The Somo Project’s mission is to identify, train, fund and mentor entrepreneurs looking to drive social change by building enterprises in their own low-income urban communities. This project seeks out talented individuals with vision, drive and a concrete plan to change their communities from within. Focusing on taking a long-term, investment-focused approach, the project will identify focus areas that have long-term importance to a community, such as health, education and the environment. The project will identify and build partnerships with local grassroots leaders to establish Somo’s presence and local platform. The project aims to prudently allocate capital and mitigate risk by seeking partnerships with only a limited number of excellent entrepreneurs (5 -15) in each start-up class. The focus is simple: seek entrepreneurs who can build sustainable, socially focused franchises, and who have a long runway of growth ahead of them. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Conflict & Development” Category)
The Mapuche conflict of Southern Chile confronts Mapuche indigenous communities that fight to recuperate their lost territories against the Chilean state. National mass media outlets have been misinforming the national population about the causes of the violence labeling the Mapuche movement as “terrorism.” However, specialists are in agreement that this is not the case and the roots of the present Mapuche struggle are historical. The objective of this project is to design a pilot scheme that aims to “re-educate” the misinformed Chilean upper-class, based in the northern capital of Santiago, about the history of the Mapuche conflict. Four teachers selected from a poll of 10 elite high schools will spend ten days working with the school community learning how history is taught and lived in the context of where the conflict unfolds. These teachers will stay with a host-family of the school, learning about the Mapuche conflict, “on the ground”. The four teachers will then come back to their educational communities in Santiago to transmit their experiences and design a project to aid the Mapuche educational community that hosted them. The whole process will be recorded by a documentarian and then released as a documentary film.
(Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Conflict & Development” Category)
This project seeks to establish a Youth Ag-education and Innovation Cooperative (YAIC) to empower at-risk youth by putting them in the position to work side-by-side with their peers. By including a constitution and by-laws, this program will give young farmers ownership of their ventures so they gain leadership, teamwork, and communication skills within a democratically led institution. YAIC will partner with a local Rwandan NGO, Building Bridges to Rwanda (BBR), and a private American aquaponic company, WeFeedUs, to establish agri-tourism study abroad programs with four American universities. The fundamental goal is to help youth change their negative perception of agriculture through a participatory community-based curriculum program within the framework of a successful agricultural cooperative. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Conflict & Development” Category)
Voter disenfranchisement is at an all-time high. From national offices all the way down to local school and water boards, people are frustrated with their elected officials. BallotPath is leveling the playing field so that the average citizen can understand who currently represents them and how they can run for office. People enter their address on BallotPath’s website where they can see all of their elected representatives, from dogcatcher to President, and how they can replace these officials. The BallotPath team intends to leverage its working prototype for California into a network of universities across the country that will collaborate to curate the data. By first building the prototype to function for Contra Costa County, then covering all of California, BallotPath plans to raise additional capital to go national and then open the API to paying customers. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Conflict & Development” Category)
This project seeks to create a set of electronic training modules that can be taken by individuals who work with LGBT refugees and asylum-seekers anywhere in the world. These trainings would help eliminate inherent bias, misinterpretation, and discrimination present in these systems toward LGBT individuals. The modules would be made available in a variety of formats to ensure that compatibility issues do not hinder these efforts. The project would focus on NGO’s and government agencies in Texas and in Nairobi, Kenya because of the overwhelming need that has developed due to the political climate in that region. By establishing a non-profit in the U.S. with the sole purpose of developing this training program and getting it into the right hands, this project ensures that anyone working with refugees has the proper level of education to complete their jobs effectively. The program would serve the additional purpose of identifying those who are overtly discriminatory toward this population, and allow officials to steer LGBT refugees toward safer and more accepting environments. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Conflict & Development” Category)
