Embrace October 2010 Updates

Embrace October 2010 Updates

Dear Embrace Supporters,

Embrace showcased the first version of our product at a national neonatal conference in India and received a tremendous response. Over two days, we had nearly 100 doctors sign up to purchase the product. Interest was high across the board, from private practitioners to government hospitals. It was rewarding to hear not only how needed the product was, but also how eagerly people wanted to buy it.

Embrace is excited about this amazingly positive feedback; we are eager to launch the product this winter and start saving lives!

Rahul with neonatologists at Neocon

Embrace's March to 5,000 Facebook fans!

Help Embrace reach 5,000 FB fans, and $1 will be donated to Embrace for each new fan. All you have to do is get your friends to be FB fans of Embrace by 11/20/10, and Nancy Heinen will match $1 per friend added. That easy. http://www.facebook.com/embrace?ref=search&v=app_7146470109

Exciting Updates

• Embrace was recently featured in Oprah Magazine's October Issue as 'A Genius Idea' and National Geographic Magazine's November issue as the frontrunner for the 'Little Ideas That Can Change the World' article
  

• Visit our website to see our new introduction to Embrace video. Big thanks to Aparna & Global Rickshaw Films and Ben and Kate & Neumatic for working so diligently on this!
  

• Clinical trials are progressing positively, and one baby in the study was even named after our clinical researcher, Kamalika! Read the full story on our blog
  

Embrace, a genius idea, in Oprah Magazine - October Issue

Thank you Kat Gordon & Maternal Instinct

Embrace has been fortunately enough to receive pro-bono marketing support from Kat and her agency. Maternal Instinct is a full-service marketing agency specializing in the most powerful consumer segment in the U.S.: mothers. Their talented team finds answers for brands looking to connect with moms, creating ad campaigns, brainstorming new business ideas, engaging moms through social media, and advising companies on future initiatives. You can follow Maternal Instinct's founder on Twitter @katgordon and pick up weekly wisdom from Maternal Journal, the agency's blog.

Thank you to Roberta Denning, Yumi Kuwana, Nancy Heinen, Dennis DeBroeck, Cindy Lang, Kat Gordon, Barb Haynes, and David DeWilde for hosting great Embrace events!

Roberta, Yumi, and the Embrace ladies at our Connecticut Breakfast Event

Sincerely,

Team Embrace

iCats Program assignments

Dear Friends,

This is a great opportunity to launch yourself into the development sector!!! I strongly suggest that you give it shot!!! All the best in case you goin for it!!!

Salu


I am excited to announce, that the iCats Program has started recruiting for 30 open posts.
We are looking for people who want to use their professional skills to help social organizations around the globe scale their impact.

We offer 2 types of assignments:

a) 3-9 months assignments as iCats consultant/mentor/implementer or trainer. Those posts will continuously be offered throughout the year with individual application deadlines. The availability of assignments depends on the needs of the organizations. Currently, over 15 posts are open for application. In terms of timing, our organizations are quite flexible. I.E. if you found a job that would suit your interest, but the timing does not work for you, please drop us an email and we will try to make it happen.

b) 12 months assignments as iCats Fellow. The Fellowship starts in February each year. The recruitment for the iCats Fellowship Program 2011 has also started now.
Building on the success of the last two years, the iCats Fellowship Program offers again exciting opportunities for 2011! Application deadline: 23 July 2010.
A Fellow works on-site with a social organization from February to December 2011 and receives regular mentoring from the LGT Venture Philanthropy team. In addition, a 4-day induction workshop in January 2011 brings all Fellows together in Switzerland.

Fellow position 2011 Organization
+ Social Franchise Director Fundacion Carulla – aeioTu
+ Strategy and Business Developer Ciudad Saludable
+ International Sales and Marketing Manager Rags2Riches, Inc.
+ Operations Manager Rags2Riches, Inc.
+ Financial Analyst Fundacao Pro-Cerrado
+ Fundraising Specialist For Europe Operation ASHA

+ Business Development - India Driptech
+ Business Development - China Driptech
+ Fundraising Consultant Aangan Trust
+ Communications and PR consultant Aangan Trust
+ Chief Operating Officer streetfootballworld

+ Fundraising Specialist Streetfootballworld
+ Financial Manager heart (idea factory)
+ Business Development heart (idea factory)
+ General Manager heart (idea factory)

If you are interested in any open posts, please apply now. Also, we appreciate if you could circulate this call for applications to potentially interested people.
Find out more and read the attached Fellowship factsheet, visit www.icatsprogram.com or write an email to icats@lgtvp.com.
Also, be inspired by how the iCats Fellowship Program impacted the life of Cynthia (see attached story).

