Imagine paying $10 per month to light your home with a single kerosene lantern or cooking dinner on a campfire in your kitchen. Amazingly, over half the people in the world do not have access to safe and affordable products to meet their basic needs for these simple tasks like cooking meals, lighting homes, or purifying water. As a result, billions of people suffer from preventable illnesses, deplorable living conditions, and energy poverty. Surprisingly there are hundreds of affordable products that can safely meet people's daily needs, save people money, and conserve the environment. If these appropriate technologies exist then why are billons of people who live at the base of the economic pyramid (BOP) not using these products?
To address this problem, we created PowerMundo, an innovative marketing, wholesale distribution, and micro-franchise company that connects people living in poverty to a network of sustainable resources. We manage a worldwide distribution network for appropriate technology products and support local economic development in emerging markets. As a result, PowerMundo improves people’s lives, creates employment opportunities, and conserves natural resources.
Created in November of 2007, PowerMundo is a social enterprise born out of the leading edge Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise (GSSE) Masters program (www.csugsse.org) at CSU. Fueled by a passion to make a positive difference in the world, PowerMundo identified an important niche in the value chain for delivering appropriate technology to unserved and underserved markets. Our founding team’s interest in working in Latin America and our Spanish speaking abilities impelled PowerMundo to look at market opportunities south of the border. After completing an exhaustive study of Spanish speaking Latin America, PowerMundo identified Peru as one of the largest underserved markets for appropriate technology and decided to focus our initial efforts there.
In the spring of 2008, we established a temporary presence in Lima, Peru and spent the summer conducting field research and completing the proof of concept phase for the company. PowerMundo travelled from the Amazon jungle to the Andes Mountains and into the slums of Lima to gather direct customer feedback on 10 different products. While it was not our intention at the time, we sold over one hundred units to happy consumers. During our product demonstrations, the customers’ principal complaint was that PowerMundo did not have enough stock on hand for customers to buy. In the instances where the customer did not have cash on hand, we traded our products for their equally valued handmade goods.
One customer is a particularly memorable case. An elderly grandmother lived in squatter shanty town in Lima and made handicrafts at night by candle light. She sold her goods to tourists to make money to care for her two orphaned grandchildren. After attending PowerMundo’s product demonstration, she cautiously spent her money on a solar lantern, but was reassured when PowerMundo promised to return her money if she wasn’t happy. When we returned days later, she praised how the solar lantern provided light for her grandchildren to study and eliminated the need to keep buying candles. Before we could leave, she insisted that we trade a solar radio/light for her beautiful handmade weavings so that she could have an additional light and access to news and information.
Our successful summer field work enabled us to quantify market demand, define our customer’s product preferences, and refine our distribution model to minimize costs and maximize impact. The successful proof of concept prompted us to incorporate PowerMundo in the US and in Peru in the fall of 2008. Today, PowerMundo is a Colorado based Limited Liability Company that is headquartered in Fort Collins, CO.
While Peru is our initial target market, our goal is to expand into other unserved Latin American countries in the medium term and into other international markets in the long term. Our vision is to be the most efficient company at delivering appropriate technology products and services to Base of the Pyramid (BOP) and emerging markets.
We invite you to learn more about PowerMundo, view our photo gallery, and watch a 6 minute documentary about our work in Peru at www.powermundo.com.
Michael Callahan, CEO Jacob Castillo, President
PowerMundo PowerMundo