Category Archives: (Human) Development

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

This is another post in the #lean4dev series I started up a couple of weeks back. One of my colleagues was attending an event a few weeks, and was pleasantly surprised when they decided to hand out feedback forms. To … Continue reading

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Market Facilitation in Five Words or Less

We currently have seven wonderful University students gearing up to join our team in May as Junior Fellows (JFs), and a couple of weeks ago I tasked them with learning about, and writing a blog post describing the concept of … Continue reading

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The Development Sector is Achieving Failure

I first started getting excited about the possibility of applying lessons learned in silicon valley to the world of international development projects when I stumbled upon the blogs of Steve Blank (http://steveblank.com) and Eric Ries (http://www.startuplessonslearned.com) and the idea of … Continue reading

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Malaria

Erin and I were biking to a restaurant nearby our house for a “date” – trying to take some time for ourselves in our busy schedules when I felt the first telltale signs. About an hour earlier I was feeling … Continue reading

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Two Down, One to Go

Friday was my two year anniversary of landing in Ghana! Hard to believe how time flies. The occasion has had me reflecting on Ghanaian realities. We haven’t had a day in the past two weeks without the power cutting out … Continue reading

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Impact Model Canvas – The Left Side

If the right side of the canvas was about external customers, creativity and value, the left side is all about internal operations and efficiency. As a quick overview, here’s where we left off from last time after filling in the … Continue reading

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Impact Model Canvas – The Right Side

After a long hiatus I am committing to finishing up these blog posts prior to running a session on the Impact Model Canvas in January at EWB’s National Conference in Ottawa. As another side note, I have since moved on … Continue reading

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Harvest! – Friday Flims #10

Dery hired a group of women to help harvest maize this year. Here they are in action. Unbelievable how well they can balance those bowls of maize! Daily wage for women: 2GhC or about $1.50 plus lunch. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x8v9CtMyoGU

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The Farm This Year – Friday Flims #9

In this installment, Dery talks about some of the ups and downs on the farm this year. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U-uX-HDpvI

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Monkeys! – Friday Flims #8

The troublesome monkeys got into the maize. Here’s a quick shot showing the kind of damage that monkeys will do if you can’t scare them away. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67HtNK1-NIY

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