Issuu

November December 2017

Where Christian faith gets down to business

Prophet of Peace:

Grebel incubator helps social enterprises Demine Robotics: Toward a world without landmines Devon Anders — building relationships MEDA travel tales

The Marketplace November December 2017

Roadside stand

Medieval Corporate Social Responsibility Businesses have been practicing corporate social responsibility for over 500 years, The Atlantic magazine argues. “The Ben & Jerry’s of Medieval Times” story says that while benefits corporations (B Corps.) — companies whose mission includes the welfare of their workers, society and the environment — only caught on in 2007, there is considerable evidence of “compassionate capitalism” dating back to the Middle Ages. It cites a British research paper that discusses entrepreneurs donating profits to monasteries to support health care, roads, bridges and education. Later, during the Industrial Revolution, textile entrepreneurs in Manchester supported schools, galleries and parks. Some thought that engaging workers with nature would nurture design skills. Professor Catherine Casson notes that the medieval economy was more collaborative than the 21st century norm. Happily, that collaborative and sharing spirit appears to be flourishing in business incubators I visited while researching Waterloo Region’s tech and university ecosystem for our cover story.

plans, companies are increasingly making statements. Whether you see this as a positive or worrisome development, it’s a trend we need to recognize. “We affirm our values — and identity — at the shopping till as much as, or more than, the altar,” the article concludes.

Corporations as voice of public morality? A provocative piece in Vox.com raises the question of whether corporations “across the political spectrum” are now having a major influence in public morality, akin to the role churches have historically played. Whether it be GoDaddy or Airbnb shutting out neo-Nazis or white supremacists from their services, or Hobby Lobby’s fight against government requiring contraception to be covered under employee insurance

Purple Chickens One of many remarkable stories in Terry O’Reilly’s highly entertaining book This I Know: Marketing Lessons From Under The Influence comes in a chapter about the importance of counter-intuitive thinking. Kenyan chicken farmers were losing most of their free-range baby chicks to larger avian predators, namely eagles and hawks. They quadrupled the survival rate from 20 per cent to 80 per cent with a simple and unlikely fix — painting the chicks purple. Turns out that neither eagles nor hawks can process purple images, and don’t see purple chicks as something edible. This discovery also led to a demand for a new

Cover photo of Paul Heidebrecht by Steve Sugrim

The Marketplace November December 2017

Close encounter at the UN Paul Heidebrecht, director of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement (see pg. 11), had an unexpected moment at the United Nations in September. He was in New York as CPA incubator participant EPOCH pitched their business to the $1million Hult Prize competition. EPOCH, which Heidebrecht has coached for several competitions, was well received but didn’t win. Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, who announced the winner, was schmoozing with finalists, many eager to get a selfie with him. Heidebrecht watched the goings on with interest, when suddenly Clinton’s security team started pushing the group away and pulled him in. Turns out Mr. Clinton wanted a few minutes of Paul’s time. He didn’t get a picture, but it was a chat he will long remember.

breed of hired help -chicken painters. Storm shelter Tip of The Marketplace hat to Sarasota MEDA board member Jim Miller, who offered his business as a shelter during Hurricane Irma’s late summer attack on Florida’s Gulf Coast. Miller posted a Facebook message inviting family and friends to think about anyone they knew who might need a safe place to be. “We had fifteen persons plus several pets,” says Miller. “They stayed in our store, played games, and spent the night there riding out the storm. Debra Gingerich, one of our managers, stayed with the group. The storm was not as bad here as in other places, so we only suffered minor damage (a small tree, an outdoor light, our sign). We lost power also, which meant a loss of telephone and store revenues for about three days. Everyone went home the next morning after the storm. I think they were all grateful, knowing that it could have been much worse. Better to be prepared.” The need to prepare will increase as weird weather becomes the norm. Last fall, a Miami pastor told me that 10 years ago, homebuyers sought waterfront property there. These days, everyone wants to know how far they can get from the shoreline. Sadly, the most vulnerable don’t have any choice. The rural poor will be most impacted by severe storms and weather changes. Hurricane Maria’s assault on Puerto Rico this fall destroyed 80 per cent of that country’s crops and agricultural infrastructure. MEDA is helping others prepare. Our environment and climate change work in a number of developing nations focuses on four areas: climate change adaptation and mitigation, green growth, green finance and collaboration on climate resilience. —MS

In this issue

photo by Steve Sugrim

Road stories

Travel isn’t always straightforward for MEDA staff as they make their way around the world. MEDA staff share recollections of journeys that didn’t go exactly as hoped.

Promoting peace businesses

The Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement helps students build social enterprises for a better world. By Mike Strathdee Demine Robotics CEO Richard Yim

Departments 22 24 20 21 22

Roadside stand Soul enterprise Review Soundbites News

Demine Robotics

Warehousing with a difference

Richard Yim has a passion for ridding the world of landmines.

InterChange Group CEO Devon Anders says relationships are key to his Virginia firm’s success. By Jesse Huxman

The Marketplace (ISSN 321-330) is published bi-monthly by Mennonite Economic Development Associates at 532 North Oliver Road, Newton, KS 67114. Periodicals postage paid at Newton, KS 67114. Lithographed in U.S.A. Copyright 2017 by MEDA. Editor: Mike Strathdee Design: Ray Dirks

Change of address should be sent to Mennonite Economic Development Associates, 1891 Santa Barbara Dr., Ste. 201, Lancaster, PA 17601-4106. To e-mail an address change, subscription request or anything else relating to delivery of the magazine, please contact subscription@meda.org

Photo by Jesse Huxman

Volume 47, Issue 6 November December 2017

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Interchange Group CEO Devon Anders

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The Marketplace November December 2017

Soul Enterprise

Giving freely Love Let Go — radical generosity for the real world By Laura Sumner Truaz & Amalya Campbell (Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2017, 203 pp. $21.99 US)

The act of giving disarms the power that objects hold over us. The authors tell stories of profound generosity being practiced in the Arusha area of Tanzania (where MEDA has projects), an impovermagine being part of a handished African nation with a GDP of to-mouth urban church serving less than $900 per capita. the disadvantaged, when a $1.6 Trusting that we have enough million windfall from the sale of a is an ongoing decision, they note. nearby housing complex falls into When LaSalle congregants received your lap. their $500 cheques, the money Think about how you would allowed them to remember when feel as you and your fellow consharing had been part of who they gregants were told of a decision to were. The book contains many distribute $100,000 to people in the touching tales of how people pews — $500 each — to “go out shared that gift. and do good in God’s world.” It also mentions generosity Or some time later, after mulpracticed by Dan Price, CEO of tiple rounds of discernment led to Gravity Payments. On learning that a congregational decision to give some of his employees were having most of the rest of the money away difficulty making ends meet, he to external ministries. increased all staff salaries, cutting That sequence of events forms his own pay to provide the necesthe basis of Love Let Go. The story sary funds. told by Truax, senior pastor at LaSalle Street Church in Rediscovering our own link to giving freely may redowntown Chicago, and Campbell, a marketing consulquire finding a saturation point, a sense of enough, they tant and member of the church’s leadership team, is an argue. Finding the place “is a task for all of us, no matter amazing tale of a group having enough faith to risk radiwhere we fall on the tax tables.” cal generosity. Keeping a gratitude journal is seen as an important The authors argue that we are hard-wired to give, tool along the way. This spiritual discipline has been citing a Gallup study which found that in 120 of 136 shown to provide more restful sleep, lower the blood countries surveyed, people who gave away money were pressure and susceptibility to pain of those who practice happier. it, and cut depression risk by one-third. “Like generosity, The LaSalle Street church, familiar with scarcity and gratitude is a superpower.” debt from its inception, has a long history of other orienThe book includes a list of the causes that the LaSalle tation. During race riots in the 1960s, congregation chose to benefit with the youth protected the building from windfall. They broke these gifts into “Our realism, our burning “because it was one of the few four categories: supporting the local institutions they trusted.” community, supporting global neighpragmatism, and Why do many North American bors, sustaining the church and investChristians find it difficult to donate ing in people. our rootedness in more than token amounts? We need Love Let Go deserves a wide readto get past what psychologist Daniel ing, in church and other settings. It the visible handicap calls us back to an awareness of the Kahneman calls WYSIATI — “what you see is all there is.” importance of being open to being our ability to grasp channels of healing. “Thankful people Instead, we should reside “on the plane of generosity, grasping the realize they live in a world of interconthe bigger picture.” nected blessings,” the authors write. entirety of the vision the Creator had in the first place, not just what we see in “They know that the good they do is front of us.” an echo of the good done to them.” ◆

