The IJF is not just an outlet for artisans to sell their products. It is a brand that creates awareness about the social injustices women face. By featuring their photos and videos on our website, we will be able to fuse jewelry with their stories and the IJF mission.  

The demographic of the IJF is 18-25, which is not a demographic reached by traditional Native American jewelry designers. By targeting younger girls we hope to help develop a generation of conscious consumers that proves you don’t have to sacrifice fashion for ethics.

Thus far, I’ve sold over 650 bracelets at two gallery shows in Middlebury, a sample sale at GWU and this week I’ve had two orders placed by a boutique in Dartmouth and have appointments with three interested boutiques in Burlington.   

This summer, cinematographers will record informational videos for the IJF featuring stories of our women in Turkey and New Mexico. Because such interactive marketing techniques are important for engaging the customers with its mission, funds from MiddSTART would allow the further development of our website as well as buy artisan sample products that will help the IJF to significantly scale and enhance its distribution pilot program.

We do so by raising donations of used computer equipment that we process and give to our community partners. We then work with them on developing curriculum that best suits the given environment. Currently, C4L’s community partners are in Ethiopia (Betesab) and Zambia (SOS Children’s village).

Until now, C4L was working towards securing equipment donations. We have received substantial donation of computers for these sites and we are using our office space at Old Stone Mill to work on the donated laptop and desktop computers. We are examining their functionality, reformatting them, and installing Ubuntu – a free, user friendly, secure operating system that includes all software needed for basic computer literacy skills.

However, C4L is still in the process of sourcing the necessary funding for the shipping of the equipment and setting up the lab facilities with the relevant furnishings and supplies. MiddStart funding will facilitate the successful implementation of the projects in Ethiopia and Zambia.

The implementation will commence in August, once the equipment arrives. At that point, we will travel to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and Lusaka, Zambia to:
- Furnish, adequately ventilate by installing a ceiling fan, secure windows and doors with burglar bars, and generally prepare the space for the computer lab;
- Set up the computer lab with Internet access for instructor and limited student use;
- Facilitate a weeklong basic ICT instructor-training workshop – that will be tailor-designed with the aid of the Cambridge ICT Starters Curriculum – for Betasab’s local volunteers.

We are asking for $2000 toward the total estimated costs of $10000. The costs include travel, lodging, equipment shipping and handling, and computer lab setup expenses.

We plan to communicate with our donors through email. Donors who want to follow up with the project can use our official website – www.computers4literacy.org – or stop by our Old Stone Mill office to see the equipment before we ship it.

After recognizing the shortfalls of other development programs that failed to adequately address the needs of the populace or the critical knowledge and inequality gap that has hampered Zambia’s development since independence, I decided to pursue a different, more effective bottom-up business approach to development: identify change-makers on the ground with the tools and ability to succeed, and support them.  In the developing world, these are most often women.

Picture the story of Sarafina, a Zambian girl who finished her middle school exams in the top of her middle school class, aced her government exams, and gained acceptance in a prestigious private school.  She never went, because she lacked the family support and financial means to attend high school.  Sarafina is merely one of thousands of girls like her, with the tools to succeed and unbounded potential to give back to her country who slip through the cracks of society every day.

What Zambia needs is not more vertical or horizontal aid, it needs smart investment in the resources that have the best chance of success and the greatest positive effect.  Supporting women and their pursuit of education has been far and away the single best investment by all major indicators of economic, political, or social development in any nation.  It with this goal of supporting women that Zamfund was founded, and with your support, we can move every closer to achieving it.

Working with local experts, Zamfund will interview, evaluate, and assist high-performing female students. In order to qualify for any form of grant, candidates must meet Zamfund’s admissions criteria. The goal of these efforts are to boost high school graduation rates for female students. By supporting and promoting female education, Zamfund is not only harnessing one of the most untapped resources in the Zambia, it is making the safest and most successful investment in Zambia’s future.

