building peace with economic development
TRANSCRIPT
2015 ROTARY INTERNATIONAL CONVENTION
Break the silence
Harnessing the power of the social business model as a bridge to peacebuilding.
#ricon15
Sustainable profits.
From activity to impact.
Find meaning in your work.
Develop new business models.
Social Enterprise: building change
#ricon15
The scale of silence: the problem
626 million people with hearing loss and 2/3 in developing countries
9 million hearing aids are manufactured a year
Average price of hearing aid in USA is $1,800
Price of one battery is $2 and need is 1 a week
Dearth of professionals
50% hearing loss can be prevented
181 million children with
a hearing loss
70% of USA and
88% of developing
countries are underserved
#ricon15
Our business model
We are a sustainable social business manufacturing solar powered hearing aids by
people who are deaf for people with a hearing loss
#ricon15
What We Do
Our products
provide a child
the ability to
learn to develop
speech therefore
an opportunity to
go to a public
school.
#ricon15
Solar Ear’s mission: M 8 goals
1) Millennium goals but for people with disability.
2) Offer training and employment to young people who are deaf, especially women.
3) Provide education programs on issues of HIV-AIDS and maternal health programs.
4) Showing society the special abilities of people with a disability.
5) Develop new methods for people in conflict to find common ground.
#ricon15
Solar Ear throughout the world
Botswana, 2002HIV-Aids Education
for children
Brazil, 2006Free therapy for
5,000 children a year
China, 2012Change public policy
Palestine-Israel, 2015
Peace building
India, 2016Peace Building
First Nations-Native
Americans, 2015
Cross bordercultural
leadership training
10 more places in next 5 years
10 more social
missions
#ricon15
Invented by people who are deaf.
Maintains capability or capacity for 2-3 years.
Can be used in 80% of 50 million hearing aids on the market today.
Can be charged via sun, household light or using Nokia cell phone plug.
Three-month break even for consumer.
Environmental Savings : 200,000,000 disposable batteries used per year.
First rechargeable hearing aid
battery
#ricon15
Solar Ear Awards
Ashoka
Fellowship
LemelsonFoundation Fellowship
Tech Award Economic
Empowerment
American Academy of Audiology Humanitarian
Award
Marion Downs -Souring Heights -
China
Alex Graham Bell Museum Permanent
exhibit
Smithsonian Museum
Design for the other 90%
Teachers from Solar Ear from go
to new Solar Ear Center
Select employees to be trained
Invent common language
Inspire the new workers by showing them that a person can do anything, and go anywhere
Teach HIV- AIDS
South to South Training
#ricon15
Kahlil Gibran once said:
“ When you work, you are a flute through
whose heart the whispering of the hours
turns into music. To love life through
labor is to be intimate with life's inmost
secret.
All work is empty save when there is love
made visible."
Impacts Increased wealth of population due to more children going to school and more adults being employable
Reduced social and economic costs
Self-sustaining Solar Ear programs
Changed civil society perception about the skills ofpeople.
Programs can be scaled to other countries and other health problems, e.g. diabetes, dyslexia.
Peace- Building