The Marketplace November December 2017

Pastor moves from breaking bread to kneading dough

teve Schroeder has found the transition to the business world to be “way harder than being a pastor.” Schroeder and his wife Penni moved to Greenwood Village, Colo., to run the Great Harvest Bakery following a 34-year-career pastoring Mennonite Brethren churches, including nine years as moderator of the U.S. Conference. “If anyone is sick or anything is broken, it’s up to me,” he told writer Kathy Heinrichs West in a recent interview. “Like right now the yogurt machine isn’t working right. Every day there’s something like that and it all lands on us because we are the owners.” Schroeder, 60, has learned the craft of making bread from staff who are in their 20s. On the main baker’s day off, he gets up at 2:30 to make bread, kneading by hand with staff by 7 a.m to produce the daily allotment of 150 loaves. The job has its delights, he said. “I enjoy making sure my workers have all the tools and products they need. And I love the chance to be generous. When a homeless man comes in, I can make him the biggest sandwich and give it to him for free. When you own the store, you don’t have to ask anybody.” ◆

Steve Schroeder, Great Harvest Bakery

Excerpted with permission from The Christian Leader Magazine

Overheard:

“Some of the most selfish people I’ve met are artists — I’m one of them — and some of the most selfless people I’ve ever met are in business, people like Warren Buffett.” — Bono The Marketplace November December 2017

Travel tales MEDA staff encounter a variety of experiences during travels to countries where the agency works. As these stories show, trips can take unexpected turns. Planes, strains and automobiles

f all the travel MEDA president Allan Sauder has done with MEDA over the past three decades, the scariest took place on a visit to Peru 20 years ago. Sauder and his wife, Donna, were visiting agribusiness projects in Peruvian jungles. After travelling all day to the main airport in Lima, they met a driver who would take them to a small airstrip atop the Andes. From there they would fly into the jungle to visit a palm heart project. The Sauders, their driver and a country guide left Lima in the late evening, heading up a mountain in the dark, amid heavy rain and falling temperatures. Conditions were not ideal for travel. But their next flight would leave in the morning. A delay was impractical. The first sign of trouble came from their driver, who was tired and falling asleep at the wheel. To stay alert, he stuck his head out of the car window. “We were in the backseat, getting cold, then he’d close it and start nodding (off) again,” Allan recalled. “This was all driving hairpin roads. Finally, Donna said — Look, if you don’t drive, I’m gonna drive. Somebody else has to drive.” Country manager Alejandro took over as chauffeur. The car had just crested the mountaintop, headed down the other side in pouring rain. Rockfalls and mudslides were closing part of the road. “This car didn’t have great headlights, they were pointed The Marketplace November December 2017

Allan and Donna Sauder

off in some direction,” Allan said. “We hit this pile of rocks. We could feel these rocks going through, under the car, under your feet, then we could smell gas. One of the rocks had ruptured the gas tank. Then Alejandro picked up the shift lever. It was disconnected from the transmission.” The car was still running, “but it was leaking gas, we had no transmission, and we were headed down the mountain with these (head) lights askew. There’s no place to stop and pull over. So, we kept rolling along.” The car’s original driver was quite upset that the collision with the rockpile had taken out his transmission. “Then we hit another rock pile. You just couldn’t see these things. 6

This one took out our front wheel — the tire was flat; the rim was bent.” The group tried to change the damaged tire in total darkness and heavy, chilling rain on the side of the mountain. The car’s driver stripped two of the four lug nuts, so the spare tire was held on by only two nuts. “At that point, the driver insisted on taking back control of his vehicle.” At last the group saw lights in the distance. The Sauders ordered the driver to pull over. They found motorcycle taxis to take them the last leg of the journey, leaving the original driver sitting with his ruined vehicle. The Sauders got to their hotel for an hour or two’s sleep after 12

hours going up and down the mountain. Around 7 a.m., they boarded a small Cessna plane and flew into another section of Amazon jungle. The excitement wasn’t over yet. The village they were flying into held a market in the grass strip that doubled as the runway. The plane buzzed through to warn people to get out of the way before making a second pass and landing. Sadly, the project they came to see didn’t accomplish its goals. Trucks full of palm hearts kept getting stuck (and spoiling) half way up the mountain due to road closures brought on by landslides.

Shattered glass and unexpected cargo

bags of coca leaf I’ve hidden in the bushes and throw them in back.”

A troublesome gift

By Jerry Quigley, MEDA’s senior vicepresident operations From 2004 to 2010, MEDA worked in Northern Tajikistan on a project called Farms to Markets. The project supported fruit farmers (mostly apricots), to grow better, grow more and waste considerably less through linkages to better-equipped processors. Tajik farmers were using outdated, worn out, rusty, Soviet-style production methods. Travel to Northern Tajikistan was easiest through the Uzbekistan capital, Tashkent. Uzbekistan was, and still is, a first-class dictatorship propped up by a no-nonsense military. This country had the gall to evict the US military in 2005, telling them to close an airbase and leave in 180 days. Over six or seven years, I flew into Tashkent and crossed into Khu-

MEDA staffer Thom Dixon also had memorable experiences in Peru. He recalls landing at Lima’s airport and “treading ever so gingerly over shards of glass from a Sendero Luminoso (terrorist group) bomb that had gone off shortly before we touched down. Later that same trip, he was bouncing along a rural road in a pickup belonging to ContraDroga, the government’s anti-drug office, when a “bitty old lady” flagged down the vehicle to ask for a ride. After the truck stopped, she said “wait a sec; I need to get three Bill Fast and Jerry Quigley

jand, a regional capital in the north, no less than eight times. Tajik hosts are extremely gracious. Every meal with a visitor is an excuse for a feast. They would be offended to let you leave the country without a special parting gift. Tajik hospitality means that often the parting gift is a knife. That is how I found myself at a military-manned security checkpoint in the Tashkent international airport with an eightinch knife in my carry-on bag. With hand signals and broken English, the scanner operator angrily accused me of attempting to enter a restricted area with contraband weaponry. Not remembering the knife, I gestured back that he must be mistaken. A brief search of my bag helped my memory considerably. Sheepishly, I offered the offending item for him to dispose of as he wished. Clearly this was one gift that was unwelcome in the airport. I was even more surprised when he refused to take the knife. Perhaps he had nowhere to dispose of it. Perhaps he would have been in trouble to be caught with it himself. He seemed to say: “this is your problem now, don’t involve me!” Off I went into the airport with my hidden dagger, wondering if I should just lay low, board the British Airways flight and keep mum. I concluded that would be best. Avoid bringing any attention to myself. You never know how many cameras are following you at any given time. Excellent plan, until I turned the corner and saw the real security line…sniffer dogs and all. The first The Marketplace November December 2017

