Epic Change is very close to winning $10,000 from Ideablob, a national business idea competition, to build a technology lab at our locally-led partner school in Arusha, Tanzania.  Voting ends today at 11:59:59 pm CST on http://bit.ly/ideablob and our lead is now just 25 votes.  If you haven’t voted and asked your friends, family & colleagues to do the same, now is the time.  Need info to share?  Here’s the skinny:

We Could Win $10K to Build a Technology Lab in Tanzania

We plan to use those funds to create a technology lab at the school in Tanzania so that children, teachers and parents in the community can learn new skills, access a whole new world of information and enter global conversations by using social media to share their stories online.  VOTE NOW.

Teachers, Children & Parents are Lined Up to Vote…

Local school founder “Mama Lucy” Kamptoni wrote a note earlier this week with some photos and this note to update us on their efforts to rally the vote in Tanzania:

Stacey,

I hope everything is well with you. The parents, teachers, students, friends and the community around the school are so excited with voting for Epic Change as they know what you are trying to do is for the benefit of their community.

Everyone wants to vote, but here the network is mostly very slow, so they are spending much time waiting on the queue / line to vote. But many are voting.

I’ve attached few photos of children and others while voting. The pupils are saying this is only their chance to have Technology Lab, so they don’t want to lose ;) Hope their dream will come to be true!

Wish you good luck!

Mama Lucy

Technology in Arusha is so incredibly limited that they need our votes to amplify their voices.  In our country, it’s so simple to click a few buttons.  In theirs, they have to secure transport to an internet cafe, pay for web access, hope the spotty power grid is working, and use connections that are effectively at dial-up speeds to access heavy websites created primarily for Western audiences. Many haven’t used the internet before; most didn’t have email accounts; English is a second language.  So they’re lining up to vote at local internet cafes, but it can take hours. To read more about what’s going on in Tanzania, click here.

For us it takes just a couple of minutes, and a couple of clicks: VOTE NOW.

Imagine what an incredible introduction to the social media community it would be for them to win the funds to build their own technology lab by working hard making their voices heard online.

About Us

Epic Change is a 501c3 nonprofit that helps global grassroots changemakers share their “epic” stories in ways that generate the income they need to create “change” in their communities.  To date on our project in Arusha, we’ve invested over $65,000 which has been used to secure land, build 5 new classrooms and purchase a refurbished school bus for a school that now serves over 300 children.  As a direct result of our investment, our local partner Mama Lucy Kamptoni has built a school whose students recently ranked #1 out of 117 schools on national exams – in the very first year their school was certified to participate.

Epic Change is also the creator of TweetsGiving, one of Twitter’s earliest social fundraisers, which raised over $10,000 in just 48 hours to build a classroom in Tanzania where Twitter handles are now painted on the walls.  Our work has been covered in hundreds of online publications including Mashable, The NonProfit Times, The Chronicle of Philanthropy and Ode Magazine.  Learn more at http://www.EpicChange.org.

Posted: May 31st, 2009 under The Foundry.
Comments: 1

[UPDATE 5/31: VOTING FOR EPIC CHANGE ON IDEABLOB ENDS TODAY AT 11:59:59 PM CST. PLEASE VOTE NOW AT http://bit.ly/ideablob. OUR LEAD IS NOW JUST 25 VOTES SO YOUR VOTE IS CRITICAL.]

As you probably know if you’re following the blog, Epic Change is now an Ideablob finalist – if you haven’t already voted at http://bit.ly/ideablob, I’ve no doubt you will after reading this post.  If you’re a blogger & would be generous enough to post about our Ideablob efforts on your blog, I hope you’ll do so with Zemanta’s “Blogging for a Cause” language, so Epic Change can win additional funds through your support.

Just wanted to give you an update on voting from Tanzania. I think this photo says it all:

More photos can be found here.

Just imagine how difficult it is to vote online in Arusha – to secure transport to an internet cafe, pay for web access, hope the spotty power grid is working, and use connections that are effectively at dial-up speeds to access heavy websites created primarily for Western audiences. Many haven’t used the internet before; most didn’t have email accounts; English is a second language. In this case, classrooms of children have to wait patiently in line outside for their opportunity to use the computer.  But hope is something they do have, and hard work is par for the course.

I share this as a reminder that this isn’t an effort in which “we” are giving to “them”. Hardly. We are collaborating together to build a better world for all of us…one in which children have the best possible opportunity to grow up & make invaluable contributions to our shared future. To be fair, the lion’s share of the work is being led in Tanzania, where Mama Lucy, the students and the teachers are, creating an educational environment that’s second to none in their area, based on national exam scores.

