Social entrepreneurship is about prioritizing people over profit, and that is what we believe in. We aim to provide solutions for the most urgent global issues - in this case, the effects of water-borne diseases in low-income areas. To do this we want to connect our research to the real world, and learn from it
The incidence of cholera is persistent, with the number of cases and deaths every year consistently high, but we believe that everything can still be changed if we take into account local perspectives. By doing this, we can see that the goal of making the world a better place for everyone is actually reachable. And we are going to be part of it.
1 Customer Discovery
Has the team interviewed a representative number of potential customers for the technology and clearly communicated what they learned?
The final conclusions taken from our fieldwork are detailed in the Human Practices section mentioned above.
2 Based on their interviews
does the team have a clear hypothesis describing their customers’ needs?
By listening to their opinions and reactions, we concluded that even when these cutting-edge technologies provide numerous improvements in comparison with traditional sensing methods (such as getting rid of the need for specialized equipment or refrigeration), they still leave some room for enhancement, as they have important shortcomings (the requirement of electricity, a high amount of false positives, not easy to use, etc.).
We developed our final sensor in order to apply our main technological element, aptamers, to solve the problems users found in the sensing methods that were tried during the workshops.
In addition, we have included local groups in the future development of the technology by establishing partnership agreements. Local people understand their interests better than any outsider, so we want to provide them with a platform to step up and take control over future improvements and research.
3 Does the team present a convincing case that their product meets the customers’ needs?
We have reached a collaboration agreement with a local lab and transferred them all the knowledge generated during the development of the project. They will, in the near future, reproduce, test and characterize the technology that we have created.
Additionally, we have successfully built and tested in lab conditions our potentiostat sensor. The next phase will entail its testing on the ground (in Cameroon) with a cholera-sensitive electrode. After the end of the iGEM 2019 competition, our team will send five units of this potentiostat to our Cameroonian partners to continue with the trials.
The next phase will entail its testing on the ground (in Cameroon) with a cholera-sensitive electrode. After the end of the iGEM 2019 competition, our team will send five units of this potentiostat to our Cameroonian partners to continue with the trials.
4 Has the team demonstrated a minimum viable (MVP) product?
The technology described above is, therefore, halfway there for achieving the complete system that we propose, and it can already enter the phase of trials on the ground that will test both its viability in real conditions and its acceptance by final users.
And does the team have customers to commit (LOI, etc.) to purchasing it / using it?
We have created an extensive collaboration proposal for the implementation of our system that is detailed in the link below.
This proposal involves a number of actors, from the Ministry of Public Health of the Republic of Cameroon to local health workers, the final users of the sensor.
5 Does the team have a viable and understood business model/value proposition to take their company to market?
This entails an implementation plan and a collaboration agreement with the local institutions who lead health diagnoses in Cameroon.
We propose, then, a development cooperation project, with a large part of the funding coming from a number of international organizations that are dedicated to cholera diagnosis and treatment on the field. We have established contacts with some of these, such as Médecins Sans Frontières, the Pasteur Institute of Cameroon, the Global Task Force on Cholera Control and the African Institute of Open Science and Hardware.
These organizations have given us a realistic vision of the current and future challenges that we can encounter within the biosensing field, which our technology will face. They have also provided us with valuable insights into the necessary next steps for carrying out the change from current sensing methodologies to our technology.