security line was just to get into the departure area. The second was the real one before boarding the plane. How was I going to explain the knife to the second wall of security? How was it possible that I had a concealed knife between preliminary screening and the real security point? What were my options now, in one of the most repressive countries in the world? My heartbeat became audible as I turned back to consider my options. I couldn’t drop it accidentally or leave it on the floor. What if a security camera caught me stashing it somewhere? Looking around, I spotted the restroom and decided that was my best option. I went to the men’s toilet, wrapped the offending blade in an Economist magazine and dropped it in the garbage. I cleared security and boarded the plane. Just before take-off, three soldiers entered the plane and walked the aisles. I was petrified they had found the knife and tracked the owner by the address on the magazine cover. Was I that stupid? Did I leave a trail of breadcrumbs right from the knife to my seat on the plane? I am not in an Uzbek jail, so you know how the story ends. I have no idea why the military guys entered the plane before take-off, but my over-active imagination convinced me that they were after me. I was never so happy to see the doors close and the wheels of a plane lift off.

Maddi and David Eagle

as the door was closing. Safely seated on the next plane, they were greeted by an announcement of a technical delay. The plane waited on the tarmac for two hours prior to departure. That delay forced them to make a similar dash upon landing in Brussels. Their next plane to Uganda was scheduled to depart two hours after their scheduled arrival time. Happily, there was a shuttle in the Brussels airport to get them to their gate, just in time for another long wait. The Uganda-bound plane was also held back, waiting for other flights to ar-

Late flights, lost luggage David Eagle has travelled to Africa 16 or 20 times for MEDA as associate director, Eastern, Southern & Central Africa, usually without incident. On a recent trip to Uganda with his 18-year-old daughter Maddi, travel didn’t go quite as smoothly. During the first flight from Toronto to Montreal, the plane was 90 minutes late departing. Their itinerary called for only a 90-minute window between landing in Montreal and leaving for Brussels, Belgium. The Eagles ran through the Montreal airport, from gates 3 to 63, arriving just The Marketplace November December 2017

Helen Loftin and Jim Corcoran 8

rive with transferring passengers. Their 30hour marathon trip ended with a delayed-bag notice, the first David had ever experienced. To make matters worse, somewhere en route running through airports, he lost his baggage ticket. Five days later, at the midpoint of their trip, they received the misplaced suitcase. Once she got over the initial stress of not having the suitcase, Maddi found travelling easier without so much stuff to worry about. “Everyone should have an experience like this,” she said in reflecting on the trip and how much easier her life is than many of the people she met.

Don’t forget the visa details Bringing family members to visit you in a foreign country can provide memorable experiences. Without

careful attention to the quirks of various nations’ visa policies, it can also lead to misunderstandings and tense moments, as Helen Loftin, MEDA’s senior vice-president of marketing and communications, learned. Loftin, who worked in Pakistan for MEDA between 2008 and 2011, took a trip to India with her 80-yearold father during Eid, an important religious holiday celebrated by Muslims worldwide that marks the end of Ramadan, the Islamic holy month of fasting. On their return to Pakistan, they spent a tense hour in Lahore airport. Helen’s father had only obtained a single-entry visa to Pakistan, which he had already used. She had already made it through immigration when she realized there was a problem – Dad was being detained. Fortunately, he was unaware of the gravity of the situation given his unfamiliarity with Pak airport routines and the fact that he’s close to deaf. Army officials were threatening to deport him — back to India, which also didn’t want him. Loftin endured a terse lecture from a surly colonel on Pakistan immigration protocols and a dressing-down on western privilege and elder-care. Fortunately, MEDA had a connection with a local business owner with a military background to provide credibility with the angry colonel. He vouched for Dad and Loftin secured a Pakistan business visa for him.

Hotel hell Larissa Schneider’s first MEDA trip was her most memorable — for all the wrong reasons. She and colleague Kara Klassen were in a rural community in Khatlon, the poorest region of Tajikistan, a former Soviet republic which borders Afghanistan, on a consulting assignment in November 2015. When they returned to their hotel one night, they learned an electrical fire had caused the breaker boxes to explode, leaving the building in darkness. They had to pack up their

Larissa Schneider and Kara Klassen

belongings and evacuate in smoky blackness. The flashlight apps from their phones were the sole source of light to guide their way. The only other lodging to be found was a rooming house over a bank. It was a bitterly cold, snowy evening, and the heater in the last remaining room was broken. The bedding in their room looked like it had never been washed. The beds were rock-hard. Their refuge also doubled as a storage area. A large man whose body odor filled the area kept coming in and out of the room to get pillows, leading to some awkwardness. There was no food available in their lodging, so they ventured out and found an outdoor restaurant serving pizza. After requesting a vegetarian pizza, they were served a pie containing wiener pieces. Returning from the meal, they found a freezing cold room and had to try to get to sleep wearing their coats and multiple layers of clothing. The next morning, they were invited to breakfast at a large communal table. The man who had repeatedly entered their room in the evening approached the table with a 9

large tray of boiled eggs, yogurt and canned wieners. Before he could set down the food, he tripped, fell and dropped the tray’s contents on the floor. Assuring his guests he was fine, he put the food back on the tray and set it out for them to enjoy. “Needless to say, we were pretty hungry that morning,” Schneider recalls. “I think we ate the hard-boiled eggs, because they were pre-cracked for us.”

Three days in Tashkent By Wally Kroeker

Seeing countless spy movies did not prepare me for my first grilling by the KGB. It was 1990. The world was still adapting to Gorbachev’s new Soviet Union and its language of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring). MEDA was quick to catch the wave of reform. Mennonites in the USSR had reached out to us — “For 70 years we have been told business is evil. Come tell us how we can do business without losing our souls.” In consultation with them, MEDA organized a conference for emerging entrepreneurs, to be held in Kiev. The Marketplace November December 2017

Travel was handled by the staterun Intourist, whose planned itinerary took us across several republics and required a change of aircraft in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, for the final leg to Kiev. But in Tashkent, we were inexplicably escorted off the plane, taken into the city and deposited at a fortress-like Intourist hotel. We groaned to learn we could not fly to Kiev for another three days. We were stuck. The three of us included John H. Rudy, a MEDA vice-president, and Vernon Wiebe, a retired missions executive from Kansas. We had just checked into the hotel when I was pulled aside by a stern-faced official who reportedly was the hotel’s resident KGB agent. He led me to a stark office near the registration desk. He had identified me as the leader of the group, which, informally, I was. “You do not have a visa for Tashkent,” he accused. “No, I don’t. We were not told we would be stopping in Tashkent, and thus didn’t need one.” “But you do not have a visa for Tashkent.” We went around like this several times. Finally I said, with exasperation, “You are right. We do not have visas for Tashkent, but we have visas for Kiev. Put us back on the plane immediately and we will leave.” He gave me a look and a line that I would encounter again. “Oh, that is not possible.” We settled in for a three-day stay in Tashkent, at steep Intourist rates. One day we visited an outdoor market, bought a large bag of dried apricots and wandered around the stalls where vendors sold their wares. The next day we went to the ballet, which every sizeable Soviet city seemed to have. The third night we went to the circus, also a fixture in the former Soviet Union. Afterward we had trouble finding a taxi. Every one that approached was already occupied. It grew late, and we were getting anxious. My companions looked The Marketplace November December 2017

