Welcome back everybody. In this session, we're going to be talking about the solution and describing the solution to stakeholders that you hope are interested in what you're trying to do. In sessions before this, Mac has discussed with you solution design, how to think about putting together a solution for the problem once clearly articulated. Perhaps you have a number, and you've narrowed them down to one, or two, or three. You have an idea of how you might want to test it out. And you should be able to answer some key questions with respect to what it is you intend to do, or intend to test. It might not turn out to be your final venture idea, you may learn and adapt. But it's a starting point with which to clearly articulate what you have in mind as you think about getting stakeholders on board, stakeholders that you need or think you might need at a later point in time. One way to organize the plan for an idea is to use a concept map. A concept map is the visual representation of the relationship between the resources needed for the venture. The activities needed to create the solution or the product and its deployment. And thirdly, the results caused by these activities, the impact and/or the outcome. It tells people what you want to do, how you will do it or how you intend to do it, and why you're doing it. So if you look at this as four basic steps, we have what was resource and cost will be needed? What process will be useful or what processes will be used to, what solutions and revenues might they be as a consequence and what are the outcomes and or the impact of this ranger? You can now break down each of those blocks, or phases, or steps into what you need, what it will cost, who will help you? How you'll create the solution, how does it reach the beneficiary, how will you interact with the beneficiary, etc. And you can plug the frameworks from the course into this map. Should you prefer to not use the concept map, or any other visualization tool, you should be able to answer the following questions, for example, how will my venture address the problem? Who will benefit? How many of them will benefit? What are the major costs in delivering these benefits? And how will revenue be generated or how will funding be generated to support the venture in a sustainable manner. So let's go back to the feeds project. And think about how we might articulate the feed solution. The social problem identified was malnourishment and unemployment in northwestern Zambia. The venture mission was to produce and distribute high-quality feeds for a lower price thereby enhancing nutrition in the region. So let's articulate the project according to those key aspects or dimensions. Firstly, the how, how will my venture alleviate the problem? A commercial feed production business would enable small-scale farmers or chicken rearers to feed their families, in other words address malnutrition. And sell their surplus chickens at local markets, generating earnings through self employment, so that's the hack. Who would benefit? Well, firstly the chicken rearers would benefit. Secondly, raw materials farmers who supply the raw materials for the feed mixers would also benefit. And thirdly, people in local markets buying the chickens would also benefit through access to lower cost high quality poultry. How many people would benefit? In this case, the entrepreneur decided that the impact matrix which she felt comfortable will justify the activity, and we'll get to this latter on in the course, was a million daily protein servings. In other words, she wanted to create a venture that delivered at least a million daily protein servings into this area. And if you do the mathematics behind that, that's about 3,000 people attended to minimum on an annual basis. What are the major costs? Well, we'll get into this in more detail but production, delivery, education, raw materials would be the major costs incurred in putting this venture together. So that's the solution described in a very basic manner, let's look at eco toilets. This was the sanitation challenge and solution innovation for East Africa. The Venture Mission was to reduce the high levels of preventable, debilitating, and fatal gastrointestinal disease such as diarrhea in East Africa. So let's take a look at the project along those dimensions. First, how would the venture address this problem? Well, it would provide access to proper or superior sanitation, thereby decreasing the spread of diseases, preventable diseases. Who would benefit? Africans who previously didn't have access to advanced sanitation systems would benefit in urban areas to start. How many would benefit? Well, in this case there there are a 1,000, tens of thousands of urban dwellers, it will depend on how many of Ikotoilet units were deployed into the environment, into the urban environments in East Africa. What will the major costs be? Well, construction, facility upkeep, labour salaries to maintain the infrastructure. And how would revenue be generated? Well, Ikotoilet is a pay-per-use sanitation center so revenues would be generated by users of the facilities in urban areas. So, what we've done in this session is very clearly articulated along four dimensions what the solutions looks like. And what this enables you to do is to very succinctly describe to interested parties or people that you would hope to get interested, what it is you're trying to do from a solution perspective. And if you can then get them into the discussion with you, you can begin to use the other tools and frameworks. And the other models that we'll get to later on in the course, to describe in much more detail or granularity how you're going to do what it is you intend to do, for which beneficiaries. And you can gradually increase the level of sophistication of the plan that you're beginning to articulate and flesh out and ultimately test, and hopefully scale.