I also share this in hopes that you’ll realize just how simple it is for us to take just a minute, click a few buttons, and make a real difference in a community that is working so hard to create a better future for itself.  Despite geography, we’re all really part of the same community.  To vote now, just go to http://bit.ly/ideablob.  Remember, since the winnings will be used to build a tech lab at Shepherds Junior (solar power has already been installed and nearly 20 nearly-new laptops have been donated!), you’ll be helping create an entirely new level of access for this community and offering the world the opportunity to engage in conversation and learn from them too.

Here’s a few more updates from my inbox & text messages from Tanzania that make it clear just how much hope they have, and just how hard they’re working…in case you had any doubt:

AN EMAIL FROM MAMA LUCY

Received today (5/26):

Stacey,

I hope everything is well with you. The parents, teachers, students, friends and the community around the school are so excited with voting for Epic Change as they know what you are trying to do is for the benefit of their community.

Everyone wants to vote, but here the network is mostly very slow, so they are spending much time waiting on the queue / line to vote. But many are voting.

I’ve attached few photos of children and others while voting. The pupils are saying this is only their chance to have Technology Lab, so they don’t want to lose ;) Hope their dream will come to be true!

Wish you good luck!
Mama Lucy

EMAILS FROM PARENTS

Received 5/23:

Dear Sir/Madam:

Am Joel from Tanzania and I have a son at Shepherds Junior Academy and I need to give you a vot, but when I open the www.epicchange.org I can not find the steps to follow that I can do proper voting.

Help me
Joel mrkivuyo

__________________________________________________

Also received 5/23:

Stacey,

I have been trying to follow the simplest information and I dont know why am not getting into this thing. Am trembling right now because I have never failed a simple exam like this and I feel ashamed. I have been trying this with my son Gideon yesterday but the same thing is repeating. I have been with mama Lucy this morning and she has a bunch of student with her for the vote. I will go and see her again if she has succeded. I know it is just a small thing which is tricking me, I will find a way out and hopefully I will be a help for hundreds of people who will like to vote for our school!

Wish you all the best – Together we excel!
gidori

[Of course, Mr. Gidori figured it out. Before we responded, he wrote...]

Wooow!!!
Succeeded at last!

Just before I left the Internet cafe I noticed the problem. I had some emails which were in the spam box which am not used to read and that is where my confirmation for the vote was being hiden….I will lead many to vote for the school as well.

Am so happy now leaving this room.

Love you!
Gidori

A FEW DAYS TEXTS FROM TANZANIA (excerpts…)

[I know this post is a little long, so if you're interested in my thoughts on how limited web access may create a cultural bias in the outcome of social change competitions, by all means, read on. If not, however, just vote now at http://bit.ly/ideablob and then ask all your friends to do the same!!!]

NOW, ALL OF THIS GOT ME TO THINKING…
What if we hadn’t been involved? Would this incredible social innovator who’s now built one of the best primary schools in Arusha have any shot at winning a competition in which the winner is selected by online votes?

The truth is, she’s definitely scrappy and determined, so maybe – but the odds are undoubtedly stacked against her.  It is undeniable that entrants to contests like these from the US and other places with widespread high-speed internet and computer access have a vast leg up.  Given that American & European social entrepreneurs likely have far fewer barriers in other respects as well, it seems folly to give them yet another significant advantage in the selection process…especially when solutions developed in other parts of the world may, in fact, be the most effective and least expensive because of their creators’ deep experience in potential communities of impact.

To be clear, for this current competition (Ideablob), only US entrants are permitted, which probably makes sense given their business objectives & creates a somewhat level playing field.  But what about Ashoka’s Changemakers (not to single them out – they’re just one example) and other social change competitions that accept entrants from across the globe and seek to unearth the most innovative, effective solutions to the world’s most pressing social problems?  Should competitions like those be using online votes to select winners?  My guess is it’s just one more advantage for the rich white kids.  (To be fair, people like me, though in my own country, “rich” isn’t quite the appropriate adjective.)  While I’m absolutely certain that the intent of competitions like Changemakers (which has a beautiful and vastly improved new site, by the way) and others is absolutely to discover the best solutions, regardless of geography, I’m just not certain online voting is the best way to go about it…at least not yet.

