"There is no other platform that provides you access to data in 87 countries within a week," explains Tugce Bulut, 34, the founder and CEO of Streetbees, which crowdsources consumer data via its app. "It's like a live search engine."
Streetbees' 100,000 active members receive a push notification if their profile and location match a company's data search - for instance, a marketer wants to understand the video habits of 20-year-olds in Argentina. They can submit a reply in exchange for £15. Centralised replies are verified by Streetbees and sent to the client - and that turns local knowledge into cash.
The London-based company, which launched in January 2015, has 32 clients, among them Pepsi and L'Oréal. The challenge, Bulut says, is to reach rural areas with poor internet access. "In a couple of years, data from anywhere in the world will be available within days," she explains.
Intraocular lenses are needed to replace the eye's natural lens once cataracts are removed, but can be costly for those in the developing world.
Aurolab, based in Madurai, a city in the south of India, aims to "eliminate needless blindness" by offering locals cheap and high-quality ophthalmic lenses. Founded in 1992 by the Aravind Eye Care Hospital with help from entrepreneur David Green and the World Health Organisation.
Aurolab is a non-profit charitable trust that produces almost 1.2 million lenses annually, for $2 (£1.43) each, compared to $150 in the developed world.
Finding a suitable part-time job can be difficult, not least for parents re-entering the market, as Timewise founder Karen Mattison, 47, discovered when she was looking for a time-flexible position in 2012. So she launched her own job board, Timewise, for part-time or home-based work.
"The glass ceiling for women is often about flexibility in the job market," Mattison (above) says. Its London-based website has 70,000 registered users, 3,000 businesses that use the service and an average of 15,000 jobs. Mattison claims Timewise candidates fill 80 per cent of roles advertised.
If for-purpose business has a figurehead, it is Jay Coen Gilbert, the co-founder of B Lab. Established in 2006 and based in Wayne, Pennsylvania, B Lab certifies for-profit companies as Benefit Corporations, or B Corps. To be certified, companies must meet demanding social and environmental standards, and show that they generate value for society as a whole, not just hareholders. Crucially, they must also adopt corporate governance documents legally obliging their boards to consider social impact. That means the commitment can't be diluted, even if the company changes hands.
Coen Gilbert, 48, co-founded AND1, a multimillion-dollar sportswear company, but was inspired to his mission by events in 2001: within a month, his sister was injured during the 9/11 attacks, his father died of lung cancer, and a work colleague was killed in a car crash.
There are now more than 1,600 certified B Corps in the US, each paying a proportional subscription. Their total revenues are around $28 billion (£19.6bn). Gilbert (above) wants to increase numbers and effect a change in business. He sees the B Corp not as progressive, but as a revival of traditional American values. "The B Corp idea is a return to relationship-based business," he says. "Old-school values for a new economy."
In 2013, Juliana Rotich was trying to run an international software company in Nairobi while facing an average of two or three energy blackouts a month. So, together with other members of the crowdsourced information non-profit Ushahidi, she created the BRCK mobile Wi-Fi hub. "My co-founder [BRCK's CEO] Erik Hersman jotted down the idea for a device with an energy store for when the power went out, that could connect to mobile networks and provide a Wi-Fi hub for up to 20 devices," Rotich, 38, explains. "It was a solution for a problem we faced first-hand."
Nearly 60 per cent of the world's population still lacks reliable internet. More than 3,000 of BRCK's $250 (£175) modems have been sold so far in 50 countries.
In 2015, BRCK launched the $5,000 KioKit for classrooms, which packages a BRCK with 40 rugged tablets, encased in a reinforced, waterproof charging case. So far the company has raised $4 million in private funding, in addition to a $170,000 Kickstarter in June 2013, with Ushahidi retaining a stake in the business. "We needed a for-profit set-up so that we could take seed stage investment," Rotich says. "But the structure doesn't change the mission. There are many ways of solving a problem."
