IEEE SIGHT Special Interest Group on Humanitarian Technology

Sections Congress – Amsterdam 22-24 August 2014 Eduardo Navarro Kartik Kulkarni Holly Schneider Brown

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Need for Volunteers and Non-Profits

90% of all new development is designed to benefit primarily the economic top 10%

– Either there is no scope for profit – Or the Government faces resource

deficit (some times lack of understanding)

1.3 Billion people make ~1$/day

Access to reliable electricity

World electrification stats

• 550 Million (75%) of sub-Saharan Africa, excluding South Africa, households have no access to network electricity.

• 700 Million (50%) people of South Asia places like India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, of the overall population and 90% of the rural population are not on the grid.

• 1.4 Billion people will still lack access to electricity in 2030 - International Energy Agency.

Global challenges to fight

UN Millennium Development Goals

Importance of volunteers in development

As we celebrate the impact of volunteers on our world, let us remember the many places they are needed: in war zones and classrooms, in hospitals and homes – wherever struggling people seek a helping hand.” UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on International Volunteer Day 2012

In 2008, 61.8 million Americans (26.4% of the population) contributed 8 billion hours of volunteer service worth an estimated 162 billion dollars.

Can IEEE volunteers help? 400,000+ Engineers!

IEEE has several volunteer led initiatives

• IEEE Humanitarian Technology Challenge • PES Community Solutions Initiative • Engineering Projects into Community Service • Teacher In-Service Program • Engineering For Change • Presidents’ Change The World Competition • Global Humanitarian Technology Conference • R10 Young Engineers’ Humanitarian Challenge • IEEE Foundation Grants • Many Section and Student Branch led initiatives

Why SIGHT? • SIGHT is a dedicated organization of IEEE

members interested in Humanitarian Activities • Prime charter for SIGHT is to engage the

members – In the existing IEEE’s programs (listed

previously and many more) – In sustainable projects that benefit

communities – In activities that inspire, enable, and

connect interested IEEE members

Why SIGHT? (cont) • Provides visibility to other volunteers and

allows scope for collaboration

• Provides a categorized inventory of volunteer groups, projects, activities

• Serves as a channel for IEEE to invest in its member led activities

• Serves as a channel for different IEEE OUs like Societies, and Boards to access the membership interested in humanitarian activities

SIGHT – the overarching motive • SIGHT groups’ major goal is to create opportunities for members to

devote time and talents to humanitarian work consistent with IEEE’s Constitution to “bring the benefits of technology to the entire world.”

• The understanding that 90% of all new development is designed to benefit primarily the economic top 10% of the global population brings with it a mandate that special attention is needed to address technology for the 90%,

• Especially the bottom 20% of 1.4 billion people knows as the “Base of

the Pyramid” or BOP. World poverty is a huge burden on all world economies; eradication will benefit all.

Goals of SIGHT 1) To bring together members/IEEE OUs working in or wishing to work

in humanitarian fields and to encourage and promote them in activities that use humanitarian technologies by giving them an opportunity for participation.

2) Increasing awareness of IEEE members and engineers of the potential of their work to improve the standard of living of underserved populations, and encouraging them to increase efforts in this direction.

3) To engage with NGOs, Civil Society Organizations, UN Organizations, Corporates, and other similar bodies to synergize efforts in delivering useful and sustainable technologies in their operations.

4) To work with other bodies in the global engineering community who have similar goals and help each other in delivering to the ideals and participate in joint activities like Engineering for Change (E4C).

What SIGHTs do? 1) Activities A. Inspiration, Encouragement, Orientation

– Orienting Engineers towards social innovation/entrepreneurship/Humanitarian activities. – Awakening interest and creating passion for humanitarian work through learning. – Identifying opportunities that will result in practical, useful projects. – Example: The Madras SIGHT group organized a Solar Lamp design contest for students and had

an event showcasing the importance of alternative energy sources.

B. Educational – Programs such as TISP (Teacher In-Service Program) which aim to help local schools in the

underserved regions, and have a good educational value for the participating school students.

C. Networking – SIGHTs may organize conferences or networking workshops.

2) Projects

• The types of projects to be targeted by SIGHT groups are those that lead to significant impact on eradicating world poverty through growing sustainable benefits in technology-poor areas.

• The desired result is not to exploit the BOP with foreign based and owned enterprises, but to empower people in the BOP to become full participants by helping plant and grow technology enterprises in communities which then become fully self-sustaining and increasingly prosperous.

