The 1%CLUB is the marketplace that connects smart development projects with people, money and knowledge around the world at onepercentclub.com.
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Just imagine a tool that shows how aid is working. Itís getting more and more realistic as today we launch AmLabs new identity and our new concept: Three60
AmLab (Amsterdam Lab) is the physical hotspot for development and innovation in the center of Amsterdam. The place to be for anyone who is involved in international development. AmLab is an initiative of 1%CLUB, Akvo and Text to Change.
Three60 wants to become the Global Label for Aid Transparency and Data Gathering using mobile phones as a reporting tool. The Three60 approach has the potential to make information about aid that is, aggregated bottom-up, sourced from multiple viewpoints, open, and real-time, accessible to all. This new way of communicating about the impact of aid gives anyone, anywhere, the possibility to get involved and see for themselves how aid is working.
1%CLUB, Akvo and Text to Change have joined forces in AmLab and Three60, because together we have the expertise and tools to increase our reach and revitalize traditional development aid practices with technological innovation:
360, because we want to make aid transparent, 360 degrees around the world.?
360, because we believe aid should be visible from every angle in the development chain.
360, because we want to establish a 360∫ feedback loop connecting everybody.?
360, because that will be our global SMS short code for everybody to send their feedback to about development projects they are involved in.
Three60 is not only a platform, itís a movement to get people more involved into the transition of becoming more open about development aid. We want to achieve total transparency using a bottom up approach. How is our approach radically new compared to traditional data-gathering methods for aid?
Join the future of aid transparency now at:
Three60 is an initiative of 1%CLUB, Akvo and Text to Change; Three organizations who share a firm belief in the potential of modern technologies to speed up development. All three partners have been pioneering tools for social change since 2008 and have developed tools and services that are in use by governments, companies, NGOs and communities across the globe.
The author of this blog, Emma Beelaerts, is a 1%CLUB volunteer. Having recently finished her Bachelor’s degree at the University of Utrecht, she dove headfirst into the world of development and International Cooperation 2.0.. Emma focuses on 1%Business and busies herself with the management of and contact with 1%Business members at 1%CLUB.
1%CLUB and the ABN AMRO ‘Young Banker’s Association’ are two names you don’t often see in the same sentence. Thankfully, last Thursday representatives from both organizations came together in the Dialogue House in Amsterdam to participate in the 25th CO-CREATION DAY.
The aim of the day was to come up with solutions for challengeswhich project managers from around the world encountered Fortunately the YBA representatives were a diverse group of 25 professionals with experience in a variety of fields. Participation was voluntarily, which contributed greatly to the high level of energy and creativity during the CO-CREATION.
The day started with a presentation, led by 1%CLUB’s Marleen Holtkamp and Nadia van Emmerik, explaining to the representatives of the YBA what the concrete ideology of 1%CLUB is and how it manifests itself. The idea of contributing 1% knowledge to different projects scattered around the globe was met with great enthusiasm. It was announced that the projects that were going to be discussed were situated in Bolivia (Casa de la Alegria), Cameroon (Green Cameroon), Ghana (Goodget) and The Philippines (Let’s Care). The 4 projects were focused on various areas of social development and encountered different problems when trying to increase their effectiveness. This is where the YBA members came to the rescue!
Divided into 4 groups, the YBA members embarked on a series of (Skype) sessions with project owners. This led to hours of creative brainstorming and ultimately resulted in business plans, info-graph and concrete ideas on how to improve business, how to penetrate markets and how to approach possible sponsors. The diverse and original plans were presented to the project owners as well as to the whole group of 1%CLUB and YBA representatives at the end of the day.
For example, Masango Sone from the NGO ‘Green Cameroon’ was presented with an info-graph illustrating the negative effects of deforestation and he received an idea for a possibly lucrative campaign titled ‘Adopt a Tree’. In this way ‘Green Cameroon’ would be able to inform the crowd and sustain forests and keep their NGO running. Masango was impressed by the efforts of the CO-CREATION and stated he found them interesting and helpful! These ideas were but few of the many original and inspiring ideas that were contributed to 1%PROJECTS during this CO-CREATION.
The 25th CO-CREATION was a success thanks to the members of the YBA that participated and were willing to contribute their knowledge and creativity. Also many thanks to the project owners, facilitators and volunteers, by working together the projects in Bolivia, Cameroon, The Philipines and Ghana will be able to implement new tactics. Your 1% made a difference!
Want to see all photos? Check out our Flickr. We will organise three more 1%Co-CREATION LABS in 2013. Interested in participating? Contact Marleen Holtkamp through business [at] 1procentclub.nl
As part of this collaboration the Amlab Academy was founded. The goal of this academy is to strengthen the partnership of the three organisations but foremost to learn together, expand our knowledge and share experiences.
End of poverty
Today our first speaker; Jeroen de Lange (former senior economist at the World Bank, former member of parliament and human rights activist, now working at TTC as a strategy consultant) was presenting. The title of his presentation was ‘The End of Poverty?’. Other topics addressed were:
Fast decrease of people living in poverty
What is poverty? (OECD DAC model / World Bank model)
Poverty or inequality? Where do the bottom billion live? Conflict redistribution and limited access orders
Framing of poverty. Voices of the poor.
The introduction was accompanied by the very inspiring short video of Hans Rosling clearly illustrating the development of the differences between poor and rich countries over the past 200 years.