In 2006, the trustees of London charity the House of St Barnabas decided to rethink the use of a grade I listed Georgian building it owned in London's Soho and switched it from being a hostel for homeless women to a private members' club run as a hybrid of social enterprise and business.
Partnering with café chain Benugo, they then devised employment preparation programmes in which homeless people would receive on-the-job training in hospitality services and continued mentoring to support them to regain a more independent life. Partner companies employ graduates from the scheme. Finding work is key to breaking the cycle of homelessness - the House of St Barnabas's shift in approach tackles the problem itself, rather dealing with its effects.
London-based Buffalo Grid uses portable, solar-powered charging units to offer a mobile-phone charging service in rural communities in Africa and India. CEO Daniel Becerra, 37 (above), says 43-year-old chairman Phil Schluter's background in coffee trading in Africa meant that when the company was in its early stages, Schluter could place chargers at coffee plantations.
The charging units cost £400 (£250 per unit, £150 to deploy), but are supplied free to entrepreneurs, who then share the profits with Buffalo Grid. The company also partners with telcos, which cover the cost of free charging to drive greater phone use. And the name? "Well, Phil grew up in Africa," Becerra says, "where you learn that a buffalo will charge anything."
Finding the ideal shade of lipstick or a signature aftershave can be a quest in itself; making sure the product doesn't include parabens and other phthalates can mean negotiating a minefield of harmful ingredients. The CosmEthics app makes the process easier - scan a product's barcode with a smartphone camera, and it analyses ingredients from its database of 40,000 products and offers healthier alternatives. "You can set your own alerts for allergies, sensitive skin, veganism and to avoid plastics," says CosmEthics founder and CEO Katariina Rantanen, 37. If the app doesn't know a product, it will ask you to take a photo, which will be analysed by biochemists and added to the system. Push notifications alert the you to any ingredient banned in the EU.
Founded in 2014 and based in Helsinki, CosmEthics has raised €700,000 (£540,000) in seed and government funding and is available in seven languages, including Chinese. "We offer a paying version for department stores, like a super-smart sales assistant that advises customers,"
Closed Loop, the world's largest food- and hospitality-industry recycling company, uses marketing to tap into consumer tastes. The Australian company managed food recycling at the 2000 Sydney Olympics: its owners realised there was a huge market for recycled goods - if they were branded well.
Closed Loop brokered deals with brands that guaranteed a supply of "post-consumer" materials, which its partners used to create new products. The demand resulted in a market for post-waste materials and the increase in revenues meant that Closed Loop could invest in more efficient collection methods. Much of the company's energy is now focused on Simply Cups, an initiative to rescue the 2.5 billion polyethylene-coated paper cups that end up in landfill each year.
"There is value in sustainability because it affects buying decisions," says Closed Loop director Peter Goodwin. "But you have to have a credible story - then you can drive behavioural change."
If you want to change a situation, "you have to make sure every stakeholder benefits. Now, there are eight stakeholders in a paper cup: manufacturer; distributor; caterer; end user; cleaner; waste collector; post-consumer material salesperson; and reprocessor. Every one makes commercial decisions based on their own interest, so you have to create a system that benefits all."
Suyo - Spanish for "yours" - is a year-old startup based in Medellín, Colombia, that enables the country's low-income householders to register their property rights so that they are recognised by law. In many cases, the necessary documentation is non-existent, meaning householders can lose access to social services or be evicted by another party making a claim on the land. The process, which involves lawyers and negotiating complex government bureaucracy, can cost up to $2,500.
Suyo, however, charges as little as $1,440. Suyo co-founder Matt Alexander (above) explains that costs are saved by using tech such as a mobile app for capturing and submitting property measurements - Colombia's government can't afford to send employees to register all the country's unrecorded dwellings. As many homeowners lack the funds or confidence to take their case to the government, Alexander, 38, says that there's scope for private enterprise to "facilitate access".
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