My inspiration for this idea began the summer after my sophomore year when I attended the US Army Airborne School in Ft. Benning, Georgia. There I spent six sweltering weeks learning how to properly jump out of an airplane, but what I remember most vividly are the stories my fellow paratroopers shared with me, many of whom had just weeks before returned from Iraq or Afghanistan. They spoke of moments of bravery and extreme adrenaline, their families, friends, and girlfriends, and with time, they’d tell me about their friends who they lost in combat and those who were evacuated due to severe injury. Many of these wounded veterans face severe challenges as they transition into civilian life. These include PTSD, inadequate rehabilitation, and a very high risk of unemployment. My mission to is raise awareness of wounded veterans’ struggles and aid them as they adjust to civilian life by using the profits of these recycled bags to donate to the Wounded Warrior Project.

Rugged and Refined was selected as a MiddChallenge winner so in addition to funding that will be used toward the cost of the first production run to establish inventory, I will be able to spend the coming months developing media and press awareness as well as marketing to those who support military families and seeking contracts with larger wholesale vendors.

I plan to use the project’s website: www.ruggedandrefinedbags.com, which will soon be public. There will be a blog section featured that can be used to communicate with donors.

My experience in MiddCORE this past J-Term has motivated me to pursue projects that I believe in. I have a passion for efficiency and Bumu strives to provide a protein source that is not only better for the environment than beef chicken and pork, but one that also allows for efficient resource allocation globally through the use of bugs. Furthermore, Bumu has the potential to empower people in developing nations to work towards making insects a primary food source.

The MiddSTART funding will be used to keep cricket farming operational over the summer, and allow for further product development.

We will share updates through our blog:  http://blogs.middlebury.edu/bumu/

Integrando a Mexico aims to make its participants realize that each individual has the potential to be a catalyst of social change. We will bring together 50 high school students from all across Mexico for a four week course where they will participate in various activities and workshops that will provide them with the tools, resources and motivation necessary to become leaders and social entrepreneurs in their communities. The final part of the course we will guide students to design individual social projects, which they will each carry out in their respective communities upon their return.

We want to create cultural and intellectual exchange and understanding. To promote this, our facilitators this year come from a range of countries (Mexico, Nigeria, Italy, Costa Rica, Hungary, Chile, United Kingdom, Peru, United States, Cyprus) providing deep cultural exposure. Participants will come from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds and regions within Mexico, to foster interaction and integration within the nation. Through conflict resolution workshops, we will establish an atmosphere of constructive dialogue that will allow participants to interact respectfully and appreciate the social and cultural differences between them.

The course will spur the participants to become active and aware citizens, who participate in the development and daily life of their communities. Through civic engagement workshops and community service sessions, we aim to help create a culture of change for the present and future of Mexico. We believe that the participants of ¡Integrando a México!,and their actions after the course, are the starting point. We will motivate them to spread their ideals and agency to those around them. The project will take place in Nochistlan de Mejia, Mexico, where we have established partnerships with local institutions, businesses and individuals.

MiddSTART funding will help us pay part of the costs for food and lodging of participants and facilitators during the course. If we meet our fundraising goal, we will be able to not charge participation fees, and hence to select participants regardless of their ability to pay and provide need-based financial aid.  MiddSTART funds will contribute toward the project total of approximately $13020.

During the course we will keep a blog with articles, journals, photos and videos that illustrate our daily activities, challenges and accomplishments. This will also provide space for participants’ and facilitators’ reflections.

When I (Edward) broke my leg in the winter of 2011, I was forced to use crutches on campus for 3 months. Among the many challenges one faces while on crutches in the harsh Vermont winter, the most difficult aspect was getting food in the dining halls. In fact, within the first 2 weeks of returning to campus, I lost 17 pounds. So Andrew and I developed the original prototype, which I used for 8 weeks, in order to make the dining halls more accessible for students on crutches. We then began working closely with Matthew Biette, the head of dining services at the college. He provided us with the knowledge and insight needed to design our initial product, the EZ Tray. Our trays are durable and compatible with all institutional dining halls. After taking the Midd Entrepreneur J-term class, we felt we were ready to turn this idea into a real business. We are committed to putting EZ Trays into each and every dining hall.

