Current Projects

To learn more about our approach visit our Project Accelerator and Consulting pages.

JOY Vermiculture

Jaya Organic Yojana

Launching farmer-led micro businesses to restore soil fertility and sequester carbon through earthworm composting in India.

Her Health, Her Future

Real Action for Community Empowerment

Providing young women in Uganda with the tools and training to manage their menstrual health and stay in school.

Tippy Taps Sierra Leone

COMIN-SL

Making hand washing convenient, accessible (and fun!) for communities in Sierra Leone.

Sky Juice Villages

The ANaRDe Foundation

Leveraging ultrafiltration technology to provide cost-effective and sustainable access to clean water in rural villages across Gujarat, India.

Energy for L'ENDPS

Fondasyon Ludmilla Rousseau pour Haïti

Connecting Haitian schools to the world via off-grid solutions.

Light up Karnataka

ESSMART Global

Supporting women-owned businesses to distribute solar lanterns to off-grid families in Karnataka, India.

Busoga Volunteers for Community Development

Identifying market opportunities for expanding access to clean drinking water and sanitation facilities at the household level in Uganda.

Alternative Indigenous Development Foundation

Increasing water access for farmers and families in the highland communities of Iloilo in the Philippines.

Stories from the Field

Here is where we highlight some of the additional work completed by members of the extended TEL network around the world.

Climate Change and Technologies

Posted by Ruthly August 22, 2023
Written by Alina Shestiaeva

Specific Opportunities for NGOs in Green FinTech

Only recently, the European Union appears to recognize the potential in using technologies developed in the FinTech area in the context of Sustainable Finance. However, certain steps, definitions and frameworks are needed by organizations wanting to go about fixing the long term problems of society. This is exactly the reason why NGOs can and should help FinTech companies to go green.

...

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Fintechs in Developing Countries

Posted by Ruthly April 25, 2023
Written by Marcus Imbert

How does finance function in some of the poorest regions of the world? What technologies are used there? What are the differences in the financial ecosystem?

Opportunity for Increased Financial Inclusion

This case study will attempt to answer those questions while focusing on the Financial Services industry in Uganda, one of the poorest countries in sub-saharan Africa. It will provide an overview of Uganda and its financial ecosystem and ...

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TEL and the Sustainable Development Goals

Posted by Eadaoin Ilten 12 February 2020

The Sustainable Development Goals are 17 interconnected goals put forward by the UN as a global challenge to be achieved by 2030. They outline a shared vision to end poverty, rescue the planet and build a peaceful world. With only 10 years remaining to reach these targets, the Secretary-General has declared this the Decade of Action and urged all sectors of society to unite behind the SDGs to ensure a cohesive plan moving forward. Through our mission and activities, TEL is ...

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Empowering Communities in Uganda

Posted by Parker Chastain 06 November 2019

William Asiimwe is the founder of Real Action for Community Empowerment (RACE). He kindly sat down with our Program Director in August 2019 to tell us more about his motivation behind starting RACE and why he feels Her Health, Her Future (HHHF) is such an important project.

Can you give us an introduction to RACE, and why you started it?

In 2012 I went as a missionary to serve in Sierra Leone. There was no power for the 6 months I was stationed there and we used ...

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mHealth on the Front Lines of Care Delivery

Posted by Dan Swann 04 May 2018

Low cost, high-impact technologies designed to serve rural, off-grid places - BP monitors, mobile data monitoring platforms - are being used in developing countries to collect data on outcomes, connect patients with doctors and nurses, and provide a vital link between advanced care clinics and underserved populations. Such mobile health, or “mhealth” tools are often introduced in regions and cities where cell phones and ...

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Compatible Technology International: Food Processing from Minnesota to Rural Africa

Posted by Miranda Grizio 28 March 2018

A bicycle-powered potato slicer is not what you would expect to come out of the workshop of a team of engineers and researchers from General Mills and Pillsbury. But this is ultimately what happened after two food industry veterans and a former missionary conceived of a plan to put food engineering skills to use where they were most needed—in the developing world. ...

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An Intern’s Perspective: TEL partners with Busoga Volunteers!

Posted by Mandira Venkat 19 September 2017

Every day TEL receives emails from communities across the globe asking for assistance with technology implementation. One such email was from a group in Uganda working to improve Water and Sanitation (WASH) conditions in the Busoga region. In response to this inquiry, TEL has partnered with Busoga Volunteers for Community Development in order to identify market opportunities for expanding access to clean ...

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Show and TEL

Posted by bcg.perspectives 20 Feb 2017

This story was originally featured on bcg.perspectives by The Boston Consulting Group as part of a BCG alumni feature.

Karen von Bismarck was volunteering in a hospital in Haiti in the early 2000s when she had an epiphany. Seeing the toll that extreme poverty takes on individuals, communities, and the environment, she was impressed by the resourcefulness of people forced to live on less than one dollar a day.

“I was amazed by the inventiveness of ...

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Collaboration in Action: the Pumani is Born

Posted by Dan Swann 4 October 2016

“We have had to add to the design, despite trying to keep the costs as low as possible. Where we are now is we have a Pumani bCPAP that is durable, affordable, and long-lasting, so that it can help babies breathe for years to come.” - Jocelyn Brown ...

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Warka Water: Every drop counts

Posted by Laka Architektura 16 August 2016

This story was originally featured on the Laka Architektura blog.