1) SIGHT Activities overview Categorizing SIGHT activities Categorizing SIGHT activities

SIGHT Activities- Inspire

SIGHT volunteers inspire their local IEEE members to contribute to pressing issues. Inspiring more members is the key to make impact. Examples of activities: – Contests – Workshops – Tech Talks

Inspire example: Madras SIGHT, India

Inspire example: Madras SIGHT, India

Solar lamp designing workshop cum contest In association with Solarillion.org and IEEE PES Academic approach to develop solar lamps Dual goals: – Educational – Empowerment

Inspire example: Madras SIGHT, India

• 53 colleges engaged • 1230 students • 420 lamps • 8 districts

Enable example: TISP workshop in Colombia

•SIGHTs organize programs that help volunteers create impact •Examples:

–Teacher In-Service Program (TISP) •Train the trainer program •Equip volunteers to visit local schools and deliver hands-on workshops to create interest about engineering among school students •www.tryengineering.org has a collection ready-to-deliver lesson plans

Enable example: TISP workshop in Colombia

Enabled 50 volunteers to inspire pre-university students towards engineering. Equipped them to use lesson plans to deliver interesting workshops

Enable example: Science camp for

visually challenged in Kerala

Enable example: Science camp for visually challenged in Kerala

Eyes-Free Science camp Special techniques to teach science for the visually challenged

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for SIGHT volunteers

The Engineering for Change (E4C) Webinar Series promotes emerging ideas and connects you with a passionate community of engineers and development practitioners. Each online seminar shows you how technology-based solutions are being used to address real-world challenges in underserved communities. http://www.engineeringforchange-webinars.org/

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SIGHT Activities - Connect

SIGHTs connect interested volunteers with relevant local organizations and NGOs Leveraging on the IEEE’s major strength – networking. – Conferences – Networking events – Community Engagement Workshops

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Connect example: Canada SIGHT

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Connect example: Community Engagement Workshop by Kerala SIGHT

Connecting NGOs and volunteers

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SIGHT Fellowships to support conference participation

Supporting volunteers participate in IEEE Humanitarian Conferences – In 2013, 8 Fellows were financially supported

Nigeria, Iran, Bangladesh, Zambia, Canada, India, USA IEEE has conferences emerging in Humanitarian Technology – GHTC 2013, Silicon Valley, USA – GHTC South Asian Satellite 2013, Trivandrum, India – R10 HTC 2013, Sendai, Japan – GHTC 2014, Canada – R10 HTC 2014, Madras, India

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2) SIGHT Projects overview

SIGHTs are encouraged to take up sustainable projects that benefit communities using technology. A detailed guideline based on IDE (Incubate, Demonstrate, and Educate) is provided for the SIGHT projects. SIGHTs can apply for catalytic project funding to support prototyping and initial implementations.

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SIGHT project goals

1. Support sustainable technology business initiatives seeking to have a measureable impact in alleviating global poverty of energy, health care, sanitation, interconnectivity and other technology-dependent solutions among the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) 1.4 billion people;

2. Develop open source technology solutions

designed to drive down the cost of access to full benefits in technology areas, while avoiding intellectual property restrictions that keep costs artificially high and deny affordable access;

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SIGHT Project goals (cont)

3. Leverage affordable core technologies like electricity, communications and interconnectivity to bring affordable secondary benefits to the BOP especially education at all levels in rural poor societies; and

4. Empower BOP local entrepreneurs and citizens to

develop sustainable, scalable profit-making businesses in-country to grow community prosperity exponentially by reinvesting all profits in growth to scale and in improving community infrastructure such as roads, sanitation, health care and education.

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The IDE Framework

A movement called IDE90 is proposed as a framework for the long range goals of SIGHT, emanating to large degree out of the pioneering work of Paul Polak, a practitioner for three decades in sustainable development and author of “Out of Poverty.”

IDE is an acronym for Incubate, Demonstrate, Educate - three nested practices that sustain socially equitable, economically prosperous, and environmentally sound community enterprise. – Nobel laureate Amartya Sen expands on

this triple bottom line of sustainability.

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SIGHT Project funding application

2 step application process 1) Concept Proposal 2) Full Proposal

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Step 1: Concept Proposal

Before a full project proposal is developed and submitted for approval, a Project Concept Proposal must be submitted and approved by the Sub-committee. Concept proposals alone may be approved for small amounts of funding in order to complete the work for a full proposal. The following need to be addressed in the Concept document:

1. Need and Solution: Describe the need this project is addressing, the proposed solution, and if this is a local one time project or has the potential to expand to other locales and countries. Describe the survey results which verify the need from the potential customer point of view.

2. Type of Proposal: Describe how this proposal fits into an IDE framework for sustainable development: Incubate, Demonstrate, Educate or a combination. If it addresses only a single phase, describe how it relates to other known ongoing projects and phases or to new planned developments.

