The Social Entrepreneur Podcast

Latest Episodes:

161, Madeline Di Nonno, Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media | Changing Media to Empower Girls Apr 03, 2017

Show notes

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media is a research-driven organization that is changing media to empower girls.

While watching television with her daughter, Geena Davis noticed that women were not well represented. She was concerned about the messages that were being sent to her daughter and to her twin boys. Geena launched a research project and was disturbed by what she found. In 2009, Geena met with Madeline Di Nonno, a 30-year veteran of the entertainment industry. Together, they launched the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media.

Here is what they found. Women and girls make up 51% of the population and yet, if you watch movies and television, you might not know that. For every minute of female screen and speaking time, there are three minutes of male screen and speaking time. Women make up around 17% of crowd scenes. And only 17% of the top 100 feature films of 2015 featured solo female roles.

The kinds of characters played by women are also off-balance. 80% of the characters seen working are male. Women in films make up less than 5% of the C-Suite roles. Men play attorneys or judges 13 times for every time the role is played by a woman. Men play professors 16 times for every time a woman plays the same role. And men play medical professionals nearly 6 times for every time a woman plays the same role.

Children consume about 7 hours of television per day. So, media plays an oversized role in influencing their understanding of society. Given the statistics above, children, both boys and girls, are fed a steady diet of messages that women and girls don’t matter to society.

The Geena Davis Institute on Gender in the Media is a research-driven organization. Through their research, they have amassed the largest body of research on gender prevalence in family entertainment spanning over 25 years. They partnered with Google to create a software that analyses video and audio. The software measures the GD-IQ (the Geena Davis Inclusion Quotient).

They research directly to decision makers and creators in the entertainment industry. They collaborate with the media and entertainment industry to expose gender imbalance, identify unconscious bias and remodel characters to achieve equity.

In a recent impact study, 68% of entertainment industry executives familiar with the Institute’s research changed two or more projects, and 41% changed four or more projects.

Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Madeline Di Nonno

“The problem is centered around unconscious gender bias.”

“Even when there are female leads, they receive three times less speaking time than the male leads.”

“Female-led films are earning 16% more at the box office.”

“We’re focused on research, action, and results.”

“I learned a lot by reading obituaries.”

“I thought, could I use my power for good?”

“It’s important to do a SWOT analysis.”

“Is there another organization that you can partner with?”

“Whatever you do has to be measured in finite terms.”

“We’re dealing with huge systemic change.”

Social Entrepreneurship Resources:

Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media: https://seejane.org
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/GDIGM
Twitter: https://twitter.com/GDIGM
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gdigm/

More Stories of Sustainable Development Goal 5, Gender Equality

In 2017, we’re emphasizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In April, we are focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 5, Gender Equality. You can read more about the Sustainable Development Goals here.

160, Yohans Wodaje Emiru, helloDoctor | Bridging Barriers to Healthcare in Ethiopia Through Simple MedTech Mar 27, 2017

Show notes

Dr. Yohans Wodaje Emiru is the founder of Telemed Medical Services. Their flagship service is helloDoctor.

For every doctor in Ethiopia, there are more than 30,000 patients. Compare that to less than 400 patients per doctor in the United States. Millions of Ethiopian patients are cut off from medical services due to geography and infrastructure. There are also cultural barriers to medical treatment. Some conditions can seem embarrassing to discuss face-to-face with a local doctor. Transportation costs or consultation fees may be a barrier to treatment.

Yohans Wodaje Emiru has found a way to use technology to provide access to medical professionals using a simple hand-handheld phone.

Yohans understands the challenges of medical services in Ethiopia. He graduated from medical school at Addis Ababa University. He worked in several roles, including being the Medical Director of Saint Urael Medical Services in Addis Ababa. He also worked in a remote town in a government hospital where he saw first-hand the challenges of Ethiopians to access medical services.

HelloDoctor allows people to call at any time and from anywhere in Ethiopia and get instant professional medical advice. People call, describe their symptoms and a medical professional helps them decide whether to treat their symptoms at home, to obtain an over-the-counter product or to seek further medical services at a local clinic or hospital.

For chronic illnesses such as diabetes, HIV or Tuberculosis, helloDoctor also provides Patient-Center Engagement and Tracking Services.

HelloDoctor has received over 80,000 calls. They have directly impacted over 50,000 individuals. Between 50% to 65% of the medical conditions are sufficiently handled through the phone calls. The remaining patients have been helped through direct referrals. They also help patients to save money. They calculate that for every phone call received, they save their patients $3 in healthcare expenses.

Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Yohans Wodaje Emiru

“These barriers can be bridged with the kind of service we are building.”

“People launching new services is not something people are used to here.”

“You have to pull all the strings you can to keep the music going.”

“There are challenges you face every day. But if you believe in what you’re doing, it just passes.”

“We monitor everything we’re doing.”

“The most interesting thing is the money that people are able to save.”

“You have to keep measuring. You have to keep talking to your clients.”

“The first thing you start out with is, unless you’re very lucky, rarely the right solution.”

Social Entrepreneurship Resources:

helloDoctor: http://www.hellodoctorethiopia.com/
helloDoctor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/8896helloDoctor
helloDoctor on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/8896hellodoctor/

More Stories of Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Being

In 2017, we’re emphasizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In March, we are focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Being. You can read more about Sustainable Development Goal 1 here, Sustainable Development Goal 2 here, or learn about all of the Sustainable Development Goals here.

159, Christa Hasenkopf, OpenAQ | Fighting Air Inequality through Open Data, Open Source Tools and Collaboration Mar 20, 2017

Show notes

158, Jordan Kassalow, VisionSpring | Creating and Sustaining Livelihoods through Vision Mar 13, 2017

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157, Grace Garey, Watsi | Everyone Deserves Healthcare Mar 06, 2017

Show notes

Watsi is on a mission to provide healthcare for every person in the world.

In March, on Social Entrepreneur, we are focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Being. A billion people around the world do not have access to basic healthcare. And, for those who are fortunate enough to have access, the cost of healthcare can create a life-crippling financial burden.

Watsi enables anyone to directly fund life-changing healthcare for people around the world. You can go onto their web site, see photos and read stories of patients. You can donate as little as five dollars. All the donated money goes directly to the patient.

Donors receive updates throughout the funding process. Once the patient’s healthcare is funded, donors receive updates from doctors and healthcare workers. Donors experience full transparency from the donation to the impact.

Since launching four years ago, visitors to the site have raised $7.5 million to provide healthcare for more than 10,000 patients in 24 countries.

Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Grace Garey

“We believe everyone deserves healthcare.”

“A billion people around the world don’t have access to basic healthcare.”

“It’s all through a network of local medical partners.”

“When you support a patient, by default, 100% of your donation goes to support that patient’s care.”

“My parents are both progressive people who raised me and my sister to care about the rest of the world, outside of our bubble.”

“When people are safe and healthy and have access to the basic things they need, they make good decisions and they make the world around them better.”

“We started working on Watsi on nights and weekends.”

“We just started.”

“We employed the generosity of a lot of people who were excited about the idea.”

“We really didn’t know if it would work or not.”

“We started with almost no systems.”

“Our initial goal was that we would fund healthcare for ten patients in the first six months, and we did it in the first six hours.”

“I didn’t know what Y Combinator was.”

“We were more like the for-profit startups than we were different.”

“When we got to YC, everyone was thinking really big.”

“We told them that we wanted to change global health and they did not blink an eye.”

“They assumed it was worth trying.”

“There are now a dozen or so non-profits and social ventures who have gone through Y Combinator. They’ve all meshed this idea of making an impact with the idea of reaching scale.”

“Up to 40% of health funding is lost to inefficiency.”

“The hardest part throughout this whole journey is just scaling as a person.”

“Everyone talks about what it takes to scale your startup, but you also have to scale.”

“You have to get used to being really bad at your job most of the time.”

Social Entrepreneurship Resources:

Watsi: https://watsi.org
Watsi on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Watsi.org
Watsi on Twitter: https://twitter.com/watsi
Watsi on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/watsi

More Stories of Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Being

156, Morgan Dixon, GirlTrek | When Black Women Walk, Things Change Mar 01, 2017

Show notes

GirlTrek is the largest public health nonprofit for African-American women and girls in the United States.

Morgan Dixon was a school teacher. As she learned about the statistical probability of chronic disease and early death among her students, she wanted to take action. Morgan knew that walking was a powerful antidote to many of the health challenges faced by those in her community. She began by walking with her students. As satisfying as those walks were, she knew that the solution needed to scale.

With her friend, Vanessa Garrison, they used Facebook to organize a 10-week walking challenge. The next year, women came back and asked Morgan and Vanessa to run the challenge again. That’s when they knew they were on to something.

As important as walking is, Morgan and Vanessa sensed that they were on to something even bigger. Morgan told me, “We started to look to our history for what happened when black women walked for change?” They connected the movement with the history of black women and civil rights. This was the beginning of GirlTrek.