Poverty is difficult to define, lying at the intersection of a number of indicators. Different organisations define poverty differently. The OECD DAC model indicates it with 5 dimensions:
Protective
Economic
Human
Social
Political
Whereas the World Bank on the other hand only uses 3 dimensions:
Opportunity
Security
Empowerment
Do people define themselves as poor?
The World Bank estimated 1,29 billion people were living in absolute poverty in 2008. This is a huge number, but do all of these people define themselves as poor? Or might some of them be happy with the seemingly bare circumstances they have to deal with? All can be looked at from different perspectives, many of us would consider living without Wi-Fi horrendous, but what really defines quality of life? And is this culturally defined, or can we find a universal definition. Follow-up sessions will be organised to discuss each of these pressing issues in more detail.
The Millenium Development Goals are set for 2015, little by little it is becoming clear that most of these targets will not be reached. The question is what is going to set the goals after 2015 and more important; how are we going to measure results? How are we going to evaluate the past years, and based on what. This is interesting for Amlab since we specialize in the visualisation of projects, helping projects become more transparent and more easily measurable.
Some interesting additional literature on the topic is ‘Can Anyone Hear us‘, published by the World Bank on poverty.
Agenda AmLab Academy
From now on this will be a bi-weekly event where different speakers will address different topics. The coming 3 sessions will be hosted by TTC and will address the following subjects:
12 February: Poverty fighting or wealth creation? A history of aid by Jeroen de Lange
26 February: Communicating till the cows come home? Changing dysfunctional behaviour(s) by Hajo van Beijma
12 March: Mobile research; new opportunities for insights from the grassroots level by Floor Montanus and Arjen Swank
If you are interested to join a session please send an email to amsterdam@texttochange.com and we will confirm your participation.
All sessions take place from 12 till 1 pm.
One of the key factors of a successful Co-Creation is a diverse group of people. That’s why 1%CLUB organizes 1%CO-CREATION LABS with multiple companies. We did this during our 1%EVENT, but we figured we should do it more often. And so we did!
Last Wednesday our first 1%CO-CREATION LAB took place with people from Young Ordina, ABN AMRO Legal and Young Deloitte. 3 Companies, 40 people, 5 cases, 6 hours of Co-Creation. Keywords: energy, ideas, creativity, connection, results and fun.
The group worked on 5 cases from the following organizations: Admiraçáo, DataZone, NIRP, NSA International and Kivufoon. As an example, one group worked on a business opportunity for NSA International. NSA International is a non-profit organisation that supports programmes in the field of sport for development and peace. And the result … Socks! The group presented a plan for NSA to get into the sock business. How cool would it be if we could have NSA socks next to our socks from ADIDAS and Nike? After presenting to the other groups, one of the other participants even offered to connect them to a friend who is in the “sock-business”. Stay tuned!
A big thanks to Young Ordina for hosting this event, all participants and our 1%FACILITATORS. All photos are on Flickr!
… was the name of the challenge The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation presented to the world earlier this year. This was the name even though the foundation dedicates an enormous amount of resources to the eradication of poverty. A great deal of the total fund of thirty billion dollars is designated of that effort; a fund that has recently been doubled by Warren Buffet. However, given all the global challenges we are facing at this moment, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation expresses a deep worry for the diminishing support of development assistance by the general public all over the world. Cutbacks in the developmental aid budgets recently took place in numerous countries, among them the USA and the Netherlands.
How do we achieve a turn of tide then? According to Tom Scott, you first need to find the top ten ideas that will contribute to just that: a mind shift in the way we perceive the global challenges and our respective roles in them. Since good ideas on their own are not enough, you need to combine them with the top ten creative brains the world has to offer.In this case, no less than the Cannes Lions. Yes indeed, Cannes Lions are the winners of the top end global creatives competition. And what do you get when you combine them with all these different ideas? The Cannes Chimera project!
The AmLab idea was one of the lucky few that will get the unique opportunity to evolve into what will hopefully become a mind shift generator. A quick reminder: AmLab is a group of several organizations: 1%CLUB. Akvo and Text to Change. All three of us are pioneers in mobile reporting and the engagement of the international crowd when it comes to international development causes.
And the winning idea? To us, the creators, it was rather simple; to create a real-time mobile reporting system that will translate all the developmental efforts in to easily consumable data. From first person stories on how alocal clinic directly affects people’s lives to an extensive overview of the impact on a whole region. This is possible because we can combine the data from mobile reporting and mobile surveys with the data that is currently available from governments and NGO’s. It is no surprise that the idea was merely confusing to the chimera lions; in two days they drilled us on how to simplify our concept so we can talk about it in such a way the world will listen.
And that is where we are right now! The 360 Transparency project is born (with special thanks to our top Chimera Adrian and about to be executed in the first region, Kenya.
We will keep you posted on the progress!
Below you can find Bart’s (co-founder 1%CLUB) pitch!
AmLab (Amsterdam Lab) is the physical hotspot for development and innovation in the center of Amsterdam. The place to be for anyone who is involved in international development. AmLab is an initiative of 1%CLUB, Akvo and Text to Change.
From now on this will be a bi-weekly event where different speakers will address different topics. The coming 3 sessions will be hosted by TTC and will address the following subjects:
