Kopernik: Connecting Innovative Technologies with Poor Communities
We are lucky to have a guest post today by Ewa and people like her in general who are doing what they can for global health. She and her team have just launched a new web platform connecting you with poor communities and technologies that might be needed there via an online store. I cannot emphasize enough that is this is long long overdue and that we should all be embarrassed that this hasn’t happened before. So major kudos to Ewa and her team for pulling this platform together and giving it a shot. Please visit their website and spread the word (you can also read there Tech for development blog here):

Guest Post by Ewa Wojkowska, a former UN worker, is the co-founder of TheKopernik.org.
As the rubble is cleared in Haiti, as a measure of stability comes to Sudan, as Sri Lanka holds a bitter peace and as Burundi faces its first election in the wake of massive civil war, a new development opportunity presents in some of the world’s poorest and most troubled places.

Online social entrepreneurship for the poor is one of the most compelling ways to fight poverty—and to reshape our development practices. Examples like Kiva and Global Giving are already leading the way, linking people anywhere in the world to better assistance and real results. The internet has created the opportunity for a transparent virtual marketplace: communities in developing countries identify their local needs, individuals anywhere in the world directly respond. Today our site—www.thekopernik.org—joins the force, connecting breakthrough technology to the poor through an online marketplace. It’s a simple, direct idea for real assistance to people in need.

Here’s our idea: Registered local organizations provide short proposals explaining their needs—simple water filtration in Freetown, Sierra Leone, self-adjusting eyeglasses in Manado, Indonesia. Any visitor to the site, anywhere in the world, can review the proposals and make donations to fund the plan of his or her choice. We connect these breakthrough technologies—water filters and drums, self-adjusting eye glasses, and solar lights, just to name a few—to the people who need them most.

What sets us apart is the focus on technology and a review mechanism for local organizations, or ‘technology seekers’, to rate the products. By including a feedback mechanism on the effectiveness of these technologies, Kopernik gives voice and choice to local communities and organizations – simple elements that are so frequently missed in international development efforts. We’re looking to take out the delays and to spark new ideas in international aid, one click at a time.We believe this is the new face of development.

If more people everywhere have safe, unfettered access to clean water, more efficient means of transporting that water, clear eyesight, and reliable light, how would their choices change? How would they see the world and their place in it? What could their empowerment achieve?

We now have the technology to improve everyone’s lives, and the internet is the window to get these life-changing technologies into people’s hands, directly and efficiently. We’re building a resource that those in need can access for themselves.

Ewa Wojkowska, a former UN worker, is the co-founder of Kopernik.org. The website launched this past week.

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