I am looking forward to a lot of applications. Feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

Tom Kagerer






Tom Kagerer
COO
LGT Venture Philanthropy
LGT Bank (Switzerland) Ltd.
Glärnischstr. 36
CH-8022 Zürich

Phone +41 44 250 8298
Mobile: +41 79 7452120
Fax +41 44 250 8276
Skype: tom.kagerer.lgtvp
e-mail: tom.kagerer@lgtvp.ch
www.lgt.com

iCats Program - Bridging the talent gap in social enterprises

World poverty guru ?fails? to spread wealth - Times Online

World poverty guru ?fails? to spread wealth - Times Online

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When You Want It That Much More!!!!!

A must read for all my readers who don't follow me on FB!!!!! An amazin initiative and hope more of these come our way to make this place a better place to live :-)

www.outlookindia.com | When You Want It That Much More

Entertainment on the Big10

Found an interestin blog from the net.. thought I would share it with my readers.. extensive use of mallu but itz hillarious.. thought I'll lighten up your weekend ;-) and credits to Anjali Philips for writing an awesome one!!!!!!!

During my travels from home to Brigade Road on the Big 10 service, I find myself seated next to a lot of people who use the travel time to catch up with friends, relations, parents, BF/GF etc. Of these, the mallus are the most voluble.

Example no 1: The Mallu gal in Bangalore for higher studies.

This type generally chats up people back home in Kerala during the bus ride. The conversation is held in Malayalam. I have used the liberty to use English for non-mallu readers. Typical conversations are like this:

Hellooo! Idhu njaana! Aa! Pinneavide endha vishesham? Is it raining there aa? Aa! What about at Babuchayans place? Please be careful near the well. You will slip and fall due to the moss. Tell that Vareed to come and clean it no! Has achchan repaired the wall on the other side of the parambu? That Mathukutty’s cows will have a hay-day if you don’t. Pinne tell me what else is new there?
Aiyyo jose chetande kada pootiyo? Eppo? So where do you buy vegetables from now? Teresa chechi is gone home for delivery? I hope I can get home by then. Pakshe test undu. Pinne businde ticketinde prashanam undo. Last minute ticket kitoola. Njaan innu onnum kazhichilla amme. Breakfastinnu breadum butterum ayirnnu. Maduthu! Pinnevere endha vishesham? Aiyyo ende stop vittu poyi. Njaan vekkate?

Illa, adutha stopil irangi nadannolam. Sheri! Amme vekkate? Aiyyo stop vannu. Koda eduthatundu. Vayiguneram vilikaam tow? Aiyyo conductor saare stop maadi. Eranganam.

All this is delivered at supersonic jaw crunching speed and by the time we reach the next stop I and other mallu passengers in the bus can write the biography of the entire Kandath family

from Thodupuzha!!

Next specimen will be mallu gal from Kerala married to techie guy and now employed in some office. She will talk to her friend also married and living in Calicut.

Hiiiii! How are you? I am fine. Etan is also fine. Ende father in law sick aa! Ariyulla endha problem. Vayis ayille. Pinne enna visheshams? Ivide oru vishesham illa. *gasp* Really??? Aiyyo! I did not hear that! When? Where? How? Ende daivamme!! Did her parents bring her back? I knew it! I told her also. But she was madly in love with him! Pinne what else? Anyone else in our batch getting married? Job is boring yaar. Etan comes home only by 9. I watch TV what else! My neighbour is some Tamilian. Kandooda aa sthreeye! Ende stop vannu. Njaan orkuttil scrap chaiyyam. Balance illa. Bye!
To me: Is this Lal Baugh stop?
Me: No. This bus doesnt go that way!
Gal: Aiyyo!
Me: Where are you going?
Gal: Majestic!
Me: You are in the wrong bus.
Gal: !!!!
Me: Never mind. Get down at Brigade Road. You will lots of buses from there.
Gal: Hello? Nasreen? I am in the wrong bus *giggle* hahahahahahahaha

And more ahahahaha

After that I and the rest of the passengers who can understand Malayalam can write the entire biography of the Krishnan Menon and Abu Backer Family from Calicut. Like the other Bangalore guys, mallu guys are also not discriminatory and do not mind sitting on ladies seats. Their conversations will go like this:

Hey da I met Sushmita, Renju and Baby yesterday. They are all here. Ramesh IBMill annu. Rejoyum, babyum Accentureil annu. Pinne Joemone kandu. Avan Bilkehalliyill aanu thamasam. Navin has gone to the US for his MS. I am in training now. Boring da. After that I will go to Pune. Yesterday was team lunch. Stupid food. Everybody wanted Andhra food. You don’t get malayalam movies here. So Sunday we spend roaming around malls. Jijo is in TCS. Harish is in Infosys. Srinivasan is in Mindtree. Abraham is in CTS and ..!