GirlTrek encourages women to use walking as a practical first step to inspire healthy living, families, and communities. They have nearly 100,000 women who participate in their walks, and they are a path to rapid growth. This year they anticipate they will reach 500,000 women and by next year, over 1 million.

Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Morgan Dixon

“I felt like I was uniquely positioned to do this because I was that girl.”

“Life felt like a setup for a takedown.”

“It has become a neighborhood walk in sneakers.”

“We just started with ourselves.”

“We did a call to action with just our friends and family.”

“We needed a bite-size ask.”

“Small waistlines and skinny jeans have never been why we do this.”

“They will become the new changemakers in our communities.”

“We had 10,000 people before we had funding.”

“There’s so much power and changemaking that can happen without huge and bloated budgets.”

“If the mom is committed to a lifetime of active, healthy, personal glow, her whole family changes.”

“You have to root, to rise.”

“What is the level of trauma that creates an entire population of people to feel inactive?”

“There were root causes around loneliness and isolation.”

“Loneliness is deadlier than cigarette smoking.”

“We are building movement tools that are based in our culture.”

“That for me feels different, hopeful and constructive.”

“I think we have a spiritual muscle and a grit.”

“I think we are spiritual warriors in a way that allows us to rise above and stay hopeful when things turn incredibly dark.”

“I have the muscle to hope. I have the muscle because my mother has the muscle to hope, and her mother had the muscle to hope.”

“I don’t have the stomach for rage.”

“You have to be incredibly present and grateful for where we are now.”

“It’s OK to make pivots.”

“In order to grow, you have to try a bunch of things.”

“We can’t afford to be apart at this time. We have to come together in common cause.”

“We need you to organize.”

“You can organize a team of you and your daughter for the first year.”

Social Entrepreneurship Resources:

GirlTrek: http://www.girltrek.org
GirlTrek on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HealthyBlackWomenandGirls
GirlTrek on Twitter: https://twitter.com/girltrek
GirlTrek on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/girltrek

More Stories of Sustainable Development Goal 3, Good Health and Well-Being

155, Jehiel Oliver, Hello Tractor | Collaborative Consumption for Smallholder Farmers Feb 27, 2017

Show notes

Hello Tractor is an AgTech company focused on improving food and income security across sub-Saharan Africa through a tractor co-sharing platform.

Collaborative consumption is reshaping the world. There are the well-known players. For example, Airbnb rents more rooms than Hilton, Marriott, and InterContinental combined. If you want to get around in a city, you can grab a ride with someone via Lyft or pick up a bike with bike sharing services such as Nice Ride Minnesota.

But can collaborative consumption help feed the world? That’s what Hello Tractor is attempting to do.

In Africa and Asia, more than 80% of the food is produced by smallholder farmers. These farmers cannot afford to purchase and maintain a tractor. They depend on manual labor to work their land. With a lack of available labor, they often do not fully cultivate their land. Hello Tractor builds low horsepower tractors, suitable for smallholder farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa. Smallholder farmers can request tractor services by sending a text, just as you might request a Lyft.

Hello Tractor is not just building tractors. They have created a technology platform that can be used by other manufacturers to provide services on-demand.

Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Jehiel Oliver

“I’ve always been a fan of using commercial markets to reach low-income populations.”

“Most people who access microfinance, earn their income on the farm.”

“The tractor itself is low-tech, but the technology that supports it is fairly sophisticated.”

“We just asked people for advice.”

“Our biggest asset is a willingness to put yourself out there and sound really stupid.”

“The upside was clear.”

“We were always putting out fires. I think that was part of the fun.”

“Get started. Just go. You’ll never have it figured out.”

“The best learning is not done behind a desk. It’s done out there in the field.”

“Be bold with your ideas. Because some of these challenges are so massive.”

Social Entrepreneurship Resources:

Hello Tractor: http://www.hellotractor.com/
Hello Tractor on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HelloTractor
Hello Tractor on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hellotractor/
Hello Tractor on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hellotractor/

More Stories of Sustainable Development Goal 2, Zero Hunger

In 2017, we’re emphasizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). In February, we are focusing on Sustainable Development Goal 2, Zero Hunger. You can read more about Sustainable Development Goal 1 here, Sustainable Development Goal 2 here, or learn about the Sustainable Development Goals here.

154, Vijaya Pastala, Under the Mango Tree | A Hybrid Social Enterprise that Creates Livelihood from Bees Feb 20, 2017

Show notes

Under the Mango Tree increases agricultural yields by teaching rural farmers to keep bees.

