The students of ICM'11 have now come back from a well deserved Christmas Holiday and the project is running at full speed. A lot of activities are driven by the different teams that the organization has been divided in. I am sure that you will here a lot from them in the future but here a brief introduction of the activities are presented.
SMF Forum
SMF 2.0 is one of the activities that will be carried out in order to raise funds for the ICM11 school project. SMF 2.0 is a one-day forum, targeting small and medium sized technically oriented companies. The purpose is to provide the companies with a possibility to widen their knowledge within certain areas. The 2010 forum will focus on three strategic business areas and will also be an opportunity for networking, inspiration and sharing of knowledge between various industries.
The three strategic business areas covered in SMF 2.0 2010 are:
• Maximizing knowledge utilization
• Expand and develop your value proposition
• Create customer value through your brand
BITE Seminars Version 2
The background behind BITE (“Bolla Idéer om Teknik och Entreprenörskap”)is that estimates show that Sweden will lack 50’000 engineers 2020. Therefore, BITE was started to promote students in middle school and high school to pursue technical educations and also to teach them how to solve problems with an entrepreneurial approach. The concept of BITE is company-sponsored seminars where Chalmers students visit upper secondary classes in Gothenburg and conduct interactive technology and entrepreneurship-based workshops in order to attract more students to engineering educations offered in Swedish Universities. All revenues of these seminars will go directly to the Seaweed Project.
Internet Auctions of Football Jerseys
In order to finance the project the football teams AIK, Djurgårdens IF, GAIS, Gefle IF, Halmstads BK, Häcken, Elfsborg and Trelleborg have agreed to support the Seaweed Center Project by donate jerseys signed members of the teams.
Establish a market and create sales channels
One of the most important areas to develop in order to increase the income for the women working at the Seaweed center is to build a logistic structure for distribution and sales of the soap. A market analysis in order to explore the local and international market has been initiated. Also, a review of the EU regulations has started by the law students in the class.
Creation of legal and company structures
In order for the Seaweed center to be a registered limited company it is required to have established company structures. The law students have had meeting with representatives from a law firm that will support the Seaweed Center pro bono.
That's all for now folks! Thank you for your interest in the Seaweed Center Project!
Viktor
Treasurer
Monday, January 25, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Solution and Goals with our Project
Continuation Project Activities and Objectives
The overall objective for this project performed by ICM 2011 is to continue the work of developing a long‐term collaborative and consensual development between Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship and the University of Dar es Salaam and the Zanzibar Folk School in the developing nation Tanzania. The project shall create a long term sustainable business model for the Seaweed center by creating legal and financial structures and establishing sales channels and operations. We are also aiming at making the Seaweed center a center for knowledge development for the working women. Those activities will make the Seaweed center self-sustaining, make the women farmers independent and also improve the economic and social welfare for the entire Zanzibar. There are therefore four focus areas for this project:
1. Establish a market and create sales channels
One of the most important areas to develop in order to increase the income for the women working at the Seaweed center is to build a logistic structure for distribution and sales of the soap. The market at Zanzibar is most probably not large enough to meet the production capacity of soap; therefore, the opportunities to distribute the soap both local and international will be examined. More specific goals for this focus area are:
• Carry out a market analysis.
• Create a customer network with start in the west coast of Zanzibar.
• Create an entire supply and demand chain for the Seaweed center soap.
• Make it possible for the women to cut the middle hands by establishing a sales function in connection to the facility.
• Define the target customer segments for the soap and how each customer segment will be reached, i.e. find out how to make the soap attractive to all customers.
• Provide the Seaweed center with a truck to make the distribution of soap possible, both to customers at Zanzibar as well as transport to Stone Town (the main city at Zanzibar), from where it can be further distributed.
• Educate the women in how to sell the soap by carrying out on-site workshops and seminars.
Previous dialogues with the hotels located near the Paje village have shown strong interests in buying the soaps. The initial interviews and analysis made by the students enrolled in the education at Zanzibar Folk School, have shown that the hotels are willing to pay approximately 150 Tsh. / piece of soap with 50 Tsh. in manufacturing cost. This would be a great increase of the amount of turnover and profits due to the large volume.
2. Development of the Operations
In order to secure a certain production capacity of the soap manufacturing and lower the risk of failure for the production, one area that this project will focus on is the operations of the Seaweed center. The daily operational work of the center will be managed by the women farmers and the management for the Seaweed center, but we will develop some of the necessary structures for managing the organization of the manufacturing facility. This includes the following activities:
• Create a system and a payment structure for the seaweed in the drying facility. This is needed since it will be hard to keep track of who owns what seaweed in the facility.
