Kopernik, an Indonesia-based non-profit organisation, has been awarded a US$100,000 grant by the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) program. The grant will strengthen Kopernik’s clean energy micro-social-enterprise initiative in eastern Indonesia, greatly expanding access to simple, life-changing technology in some of Indonesia’s poorest provinces.
DIV supports breakthrough solutions to the world's most intractable development challenges—interventions that could change millions of lives at a fraction of the usual cost. DIV funding over the next 12 months will support Kopernik’s Tech Kiosk network in East Nusa Tenggara province.
Tech Kiosk micro-entrepreneurs run small shops (warung) selling simple technologies like solar lights, water filters and fuel-efficient cookstoves alongside a range of everyday goods. USAID support will help expand the selection of technologies available to Tech Kiosk owners, strengthen the business training components of the program, and improve the monitoring and reporting of Tech Kiosk sales.
The twin goals of Kopernik’s clean energy micro-social-enterprise initiative are to equip micro-entrepreneurs, primarily women, with the tools they need to boost their income and grow their businesses, and to develop sustainable supply chains of life-changing technology to last mile communities.
A simple solar lantern costing less than US$20 can save a family more than US$260 on lighting fuel over five years. An inexpensive ceramic water filter costing less than US$20 can save a family more than US$350 on fuel for boiling water over the lifetime of the product. A US$30 fuel-efficient cookstove can save a family more than US$130 on cooking fuel over two years. These simple, affordable technologies pay for themselves many times over, but they are not reaching the people who need them the most through conventional supply chains.
DIV funding will directly benefit 50 micro-entrepreneurs and their families, and more than 11,000 people who will gain access to simple, affordable clean energy technologies including solar lamps, solar home systems, clean cookstoves and water filters.
Moreover, the recruitment, training and inventory management systems established under this grant will allow Kopernik to rapidly scale-up this clean energy micro-social-enterprise initiative, expanding to five provinces in eastern Indonesia over the next three years. This will create new business opportunities for almost 500 micro-social-entrepreneurs, primarily women, and make eco-friendly, money-saving technologies available to more than 280,000 people by 2017. Additional support worth more than US$800,000 over four years is being contributed by Energia Foundation, JPMorgan Chase Foundation and others.
These clean energy technologies will save families time and money, improve health and safety, ease pressure on the environment, and open up the range of activities that people can pursue at night. Kopernik will use impact-tracking technology, including SMS communications platforms, digital data collection apps and remote sensors, to verify the impact of this initiative.
Kopernik launched the Tech Kiosk network in East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia, in September 2013 with the support of JPMorgan Chase Foundation.
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About Kopernik: Kopernik is an Indonesia-based non-profit organisation connecting simple technology with last mile communities to reduce poverty. Since 2010, Kopernik has reached more than 215,000 people in 21 countries. For more information, visit http://kopernik.info or follow @thekopernik on twitter.
About USAID Development Innovation Ventures: USAID’s Development Innovation Ventures (DIV) is an investment platform that finds, tests, and scales new solutions to development challenges around the world. Through a year-round open competition for ideas, DIV seeks ideas that demonstrate cost-effectiveness relative to traditional approaches, that gather rigorous evidence of their intervention’s impacts, and that have the potential to scale through the public or private sector without long-term DIV support. For further information about DIV, please visit http://www.usaid.gov/div.
For more information, please contact:
Sally Bolton - Communications & Outreach, Kopernik
Phone: +6281380796625
Email: sally.bolton at kopernik.info
Skype: sally.bolt.on