Skoll’s Social Edge blog recently asked: Are the Only Innovations in Social Entrepreneurship Anglo-Saxon? Though you might think so sitting at social change conferences like SoCap09, the Skoll World Forum and others,  the answer is: Absolutely not.  Clearly, there are brilliant indigenous solutions that are simply not being seen or resourced – and we simply cannot afford to foster or tolerate systems that overlook innovators from parts of the world with limited web access – who may, because of their life experience or out of necessity, be able to imagine more effective, less expensive possibilities.

I know, people will say, “no voting mechanism is perfect.”  And they’re right.  But if we’re going to get it wrong, let’s at least not foster a system that’s so clearly culturally-biased in a field that so clearly shouldn’t be.  For now, let’s use a cross-cultural panel of judges if we must.  Or maybe there’s a smart mobile phone voting solution that just might work.

Folks also suggest crowds are great decision-makers.  Let’s not fool ourselves.  Large, representative, informed, unbiased crowds, maybe.  But that’s a long way off for most of the social change platforms I’ve seen – these tools are nascent, have relatively small communities, and few users that are consistent, invested, long-term participants.  Perhaps Change.org will emerge as a community large enough to truly be representative and unbiased, I don’t know.  Right now, however, the vast majority of voters in online social change competitions are those driven there by contest entrants.   Until that changes, I believe online voting is a seriously flawed, culturally-biased way to select social innovators in which to invest. I know the tools are sexy and the marketing benefits alluring, but it’s the social change not the social media we should be focusing on, IMHO – let’s hope one doesn’t get in the way of the other.

Of course, this conversation doesn’t really even touch on the broader criticisms of what some some call social change “popularity contests.” Even though I’ve worked hard to cultivate an online community of supporters that will support me in such efforts (thank goodness!), I’ve heard many bright colleagues suggest that social change competitions, in their current incarnation, waste valuable resources, sabotage potential collaboration and fail to surface the best solutions.  I’ll leave you with comments from three savvy social change tweeters who got involved in the conversation when I posed this question on twitter:

“If some entrants come from places with limited web access, is it fair to use online votes to select winners of social change contests?”

Suffice it to say, there’s got to be a better way. Until we find it, though, Epic Change will continue to participate in social change competitions that raise visibility and funds for our efforts to resource social innovators like Mama Lucy.

Oh, and improved access starts right here, with you.  If you haven’t already, VOTE now on Ideablob so that Epic Change can earn $10k toward funding a school technology lab in Tanzania.

Posted: May 26th, 2009 under The Foundry, Updates from Mama.
Comments: 22

By now, many of you have received the news that thanks to your votes, Epic Change has now advanced to the final round of voting to win $10K from IdeaBlob!!!  Thank You!!!

Voting continues now through 11:59:59 CT on 5/31 – and, with alot of hustling in Tanzania and the US, we’re currently leading the pack…but only by 7 votes.  We need your vote to sustain and further our lead!

VOTE NOW!
For this round, all voting has been reset at zero so we need your votes now more than ever!!!  Even if you’ve voted before, we need you to vote again now. It takes just a few minutes and a few clicks to make a huge difference in the education of hundreds of children.  Just click here to go to our entry on IdeaBlob, click the green thumbs-up button to vote and follow the simple login/registration instructions.  (If you haven’t used the site before, I’ve included a few simple steps below that may be helpful.)

We Could Win $10K to Build a Technology Lab in Tanzania
We plan to use those funds to create a technology lab at the school in Tanzania so that children, teachers and parents in the community can learn new skills, access a whole new world of information and enter global conversations by using social media to share their stories online.

You rock. (Seriously.)
I REALLY appreciate your help.  So far, thousands have come together to help prove that many people making the contributions of time, energy and funds they’re able have the ability to make a profound difference.  Imagine, in ~20 months, donations from nearly 1000 people, most of which are under $40, have been aggregated to make loans that have enabled one visionary local woman to create an educational facility that now serves over 300 children and was recently ranked the top school in the district – ahead of 117 others – on national exams.

That’s Epic Change. And it’s only possible through the collaborative efforts of so many incredible changemakers like you.

With so much hope & gratitude my heart could burst,
Stacey

PS: If you haven’t previously registered to vote at Ideablob, these simple instructions may help:

1. Go to our entry on IdeaBlob and click on the green, thumbs-up “Vote” button.
2. Sign-in or register with your email if you haven’t done this before (you don’t need to enter any additional personal information on the second page, just select “skip this step”)
3. Click the link in the confirmation email you’ll receive.
4. Click on the green “Vote” button again (you’ll know your vote was received once the vote button becomes grayed out.)

Posted: May 26th, 2009 under The Foundry.
Comments: 2