• Development of simple management control tools in Microsoft Excel that can be used for e.g. accounting, sales statistics and to plan purchasing.
• Provide the Seaweed center with a computer that would be used for managing the operational control systems as well as for educational purpose.
• To start up the manufacturing of soap an initial investment is needed in buying raw material from the local market, packaging material etc., and it is therefore a focus area of this project to raise seed money to the Seaweed center. Those money will be used to make the operations running before the soap will bring any revenues to the center.
3. Creation of legal and company structures
In order for the Seaweed center to be a registered limited company it is required to have established company structures. One part of the project will hence focus on using our legal competence in the class and create structures such as:
• Foundation of the company
• Shareholders’ agreement
• Employment contracts
4. Establish the Seaweed center as a knowledge center
To further reinforce the sustainability of the Seaweed center the fourth focus area will be to establish a knowledge center as a part of the Seaweed center. The goal is both to spread our business expertise to the poor women in Paje through on-site workshops but also to create a continuous learning among the women. By having hands‐on workshops with reflection of real‐life situations, the goal is to create an interactive learning process with significant knowledge diffusion. The education will be executed from a sustainable‐development perspective in order to fulfill our overall goal of long‐term sustainability of this project. More specific goals for this focus area are:
• Providing knowledge toys to the children to stimulate the learning process early
• Provide English language education, in close collaboration with the Zanzibar Folk School, for the women to increase their ability to communicate with the tourists coming to the Seaweed center
• Conducting business and entrepreneurial training
The overall objective for this project performed by ICM 2011 is to continue the work of developing a long‐term collaborative and consensual development between Chalmers School of Entrepreneurship and the University of Dar es Salaam and the Zanzibar Folk School in the developing nation Tanzania. The project shall create a long term sustainable business model for the Seaweed center by creating legal and financial structures and establishing sales channels and operations. We are also aiming at making the Seaweed center a center for knowledge development for the working women. Those activities will make the Seaweed center self-sustaining, make the women farmers independent and also improve the economic and social welfare for the entire Zanzibar. There are therefore four focus areas for this project:
1. Establish a market and create sales channels
One of the most important areas to develop in order to increase the income for the women working at the Seaweed center is to build a logistic structure for distribution and sales of the soap. The market at Zanzibar is most probably not large enough to meet the production capacity of soap; therefore, the opportunities to distribute the soap both local and international will be examined. More specific goals for this focus area are:
• Carry out a market analysis.
• Create a customer network with start in the west coast of Zanzibar.
• Create an entire supply and demand chain for the Seaweed center soap.
• Make it possible for the women to cut the middle hands by establishing a sales function in connection to the facility.
• Define the target customer segments for the soap and how each customer segment will be reached, i.e. find out how to make the soap attractive to all customers.
• Provide the Seaweed center with a truck to make the distribution of soap possible, both to customers at Zanzibar as well as transport to Stone Town (the main city at Zanzibar), from where it can be further distributed.
• Educate the women in how to sell the soap by carrying out on-site workshops and seminars.
Previous dialogues with the hotels located near the Paje village have shown strong interests in buying the soaps. The initial interviews and analysis made by the students enrolled in the education at Zanzibar Folk School, have shown that the hotels are willing to pay approximately 150 Tsh. / piece of soap with 50 Tsh. in manufacturing cost. This would be a great increase of the amount of turnover and profits due to the large volume.
2. Development of the Operations
In order to secure a certain production capacity of the soap manufacturing and lower the risk of failure for the production, one area that this project will focus on is the operations of the Seaweed center. The daily operational work of the center will be managed by the women farmers and the management for the Seaweed center, but we will develop some of the necessary structures for managing the organization of the manufacturing facility. This includes the following activities:
• Create a system and a payment structure for the seaweed in the drying facility. This is needed since it will be hard to keep track of who owns what seaweed in the facility.
• Development of simple management control tools in Microsoft Excel that can be used for e.g. accounting, sales statistics and to plan purchasing.
• Provide the Seaweed center with a computer that would be used for managing the operational control systems as well as for educational purpose.
• To start up the manufacturing of soap an initial investment is needed in buying raw material from the local market, packaging material etc., and it is therefore a focus area of this project to raise seed money to the Seaweed center. Those money will be used to make the operations running before the soap will bring any revenues to the center.
