April is World Autism Awareness Month.  On April 2^nd, Niagara Falls, Christ the Redeemer in Brazil, and The Great Buddha in Japan were among over 4,000 recognizable international landmarks to be lit blue in support of Autism Speaks and the UN’s World Autism Awareness Day.

Researchers estimate that 70 million people worldwide land on the autism spectrum¹.  Lately, autism has been in the news more frequently with the American Psychiatric Association reassessing how to define Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) – and experts expecting a much narrower definition.  While fewer official diagnoses may save public health costs, it could hinder future research on what causes autism. For instance, autism rates are higher among adults who were underweight as babies; low-birth-weight children are 5x more likely to have autism than the 1% in the general population². At D-Rev we’ve been particularly interested in autism research because Read on »

Originally from Anhui province, this shoe cobbler lost his $180/month factory job after a work injury two years ago.

With fireworks lighted across East Asia, January 23 rung in the Year of the Dragon for many Asian communities. But perhaps less obvious, it also marked the culmination of the largest annual human migration on the planet. For the past few weeks, millions of people across China have been on the road, traveling by rail, bus, motorcycle, and any means possible to return to their hometowns for Lunar New Year, the most important holiday in Chinese culture. An estimated 3.1 billion passenger trips—more than two times China’s population—will be made via public transport around this time.

Beyond the cultural emphasis on family reunions during New Years, this phenomenon is largely driven by the 250 million (and growing) migrant workers “floating” around China’s urban centers. Over the last few decades, with coastal cities and industrial zones desperate for cheap labor, many of the rural poor have left their villages and towns in search of jobs and livelihoods. The men often find work in construction while the women join the assembly lines. Despite leaving, they maintain close ties with their hometowns, mostly due to elderly parents and young children who remain in the countryside.

Although migrant workers are the main labor force behind China’s urbanization, they are ineligible for urban hukous, a household registration system upon which access to public education, healthcare, and social benefits depends. Read on »

We are thrilled that the Lemelson Foundation is supporting the scale up of the JaipurKnee, as well as building a future pipeline of innovations and design services. So we thought we would interview them: Krista chats with Erin Tochen of Lemelson about her role there, how the Foundation is organized, what makes D-Rev projects a good fit for the Lemelson portfolio, and their favorite speakers at Pop!Tech.

Krista: First, thank you for chatting with me today! Could you start by giving us a background on Lemelson and what you do at the Foundation?

Read on »

Sketch: Hannah Lou, D-Rev

If you are starting a for-profit social enterprise, you face a unique challenge: where will you find the seed capital willing to bear the risks inherent in new ventures – things such as product-market fit, executive leadership, sales channels, etc. Unlike conventional early-stage start-ups, social enterprises cannot leverage venture capitalists who embrace risk knowing that a few successful investments can more than cover losses in dozens of other investments. Moreover, unlike non-profit social enterprises, for-profits retain a core fiduciary duty to ensure a financial return. This adds additional pressure to mitigate early-stage risk. The result? A disproportionate dearth of risk-tolerant seed capital. Read on »

Thank you to Meg Wirth, founder of Maternova, for this entry. To read more by Meg, visit Maternova Blog.

Randomized control trials have long been considered the “gold standard” of medical research. RCTs are typically large-scale studies that randomly assign individuals to an intervention or control group in order to measure the positive or negative effects of the intervention.Their results are often regarded as irrefutable proof, for they compare how one group responds to a treatment against how an identical group fares without it.

However, recent meta-research by Dr. John Ioannidis suggests otherwise. Read on »

Jayanth being interviewed by USAID staff at the DevelopmentXChange Marketplace.

D-Rev was one of 77 finalists for the Saving Lives at Birth DevelopmentXChange held in Washington D.C. from July 26th-28th. With partners at Stanford’s School of Medicine and Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, we applied for a transition grant to support the accelerated scale up of Brilliance and Comet.

Saving Lives at Birth was co-sponsored by USAID, Grand Challenges Canada, the Government of Norway, the Gates Foundation, and the World Bank – and was a radical shift in how quickly proposals could be evaluated and grants awarded by large funding organizations. The proposals announced March 9, were due on May 9; and we were invited to D.C. on July 1– but here’s the kicker: the “winners” were to be announced at the award ceremony the last day of the DevelopmentXChange.  Instead of being voted off the island, a sub-set of the finalists would be designated “apparent nominees” (that is USAID-speak for you will likely get a grant).

The highlights: Read on »

Kevin Starr at PopTech 2010

I’ve spent a lot of time in Afghanistan and the mountains of northern Pakistan, so family and friends have been asking me what I think of the Three Cups of Tea dust-up.

As it happens, I went to see Greg Mortenson’s work in 2000. I was en route to Kabul when I got word that the friend with whom I was to work had been unexpectedly jailed by the Taliban for overstaying his visa. He got along with his captors pretty well, and they said they’d let him out soon, but I was left with couple of weeks on my hands. I had heard of Greg’s work and knew the region, so I thought I’d go up and have a look. I got in touch with Greg, who was in China, and we agreed to meet up in Hunza.

Long story short, he never showed up, Read on »

Andrew Youn of One Acre Fund and Krista chatting at the opening reception of the Skoll World Forum. Andrew won a Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship in 2010 and is also a Mulago Foundation Rainer Arnhold fellow.

This year’s Skoll World Forum’s theme was large-scale change—and the event, if anything, was larger than life with more than 800 attendees and set in historic Oxford, England.  I was a Skoll newbie—it was my first year attending, and it was daunting.  I did, however, make the strategic decision to attend sessions that had less obvious overlaps with D-Rev. (Story-telling!)  I had been warned prior to #skollwf that 2.5 days were too short to make any meaningful contacts, but I found the opposite to be true.  With so little time and so many interesting people, I was motivated to make the most of it. Here are some highlights from the Forum: Read on »

We are happy to announce that we have signed an unprecedented licensing agreement with Chennai, India-based Phoenix Medical Systems Private Ltd. for the manufacturing and distribution of Brilliance! This deal marks the first time that an American nonprofit will receive licensing fees and royalties for its technology from an Indian for-profit company in the healthcare industry. With this process complete, we are one step further towards Read on »

Rise Solar recently returned to East Africa to continue exploring the off-grid energy landscape, visiting communities across Kenya and Tanzania. One conclusion from the trip is particularly salient: rather than a household solar system, our technology may be best suited as a tool for off-grid entrepreneurs to bring electricity to their communities, directly powering mobile phones and rechargeable lights.

This came into focus when we returned to Magesho, Tanzania, the 300-person village that is a two-hour walk from the grid, Read on »