By the time this conversation is over, me and the other passengers who know Malayalam feel like picking him up and heaving him out of the bus.

Anjali Philip blogs at http://my-think-pad.blogspot.com

Changin the way doin things in Rural India!!

A write up on my previous organization and regret quitin it but glad that even to this date I'm of some help to them and hope to continue the same..

http://www.franchiseindia.com/article.php?title=Vision%20for%20rural%20India

Givin a Life through Embrace!!!

A School friend of mine wanted me to post about a great work bein dreamt and carried out by a bunch of young enthusiasts who would want to make a difference in a BIG way... Thanks Anjana for givin me an opportunity to write on them and folks belt up and get set to read some AWESOME dream which is bein made into reality and if you think you can help, get in touch with them and MAKE a DIFFERENCE :-)

Vision

20 million premature and low-birth-weight (LBW) babies are born every year. In India alone, a third of all babies born are LBW. 80% of these births occur in rural areas of developing countries. 3.5 million of these babies die, while those that survive often develop life-long health problems like early onset of diabetes, heart disease, and low IQ. Sadly, these problems could be prevented with access to an incubator, a device that provides a stable thermal environment for the baby. This is critical for LBW infants. However, traditional incubators cost thousands of dollars, and are available primarily in urban hospitals. Even when available, they are largely in disrepair. Most rural parents cannot afford to get their babies to these urban hospitals.

Embrace is an incubator, designed to work in a rural healthcare center or at home. It uses no electricity, has no moving parts, is portable, and is safe and intuitive to use. It uses an innovative phase-change material (PCM) in a sleeping bag design to regulate a baby's temperature at 37C, critical for the infant's survival. Carefully engineered properties of the PCM, along with other aspects of the design, ensure the right temperature for the baby at all times. The device works for over four hours at a stretch without intervention, after which it can be reheated. Four hours is longer than the duration between two successive feedings of the baby, to ensure sufficient monitoring. The device is easy to sterilize, and thus reusable across babies. And finally, it facilitates and complements the widely practiced technique of kangaroo mother care, thus enabling mother-baby bonding.

Embrace bridges the gap in healthcare available to a rural-born and an urban-born baby. It will improve the health of LBW babies who would otherwise die or develop serious medical conditions. It will also put an end to current unsafe practices of caring for LBW babies, including placing them under light bulbs or tying hot-water bottles to their bodies. One of the U.N. millennium development goals is the reduction of infant mortality by two-thirds by 2015. The Embrace incubator is an innovative technology that will help families save their children, and governments work towards this goal.

Embrace is a sustainable social venture that came out of the Entrepreneurial Design For Extreme Affordability class at Stanford University. We are a team of business, engineering, and public policy graduate students, with experience in non-profit health care, product design, medical device consulting, management consulting, the UNDP, World Bank, and the Ashoka Foundation. We are being advised by world renowned experts in neonatal care, public health policy, health care in the developing world, business, and product design.

More details on http://embraceglobal.org

MT Spells Hope for THEM!!!!!

Well looks like everyday off late I've been surprised by institutions which are tryin to reach out to people who are differently challenged. Today I came across an article in Bangalore Mirror and thought I should share the same with you folks...




A new career opportunity has presented itself for visually challenged people here. It is medical transcription. Chennamma Marihal, a graduate from Karnataka University in Dharwad, Mohit B P of Mudigere in Chikmagalur district and nine others are all set to make use of this opportunity, being provided by Software Paradigms Infotech (SPI) in Mysore. They will undergo three months intensive training at SPI’s Contour Road unit.

On successful completion of the training, they will join SPI as medical transcriptionists. They have already undergone 18 months of basic MT training as a part of their three-year diploma course in Computer Application from JSS Polytechnic for Physically Handicapped which is the only polytechnic in the country to offer training for medical transcription to the visually challenged.

V Madhukar, senior vice president of the institute, said, “It’s the first such initiative by the SPI and it is a sign of the synergy between the industry and educational institutes. Medical transcription is the ideal career for the visually challenged as they can work from home. We hope to provide more such avenues for the underprivileged.”

Medical transcription is considered as a tough job even for a normal person as the job requires the utmost accuracy. But Chennamma says “It’s an ideal job for all challenged people. After the initial training and with experience of one to two years, we can do it from home. It is very safe and secure for people like us.”

How it works
Trainees use a unique software called the JAWS screen reader which provides the user with access to information displayed on the screen via text-to-speech. “They are completely self-reliant and self-motivated. Though visually impaired, Mohit B P himself installed the JAWS software. They check spellings and correct grammatical errors with 80 to 90 per cent accuracy,” explained Radhakrishna, head of the training division of SPI. Both SPI and JSS polytechnic are providing all the needed support to these trainees.

P.S: Thanks to Nagaraja Dixit and Bangalore Mirror for covering this story.