3. Creation of legal and company structures
In order for the Seaweed center to be a registered limited company it is required to have established company structures. One part of the project will hence focus on using our legal competence in the class and create structures such as:
• Foundation of the company
• Shareholders’ agreement
• Employment contracts
4. Establish the Seaweed center as a knowledge center
To further reinforce the sustainability of the Seaweed center the fourth focus area will be to establish a knowledge center as a part of the Seaweed center. The goal is both to spread our business expertise to the poor women in Paje through on-site workshops but also to create a continuous learning among the women. By having hands‐on workshops with reflection of real‐life situations, the goal is to create an interactive learning process with significant knowledge diffusion. The education will be executed from a sustainable‐development perspective in order to fulfill our overall goal of long‐term sustainability of this project. More specific goals for this focus area are:
• Providing knowledge toys to the children to stimulate the learning process early
• Provide English language education, in close collaboration with the Zanzibar Folk School, for the women to increase their ability to communicate with the tourists coming to the Seaweed center
• Conducting business and entrepreneurial training
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
The Solution and Previous Project Activities Performed by CSE 2010
The Solution and Previous Project Activities Performed by CSE 2010
The Seaweed project carried out by the class of CSE 2010 is influenced by the seaweed co‐operative in Kidoti (a village located in the northern part of Zanzibar). Through a series of infrastructural, technological and organizational improvements, this co‐operative is now able to produce higher quality seaweed as well as soap from the seaweed, in a socially, environmentally and economic improved way that benefits the whole village. The Seaweed Center project run by the class of CSE 2010 has had the following three main objectives:
1. Working Premise: Manufacturing Facility with Solar Drying Storage Space
In order reduce the significant poverty and the women’s minor influence in the villages in Zanzibar, one of the objectives is to increase the women’s income and strengthen their social position by creating new job opportunities for the women. Through an acquisition of land and construction of a manufacturing building, the women could wake up in the morning and actually go to work. In order to solve the issue regarding the lack of storage space during the rainy seasons, a solar drying storage space has been built in connection to the manufacturing building, which will result in a constant stream of revenue to the women farmers, regardless type of weather. This facility is located near the seaweed cultivations in order to improve the current infrastructural situation where the women must carry the seaweed for long distances.
By selling seaweed and soap in connection to the facility, the class of CSE 2010 also makes it possible for the women to cut the middle hands. The facility will be built near the main road that connects the west and east coast of Zanzibar (which is also in near connection to the ocean). This makes it possible to develop the facility into a significant tourist attraction where the women can sell their products from the facility to the tourists directly.
2. Knowledge Diffusion: Seminars and Workshops On-Site
In order to have a long‐term sustainability for the project and for Zanzibar’s future it is a necessity for the women to learn the basic methods of how to efficient run businesses from a social‐responsible perspective. The learning will appear from well‐developed seminars, lectures and workshops with role plays which simulate and reflect real‐life business applications. Significant demand of increased knowledge within different areas, especially business and entrepreneurship has been expressed not only from the Tanzanian government but also from the local population in Zanzibar. The overall goal with the Seminars and Workshops is to create a consensual, providing and significant learning‐process and knowledge‐diffusion between all the involved parties in the project, but especially between the CSE students and the women seaweed farmers.
3. Alternative Economic Activities: Soap Making Machinery
The third focus of the project has been to create alternative income bringing activities in order to strengthen the economic situation and the individuals’ extreme poverty. In order to compensate the obstacles for cultivate and harvest the higher quality seaweed, the class of CSE 2010 has chosen to increase the women’s product portfolio by installing soap making machinery. The experienced researcher from the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Dar es Salaam, Dr. Flower E. Msuya has introduced the class of CSE 2010 to a technique of how to extract and manufacture soap from the harvested seaweed available in Paje. The overall goal is to teach the seaweed farmers how to extract additional value from the seaweed and gain more income on day‐to‐day basis, as well as introduce them to new manufacturing methods that have been proven to be efficient by the Kidoti women.
The Seaweed project carried out by the class of CSE 2010 is influenced by the seaweed co‐operative in Kidoti (a village located in the northern part of Zanzibar). Through a series of infrastructural, technological and organizational improvements, this co‐operative is now able to produce higher quality seaweed as well as soap from the seaweed, in a socially, environmentally and economic improved way that benefits the whole village. The Seaweed Center project run by the class of CSE 2010 has had the following three main objectives:
1. Working Premise: Manufacturing Facility with Solar Drying Storage Space
In order reduce the significant poverty and the women’s minor influence in the villages in Zanzibar, one of the objectives is to increase the women’s income and strengthen their social position by creating new job opportunities for the women. Through an acquisition of land and construction of a manufacturing building, the women could wake up in the morning and actually go to work. In order to solve the issue regarding the lack of storage space during the rainy seasons, a solar drying storage space has been built in connection to the manufacturing building, which will result in a constant stream of revenue to the women farmers, regardless type of weather. This facility is located near the seaweed cultivations in order to improve the current infrastructural situation where the women must carry the seaweed for long distances.