Wally Kroeker with Karl Marx

to me for leadership. As the next slow-moving taxi came into view I strode out into its path and gestured for the driver to stop, which he did. My colleagues immediately crawled into the back seat and I piled into the front. We knew no Russian other than nyet (no) and spasibo (thanks), but we did have a nifty little card from the Intourist hotel. I flashed it and pointed to the address. The driver frowned and shook his head. I grinned and nodded “yes.” Finally, he relented and off we went. At the hotel I said spasibo several times and held out a generous wad of rubles. He declined. I persisted. So did he. 10

Finally he sped off. When we got to Kiev for our conference I mentioned this episode to Ivan, a local who was helping with logistics and translation. “I wonder why he wouldn’t take our money,” I mused. “Describe the car,” Ivan said. I did. He thought for a moment, then smiled thinly. “Wally,” he said, “that was no taxi.” Somewhere in Tashkent a motorist probably still tells his grandkids about being carjacked by three strange visitors from the West. ◆ Wally Kroeker edited The Marketplace for 32 years until this spring.

Peace Ventures

aul Heidebrecht is a different kind of business coach. Heidebrecht is director of the Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement, an inter-disciplinary organization that takes multi-sector approaches to the advancement of peace. In a region that has many organizations working to encourage and support business start-ups in a variety of sectors, CPA is unique. It is currently the only university-based program in the world supporting peace-building related start-ups. A program of Conrad Grebel University College in Waterloo, ON, the centre’s space was made possible by a $1 million donation from Kindred (formerly Mennonite) Credit Union. The centre is a natural fit at Grebel, home to Canada’s oldest Peace and Conflict Studies program. CPA is agnostic about the best way to make an impact. It might be starting an NGO, or creating a social enterprise, or even developing a project that is best placed and implemented by an existing organization, whether a business or a charity. Heidebrecht’s goal is “elevating somebody’s efforts so they can make some sort of systemic impact,” he said. “It could be through a venture that’s created, it could be through a venture that has failed, but has kind of moved the needle on a public policy debate.” Working with start-ups is an amazing, enriching experience for Heidebrecht. “To be a part of these journeys, even for a short while, and to be able to point people, help them realign” is a tremendous privilege, he said. “People are ready to fail, they are ready to learn, to turn corners and make progress. It is just breathtaking.”

photo by Steve Sugrim

Centre for Peace Advancement supports peace entrepreneurs

Heidebrecht is energized by mentoring young people who are committed to change.

Every week he comes away from a meeting thinking that the world is an amazing place, “and I get to know these amazing people, even for a short while.” CPA works at supporting three kinds of activities: The Epp Peace Incubator, the Grebel Gallery, and 11

collaborative efforts around research, training and community engagement. Participants include research fellows and a number of organizations that lease adjacent space. The Epp Peace Incubator is named in honor of the late Frank Epp, a former Grebel president, and The Marketplace November December 2017

his wife Helen. Plans for the Peace Centre go back at least 15 years, said Grebel director of advancement Fred Martin, who served as start-up manager for the centre at its inception. Many of the incubator participants are graduates of Grebel’s Peace and Conflict Studies program. CPA “celebrates the entrepreneurial spirit in a way that reflects our (peacemaking) values, meeting the needs of our society in ways that use the talents of our students,” Martin said. Heidebrecht regularly connects with students beyond the incubator. He teaches a fourth-year Peace and Conflict Studies course on engineering and peace to University of Waterloo (UW) engineering students. “For Mennonites, plowshares ultimately matter more than swords,” he wrote in an op-ed piece in the Waterloo Region Record newspaper, challenging Communitech, an area technology lobby, to get more involved in PeaceTech. “The world view that drove the development of Silicon Valley couldn’t be more different. The opportunity and challenge for all of us in Waterloo Region is to embrace and enliven a commitment to collaboration and peace-building, and I think there are promising signs that we can do just that.” Fifteen ventures have been part of the CPA incubator in its first years, including seven currently in the program. Those early efforts are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of potential, he says. Heidebrecht started at CPA in 2014 after spending five years as Ottawa office director for Mennonite Central Committee Canada, where he led efforts to advocate for government policy change on behalf of program partners working at relief, development, and peacebuilding. He also did seasonal stints for MCC in Nigeria and Bangladesh. His educational background includes a PhD in religious studies from Marquette University, in Milwaukee, Wis., a master’s degree in theological The Marketplace November December 2017

studies from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary in Elkhart, Ind., and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from UW. His work championing innovation brings him full circle to his student days in one respect. He worked for the Waterloobased Canadian Industrial Innovation Centre in his first job after graduating. CPA works with firms that have gone past phase one or the initial discovery phase, putting wheels to an idea that has been shown to have merit. Ventures that can say “it looks like it’s got legs, I’m ready to take it to the next level.” The next level is sometimes

Heidebrecht’s goal: “elevating somebody’s efforts so they can make some sort of systemic impact” handing off learnings to an established organization rather than continuing as a stand-alone entity. Food Not Waste, an early CPA participant, was designed to use food that would otherwise be wasted. Success for that venture came in the form of the Food Bank of Waterloo Region adopting the best practices used in the Food Not Waste pilot. Three alumni of the Greenhouse residential incubator program at the nearby St. Paul’s College (see story, pg 16) have been part of CPA as well. “We see them as a crucial part of the pipeline, or the funnel of incubators.” Demine Robotics (story pp. 1314) is perhaps the most intriguing and significant CPA alumnus. The company, which uses mobile robots to excavate landmines without detonating them, took advantage of several local incubators: CPA, the Velocity Garage in downtown Kitchener, St. Paul’s Greenhouse and UW’s Sedra Student Design Centre, which 12

consists of over 20,000 square feet of space dedicated to design teams and student prototype projects. Demine Robotics is the first solid example Heidebrecht can point to of the centre playing a part in the rollout of “PeaceTech,” thinking about technological solutions to peacebuilding. Another initiative he puts in the PeaceTech category is current incubator participant World Vuze, an online discussion portal that connects classrooms in various countries. Three firms Heidebrecht has coached — Demine Robotics, Marlena Books and EPOCH, a skills and services marketplace that connects refugees and community members through a mobile platform, have won $25,000 awards in the UW Velocity pitch competition. In total, firms that have gone through CPA have won about $300,000 in seed funding in a variety of competitions to date. In mid-September, EPOCH pitched at the United Nations with former US President Bill Clinton in the audience for the $1 million Hult Prize. Finding long-term funding to add staffing support may be one of Heidebrecht’s larger challenges. CPA is the only university-based incubator program in Ontario that doesn’t receive any government funding. That leaves him working to run an incubator with much less staffing than other incubators. CPA recently received a $100,000 memorial gift from the Bauman family to establish the Barry Bauman Mentorship fund, to develop mentoring relationships for incubator participants, and to provide small seed funding for incubator participants. One area company has stepped up to sponsor a “hot desk” — a shared workspace that startups can make use of — at the incubator. Heidebrecht is in discussions with other companies about possible sponsorships. “I think we’re wellpositioned in some respects. The social innovation programming has been under-resourced, compared to the tech side.” ◆

