When is the last time that you heard of a child dying of measles? If you are like most people, the prospect is absurd. This is because the measles vaccine was invented fifty years ago by Dr Thomas C Peebles, and for the cost of a few dollars per child, we have effectively eradicated measles from everyday life. This is why you, the average reader of this article, have probably never known a child that died of measles.
You probably don’t know the right people. In fact, more than 100,000 children die of measles annually. Apparently, somebody forgot to tell their parents about the vaccine.
Measles is only the tip of the iceberg. In innumerable areas of human development, the world invented a solution long ago – but that solution is failing to actually reach the people that need it. This is why 180 million people in the world are infected with a serious parasitic infection called schistosomiasis – a condition that is cured with a 10-cent pill. This is why more than one billion children in the world drink unsafe water that will make them repeatedly sick – despite the fact that water chlorination for a year costs about 5 cents per person.
Distribution of proven solutions equals Development. As a human society, we invented the solutions to eradicate extreme poverty decades ago. In practice though, these solutions have yet to be distributed to more than a billion people. For many of the world’s poor, the distribution of proven interventions would result directly in the achievement of human development.
This is why some friends and I created a new prize competition that will award $10,000-$20,000 prizes to at least five social entrepreneurs to tackle the world’s distributionchallenges. Have an idea on how to distribute a proven poverty solution? Spend three months piloting it at no cost to you. The award is called the D-Prize. D stands for distribution or development – they are basically the same thing.
I have lived in rural Kenya for about seven years, and started this prize due to the continual frustration of seeing everyone around me routinely suffer indignities that I last read about in history textbooks. One-in-ten kids in Kenya dies before they reach age one, and in about 99% of cases, they die from something that is absurdly preventable.
The amazing thing is that many of the world’s distribution challenges could be remarkably easy to solve. For example, approximately 5% of Kenyan 8th grade girls become pregnant with an unwanted child – significantly reducing any future life potential they may have had. Yet there exists a education training program that can be given to 8th grade classrooms, takes literally one hour, and reduces the probability of pregnancy in the next year by 28%. I believe that a motivated and capable entrepreneur could scale up this simple training program to reach at least 500,000 girls within two years of starting a new organization. This would prevent at least 7,000 desperately-poor 8th grade girls from having unwanted pregnancies, every single year.
Why not give it a try? Long ago, a shoe company exhorted us to “just do it.” That’s a pretty good slogan, especially when applied to a more important purpose.
Apply for a D-Prize, and win $10-$20,000. From there, it is a simple matter of booking a plane ticket to whatever country you want to pilot in, hiring a few staff, and spending three months using every last shred of ability and talent that you have, to solve a world development challenge. You will begin your work small – at one village or one school or one health clinic – but you will be testing an idea that you hope to be scalable to many more people.
It is remarkably riskless for you, and even at the very worst you will probably end up making a positive change in the lives of hundreds of people. At the very best, you might start an organization that one day improves the lives of millions of people.
I believe that ours will be the generation that ends poverty through an army of social entrepreneurs. Ours is the first generation that has decided to go beyond the traditional international development machine. This is a generation that is capable of applying passion and entrepreneurial zeal to solve a poverty problem directly. This is a generation capable of boldness.
Distribution of proven solutions brings dignity and opportunity to real people. Every single person on our planet deserves an opportunity to achieve their full human potential. These are real people. And they are waiting for you.
