March 10, 2010

Looking back: The Work of Jocelyn Wyatt & Malaria Treatment in 2007 [video]

In 2008 Acumen Fund invested in Botanical Extracts EPZ Limited (Former known as ABE) an extremely interesting social venture that trains farmers in Kenya and Tanzania and then manufactures the raw material (Artemisia annua- sweet worm) used to make these new malaria drugs. This herb was actually used in Chinese traditional medicine for over 200 years to treat malaria fevers. Globally, its doses in the form of ACTs have increased from 4 million in 2004 to 45 million in 2006.

This is a short video by Acumen Fund Fellow Jocelyn Wyatt about her work in Kenya originally shot in 2007.

January 31, 2010

Tim Brown on Design Thinking for Social Innovation

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(via @daily_good)

November 24, 2009

Jocelyn Wyatt on Design Thinking for Social Innovation

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In this paper from the Stanford Social Innovation Review Jocelyn Wyatt together with Tim Brown from IDEO review the challenges faced by design thinking in a new field that the this approach is currently exploring: the social sector. Wyatt discusses the difference between the design thinking approach for businesses and social enterprises. This piece reminds me to the work of Jim Collins in his monograph Good to Great & the Social Sectors.

July 20, 2009

Why should we care about Design for Social Impact?

http://www.nextbillion.net/blog/2008/06/23/guest-post-design-for-social-impact-what-does-it-mean-and-why-sh

In this post for The Next Billion blog the always brilliant Jocelyn Wyatt discusses how empathy, prototyping and storytelling are actively involved when approaching social challenges.