Demine Robotics

or Richard Yim, building a business to speed up the elimination of land mines is neither just a good business opportunity nor an abstract idea for making the world a better place. Yim knows firsthand the human cost of leftover bombs from bygone wars. He and his family came to Canada from Cambodia when he was 13, five years after losing an aunt to a land mine. It’s still something that the family struggles to understand. His parents wanted Richard and his older brother “to have that freedom and opportunity” to walk where they wanted without fear of maiming or death.” Yim is grateful to live in a country without “danger from landmines and other things. We can make something of ourselves.” His Cambodian homeland has the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most heavily mined countries in the world, with four to six million land mines. Estimates on the number of people killed by land mines every year range from 4,000 to 6,000. Anti-personnel landmines were banned under the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and on Their Destruction (or Mine Ban Convention), adopted in 1997. More than 150 countries have joined this treaty. (The U.S. is not a signatory to the treaty, but said in 2014 it would abide by the treaty, save for mines used in the Korean Peninsula.) As many as 100 million mines in 70 countries are making large land areas impassable. Cambodia, Columbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, parts of northern Africa controlled by the Boko Haram terrorist group and Ukraine

photo by Steve Sugrim

Company develops robots to clear deadly land mines

Demine Robotics co-founders Christian Lee and Richard Yim.

are some of the most heavily afflicted. In many areas, much needed fertile land cannot be cultivated due to the buried explosives. That makes land mine clearance a major economic development issue, not just a humanitarian issue. Mines in Ukraine will take 10 years to clear. “It’s not a one-to-one pace of planting and clearing.” While there was a surge of interest in land mine removal after a global treaty banned their use 20 years ago, public interest has waned and donor fatigue set in. Yim wants to reengage public interest in ending the scourge of unremoved mines by providing new technology that will accelerate mine removal. “We can’t go back in time to remove land mines people stepped on,” he said. “But we can remove the mines the next generation might step on. We have a strong sense of purpose in doing this.” Originally known as Landmine 13

Boys, the company was started in 2015 by five University of Waterloo engineering students. Three of those people have moved on to other pursuits. Remaining co-founders Yim and Christian Lee are pursuing commercialization of two products — a small scale excavator, perhaps three feet square, that can unearth antipersonnel land mines without detonating them, and a defuser robot that injects chemicals to neutralize the land mine. They currently have two other staff, and hope to hire another engineer in coming months. Conversations with several land mine-clearing organizations have led them to realize that the biggest need and market opportunity is in providing a mine excavating robot. Lee, who met Yim when they were first-year engineering students, originally dreamed of becoming a doctor. “I always wanted to pay something back to the world,” he said. As the main engineering techThe Marketplace November December 2017

istock photo by mauriziobiso

nologist for the company, Lee is gratified to know that he can help save lives by applying his technical skills. Yim and Lee have travelled to Cambodia this year to test their excavator proSigns like this are common in Cambodia totype. Demine Robotics is currently working on a mobile platform. They hope to have ”We have a strong this ready before year-end and do an in-house demo on a simulated mine. The company holds a provisional sense of purpose in patent for two of the technologies doing this.” they have developed. They hope to file several more patent applications by year-end. They currently have offices at governmental organizations (NGOs) the Kindred Credit Union Centre for doing land mine clearing in CamboPeace Advancement at Waterloo’s dia by this time next year. They will Conrad Grebel University College also decide by late 2018 whether to and at Velocity Garage in Kitchener, do their own manufacturing or conwhich bills itself as the world’s bigtract out the work. gest start-up accelerator, housing Yim sees his company’s excavator as complementing other ap80 start-ups in a 37,000-square-foot proaches. Recently, trained rats have former tannery building. been used to detect mine placement Next steps include doing a live without detonating them. The three test in April 2018, with a goal of stages to solving the problem are losending a working excavator to nonThe Marketplace November December 2017

cating mines, unearthing them and defusing them. Rats are good at finding the mines, and Demine Robotics is focused on unearthing them. “We can work together well with other organizations to improve the system.” That will take more funding. Yim is working to raise an additional $200,000 in venture capital to get their machine working in the field. Achieving Yim’s long-term goal of “a world without land mines” will require resolving the question of who pays the billions of dollars required for their removal. Many partners “will have to come together in a very unique way,” he concedes. NGOs with experience clearing mines, governments who dictate vision and strategy and investors “who want to see the world a better place” will all be needed. “The merit of the technology itself will not make an impact in the industry. We need people to come together and be united in the land mine clearing issue.’’ ◆

Promoting Peace Centre for Peace Advancement has helped non-profits and businesses

everal registered charities — Pastors in Exile (an Anabaptist-rooted movement that connects young people in Waterloo Region with vibrant faith experiences outside and inside of church walls) and Theatre of the Beat (a travelling social justice theatre troupe) re-organized or developed their existing structure through work with Conrad Grebel University College’s Kindred Credit Union Centre for Peace Advancement. The incubator’s other participants have included: • Demine Robotics (see pg. 13), • Marlena Books, which creates reading material for individuals with Alzheimer’s or dementia, • The Ripple Effect Education (TREE), which develops and facilitates educational resources for elementary and secondary schools to create peace-literate citizens, • Mennonite World Conference’s Peace Commission on efforts to develop a global Anabaptist peace network, • Peaceworks TV, a non-profit organization that specializes in multimedia presentations and live events for elementary and secondary school students, • Peace Pub, which explores bringing insights from the environmental movement to peace activism, • EPOCH, which connects refugees to local communities through a skills exchange marketplace, • A Waterloo chapter of the Intercultural Dialogue Institute, (IDI), a non-profit that aims to promote enduring interfaith and intercultural cooperation, tolerance and dialogue, • IDI, along with Project Ploughshares and Tamarack Institute are

tenants and affiliate members of CPA. The work of these three organizations meshes well with CPA’s mission, while the rent they pay helps support its operations. CPA is one of many business incubator or accelerator programs in Waterloo Region. There are now six initiatives within University of Waterloo and related colleges that touch on social entrepreneurship. CPA, the Greenhouse at St. Paul’s College (pg. 16), Velocity (which bills itself as the world’s largest free start-up incubator), SEED (School of Environment, Enterprise and Development) at UW’s environment department, CBET (the Conrad Business, Entrepreneurship and Technology Centre

associated with the university’s faculty of engineering), and the faculty of applied health sciences all have programs to encourage and develop young entrepreneurs. Nearby Wilfrid Laurier University also has a business incubator on campus, as does the local community college. University of Toronto has 10 campus-linked accelerators. US campuses are increasingly offering similar programs. A recent CNBC.com story suggests many colleges outside of traditional technology centres are setting up incubators or innovation hubs to lure millennial students who are seeking support that will allow them to change the world and create their own job. ◆

