Continuing thanks to all our KS supporters for making the first YWI webisodes possible! Find your names at our revised youngworldinventors.com. Demo DVDs loaded with ten videos went out to interested backers as I left for Nairobi.
We loaded new videos on YWI’s YouTube channel, and a dozen videos live on our Vimeo page, but we are seeking subscribers now. My vision of posting quick videos as I traveled last July was unrealistic: my apologies. If you want to see all videos, please send email.
We focused on three start-ups founded by young women: M-Farm in Nairobi, Kenya; HeHe, Ltd. in Rwanda and Global Cycle Solutions in Tanzania. Collaboration is central to this project, and you are early supporters. Would you consider:
⇒ Sending links to YWI’s YouTube channel and youngworldinventors.com to contacts?
⇒ Building audience for YWI Facebook and Twitter ⇒ ask for LIKES?
⇒ Suggesting sites for videos and donors we can pitch?
News in brief:
- Diane is in East Africa (Mar 15-Apr 28) — to shoot with the teams, gather new stories, increase partnerships, explore radio, cell app, and TV repurposing.
- Diane is collaborating with Peter Murimi, a Kenyan freelance journalist for Al Jazeera, Canadian TV and others. We are pitching a story to Chinese TV on Monday.
- Dan Sonnett has signed on for creating our interactive web platform. His company is doing the new “Half the Sky” campaign, a global effort based on Nick Kristof’s book.
- Vin Liota, Knight Fellow/MIT, producer/camera for NOVA/PBS and animator, is consulting for us.
- A January posting at AITI.mit.edu/blog has an update from HeHe, Ltd. in Rwanda.
- We are contacting 40+ websites, asking them to host YWI videos and subscribe.
More:
- The enterprisers at iHub in Nairobi are moving as fast as Japanese high speed trains. The teams are feeding each other with ideas, benchmarks, scaling up goals. M-Farm has outreach to 8000 farmers now. Investors are here at last.
- 40 MIT MBA Sloan students came to iHub two days ago, and yesterday the Akirachix told me another MIT/Sloan student wants to come to work with those “girl geeks” for awhile.
- I gave a DVD to Jim ChuChu of Just a Band (their songs are on our videos); the band is just back from SxSW playing and showing music vids.
- Will Mworia, founder of Afrinnovator.com is embedding video and revising new pages for YWI– as soon as ocean fiber optic cables, damaged by a ship’s anchor hours away, are repaired.
Deep thanks for your support and ideas!
Diane for the YWI team
