprises in conflict resolution, and in both ongoing or post-conflict areas?

A Chinese, Latin American, and North American student are sitting in a classroom. The teacher pulls out a map of Africa, and asks ‘tell me what you see”. The Chinese student speaks of opportunity and business; South African steel, Congolese minerals, and Angolan oil to power his country’s growth, and an endless list of future contracts for Chinese-built roads, bridges, and infrastructure to link the continent. The American reflects on Darfur, the Rwandan Genocide, thatched-roof villages, famine, Bono, Madonna, nonprofit work, and starving children. The Latin American student draws parallels in a tragic reflection of the worst parts of his own country; nefarious warlords, corruption, and poverty.

Who is right, and who is wrong? No one. And everyone. The complexity of this mighty and expansive continent can hardly be confined to a single narrative. Over one billion people. 54 independent states (as recognized by the UN). Nearly 3,000 languages. And as remarkably diverse as the continent is, so too should be the stories that emerge from it.

As I stepped through doorway of my concrete apartment in Nairobi, Kenya the other morning, I had the strange feeling I’d done something terribly wrong. I had just returned from two weeks traveling by local transport — bus, boat, motorcycle, and foot — through the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and as it happens, had an incredible, inspiring, and uplifting time.

Before you barrage me with your criticisms, and claim perhaps I’m blind, insensitive, ignorant, or arrogant for eliciting pleasure from my time in the D.R.C., let me explain myself.

The journey went hard against the grain of the typical Congo narrative; I did not pay a single bribe. Immigration officials turned out to be the friendliest and most helpful bunch I met. No men with AK-47s kidnapped me. I spent Christmas day hunting with Mbuti pygmies in the world’s second largest rainforest, swimming in crocodile-infested rivers with their children. I met with grassroots NGOs and social entrepreneurs that were changing communities and bringing hope. I encountered warm smiles, and generous hospitality. I saw a beautiful, untold side of the country.

In short, I was fortunate enough to be able to peer behind the constant narrative of war, conflict, corruption and poverty. I saw real people. I saw real lives. I saw raw potential. Disabled women breaking down stereotypes in their villages by starting small tailoring businesses. Young men, left crippled by the war, training to be carpenters and welders. Communities that massacred each other just nine years ago, collaborating economically and socially. People returning from being refugees and attempting normalcy — school, business, family…..