Faith-based business incubators

number of US groups operate business incubators or accelerators that combine Christian faith with support for budding entrepreneurs. Here are a few examples: • Ocean Accelerator in Cincinnati, Ohio, is supported by that city’s Crossroads church (one of the largest in the U.S), as well as several area foundations and businesses. Ocean has evolved into three agencies: a non-profit arm; Ocean LLC, a forprofit arm with private investors; and Unpolished Cincinnati, a program that provides coaching and training. • BEGIN New Venture Center in St. Louis, MO, is operated by the St. Patrick Center, one of the state’s largest providers of services to homeless or at-risk people. This incubator is for businesses started by home-

less people or small businesses that commit to hiring individuals who complete one of the organization’s 28 housing, employment or mental health programs. • Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, N.Y., operates the Center for Faith and Work, which holds annual meetings for hundreds of established and aspiring entrepreneurs. Their services include an annual business plan competition, financial support and mentorship. • The Praxis business accelerator, started by a Silicon Valley venture capital fund, runs gatherings in San Francisco and New York, offering mentorships and access to capital. It calls itself a platform for conversation where leaders can understand how the message of the Gospel impacts their work. ◆

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A passion for social enterprise GreenHouse helps students build skills, test dreams.

ania Del Matto has a ringside seat on the next generation of people who want to change the world. As director of the St. Paul’s University College GreenHouse program, she walks alongside students who want to start businesses or non-profits, as well as folks who have an idea that they don’t know what to do with. GreenHouse is a residential incubator program at a college located on the University of Waterloo campus. Unique in that students live onsite, it serves those in second year or higher of their studies. Participants are drawn from six different faculties, with the largest group being environment majors. “We put a lot of focus on building people here,” says Del Matto, who launched the program in 2013. Assessing skills, building on strengths and pushing people out of their comfort zone to “help them get their idea out there” are all part of the GreenHouse mission. She works to meet students where they are to see if their approach to a problem is scalable and could form the basis of a viable business. While some incubators judge success on the ability of grads to scale their firms, Del Matto thinks the primary value of campus-based incubators is skill-building, like a self-directed co-op term. Success is measured based on milestones students set for themselves. “That’s the bigger piece on where we add value.” To date, 10 per cent of GreenHouse graduates have gone on to The Marketplace November December 2017

Tania Del Matto

work on their ventures full-time. Some of them have made their way through several local business incubators, drawing on multiple areas of expertise and, in some cases, seed funding. Many more pursue their vision “at the side of the desk” while doing unrelated work, join charities, or follow an “intrapreneurship” path, testing out their idea in an established company. The most common success path for Greenhouse students is found by those who “have a lived experience with the problem they are trying to solve.” These students have a personal passion or experience that has caused them pain, so they want to tackle the problem for themselves.

”We put a lot of focus on building people here.” 16

Richard Yim of Demine Robotics (see story, pp. 13-14) is a classic example. Others connect to their desire to make change via co-op or volunteer experience. “There’s something about this lived experience with a problem piece that is really powerful in getting them going.” GreenHouse works out of 2,500 square feet of innovation space in a new residence the college opened this summer. The new facility also is used as a place for lab-based work to address business, charity or community-based problems, aiming to find balance between incubating ideas and more practical efforts. Del Matto sees considerable merit in the number of incubators, all working in different niches, that exist in the region. “The last thing we want to do is to be replicating each other’s work in any way.” The neighboring Centre for Peace Advancement at Grebel, for instance, has helped many of her students navigate dealings with government. “Some of these ventures, their customer is going to be government, as they produce a service to the public sector.” CPA director Paul Heidebrecht does workshops for GreenHouse participants on working with government. Several have moved to CPA after graduating from GreenHouse. Each term, GreenHouse hosts a social impact showcase where students pitch their business ideas. The most promising proposals receive grants of $1,000 or $2,500. ◆

Winning Warehousing Head of Virginia firm sees success through flexibility, trust By Jesse Huxman Devon Anders is all about building relationships. Anders is CEO of InterChange Group, a Harrisonburg, Va-based logistics firm. From the outside, you might think the business is just a warehouse company. It’s really about relationships. Devon grew up in a Mennonite family near Souderton, Penn. Much of his business education came from watching how his father, a banker, treated others. “I learned that it was about treating people right. …My approach has always been, ‘Hey I’m going to try to be upfront with where

I’m at with you, and I want you to do the same back to me.” After graduating from Eastern Mennonite University with an accounting degree, he joined a local public accounting firm. He ended up doing a significant amount of work for two clients, Wayne Ruck and Jerry Morris, building a relationship that would open new doors. “My relationship with Jerry and Wayne was extremely important. They gave me the opportunity. They gave me financial backing.” Over time they approached Anders about

becoming a partner. Along the way, he learned about engineering and operations from Wayne, while Jerry offered lessons on sales. Anders’ partners started in the packaging industry. Their niche was working with clients who needed small quantities. They also saw an opportunity in the public warehousing business, so they purchased land and built space to help clients who had storage needs. “One of our core values is flexibility. When people ask, ‘can you do this?’ We don’t say no. We try to Photo by Jesse Huxman

InterChange Group CEO Devon Anders in one of the company’s warehouses 17

The Marketplace November December 2017

figure out how to make something work,” Anders says. “This idea of flexibility and building on that client relationship is part of the fabric of InterChange. The goal is not just to fill their buildings with client’s storage. …They prefer to build for the long term.” There was only one employee in the warehouse when Anders joined the firm in 1993. Today there are more than 120 employees in six locations, 40 drivers and a companyowned fleet of trucks to move materials to and from the storage facilities. InterChange offers a variety of storage options including frozen, refrigerated, air conditioned, dry or food grade warehousing. They also have real estate ready for development with varying degrees of customization. InterChange’s impact can be seen all around the Shenandoah Valley and, increasingly, throughout Virginia. Company leaders are active in Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, and often serve on non-profit boards. Anders encourages his team to be active in the community at the level they feel called and comfortable. He was named Harrisonburg-Rockingham Chamber of Commerce businessperson of the year in 2013. One of the company’s unique relationships is with Friendship Industries. This not-for-profit social enterprise hires people with disabilities and trains them to work in their contract packaging business. Friendship Industries has attracted a range of commercial clients including the Department of Defense, which is typically a difficult organization for suppliers to gain as a customer. About a decade ago, InterChange and Friendship Industries struck up a partnership to produce, package and distribute coffee creamer for Danone Wave (formerly WhiteWave Foods, a major American consumer packaged organic food and beverage company). “It was basically a marriage. They supplied the people. They supply the equipment. They charge us on a per-unit price. We The Marketplace November December 2017

supply the material handling, store it on our racks and ship it out. All the things we normally do in a day’s work.” To meet demand, Friendship Industries needed more workers, so they created a new subsidiary, Able Solutions. Able assists people with barriers to employment, which includes disabilities as well as people recovering from addictions. For Anders, this relationship is personal - his brother has a developmental disability and is now working in Pennsylvania. “My brother works on a cleaning crew for the last 10

“When people ask — ‘can you do this?’ — we don’t say no. We try to figure out how to make something work.” or 12 years. They clean schools and businesses. That’s important to him. I don’t think a lot of people get that.” He is also pleased to provide employment opportunities for those with questionable backgrounds. “There is a certain group we can’t put on the rolls. But here’s Able Solutions — their purpose is to help rehabilitate these people into employees with meaningful work.” Anders clearly cares about his employees. “I deal a lot on trust. I trust my team members. I trust them to make the right decisions.” He knows for many of his employees, this is more than just a job. “That’s something that has always spoken to me. I know how it impacts families when someone has to come out in the middle of the night to load a truck, respond to a fire alarm or whatever it is.” Of all the relationships he values, no relationship is more important than the partnership with his wife, 18