3. Partnerships: Describe the established or proposed partnerships to market the results of the investment and your vision of how partnerships are to be developed.

4. Survey of Similar Known Initiatives: Describe how your proposal relates to similar known initiatives and how it is distinctly different and worthy of support2.

5. Team members: Provide a list of the team members, their proposed role and experience both technical and business.

6. Budget and Schedule: Provide an approximate development timeline and budget needs.

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Step 2: Full Proposal

On approval of the SIGHT committee you will be invited to submit a full proposal which must include the following:

1) Executive Summary: Describe as briefly as possible the proposed project, its IDE positioning,

overall business plan and critical partners and personnel involved, why you think it can become a sustainable business, proposed budget and schedule

2) Business Model: Describe the proposed business model for the project in the following phases: a. Proposed product and technical personnel b. Basic marketing plan and personnel c. Initial field survey results if any d. Pilot phase proposed development funding, sources, deliverables, plans for deployment e. Analysis of competitive products on market f. Plans for manufacturing if applicable: E.g., How many units will be built initially, where and how will

these be paid for? Will there be full scale production, where will these be built and paid for? Who will take over the project after completion of the concept/development stage and move into implementation?

g. Significant partnerships and agreements, e.g. NGO partner already established in field who will form For-Profit, secure funding, establish manufacturing, take business to full scale.

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Step 2: Full Proposal (cont)

3) Schedule: Provide a schedule for the project and identify all

milestones. Major milestones should include approval of the Sub-Committee.

4) Seed Funding: Provide a detailed budget request. What

funding sources, besides SIGHT, have been identified? 5) Additional Information: Provide any additional information

you believe the Projects Sub-Committee needs to have on this project.

6) Contact Information:

Provide contact information of submitter and one alternate member of the group. Provide short biographies of key personnel, IEEE Society and

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SIGHT Projects proposal submission

Please submit to: Holly Schneider Brown, Program Manager, IEEE Corporate Activities

SIGHT Steering Committee Holly Schneider Brown

(h.s.brown@ieee.org)

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Recent projects funded #1

Medguide – Gujarat Section SIGHT

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Funding: 2000 US$ MedGuide aims to solve the crucial problem of regulating and monitoring the medical regimens of pregnant women especially in rural and remote areas. In rural areas due to illiteracy and negligence, people are unaware as how important it is to take medicines according to prescription. It is the malpractices in taking medicines on time and regularly that result in high infant mortality rate and maternal death due to many complications.

Recent projects funded #2

Empowering the Blind through Assistive Technologies Technologies to change the lives of the Visually Challenged – Kerala SIGHT; – SIGHT Funding: 5000 US$ ; External Funding: 50,000+ US$

Establishing Work Place Training Centers for the Blind Setting up a Mobile ‘Accessible Science Laboratory’ Setting up Small and Medium scale Production units of the

Blind Production of Text Books in Accessible format for School and

College students Production of a Daisy Science Magazine and Additional Reading

Materials Introducing and training on the use of Assistive Devices &

Tools for the Blind Providing Technical Content for ‘Eyes Free’ Science Camps and

Science Training Workshops with practical learning

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SIGHT Protocols and operations

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How to form a SIGHT?

6 passionate IEEE Members to inaugurate! A parent IEEE OU (Section or Student Branch) to endorse the formation. –Petition form @

http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/ad_hoc/sight_group_formation_2013.pdf

– Send it to – E-mail: h.s.brown@ieee.org – Fax: +1 732 463 3657 – Mail: Humanitarian Ad Hoc Committee, 445

Hoes Lane – Piscataway, NJ 08854-4141, USA

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Rebates and Reports

Startup funding: – 200 US$ Annual rebates – 200 US$ 2 reports annually to update the SIGHT activities and projects

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Quantifying the SIGHT activities and projects

Two point formula to quantify the impact:

– Number of IEEE members enabled-

includes the members and volunteers that were engaged, inspired, connected, trained, or encouraged.

– Number of people benefited- The actual beneficiaries of SIGHT activities and projects.

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Resources

Website: – http://www.ieee.org/special_interest_group_on

_humanitarian_technnology.html Petition to form SIGHT – http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/ad_hoc/si

ght_group_formation_2013.pdf Project application and guidelines: – https://docs.google.com/file/d/1F_LIghyMWcLH

UuIbj5auYH4dMomeassIWa0IyM6AxLcI1vDY0wwLFtxOE6uj/edit?usp=sharing

Contact – h.s.brown@ieee.org

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QUESTIONS