Google's in the African Village

You know why Google has won all of our hearts and has a market cap of $151.8 billion, compared with Yahoo's $36.2 billion, eBay's $46.4 billion and Amazon.com's $17.6 billion? It is out there indexing bits and bobs of the world that we would have otherwise never been able to reach alone. In true Google fashion, the “.org” team (charitable arm of Google) has been indexing inspiration, knowledge and the power of social entrepreneurship in Africa this week. We spent two days together in Arusha. Visiting the field is something that not enough foundations do to inform their strategies and ensure their dynamism in coordination with community needs. I am a big believer in experiential learning: some of you may remember this from my recent post titled, “Today I applied for Food Stamps and an Abortion.” We are what we have lived. Our decisions are really a braid of our past experiences and values. We are lucky if we can design those experiences. It was great to see that Google.org is off on the right foot in this sense.

We brought the Google team and some Acumen family to the AtoZ factory and visited the Usa River village. My first solo attempt at movie making can be seen by clicking the arrow below:

Usa River is a village in a highly endemic area for malaria. Here in Usa River, AtoZ has experimented with curtains and door hangings made of the long lasting insecticide net material. Some of the people we spoke with said that each person in their family would contract malaria up to 5 times per year. Since the 2004 bed net installation in this 120-home village, the people, the clinics and the school have reported a 90% drop in malaria cases. Some say they would spend up to US$20 when they get malaria, including the doctor visit, medication, transportation and 7-9 lost working days. Imagine this 5 times per year. The bednet only costs US$3-4 to prevent this. Still, prevention is a tough thing to sell.

We also heard that the nets have a positive ripple effect: they kill lice, roaches and flies…they also take away the buzzing mosquitoes so people sleep better at night. In the video below you will meet one man whose life has been transformed and some of the children who are no longer suffering from malaria. Click the arrow below to see a short video I made during our visit. My favorite part is the kids laughing and posing when they got excited to see their faces in the camera. All over the world, kids really know how to have fun.