All sorts of architectural and spatial actions originate from human needs. Warka Water, designed by the Architecture and Vision studio under the leadership of Arturo Vittori, an Italian architect and designer, is an example of a project that had its source in a ...

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Solar Pumping in the Little Rann of Kutch: Big Impact for Small Farmers

Posted by Éadaoin Ilten, Sara Pesek and Jonars Spielberg 10 May 2016

This story was told in collaboration with our partners at the MIT Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation. To learn more about this project check out the CITE blog.

Pumping in the Little Rann of Kutch isn’t done for irrigation purposes. The farmers ...

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Paradigm Shift from More Food Production to More Food Preservation

Posted by Miranda Grizio​ 23 Feb 2016

Today’s population of 7.2 billion people is projected to reach about 9.6 billion by 2050. This is an increase of one-third, most of which will occur in developing countries. Several studies have indicated that at the present rate of crop yield increases, supply will not be able to meet demand. Moreover, this is not taking into account effects of climate change such as increases in heat waves, monsoon-type rains, and floods, which can ...

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Instove: Tackling Clean Cooking at an Industrial Scale

Posted by Dan Swann 15 January 2016

Adam Creighton flatly states that InStove institutional rocket stoves are the very best.

“We are the closest to a perfect stove that exists in the world right now.”

Creighton is the Media, Communications and Development Director for Oregon-based InStove. He was speaking over the phone just days ahead of his trip to Accra, Ghana for the Clean Cooking Forum 2015, a four-day event hosted in November by the Global Alliance ...

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An Innovative Approach to Women's Health

Posted by Qinqqing Wu 10 December 2015

One of the best examples of a widespread unmet need being met by a simple innovation was recognized last year, when a man in India, Arunachalam Muruganantham, designed and produced low cost hygienic sanitary napkins. This everyday household item that women of menstruating age take for granted in many parts of the world is actually be considered a luxury in developing countries ...

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Fundación Organizmo

Posted by Brennan Lake 7 April 2015

"Small is beautiful." So goes the title of British economist, E.F. Schumacher’s manifesto. While his appropriate technology movement has been eclipsed by a wave of social entrepreneurs who 'Design for Extreme Affordability', Schumacher's mantra is alive and well in Bogotá, Colombia. Located on a small farm tucked between the foothills of the Eastern Andes, Fundación Organizmo is a crucible where diverse methods in sustainable architecture blend with locally sourced and recycled materials to ...

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Last-Mile Connectivity

Posted by Juan Trujillo 31 October 2014

“Development moves like a turtle,” muses a resident of Palestina, Peru, a remote Amazonian village accessible only by riverboat. “Wiring the Amazon”, a short documentary by Michael Kleiman, chronicles the progress of Palestina as it struggles to connect to the outside world through satellite telephone and internet connections, accompanied by government programs to bring laptops to students in remote communities. Speaking with TEL, Michael Kleiman explained that Wiring the Amazon is ...

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JOY: From Grassroots to Organic Revolution in Southern India

Posted by Brennan Lake 20 March 2014

What would it take to revitalize depleted soil in an area the size of Nebraska while also economically empowering low-income populations and women? Governments often turn to investment in chemicals and infrastructure as the obvious approach. But at the grassroots level in Karnataka, India, it's all being accomplished with worms, women, a few low-cost tablets and cartloads of manure. ...

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The Archimedes Project to Combat Cholera in Haiti

Posted by Dan Swann 24 October 2013 12:00 am

A Talk with Founder Faith Wallace-Gadsden

The Archimedes Project is holding a kickoff event November 1-3 at Impact Hub Boston and Cambridge Innovation Center that will bring together people from several sectors – including technology, health, disaster relief, and academia – to form a social enterprise aimed at eliminating cholera in Haiti.

There have been over 8,000 deaths from cholera since the recent widespread outbreak began in 2010. Archimedes ...

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The World's Most Affordable Tablet

Posted by Dan Swann 16 July 2013

Q & A with Suneet Singh Tuli, CEO of Datawind, Ltd.

Datawind, Ltd. is a company based in the United Kingdom that seeks to “bridge the digital divide” by offering low cost platforms and devices to connect people in rural, off-the-grid regions to the internet. In 2011, Datawind formed a high-profile partnership with the Indian government to distribute their touted Aakash Tablet, now called “the cheapest tablet in the world.”

Datawind is the manufacturer of two ...

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Two Women Working for Change Discover TEL

Posted by TEL Team 12 December 2012

Written by Betsy Teutsch and Chidinma Moito, MD

My first contact with Technology Exchange Lab (TEL) was almost by accident, through their Facebook page. I remember being filled with so much excitement after scanning through, and then going ahead to take a detailed look at the TEL website! It was exciting to me because up until then I had never seen such a huge compendium of resources available for use in low-resource centers such as where I grew up and ...

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Amy Smith, Humanitarian Engineer

Posted by TEL Team 1 September 2008

Amy Smith, Inventor Amy Smith, a practitioner of humanitarian engineering, wants to solve everyday problems for rural families in the developing world.

Amy Smith, who has a master's degree in mechanical engineering and teaches at MIT, isn't interested in building faster computers or bigger jetliners. She's thinking about how to cook dinner in a Haitian slum. Most of Haiti has been deforested, few people have electricity, and fossil fuels are prohibitively expensive. But there's something ...

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