Sunday, February 28, 2010

CEO Praises Rice MBAs Work in Rwanda

Kigali, Rwanda (Sunday, February 28) -- The CEO of one of Urwego Opportunity Bank in Kigali congratulated four teams of Rice MBAs and engineering undergraduates for finding ways to commercialize their Rice bio-medical ideas.

"You are looking to present those ideas to venture capitalists to see whether you can get their support," said Lee. "This work is real and applicable, and I know you appreciate that."

The four teams have brought four bio-technologies to Rwanda to find markets, establish prices, seek suppliers and distributers in Rwana -- all in an effort to create business plans for potential investors.

Click arrow below to see video.

Jeffrey Lee, CEO of Urwego Bank in Kigali


Jeffrey Lee, who describes himself as a financial enterpreneur, has worked from branch banking to project finance, from community banking to corporate banking.

From February 1, 2009, he has been leading Urwego Opportunity Bank in Kigali, Rwanda as CEO.

Teams set to work today

Kigali, Rwanda (Monday, March 1) -- Over breakfast the teams will hear from Dano Jukanovich of Karisimbi Partners and Clare Akamanzi of the Rwanda Development Board.

Karisimbi Business Partners seeks to alleviate poverty by developing ambitious and strategically-placed Rwandan entrepreneurs. "We pick up where micro-finance, business incubation and small business development models leave off," reports their Web site. "Karisimbi Business Partners builds businesses by developing the management capacity of promising mid-sized ventures with untapped potential."

After the meeting, teams begin the legwork of their projects, spreading out across Rwanda to determine market need, potential suppliers and distributors, and see firsthand the face of Rwanda's health care system.

In the evening the teams will report what they learned and will plan their next day's work.




Thoughts On Rwanda

-- Quote from a placard at Belgium's Genocide Museum in Kigali

by Gale Wiley
February 27, 2010

To understand this post, first look at a video clip showing global health professor Hans Rosling* describe perceptions and then facts about the differences between the so-called developed and developing worlds:

First Hans Rosling Lecture

Next, look at Professor Rosling's second lecture:

Second Hans Rosling Lecture

Now visit Rosling's Gapminder site and do the following:
  1. Click on the "Explore the World" graphic.
  2. Next, select Rwanda from the list of countries.
  3. Click "Play" to see how Rwanda compares with the rest of the world on two dimensions -- life expectancy and per capita income.
Results?

In 1997, the average Rwandan could (1) expect to live to 46 and (2) earn less than $1,000 a year. -- this the toll of ignorance, disease, tribalism, colonialism, corruption, genocide and AIDs.

While each year the rest of the world lives longer and earns more, Africa lags far behind, its citizens dying much younger and living much poorer.

But if the history of the rest of the world is any predictor, Africa -- and Rwanda in particular -- is changing for the better.

Although only 6 percent of Rwanda has electricity, the government plans to provide electricity to 16 percent by 2012.

Today I see Kigali planted firmly in the future and rural Rwanda trying to pull away from the mire of the middle ages.

Kigali, Rwanda's capital, is pushing its way to modernity.

When I was a correspondent in Europe, I had a hobby of counting the number of building cranes hovering over a city skyline. The more cranes, I reasoned, the more economic development for the city.

Kigali shows lots of cranes -- new government buildings, a major hotel/conference center, business buildings.

A major project to make use of an estimated $20 billion in natural gas beneath Lake Kivu is underway.

Our little project is one of hundreds in Rwanda, but the cumulative effect is significant.

Over the next decade I hope to see Rwanda move up on Hans Rosling's charts, affording Rwanda's citizens better health, longer lives, and more income.

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* "Even the most worldly and well-traveled among us will have their perspectives shifted by Hans Rosling. A professor of global health at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, his current work focuses on dispelling common myths about the so-called developing world, which (he points out) is no longer worlds away from the west. In fact, most of the third world is on the same trajectory toward health and prosperity, and many countries are moving twice as fast as the west did." -- TED.com

Saturday, February 27, 2010

Practicing their sales pitch


Kigali, Rwanda (Saturday, Feb. 27, 2010) --In the courtyard of Hotel Gorillas, the backpack team is holding its second meeting.

Vani Rajandran, a Rice bio-engineer and the only undergrad on the backpack team, is briefing her MBA teammates on each of component of the lab-in-a-backpack.