Teresa. That partnership has evolved over time. When Devon started he worked long hours. Teresa cared for their three children, getting them to school and activities and treasuring the time when Devon was home. “Work was always the enemy for her. We had plants four or five hours away, so I did a lot of travel. I kept climbing the ladder.” In 2002, Teresa came to work at InterChange and saw first-hand the workload Devon was juggling. She has become a sounding board for Devon, sharing her opinions and suggestions for the company. She’s also taken on the role of liaison. Devon’s original partners, Jerry and Wayne, have transferred their ownership interest to their own children. Teresa keeps them informed and plans a biennial meeting for all the stakeholders. “She’s an integral part of what we do. She lives the business as I do. She knows what’s going on.” The Anders family are actively involved at Lindale Mennonite Church in Linville, VA. Devon is quiet about his faith, but recently started meeting with a spiritual mentor, a local businessman who he respects. He’s grateful for his faith foundation — being raised in a Christian home with strong family support. “You’d have a tough time finding anybody that has something bad to say about Devon,” says Kevin Longenecker, InterChange’s chief financial officer. “He’s a man of principles.” Over time, Anders has learned what makes him happy. ‘I’m a pleaser. I like to make a deal work, how to get the customer what they want.” And that’s exactly how he wants to be remembered. “I hope they say: ‘he treated me fairly and with integrity.’” Not that he is ready to slow down yet. “We’ve grown a lot. It’s still Jerry, Wayne and I, but we have other partners, along with the cabinet business, the excavating business, and real estate ventures. I’ve always said we’re not a business that sits still. That just goes against our nature.” ◆

Investing in better futures Neil Denison of MEDA’s Waterloo office shared the reflection below during a Sept. 11 staff meeting.

“Each of you has a

eople are prone to do awful things when they lose hope. When they see no future. When they can find no opportunities. What resonates deeply with me about MEDA’s mission is our desire to help people see hope in their communities, to find the opportunities for a better life and future. MEDA’s mission is a practical expression of Jeremiah 29:11: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” “Prosper” here means shalom, physical and spiritual completeness. In the Hebrew, completeness is couched in rich relationship, not possessions. We do not find prosperity, peace and wholeness on our own, but through God’s direct activity in our lives. Praying that people prosper and experience God’s intended wholeness for their lives is admirable. But putting wheels unNeil Denison der this sentiment, turning it from a wish to a reality, is challenging. Problems are complex. Solutions are uncertain and multifaceted. Contexts are austere. Risks to ourselves and others are real. This is the work MEDA actively

work God is doing

place in this great to bring hope, and peace and prosperity to people.” engages in, embracing risk, measuring performance, being willing to reinvent itself to continuously improve. As a Christ follower, I don’t have the luxury of adopting a Pollyanna religion. Worship and work are one. Working with you at MEDA, to help improve the opportunities of the poor, is one way my faith is turned into a practical expression of Christ’s love. Jeremiah has something else to say, to us and the people we serve: “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. …Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” Jeremiah 29:5,7 MEDA actively participates in community development, connecting people into value chains, hiring local staff and leaders, drawing governments and organizations into 19

a wake of community change. To build houses means to dwell. It is about permanence and commitment. If we are to dwell successfully we must take our place in building the welfare of the community. Building well takes careful planning. It needs financial and human capital to purchase the means. It requires understanding where value lies, how to tap it with the right tools. It means investing in relationships, spending time, effort, and capital. Our clients must adopt an attitude of service so their businesses can thrive. They need to seek the prosperity of the city through their work. When the status of women is raised, when the environment is respected, when businesses and neighborhoods are governed well, everybody benefits. To you as people working in these places, your decisions count. Your work means something. Take solace from Jeremiah that there is always a perfect plan to prosper your clients, even when we make mistakes. The way is steep, filled with reversals and switchbacks. Each of you has a place in this great work God is doing to bring hope, peace and prosperity to people. We are reminded we are to bloom where we are planted, even if we are planting flowers in a desert. I am proud of each of you, pleased to be counted among your number. Together we are helping give people hope, enabling them to bloom where they are planted, to take their place in helping to develop vibrant communities on their own terms. ◆ Neil Denison is MEDA’s director of knowledge management & IT The Marketplace November December 2017

Reviews

Recipe for survival Thank You for Being Late — An Optimist’s Guide to Thriving In The Age Of Accelerations. By Thomas L. Friedman (Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016, 486 pp. $28 US.)

or an optimist’s guide, Thomas Friedman lays out a lot of not particularly uplifting, inconvenient truths. A century ago, it took our ancestors a full generation to adapt to major shifts. Now we can adapt within 10-15 years. Unfortunately, technology platforms are turning over every five to seven years. The pace of change is increasingly outstripping human adaptability. Many of us can relate to Friedman’s story about the Dutch chess grandmaster who, when asked how he would prepare for a match against IBM supercomputer Watson, replied: “I’d bring a hammer.” Since the forces driving the changes won’t slow down, Friedman encourages us to focus on learning to adapt. For Friedman, our modern era, “the age of accelerations,” grew out of a series of technological advances in 2007. The maximum speed of data transmission, and computing power dramatically rose just as the cost of both to consumers fell dramatically. The iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, Android, the Amazon Kindle, the scaling of YouTube following its purchase by Google, and IBM’s Watson, which signaled the dawn of the era of cognitive computing, all roughly came on the scene in 2007. Simultaneous accelerations in technology, globalization and climate change, interacting with each other are reshaping our world, he suggests. We need geopolitical and moral innovation, reimagining and rede-

The Marketplace November December 2017

signing workplaces, institutions and governments “to reimagine how we scale sustainable values to everyone we possibly can.” That moral challenge is his call to action in dealing with a myriad of hazards. Embracing lifelong learning, diversity, pluralism, being open and collaborative are the keys to future success. Renewed efforts to strengthen community and “ownership culture” are crucial. Societies need to get more people to practice the Golden Rule, inspiring “sustainable values” to inspire hope and resilience, he says. “The Golden Rule has never been more important and more in need of scaling.” The way forward involves anchoring “as many people as possible in healthy communities.” Today’s political divide is not between left and right, but open versus closed. Friedman makes a passionate case for openness. “For our survival as a species, our very notion of ‘community’ has to expand to the boundaries of the planet.” Friedman’s arguments implicitly endorse the business solutions to poverty approach at the core of MEDA’s mission. “When we invest in the tools that enable young people to realize their full potential, we are countering the spread of humiliation, which is the single biggest motivator for people to go out and break things.” 20

Scholarships and economic opportunities for the poorest of the poor are far more effective ways to build friendship and stability among nations than tanks and fighter jets, he argues. Chicken coops, gardens and access to high speed broadband Internet connectivity for African villages are among the cost-effective solutions he proposes to the problem of refugees and economic migrants. Restoring a hectare (2.471 acres) of degraded land costs between $100$300, providing a family with the ability and motivation to stay in their homeland, a bargain compared to the $42 a day it costs to house a refugee in a camp in Italy. He would like to see the US Peace Corps become an equal branch of the U.S military, playing “offence” to the military’s “defense.” This expanded agency would work to create economic opportunity in impoverished countries, “thus helping more people to live decently in their home countries and not feel forced to flock to the World of Order.” He also favors US foreign aid to developing nations being tied to making progress on gender equality. “We are approaching a world where acting together, we could sustainably feed, clothe and shelter every person, as well as cure virtually every disease, increase the free time of virtually every person, educate virtually every child, and enable virtually everyone to achieve their full potential.” Despite all the challenges, he remains optimistic. “We have exactly enough time, starting now.” MS

