Santa Clara University is known in social entrepreneurial circles for its work helping to organize and judge the Tech Museum Awards – a showcase for social entrepreneurs, mostly from developing countries. Less well-known about the school is the Global Social Benefit Incubator, run by SCU’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society and a host of Silicon Valley volunteers.

The GSBI, under the guidance of Professor Jim Koch, selects 15-20 enterprises from developing countries and provides an 8-month mentoring process. The mentoring culminates with an intensive 10-day process in Santa Clara, where entrepreneurs work with their mentors, other experts, and each other to prepare themselves to succeed upon their return home. Applications for the fully-funded 2008 class of entrepreneurs are available now over at Social Edge.

This year, SCU has invited World Resources Institute to work with them on the GSBI process and accepted my suggestion that we focus a sub-group of the available slots on enterprises in the water sector.

The idea is to promote cross-learning among water entrepreneurs, and also to analyze the sector as a whole more deeply. This includes looking at geographic differences in the treatment challenge, the range of available and prospective technologies, business models, financing strategies, etc. The goal is to stimulate the sector as a whole.

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Guest blogger Grace Augustine is a Research Associate with the William Davidson Institute in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Prior to joining WDI, she worked in strategy & operations consulting for Deloitte Consulting. Grace completed her undergraduate education at the University of Michigan where she obtained a degree in Organizational Studies with a focus on Business Responsibility.

By Grace Augustine

While completing Professor Ted London’s Strategies for the Base of the Pyramid class at Michigan’s Ross School of Business, an Atlantic Monthly article highlighting a BoP-as producer venture caught my eye. The organization was the Arghand Cooperative, an Afghanistan-based business that was co-created by former NPR correspondent Sarah Chayes and members of the Kandahar community.

The article, Scents & Sensibility, was published in the December 2007 issue of Atlantic Monthly.

The cooperative uses locally-grown herbs, fruits, and spices to make soaps, then sell them at boutiques in the U.S. Chayes has gone into what some would consider to be one of the most bleak areas on the planet, overcome frustrating roadblocks in dealing with development agencies, and has still been able to focus on what is right while providing a link between BoP producers and viable markets.

Afghanistan, considered by many to be barren, hopeless, poverty-stricken, and a breeding ground for drug lords and terrorists, seems like an unlikely location for a thriving business. But to Chayes, Kandahar pushed her into action, or in her own words, "Stop talking about it already—do something."

When Chayes arrived in Afghanistan in 2001, she did not bring a product or a business model; she went in with an open mind and a commitment to help. Through her blossoming friendships there, she discovered Afghanistan’s plethora of indigenous vegetation that was unique to the area and virtually unknown to the rest of the world. Co-creating with the Kandahari villagers, she leveraged their local knowledge of rare fruits and oils, while mutually creating value for the start-up enterprise and community.

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