Turning Sh*T Into Gold

I got to cover one of my favorite startups for the HeadCount blog. Re-posting it here:

Have you ever wondered what happens when you flush your toilet? In Kenya? If you live in one of Kenya’s urban slums then your toilet does not flush. Your toilet could be a plastic bag known as a flying toilet or a bucket whose untreated contents are later emptied directly into your environment. During rainy periods residents - particularly women and children - become susceptible to deadly waterborne illnesses like typhoid and cholera.

So now that you're completely grossed out, I hope you find this idea refreshing... What if each flush meant money for small businesses and fertilizer acceptable for use in agriculture.

A team of recent MIT Sloan School or Business graduate are out to permanently reduce sanitation-related disease by making sanitation profitable. Their company, Sanergy (“sanitation” plus “energy”) has been called “the single most innovative sustainability initiative on the planet”.

To read the rest click here - you'll be taken to my original post on the HeadCount blog.

This Sanergy video didn't fit in the HeadCount post - check it out here!

Be the Change: Save a Life :: Entries due April 17

The Search for the Obvious, a project of Acumen Fund, is an effort to collect and distribute obvious solutions to pervasive problems.

It includes a series of challenges. The new challenge is Be the Change: Save a Life. Acumen Fund is partnering with ABC News' to bring attention to fact that giving birth is still a life-threatening (yet fixable) event for many women. 350,000 women die during pregnancy or childbirth each year. 90% of those deaths occur in Africa and Asia. Eight in ten of these 350,000 deaths could be averted with simple (and often low-cost) treatments and quality obstetric care.

Help raise awareness about this issue by creating something that conveys the message that moms around the world deserve more! Quality maternal health is not an option, it's a right.



Challenge Categories:
* The most retweetable tweet of all time
* A story or essay that is New Yorker-worthy, bound to become a classic
* An iconic print ad or poster
* Guerrilla marketing or public art that commands immediate twitpic and yfrog-ing action
* A game-changing video à la The Girl Effect which champions maternal healthcare
* THE UNEXPECTED. YOU DECIDE...GO CRAZY!

To submit, simply email your name and all links to images, videos, text, or the unexpected to: moms[@]searchfortheobvious.com. Check out who will be judging the entries here.

Deadline is April 17 at 11:59pm PST.

The last challenge was "Sanitation is Sexy." Check out the winners of that challenge here.