RelaX....!!!!!

Continuin my write ups on organizations which are tryin to reach out to the people who needs help, it was brought to my notice by a good friend of mine in Mumbai about a massage parlor which is manned by BLIND and partially BLIND folks. Also my friend checked out the place and this is her take on the place.

"Hey I checked it out over the week end…it was pretty good… the lady who gave me a massage was not really blind though…she was more an albino, and I guess they have some amount of blindness…

Anyway it was different….no oil, etc.. just an ‘acupressure’ kind of thing and she made me do a lot of stretches…I did a back massage… u know how it is, sitting at the computer for about 9 hours of the day our backs get fired up…."

Relax…

Come to Relax… for a Thai Yoga Massage, Reflexology, Physiotherapy, Acupressure and much more…..

Amazing people to serve you with their healing powers. Though BLIND – they are beautifully empowered with the gift to heal. They are experienced with strong & caring hands to heal you with their therapies….

Some of what you will experience…..

• Relief from spondulitise
• Aching backs and shoulder pains
• Do away with shallow breathing - deeper breathing
• Control over your addictions
• Relaxation & stress Relief
• Rejuvenation of self
• Builds Positive Attitude
• Energy to work longer hours (1 week of Yoga in an Hour’s time)
• Keeps you healthy, joyous and at peace.
• OR JUST COME FOR A GOOD MASSAGE

Thai Massage : 1 & 2 Hours

• Reflexology : Half Hour and 45 mins.
• Back Massage : Half Hour
• Back Massage : 1 Hour
• Physiotherapy & Acupressure : Depending on your ailments.

All these and more at EXTREMELY REASONABLE RATES…..

Relax… Check out for our Yoga and Tai Chi Classes.

Timings : 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. ….

THURSDAYS CLOSED

Walk in or call for appointment at:

Tel: 2445 9894 Ex – 106; Mob : 98190 97354

Delta Apartments, 1^st Floor, Above Zoroastrian Co-operative Bank, MMC Road, Lane Opp Canossa Convent High School, Mahim West, Mumbai 400 016.

This is definitely a Mirakle!!!!!!

On my visit to Aamchi Mumbai last weekend a good friend of mine was talking about one of the courier companies which was employing deaf adults. I was definitely impressed by the thought and thought it was really cool. Not until did I chance upon their website and their work did I realize the magnitude of the social impact these folks are making. Definitely a touching gesture but with a business sense and given the fact that I've worked with the development sector this is definitely the way to go!!!!!! Keep rockin Mirakle and hope you reach out to more franchises!!!!!!!!

Synopsis:

Mirakle Couriers is a courier company with a difference as we employ only deaf adults. Deafness is an invisible disability, and has been largely ignored in India. All the staff members including delivery personnel are deaf.

Our business model is based on creating a service driven profitable enterprise that uses the deaf. To this end, we marry professional excellence with social cause. While our services are currently available only in Mumbai, we plan to extend our operations to other cities soon.

We are not a charity but a social business, where the social element is embedded in the commercial operations. Our corporate clients have shown their trust in our business and our cause by availing our services. Our list of clients includes Mahindra & Mahindra, The Aditya Birla Group, Victory Art Foundation, JSW Group, Indian Hotels Company, Godrej & Boyce and Essel Propack.

http://www.miraklecouriers.com

P.S: If you folks are from Mumbai do use them to encourage them and yeah already a friend of mine has informed me that her organization plans to start using their service!!!!

treesforfree.org

I was wanting to write something special on my 50th blog and what better way than introducin a novel idea to my readers!!!

Few months ago I was walkin around Bangalore and I saw that we were losing the green cover thanks to all the construction and road widenin and I was thinkin, why don't I start an organization wherein I could encourage people to plant trees and restore the green cover to Bangalore. Then I went about sharin my ideas with few of my friends I saw that everyone was pretty receptive to the idea. Then I decided I would work on the same and prepare a business case, yeah thanks to my exposure to non profits. Well, the idea was conceptualized but never took off guess I had other priorities. But promised that I would work towards it and then an article India Today drew my attention and thatz when I was introduced to Janet Yegneswaran and her organization Trees for Free (http://treesforfree.org/).

She and her organization was doing exactly what I had in mind, after which I read her blog and website and realized her organization was workin towards exactly what I had in mind. But definitely I feel I can contribute more to her organization and have promised that I would be touchin base with her shortly to brainstorm few of my ideas too and ensure that I do my bit in gettin more people to plant trees.

Currently her organization only covers Bangalore but definitely she is open to expanding to other places but is looking for interested people to help her in her endeavor.

You can also follow her blog on http://treesforfree.blogspot.com/

Yeah so now you know!!!!!! PLANT A TREE and encourage others too :-)