Service can start small, global social entrepreneurs say

PROVO — Whether it's with used vegetable oil, wind turbines, termite mounds or microloans, social entrepreneurs are working to make a difference one village, latrine or student at a time.

During the 12th annual Economic Self-Reliance Conference on Thursday and Friday at BYU, student Matthew Blank shared how a summer trip to Mozambique to improve sanitation taught him lifelong lessons about making a difference.

"As we got out there, it stopped being associated with school and (became) something we were excited about," Blank said of his BYU capstone course. "We realized that with a simple idea and clear objectives, we could go into a village halfway across the world and make a substantial change in their well-being."

While Blank helped make bricks from the clay-rich termite mounds to line latrines, Devin Athey, a student in the Global Projects in Engineering and Technology class, was brainstorming ways to attach windmills to the all-reed houses on the floating islands of Lake Titicaca on the borders of Peru and Bolivia.

The villagers use solar panels for electricity, but purchasing them requires five-year loans for families making around $30 a month. The team's goal was to develop a wind-to-light system for under $500.

"It's not as simple as saying, 'This worked up in our laboratory, so we're going to implement it and call it good,' " Athey said.

The locals would often follow the students' designs, he said, but adapt them to their own materials and situations.

Turning oils into fuel — whether from a coconut in Tonga or the deep fryers in the Cougareat food court — began as another Global Projects study and is now coordinated by mechanical engineering graduate student Lauren Eberly.

By combining the oils with a few chemicals, the students produced an environmentally friendly biodiesel for the Tongans and are now experimenting with fueling some BYU-owned vehicles.

All of those ideas come as the result of education, an enabling power that should be available for everyone, said Kushal Chakrabarti, a former Amazon.com engineer who led a team in improving the Amazon.com recommendations engine.

Chakrabarti, 26, co-founded Vittana, a nonprofit group that works with local microfinancers to coordinate microcredit loans for education in emerging countries.