Vijaya Pastala and Under the Mango Tree are a good illustration of something that I believe which is, miracles find you while you’re in motion.

Vijaya started experimenting with her business idea in January 2009. By January, 2010, Vijaya had 8,000 rupees in the bank. That’s less than $120 USD. At the time, the monthly cost of running Under the Mango Tree was around 34,000 rupees. Under the Mango Tree was gaining positive press, but beneath the surface, Vijay’s personal savings, which she was using to fund the company, were running out.

During this crisis, Vijaya received a request for a meeting from a stranger. Given all that she was managing, she considered turning down the meeting. It turned out that the stranger was willing to provide the funds needed to meet their operating costs. By May 2010, Under the Mango Tree won the UnLtd India competition, which provided their first seed investment. Other money was to follow, including support from Acumen.

Under the Mango Tree works with marginal farmers, that is farmers who have an income of about $600 per year. They train farmers to transfer wild bees into a bee box. As a result, the farmers increase their productivity, their income and their savings. Under the Mango Tree also helps farmers to gain access to markets for honey and other bee-related products.

Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Vijaya Pastala

“We work with marginal farmers.”

“There are only five types of bees that make honey and out of those, there are only two bees that can be boxed.”

“It takes a farmer 18 months to become completely at ease with being a beekeeper.”

“We are a honey brand in the market in India.”

“We have created an ecosystem of beekeeping.”

“We train women’s groups to create a swarm bag or a bee veil.”

“We’re like a one-stop-shop on beekeeping.”

“It’s farmers who are training other farmers.”

“Agriculture is something I’ve always worked on.”

“I understood the importance of sustainability.”

“The hybrid came into being from day one.”

“I realized that, in India, we don’t really showcase the origin of the honey.”

“When you’re an entrepreneur, it’s on your head – everything.”

“Yields are going up 40% to 60%.”

“We have trained about 700 women beekeepers.”

“We have six women who are training other women to be beekeepers.”

“Keep knocking on doors.”

“Use your network.”

“Don’t be shy in asking for help.”

“Set yourself a timeframe.”

Social Entrepreneurship Resources:

Under the Mango Tree: http://utmt.in/
Under the Mango Tree on Twitter: https://twitter.com/UTMT
Under the Mango Tree on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/UTMT.in
Under the Mango Tree on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/utmt_honey

More Stories of Sustainable Development Goal 2, Zero Hunger

153, Matt Moreau and Kori Chilibeck, Earth Group | Feed and Educate Children Feb 13, 2017

Show notes

152, Marion Atieno Moon, Wanda Organic | Food Security through Soil Health Feb 06, 2017

Show notes

Wanda Organic is a for-profit social enterprise that works with farmers to improve their productivity and profitability by improving their soil.

At the age of 28, Marion Atieno Moon quit her job. She wasn’t quite sure what she was going to do next, but she knew there had to be more to life than work and a paycheck. When she returned home to Kenya, she noticed a pattern. As she visited the villages of her childhood, she was expected to bring food. This was a sharp contrast when compared to her travel to other regions where strangers often offered food to her.

As she considered the causes of food insecurity, she realized that food production depends on a handful of factors such as climate, water, and soil. Soil has been called “the living epidermis of the planet.” It is the thin membrane upon which all life on earth depends. Marion saw the poor quality of soil as a business opportunity.

Challenges with Food Production in Kenya

Kenya is a microcosm of the challenges of food production globally. One report estimated that 1.3 million people in rural areas and between 3.5 to 4 million in urban areas are food insecure. The population is growing and becoming more affluent. The cities are encroaching on arable farm land. Climate change is changing soil temperatures and putting pressure on water supplies. And, more importantly, poor farm practices have led to decreased productivity.

Wanda Organic educates Kenyan farmers on the important role soil plays in productivity. They sell bioorganic fertilizers that restore soil health. They also help farmers access markets.

Social Entrepreneurship Quotes from Marion Atieno Moon

“By focusing on maximizing or restoring soil health, we’re enabling farmers to produce more and better-quality food.”

“A lot of the arable land is being taken over by urbanization.”

“I felt there must be more to life than working and making money.”

“I found a huge gap in soil fertility.”

“I learn a lot from the farmers I work with.”

“By using our products, farmers are able to increase their productivity by 30%.”

“We are able to reduce input costs by about 20%.”

“We are currently working with just over 4,000 smallholder farmers, and we have 11 big, corporate clients that we work with.”

“People don’t understand how serious and bad this is.”

“If you’ve killed your soil, you’ve got to fix it.”

“I felt I finally had a seat at the table.”