Our objective is to aid students on crutches across the country by supplying university dining halls with EZ Trays. We won the MiddChallenge Business contest, which provides us with $3000 that we will use to produce the initial supply of trays. We hope to raise an additional $2000 in start-up capital through MiddSTART, which will provide us with the resources to travel to schools and conferences across the country to sell and promote the EZ Tray.

Our website is eztrays.com – it is not currently live, but we are building it now and it should be up and running soon. We are happy to communicate with anyone via email: efitzgibbons@middlebury.edu, alebovitz@middlebury.edu

During a conversation with a Middlebury student from Nepal, it became apparent that one of the greatest challenges in developing countries is the export process. This particular student’s parents were coffee farmers who lacked the requisite technology, English skills, influence, and technical know-how to export their coffee to consumer markets. While their coffee could fetch as much as 4.00 USD per pound wholesale in the United States or Europe, their inability to access these markets limited them to the low prices of Kathmandu.

The farmers of the Solukhumbu region are no different. These low-income individuals lack the information and tools necessary to identify buyers in consumer markets, interact with logistics and shipping groups, and clear the complicated U.S. import requirements. We intend to guide our partners through this process and assist them in locating buyers for their tea in the United States.

We can enable developing entrepreneurs to become viable participants in consumer markets. They can benefit from increased profits, aiding in the economic and social development of their local communities.

We have a simple goal– to increase prosperity and well-being in developing countries by connecting local businesses with consumer markets in the United States and Europe. We believe that many farmers, craftsmen, and entrepreneurs in underdeveloped communities have products capable of competing globally and all they need is access to these markets.

We will use our website: www.cottageint.com as our main place to communicate on our project’s developments. We plan to post periodic updates that include photos and posts on the tea growth cycle, shipping, and farmers in Solukhumbu.

We are both passionate about the power of maps in global health work, because we see the enormous potential for them to be used as tools that highlight patterns in a highly visual and accessible way. The question of why disease, disaster, and social inequality occur in particular locations exposes the connections between geography, medicine, and public health. When displayed as maps, these connections illustrate how essential cartography and geography are to understanding and improving public health policy and planning. However, small grassroots organizations often do not have the capacity to implement these ideas. We aim to bridge this gap by working with an organization that we are already connected with through GlobeMed, and explore the possibilities for the application of GIS in the non-profit health sector.

We will keep a blog while in Rwanda with as many photos, audio clips, entries, and maps as possible. We will also compile an email list of donors and send out a thank-you with a link to the blog, as well as an update from the field, and a final email with the finished products.

After a summer of hard coding, Nate and Will had a working prototype of the software package – now named StraboGIS – for one of the world’s first geographers who bridged the gap between conventional geography and modern technology.

During the fall, the initial team with the addition of Parker Woodworth ’13.5 explored several potential markets for their technology. While many possibilities seemed promising, none of the professional or academic markets they explored took hold.

As the team entered J-Term and Will and Nate enrolled in Middlebury Entrepreneurs, the team happened upon an application for their software in social networking and have successfully developed a feasible business model around using our app in Geography, Outdoor Lifestyle, Real Estate and Insurance fields.

The team, now including fourth member Ben Chute ’13.5, is now beginning to seek significant startup capital, and need MiddSTART seed capital to prepare the company for launch.  MiddSTART funds will be used for the initial expenses of server costs and software licensing to strongly position the company in preparation for the next phase.

While, due to the nature of our project, much of our exciting news will be non-public, we will be happy to create private avenues to share exciting and relevant information and update the MiddSTART community. We will also be maintaining a twitter account for public information.