The backpack team is one of four teams bringing Rice bio-medical technology to Rwanda. Their job during their stay in Rwanda is to develop a business plan that will interest entrepreneurs.

They have five days to determine if there is a market for their product.



Vani briefs her teammates on backpack-in-a-lab.

Arrived in Kigali


Kigali, Rwanda (Saturday, February 27, 2010) -- It's quiet in Kigali with little traffic and few pedestrians.

It's the last Saturday in February, and everyone in Kigali is supposed to spend the morning cleaning -- trimming bushes, picking up trash, sweeping the road in front of their place. The morning is considered a "day of service."

And the clean up is strictly enforced. Road checks makes sure only cabs and taxi mo-peds are on the road.

We're settled in our rooms at the Hotel Gorillas. Many of the students are walking around the neighborhood.

It's a beautiful day, in the high 60s, breezy. Kigali's thousands hills are lush with fruit and vegetables.

The students are ready to work.

Friday, February 26, 2010

Safe and sound at Heathrow

We arrived without incident at London's Heathrow this morning and cooled our heels for seven-plus hours. Some of use went into town (Brrrr!) and took in the tourist sites. Fish-n-chips and a pint of Guiness on a cold, blustery day. (Yum.)

Next stop, Nairobi.

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

MBA Class Project Called "Most Innovative" For Launching New Businesses in Rwanda

Houston (February 26, 2010) -- Dale Dawson, entrepreneur and founder of Bridge2Rwanda, told MBA students that their class was "the most innovative and exciting" approach he had ever seen for building businesses in Africa.

The students who left this week for Rwanda to find ways to commercialize Rice medical technology are part of Professor Marc Epstein's Management 747, Technology Commercialization in Developing Countries.

Dawson, an investment banker and entrepreneur, is building schools and businesses in Rwanda.
He serves on President Paul Kagame’s Presidential Advisory Council.

Click movie controller below to see the movie.



"Our goal is to turn this idea into a flood of colleges and universities that will do very similar programs to your," said Dawson.

Saturday, February 20, 2010

On the Road Again: Project Rwanda 2010

by Gale Wiley
February 23, 2010

For the second consecutive year, two professors and four teams of Rice MBAs are flying 10,000 miles to Rwanda over spring break to commercialize medical technologies developed and tested by Rice engineering students.

But this year, there's an added twist.

Each team will consist of four MBAs plus a Rice undergraduate engineering student who will serve as technical advisor for the team. The engineers will answer technical questions, observe the devices in the field, and make recommendations for possible product modifications. The MBAs will focus on commercializing their products.


Two-day flight from Houston to London to Nairobi to Kigali.

Product Line Up

The teams will work with Rwanda's health community to develop business plans for four products:
  • a lab in a backpack,
  • an intravenous therapy (IV) monitor,
  • a clamp to regulate syringe dosing, and
  • a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) device for aiding infants' breathing.
Accompanying the teams are Professors Marc Epstein and Maria Oden.

The trip is part of Epstein's course, Technology Commercialization in Developing Countries. Oden is an engineering professor and director of Rice's Oshman Design Kitchen where the medical technologies were developed by Rice undergraduate engineers. (See NPR story below.)

Lab in a Backpack

Backpack (Life Packs, Inc.) Team
Vikas Bahl (MBA), Vani Rajendran (undergrad), Sharad Malhautra (MBA),
Leonard Yowell (EMBA), Tonny Yiu (MBA), Vicki Chang (not pictured; MBA)


The backpack team (aka Life Packs team) will be offering five versions of their backpack: a portable diagnostic lab which can diagnose diseases such as TB and malaria, a dental backpack for routine check-ups and tooth extractions, an OB-GYN backpack that can be used for prenatal and pap smear exams, a vision backpack that includes surgical tools, and a community health backpack that allows health workers to perform first aid and basic disease screening.

Battery-powered IV Monitor

IV Drip (Smartdrip) Team
Faraz Palliwala (MBA), Sachin Agrawal (MBA), Laura Krone (undergrad),
Shelley Cao (MBA), William Yester (MBA)

The SmartDrip IV Monitor is a "low-powered portable device that monitors the drip rate of an IV-infusion and adjusts it accordingly through a motorized clamp." The unit regulates drip rate and volume, features that can help health care workers faced with administering multiple IV's.

