In collaboration with IndieGoGo and StartUpHealth, G+ invites experts and professionals across all industry sectors globally to submit original, early stage ideas for tackling existing problems and inefficiencies in vaccine development, distribution and delivery out in the field.

How It Works

1. Submit your early-stage research or business solutions for any of the three priority areas in this forum before Thursday November 24th, by clicking the blue “Voice your Opinion” button located on each of the above Challenge pages.

• Each proposed solution should include a plainly worded description of the idea, no more than 2,000 characters with spaces in length
• The proposal should specify why you think your idea has potential to be successful

2. You will be notified by December 8th if the Executive Group selects your business idea as one of the top 20 eligible for funding through IndieGoGo’s platform.

3. The first five ideas to receive $5,000 in funding on IndieGoGo’s site, or the five highest earners by January 20th, whichever comes first, will work with Startup Health to polish their ideas, pitches and business models for a G+ Demo Day Conference in early 2012.

4. At the G+ Demo Day Conference, the five finalists will have the opportunity to present their business ideas to an audience of financial service, corporate, life science and NGO professionals, with the influence to advance those ideas towards realization.

>>>Learn more!

Guayaki is up for winning the BBC World Challenge 2011, so please vote at the link below and share with your network. Every vote makes a big difference!

Follow this link to vote and to view a one minute video:
http://www.theworldchallenge.co.uk/finalists/6/Jungle-Brew

Guayaki has been selected as 1 of 12 finalists from nearly 1000 entries in the BBC World Challenge.  The World Challenge is a global competition in its 7th year at the BBC World News.  It seeks to highlight and reward small businesses around the world that bring economic, social and environmental benefits to local communities through innovation and enterprise at a grassroots level.

If Guayaki wins, the Ache tribe in Paraguay will receive $20,000 to support food security in their local community.  This will be an especially meaningful win, as the Ache Guayaki tribe recently won the title to their land after 10 years of struggle with the government.

Did you know? For over one million California residents access to fresh produce is more than a 20-minute drive from their homes. In these “food desert” neighborhoods, higher rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancer and many other chronic illnesses are a fact of life. That’s why the California FreshWorks Fund was created—to increase access to healthy food in underserved communities, spur economic development that supports healthy communities, and inspire innovation in healthy food retailing. This unique fund represents a terrific opportunity for SOCAP11 attendees to demonstrate the possibilities of people-powered capital—enabling everyday investors to combine money with meaning to create transformational change.

Our challenge? Raise $100,000 to support this innovative, transformational fund. Calvert Foundation and MicroPlace have partnered to make participation easy:

» Go to www.microplace.com/freshworks & open a MicroPlace account

» Make an investment *Start as low as $20, or invest as much you like.

» Start earning a return

The challenge ends September 23rd, so don’t wait to make your investment!

Rise to the challenge. Make a healthy difference. Invest today.

* Investment is made via a targeted Community Investment Note issued by Calvert Foundation & offered byMicroPlace, Inc., member FINRA/SIPC. Offers .5% interest and matures 7/15/2012. Investment is one of many offered on www.microplace.com, some with more attractive terms. Investments are not guaranteed and you could lose money. You should review the prospectus carefully before investing.

I don’t usually post things like this to my SOCAP blog, but the serendipity of the way that something that our family has always been involved in and enjoyed has suddenly pushed its way into the ‘money and meaning’ space got my attention and I wanted to share it with you. It’s a voting thing, but this one is different. really.

Rosa Lee and I, and our kids, have this odd love for a youth activity called Drum Corps. Since moving to California 15 years ago we have become deeply involved with the 14 time world championship group, The Concord Blue Devils,  Our daughter, B.J., who many of you have met and who shared the welcome speech with me at the first SOCAP conference, was a flag carrying dancer in that drum and bugle corps for several years and attributes much of her ability to focus on and achieve a goal to what she learned there.

This year the Blue Devils made it to the final round of the Chase Giving Fund’s competition . In the “go for the highest goal” way that they do things, BD decided that if they won the $500,000 they wouldn’t use the money for their own benefit but would instead use it in partnership with a youth band organization in the developing world. The combination of the prize money with all the social capital, brand, skills, talent, equipment and other things that come with being a championship organization could have an amazing leveraged impact.

BD’s Executive Director, Dave Gibbs, is a pretty quiet guy, but when he visited the Field Band Foundation in South Africa and saw what they were doing to help kids there use music and marching to develop leadership skills in a poor area beset by the impact of an HIV Aids epidemic he knew he wanted to help. You can see more about this on the video they produced about both organizations.

For you to help, you have to go to Facebook – yeah, I know, I am asking you to vote, I’m sorry, but this is important – and go to the Chase Giving Fund’s page and vote for the Blue Devils. 

Why does BD’s effort stand out? As I look at many of the projects vying to win the Chase Giving Fund, they are all trying to grow bigger or use the money to underwrite what they are already doing.

The Blue Devils stand out in that they are not going to use the money to grow their own organization, but to transfer the money and their world class talents to people who need them more than they do. They want to use the money to  give to another organization, not grow their OWN impact or organizational foot print. I think the example of a relatively entitled non profit using its winnings for the benefit of another group is worth asking people to vote for. This is something different. It’s not win for us, it’s win for them.

A team has arisen at the Hub Bay Area to help use social  media to turn out the vote for BD, led by hub members Sylvia Ventura @sylviaventura and Liz Krueger @elizlk. We are competing against groups who lack BD’s social purpose but are connected to networks of 70 plus bands, so we have an uphill struggle. We are gaining momentum but we need help. If we don’t win this time, we will have learned a lot for next time, but it would be great to somehow mobilize enough support to let a truly distinctive approach come out on top in a popularity contest.
The Blue Devils have a lot to give. They helped my family. They helped my daughter grow and learn and achieve. I want to help them carry what they do globally. And to do that they need every vote they can get. Would you please consider helping them do that … And if they win, they’ll come play for us at SOCAP11. It will be worth it. They are amazing!

When asked: What does Money + Meaning = ?, our partner, ANDE, answered with an image that might whoosh you back to the 90′s, into a feeling of freedom or…? ANDE also thinks that Money + Meaning = magic and what makes the world go round (in a better way).

We’re proud to partner with ANDE, a global network of organizations working to propel entrepreneurship in the developing world. Learn more about ANDE here.