Soundbites

Sales lessons from overseas service

nternational development work can teach important lessons for North American sales success. So argues Amanda da Silva, a customer success manager at the Vidyard technology company. da Silva joined a mission to a rural Zambian village to provide solar power for two classrooms. She visited the country quarterly from 2012 to 2015. The group was convinced power would improve quality of life for village residents. They quickly realized “the entire project needed to pivot, because food security was an issue so alarming.” She learned the importance of not imposing an agenda, whether it be on a village or a prospect. “The 80:20 rule should always apply — listen 80%, talk 20%,” she wrote in a blog post. A second challenge was deter-

mining who had authority to do a deal. After negotiating with village Elders, the group learned they had upset the Chief, who had the final say. “Assuming your contact is the decision maker because they’re the one evaluating puts you in a turbulent position as the deal progresses.” After months of research with Canadian agronomists, travel and soil sampling, the group “were ready to plant and had enough corn seed and fertilizer to farm a small village.” Despite estimates their proposals could multiply crop yield many-fold, the fact they had lived in the village for a year, painted schools and introduced solar power, none of the farmers were interested. Only after they did a half-acre, no-till demonstration plot in front of the school and

the farmers could see the improved germination rate did farmers buy-in to the program. That taught da Silva that relationships are built on trust and convincing. “Whether it’s working in a village or selling technology, I revert back to basic psychology and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. One requires their most basic needs to be met before realizing other, less essential needs. Listen intently to uncover the most imperative need first, and then provide a solution that can bring immediate value to the table.” Read Amanda’s entire blog, and see pictures related to the project at this link: https://www.linkedin.com/ pulse/how-humanitarian-work-helpedme-succeed-sales-amanda-da-silva-/

The Marketplace November December 2017

News

Manufacturer matches employee donations to MEDA

idir Machine is allowing its employees to donate to MEDA via payroll deduction, and will match employee contributions up to $25,000. The program, launched this spring as a corporate responsibility initiative, is in addition to the $50,000 gift that owners of the Arborg, Man. manufacturer of merchandising carousels and display fixtures have pledged to MEDA this year, said company co-president Peter Dueck. Dueck is hopeful the initiative will result in $100,000 in gifts to MEDA annually. Vidir staff have long been aware of the involvement that Peter and Sid Dueck and their families have with

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MEDA. Over time, the Duecks have been telling employees about MEDA’s work during coffee breaks, and thanking employees for their role in business success that allows Vidir to give back. “Giving to charity is always the result of profits,” Peter said. “Profits are always the result of hard work. It didn’t seem to be fair for ownership to be making 100% of the decision on where charity should go. Including them is a way of saying that the fact we can even give is because of your hard work, so let’s all work together.” Currently, about a quarter of the firm’s 125 employees are participating in the payroll deduction plan. Vidir sends out quarterly updates on

the program to its workers. Dueck hopes other firms will follow Vidir’s example. ◆

Mobile solution to illiteracy? Google is ramping up efforts to include languages from developing countries in its voice-recognition software, Newsweek magazine reports. The tech giant sees this as a path to 781 million potential consumers that it currently can’t reach, because those adults can neither read nor write. Soon, cheap phones will be able to help these illiterate adults get access to financial services, sign up for government supports, and likely many less useful connections as well. ◆

Hike raises over $123,000 for Ghana Elaine Shantz and Miriam Turnbull took a long hike this summer, raising over $123,000 in the process to lift women farmers in Ghana out of poverty. Their initiative, Women Walking to GROW, involved hiking the 555-mile-long Bruce Trail in Southern Ontario. Most of the trekking took place during the month of July. With matching funds from the Canadian government, their efforts were multiplied to provide more than $1 million in support for MEDA’s Greater Rural Opportunities for Women (GROW) program with women soybean farmers. Weather conditions during the trek were far from ideal. Rains from a wetter than average summer made trails muddy and the mosquitoes thick. Tall grass and heavily wooded areas were particularly bad for bugs, and the hikers tried using multiple types of spray to minimize their involuntary blood donations. Shantz, president and Chief Operating Officer of the peopleCare seniors company, convinced Turnbull, vice-president and general manager of ProRESP (a peopleCare supplier) to accompany her on the trek. peopleCare has supported MEDA’s GROW initiative for several years. Company staff will visit Ghana for the second time in November. In reflecting after the fact, Turnbull realizes that the bugs, the rain and the ankle-deep mud, all fade but other memories endure. “I remember some incredible vistas,” she said. “I remember an Escarpment trail, and I’m telling you, there is a Creator who put it all together, and it is integration in the highest fashion.” Shantz believes the trek was designed to create opportunities for women in leadership. Her purpose now is not only to create opportunities for women to survive or give

women jobs, but help them realize their dreams. The GROW project has led some Ghanaian women to set their sights higher. Two of the woman lead farmers that MEDA worked with in Ghana have become members of parliament at the district level, MEDA president Allan Sauder said. When one of them was asked about entering politics, she replied: “Everything that I learned about leadership, I learned as a lead farmer in the MEDA project.” ◆

Elaine Shantz and Miriam Turnbull

The Marketplace November December 2017

GROW Technology Fund Helping women get access to tools for farming success

EDA is building on its successful work with women farmers in northern Ghana with a new initiative, the GROW (Greater Rural Opportunities for Women) Technology Fund. Manual labor required to tend small farms in Ghana is time-consuming and not very efficient. “They (women farmers) are basically adding another job to their workday if they’re doing farming activities,” said Jennifer Denomy, technical director of MEDA’s Vulnerable Populations work, focusing on projects supporting women and youth. Recognizing this challenge, MEDA has begun efforts to get technologies into women’s hands, tools that will help with planting, growing, processing and transportation of soy and other crops. In the instances where commercial tillage equipment is available and can be contracted, even when women can afford to pay for it, they are usually bumped to the bottom of the list for such services, Denomy said. MEDA staff have identified nine technologies that are suitable, locally available and contribute to soy growing and processing. These include: • Personal protective equipment to allow women to spray fertilizer or other chemicals safely, including a backpack sprayer, clothing, rubber boots and a mask • A hippo roller, a barrel that is The Marketplace November December 2017

rolled over the ground to a pump or watering hole, filled with water, then taken back to where the water is needed. This eliminates the need for women to carry water on their heads in areas where the ground is level. • A mechanized seed planter that allows seeds to be planted in a straight line and relatively evenly. Using this method instead of traditional scattering by hand results in fewer weeds and higher yields, resulting in major gains for farmers who don’t have access to a lot of land. • A kickstart irrigation pump that helps people bring water from a nearby holding place to where it is needed to water a crop. • Tarpaulins used to lessen the amount of unwanted material that gets into the soy after harvest as it is being dried on the ground. This also makes it easier to gather up dried soy. • A mechanized thresher • A kit that helps turn soy milk into yogurt • A grinder to turn soybeans into a paste that can then be made into soy kebabs or other food products 24

• Donkey carts used by sales agents who aggregate the production of several farmers The products are sold by local retailers and by non-profits, in the case of several of the larger items. Farmers pay a portion of the cost, with the majority coming from a MEDA “smart subsidy” in the form of coupons that can be redeemed by the women until next summer. ◆