Controlled-dose Clamp

Controlled-dose Clamp (Easy-Dose) Team
Karthik Narayanan (MBA), Kristin Anderson (undergrad), Jan Goetgeluk (MBA),
Britt Kennedy (MBA), Lee Willeford (MBA)

The Easy-Dose device fixes to an oral syringe to regulate dosage. According to the team's marketing materials, medication errors can worsen a patient's condition, lengthening treatment and in some cases causing death. In many places in the developing world, caregivers use spoons or cups or unmarked oral syringes.

CPAP

CPAP (infantAIR, Inc.) Team
David Tipps (MBA), Will Pike (MBA), Cynthia Hu (MBA),
Martha Vega (MBA), Jocelyn Brown (undergrad)


The infantAIR team will be introducing Rwandans to "Baby Bubbles," a device that helps babies breath "by gently keeping their lungs inflated, thus increasing oxygenation." The continuous positive aireway pressure (CPAP) device is inexpensive and easy to use.

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Documentary about Project Rwanda 2009

For the inaugural class in 2009, Epstein's MBAs showed four different technologies to Rwandan officials: an incubator for preemies, a hand pump dosing device, a nutrient supplement powder, and an early version of the lab-in-a-backpack.

A three-part documentary reports the experiences of the Incubator Team:

Part I click here.
Part II click here.
Part III click here.

For a short, five-minute version of the documentary, click here.

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Houston NPR Affiliate's Lab-in-a-Backpack Story

In January, the local NPR station ran the following radio story by Wendy Siegle about the Rice's Design Kitchen and the Lab-in-a-Backpack:

After the devastating earthquake, the world's eyes are on Haiti. Some say the tragic event reemphasizes the country's need for stronger infrastructure — especially in the medical sector. A group from Rice University spent time in Haiti last year to test a compact medical tool they developed that can increase access to healthcare in Haiti and other developing countries. From the KUHF NewsLab, Wendy Siegle reports.

"All of the materials are contained within this heavy duty hiking backpack. And inside is a microscope and a centrifuge…."

Rice University student Jocelyn Brown is showing me Lab-in-a-Backpack — an ultra-portable diagnostic laboratory she helped design and engineer with about twelve other students. At first glance it resembles a pack an adventurous hiker might take on a trekking expedition through the Himalayas. But after peeking inside, I discover there’s not much room for your socks. Instead, the pack is fitted with general purpose diagnostic tools.

"They diagnose what a physician might want to do in a general physical exam, along with, in specific countries, very specific tests that might work for diseases in those specific countries."

That’s Maria Oden, an engineering professor at Rice. She’s also the director of Rice’s Oshman Engineering Design Kitchen where most of the work on Lab-in-a-Backpack was cooked up. She says the thirty-two-pound pack is custom designed to be used in developing countries, like Haiti, where access to health care is often extremely limited.

"In order to get health care, either the people have to walk a very long way to a health clinic, or for the diagnostic Lab-in-a-Backpack the physician can go to a much more rural location and have the opportunity to do diagnostic tests that they normally would need a laboratory for."

Last summer Brown, who’s a senior bioengineering major at Rice, field-tested the diagnostic Lab-in-a-Backpack in Haiti, a country current facing the tragic effects of one its worst-ever natural disasters.

"It was a very impactful experience; just witnessing the extreme lack of health care in Haiti was quite shocking."

Brown says that the Lab-in-a-Backpack was—and still is—very useful in Haiti, because it can be used on diseases highly prevalent in the region.

"It can diagnose TB, malaria, several very common infectious diseases and provide basic treatment as well
."

In addition to the diagnostic Lab-in-a-Backpack, the students have created several other models for various uses. These include an OB/GYN pack, a dental pack and an eye care pack. Because the packs are most effective in providing basic care, Oden says they have many limitations when it comes to treating victims during a crisis situation. But new designs are in the works.

"There’s an opportunity to develop a backpack that would be specific for emergency care which might be even more appropriate for the disaster that's happening right now."


For now, the creators of the two-thousand dollar Lab-in-a-Backpack are fine-tuning the models and figuring out ways to get more packs sent to developing countries. Last month, twenty-four packs were sent to Ecuador. Over the next year, the packs will treat an estimated one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand Ecuadorians.

From the KUHF NewsLab, I’m Wendy Siegle.