Many Thanks to our IDDS 2007 Speakers
David Kyle, Chief Operating Officer of the "Acumen Fund":acumen, began his international development career in Washington, DC, first with the Inter-American Foundation and later at the World Bank. He then spent the majority of his career in international corporate banking, having held various positions within Citigroup in Brazil, Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia, Portugal, London and New York for a total of 21 years.In 2002, he left Citigroup to become Chief Advisor to the CEO of the London-headquartered Save the Children Alliance responsible for establishing new, local agencies of Save the Children in Argentina and Brazil. In early 2003, he joined Save the Children USA as Head of Global Marketing. David received an MA in International Affairs from the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of The Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC and a BA in Intercultural Studies from Trinity College in Connecticut. In late 2003 David joined the New York based Acumen Fund as Chief Investment Officer and COO responsible for investment portfolio development and operating management. Acumen Fund is a non-profit global venture fund that uses entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty.
ACUMEN
Dr. Paul Polak is the founder of "International Development Enterprises":ide (IDE), a non-profit organization which has ended poverty for millions of people in rural areas worldwide. Dr. Polak was named by Scientific American magazine as one of the Scientific American 50 for his outstanding acts of leadership in technology. IDE pioneered the development and rural mass marketing of affordable technologies in developing countries. It applies proven techniques to enable the poor to participate in markets, enabling them to work their way out of poverty. Some of the technologies developed by IDE include a low-cost irrigation system and a low-cost treadle pump.
IDE
Shawn Frayne is the founder of Haddock Invention LLC and its recent spin-off company, Humdinger Wind Energy, LLC. The mission of these companies is two-fold. First, to create technologies that can address long-standing problems in developing countries; and second, to leverage the novel aspects of those inventions through licensing deals in capital-rich nations such as the U.S., thereby generating a self-supporting revenue stream for the projects.
His work has so far focused in the fields of solar water disinfection, inflatable packaging, food preservation, charcoal-production, and wind power generation, with several products successfully licensed or sold. It was during his time as a student in MIT's D-Lab that Shawn first became convinced that the key inventions of the next century won't necessarily be born in wealthy countries. Rather, the new industries of the coming years will be founded on breakthrough technologies invented in Haiti or Zambia or Guatemala, where the hardest problems in the world will yield the greatest inventions.
Dr. Peter Girguis is an assistant professor in Harvard University's Department of Organismal and Evolutionary Biology. He received his B.Sc. from the UCLA and his Ph.D. from U.C. Santa Barbara, and was awarded a postdoctoral fellowship by the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI). His research focuses on microbial physiology and the role that autotrophic microbes play in deep ocean carbon and nitrogen cycling. His research also focuses on developing new sensors for use in the deep oceans, as well as microbial fuel cells for powering scientific instrumentation.
Jock Brandis is the inventor of the Universal Malian Nut Sheller, a low-cost mechanical peanut sheller that creates new economic opportunities for women who typically would spend hours shelling peanuts by hand in order to provide for their family. The peanut sheller is distributed worldwide through "The Full Belly Project":fullbelly, a non-profit organization. In 2006 Jock met former U.S. president Jimmy Carter to discuss the peanut sheller. In the same year, Jock received Popular Mechanic's "Breakthrough Award" for his invention. Jock has also developed other appropriate technologies including a pedal powered food processor, a pedal powered corn cracker and a pedal powered cotton gin.
FULLBELLY
Brandon Pitcher is an RE developer who specializes in sustainable construction and material and infrastructure reuse. He has worked with the "Zero Emissions Research & Initiatives ":zeri (ZERI) for over five years. ZERI's approach is to use waste materials as resources. One of ZERI's projects is the Gaviotas reforestation project. Las Gaviotas is a small village of two hundred people in Colombia. Originally started by a group of Bogota scientists, the Gaviotans have spent the last thirty years building a utopia based on sustainability and creative use of resources. The most successful endeavor of its kind, Las Gaviotas has been named by the United Nations as a model for sustainable development. Brandon has given talks in places around the world including the Royal Academy of Sciences in Sweden and the United Nations University in Tokyo.
ZERI
Peter Haas is the founder of "Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group":aidg, an international development organization whose goal is to help people get affordable and sustainable access to energy, sanitation and clean water. He received a B.A. from Yale University in philosophy and psychology. One of AIDG's projects is the installation of renewable electricity to a community of 200 people in Guatemala. Before founding AIDG Peter worked in the information technology field as a consultant and performed infrastructure improvements on an organic farm.
AIDG
Prof. Alex "Sandy" Pentland , founder and director of the "MIT Program for Developmental Entrepreneurship":mitde, is a pioneer in mobile information devices, health systems, and technology for developing countries. One of the world's most-cited scientists, he has helped to create more than a dozen organizations, including several publicly-listed firms. He was previously founding director of the Center for Future Health and the Media Lab Asia, and was the Academic Head of the MIT Media Laboratory. A winner of numerous international awards in the arts, sciences and engineering, he was chosen by Newsweek as one of 100 Americans most likely to shape this century.
MITDE
Tim Prestero is a co-founder of "Design that Matters":dtm and the related ThinkCycle initiative. He is co-inventor on three patents for cholera treatment devices. He is a graduate of the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering, holding M.S. degrees in Mechanical and Oceanographic Engineering, and a B.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of California at Davis. Timothy was a Peace Corps volunteer in Côte d'Ivoire, West Africa in the Urban Environmental Management program, where he worked as a consulting engineer and project manager for a city public works department. He has traveled throughout West Africa, Latin America and Asia. He is a Martin Fellow at the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, and was named an Ashoka Affiliate in 2004.
DTM
Dr. Russell J. deLucia is President and principal founder of the non-profit, "Small-Scale Sustainable Infrastructure Development Fund":s3idf (S3IDF) based in the US (Cambridge MA), and Chairman of S3IDF in India (Bangalore). S3IDF is a transaction-oriented entity whose mission is to facilitate small-scale infrastructure and related investments needed for poverty alleviation and overall economic advancement in the developing world.
A pioneer in the field of development finance, Dr. deLucia has directed or participated in more than 50 infrastructure projects in every geographic area of the developing world. His work has addressed infrastructure and financing matters for NGOs, private firms and bilateral agencies. Prior to forming S3IDF, much of his consulting was on small-scale infrastructure and related investments. His experience has yielded expertise in the practicum of institutional, regulatory and financing approaches to facilitate rural/small-investments and broader program efforts in different contexts.
S^3I^DF