#plugintodevin - Your Mark on the World with Devin Thorpe

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1Y3c1TT.

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“Emerging markets throw up all sorts of surprises. Roughly 20 percent of the planet simultaneously use mobile phones (20 year old technology) and candles for lighting (2000 year old technology). But don’t be fooled – the same consumer aspirations exist everywhere and the last 20% represent a new and rapidly developing market for the latest technologies,” explains Simon Bransfield-Garth, CEO of Azuri Technologies.

Simon has been doing business in Africa for 30 years and has made some interesting observations about selling to the people living at the base of the pyramid.

1. Aspiration is the same, regardless of income:

In rural Africa, Azuri is providing affordable solar power. In stages, households add lighting, radio, TV, fan and productive devices enabling households to earn their way to a higher standard of living. The knowledge economy is not the destination but the enabler of the ‘energy escalator’ path.

2. Its not just California where you find tech innovation:

Tech has traditionally been thought of as the enabler of the rich. But we are seeing “reverse innovation” where the latest tech is finding its first volume home in emerging markets. Solar power, LED lights, mobile money, are all taking root at scale in rural Africa, long before the West.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1Y3c1TT.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1TKQVI7.

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U.S. Bank recently kicked off the Community Possible Relay, a three-month tour of community volunteering in response to a long-term trend of declining volunteerism. The goal is to inspire thousands of volunteers across the country.

Reba Dominiski, President of the U.S. Bank Foundation, explains, “U.S. Bank is issuing a national challenge for Americans to address the 25 to 50 percent decline in volunteerism that has taken place over the last four decades in our communities. The Community Possible Relay is a three-month, nearly 12,000-mile, 38-city, 25-state cross-country journey to inspire individuals across America to give back to their communities.”

“We’re challenging all Americans and businesses to join us in this massive collective effort to revitalize the spirit of community in our Race to 153k – representing 1,000 volunteers for every year U.S. Bank has been in business,” said Richard Davis, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of U.S. Bank. “We invite everyone to help build and support vibrant communities by volunteering and giving back. This relay symbolizes our dedication to bringing back community volunteerism in America. By working together, we can and will make a difference.”

The relay is a genuine community revitalization program. It represents U.S. Bank’s effort to address the reported 25 to 50 percent decline in volunteerism that has taken place over the last four decades. The bank hopes to inspire a wave of volunteerism and community engagement with a “mobile baton” that will drive across the country making stops throughout the summer, issuing a call-to-action for people to join U.S. Bank volunteers and help give back to their communities.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1TKQVI7.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1RrjZyp.

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Helaina Hovitz is one of the relative few journalists focusing on what has come to be known as “solutions journalism,” the art and craft of covering the solutions to societal problems. This is a club to which I, too, am proud to belong.

Helaina got her start at a young age. “When I was 18, I was given the opportunity to cover a story for the local paper about a teacher in a challenging school environment who was legally blind and only had one arm, and inspired his students to stay in school. Then, I was given the chance to cover the lives of homeless men making new starts for themselves at the New York City Rescue Mission. It was off to the races from there,” she says.

Solutions journalism is at the opposite end of the media spectrum from TMZ, meaning that the audience is smaller and money is harder to find. Helaina says, “As a journalist who was constantly retraumatized by the news, I never gave up on my life’s dream of becoming a journalist, and tried to focus on stories that I felt were meaningful, important, and inspiring whenever I could.”

Helaina recently launched Headlines for the Hopeful to give her a platform for sharing more stories that bring hope for the solutions to the world’s big problems. She is also a Forbes contributor and the author of the soon-to-be released memoir of her experience as a young 9/11 survivor called After 9/11.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1RrjZyp.

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Read the full GoodCrowdinfo article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1ViH39z.

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Seed Equity Ventures, one of the sponsors of this site, operates an SEC/Finra registered broker dealer and crowdfunding site for seed stage companies. The firm’s founder, Todd Crosland, shared with me the firm’s investment process.

The process has six discrete steps:

First Contact: Most contacts come through the firm’s network of venture capitalists, accelerators, angel investors and entrepreneurs. Getting introduced via one of these sources is the most effective way to get your deal in front of the firm.

Screening: Before getting serious about an opportunity, the firm conducts a brief evaluation of the company’s technology, business model, founders, market and financials. If everything looks good on the surface, the firm moves to step 3.

Due Diligence: At this stage, the firm conducts what can be a months-long process of evaluating in-depth the company’s technology and IP, the business model, management, market and exit strategies. The firm will also run background checks on the management team and key owners.

Read the full GoodCrowdinfo article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1ViH39z.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1Wk3pZp.

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Last month, I visited the Dominican Republic on a Fathom service cruise. It was great. On the cruise, I met fellow journalist Renee Farris, who (unlike most of the travel writers on the cruise) is also an impact journalist.

Renee is also a co-founder of United Cause Agency, a consulting firm that helps companies optimize corporate social responsibility programs.

Renee has shared with me some insights about using some of the latest technology for social good storytelling that I want share with you:

Virtual Reality Creates Empathy: When someone straps on VR goggles they are able to see through the eyes of another person. This is a step towards developing empathy that can tear down racial barriers, help people who are suffering, and end violent conflicts.

360 Films Bring Transparency: 360 films can bring transparency to a company’s supply chain like never before. It can give customers confidence that they are buying products from an ethical company that treats factory workers fairly.