By selling seaweed and soap in connection to the facility, the class of CSE 2010 also makes it possible for the women to cut the middle hands. The facility will be built near the main road that connects the west and east coast of Zanzibar (which is also in near connection to the ocean). This makes it possible to develop the facility into a significant tourist attraction where the women can sell their products from the facility to the tourists directly.
2. Knowledge Diffusion: Seminars and Workshops On-Site
In order to have a long‐term sustainability for the project and for Zanzibar’s future it is a necessity for the women to learn the basic methods of how to efficient run businesses from a social‐responsible perspective. The learning will appear from well‐developed seminars, lectures and workshops with role plays which simulate and reflect real‐life business applications. Significant demand of increased knowledge within different areas, especially business and entrepreneurship has been expressed not only from the Tanzanian government but also from the local population in Zanzibar. The overall goal with the Seminars and Workshops is to create a consensual, providing and significant learning‐process and knowledge‐diffusion between all the involved parties in the project, but especially between the CSE students and the women seaweed farmers.
3. Alternative Economic Activities: Soap Making Machinery
The third focus of the project has been to create alternative income bringing activities in order to strengthen the economic situation and the individuals’ extreme poverty. In order to compensate the obstacles for cultivate and harvest the higher quality seaweed, the class of CSE 2010 has chosen to increase the women’s product portfolio by installing soap making machinery. The experienced researcher from the Institute of Marine Sciences at the University of Dar es Salaam, Dr. Flower E. Msuya has introduced the class of CSE 2010 to a technique of how to extract and manufacture soap from the harvested seaweed available in Paje. The overall goal is to teach the seaweed farmers how to extract additional value from the seaweed and gain more income on day‐to‐day basis, as well as introduce them to new manufacturing methods that have been proven to be efficient by the Kidoti women.
About the Seaweed Center Project
The Seaweed center project in Zanzibar, Tanzania was initiated by the CSE Class of 2010 as an expansion of the Insert Africa project. Insert Africa was founded in October 2006 by CSE students at Chalmers. The initial project resulted in the construction of a building in the village Bubulo in Uganda that was powered by renewable energy in the form of solar panels, and was appropriately named “The Lighthouse”. The Lighthouse became a true success story and has today, because of its reliable source of electricity, become a meeting point where work can be performed in late evenings, conferences can be held and cell phones can be charged. The Lighthouse has grown into a creative center for knowledge diffusion and small entrepreneurship.
Zanzibar is a very low developed country where over 50 percent of the population lives below the basic needs poverty line. The objective of the project carried out by the class of CSE 2010 has been to create working opportunities for the women Seaweed farmers, to make them independent and also improve the economic and social welfare for entire Zanzibar. This has been done through the creation of a manufacturing facility for soap and through education in entrepreneurship for the women.
The overall objective of this ICM school project is to continue the work of developing a long‐term collaboration between CSE/ICM, the University of Dar es Salaam and the Zanzibar Folk School in the developing nation Tanzania. This will be done by further development of the Seaweed center project by building a sustainable business model around the Seaweed Center’s manufacturing of soap, as well as increasing the scope of the project. The business model work will include securing a revenue stream by developing a logistics structure with distribution and sales, and to get the operation of the manufacturing facility running by for example securing the supply of material to the soap and creating a payment system for the women using the drying facilities of the center.
The project has already been initiated and has been successfully carried out during the autumn of 2009. During September 2010 a trip to Zanzibar will take part where the class of ICM 2011 will continue the work done by CSE 2010 of spreading knowledge about basic methods of how to efficient run businesses from a social‐responsible perspective. The learning will appear from seminars and workshops with focus on the areas such as entrepreneurship, sustainable business development and marketing & sales. Various fundraising and revenue bringing activities will be conducted by the project members whom works free of charge with this project and the total turnover of this project is estimated to reach approximately 850 000 SEK.
Monday, January 18, 2010
The blog is up and running!
Hello to you all!
From this day on you will be able to follow the students at the school of Intellectual Capital Management, and their work with the project "Seaweed Center, Zanzibar" on this website.
We promise you weekly updates in the future, but for now on, please visit our website.
Hope to see you here again in the future.
Best Regards
Viktor Eriksson
Project Management
From this day on you will be able to follow the students at the school of Intellectual Capital Management, and their work with the project "Seaweed Center, Zanzibar" on this website.
We promise you weekly updates in the future, but for now on, please visit our website.
Hope to see you here again in the future.
Best Regards
Viktor Eriksson
Project Management
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