Tell an Engaging Story: Doing good in the world is great, but it it’s not enough. We have to tell an engaging story. Governments, nonprofits and companies get so busy working on solving the world’s problems that they forget to tell an impactful story. But if we change that and start telling engaging stories then people will be inspired to act and the impact will multiply. 360 and VR help us tell those powerful stories.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1Wk3pZp.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1TDUigz.

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Privately-held dōTERRA is a rapidly growing direct seller of essential oil-infused products with $1.2 billion in annual revenue. Three years ago, the company launched an effort to use its supply chain to reduce global poverty by creating economic opportunities for rural communities in developing countries like Nepal, Somaliland and Madagascar.

[Jump to page 2 to watch the live interview.]

While founder and CEO David Stirling declined to provide gross margin data for the business, he suggested that the margins of publicly-traded direct sellers, about 80 percent, would “provide a broad approximation.” So the margins are good, giving the company some wiggle room for developing its supply chain for impact.

Emily Wright, the company’s Executive Vice President over sales and marketing, notes that the company was founded with a social enterprise mindset. “dōTERRA’s core mission is to improve the health and wellness of its customers through natural products and education.” Two corporate social responsibility initiatives have expanded the social purpose of the company: the dōTERRA Healing Hands Foundation (HHF) and the supply chain program launched in 2013 called “co-impact sourcing.”

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1TDUigz.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1QZ165O.

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You’ve heard it before. It may not be polite, but it makes a clear point–usually a critical one–to say “the inmates are running the asylum.” It may not be much of an exaggeration to think that the first person to think of putting high school students in charge of their own education might need to be committed. But that didn’t stop them.

This fall, their grand experiment will begin. Thirty students will participate in an independent micro-school directed by the students.

The program has grown up within a broader, student-led initiative called One Stone in Boise, Idaho.

Current chairwoman Simone Migliori explains that “the lack of student voice incorporated into community issues” motivated the creation of One Stone.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1QZ165O.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1T5xFEQ.

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Jean Krisle is a miracle worker. She observed a problem we all seem to recognize–a lack of free drug treatment beds for those who most need the help. Unlike the rest of us, Jean did something about it.

Jean launched 10,000 Beds, Inc., a nonprofit dedicating to finding free treatment beds for addicts who have no resources and no where else to go. The beds come from treatment facilities around the country, which Jean asks them to donate.

Jean has learned some lessons from her efforts and shares three tips that will help any social entrepreneur make miracles happen:

1.Collaborate. There are myriads of problems in our world that seem overwhelming, but solutions are available if we can simply think creatively, be proactive, and increase collaboration between organizations.

Be creative. The fact that there are solutions available to the challenge you are facing, doesn’t preclude another BETTER solution from being out there.

2. Think differently. For us, instead of asking people for $20,000 to provide a scholarship for addiction treatment, we went directly to the treatment centers and talked to them about providing a scholarship bed. This approach is unheard of in our industry, but it makes so much sense.

3. Be brave. It’s not easy to venture out on your own and ask questions that for some reason have never been asked before. It takes courage and passion and commitment to do so. For us, it seemed like our approach made so much sense that there must be a good reason it hadn’t been done before. We almost didn’t ask! But then we believed in our idea, built up and courage and started asking, and the response from treatment facilities has been amazing.

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1T5xFEQ.

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Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1OnRlhO.

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Emma Maenhout, a 16-year-old girl originally from Belgium, and who goes by “Emma Moonwood” because no one in America can say her last name correctly, has an idea: a golden buzzer.

Her idea is that there should be a universal “like” button on the internet that we can hit that will signal our strong approval for a thing we observe there. She calls her button the golden buzzer and envisions that brands will adopt it in order to collect instant karma from loyal fans to drive more sales. In turn, Emma plans to charge the brands for the likes and to use a portion of those proceeds to help people doing things like curing cancer.

Emma explains the challenge she sees. “The problem is that we – the teens of this generation – see so much negativity on the internet and in the news all the time, that it feels like we are becoming immune for it. And I’m scared of growing up in that kind of generation.”

So, she’s created a plan to do something about it. In her own words, “That’s why I want to give the world a wake-up call. But in a positive way. By showing them every Thanksgiving a personal wallet of money that they have earned simply by being positive on the internet. Real money that they can claim. But only if they first agree to share a percentage with a world-changing team that they believe in. So that the next Thanksgiving they won’t only see the wallet again, but also the progress that their world-changing team has made… thanks to them.”

Read the full Your Mark on the World article and watch the interview here: http://bit.ly/1OnRlhO.

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Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1NFVOSf.

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Septuagenarian Tom Chappell, founder of Tom’s of Maine, the natural toothpaste company that became a national phenomenon and was sold to Colgate Palmolive in 2006 for $100 million, is up to good again with Ramblers Way Farm, Inc.

The new $1 million revenue company makes “premium quality” casual apparel from merino wool or pima cotton produced sustainably in the U.S. The company has a consumer direct model, selling both online and via company stores.

Chappell says the company has a five year plan to reach $20 million in revenue. While the company is not yet profitable, he says, they generate gross margins of 60 percent. Those look like healthy margins in just about any industry where the product can’t be delivered via the internet.

Read the full Forbes article and watch the interview here: http://onforb.es/1NFVOSf.

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