This project aims to provide solar-powered lighting to communities in the Philippines through a partnership with Gawad Kalinga, an organization working to reduce poverty. The team has developed an affordable and sustainable solar lamp made from local materials like bamboo that can provide light for 5 days on a single charge. They plan to teach community members how to produce and sell the lamps, creating social businesses and a sustainable source of income within the villages. The goal is to empower communities with the tools and skills to illuminate their homes and pathways while gaining financial independence through this replicable social enterprise model.

1. One Village Philippines
San Diego Social Innovation Challenge 2016
Semi­Finalist Project Proposal
Project Contacts and Information
Client Organization ­ Gawad Kalinga
SIC Lead ­ Jacquelyn Palma
University of California, San Diego Global TIES
Due ­ March 28, 2016
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2. Table of Contents
Title Page …………………………………………………………..... 1
Table of Contents…………………………………………………….. 2
Project Overview………..……………………………..…………........ 3
Social Impact …..…….…..…………………………………...……...... 4
Creativity and Innovation ..…..…………………………..……..…… 6
Financial and Operational Viability and Sustainability…....………...7
Team Capacity and Readiness ………………………………...……. 8
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3. I. Project Overview:
One Village Philippines has partnered up with a thriving organization in the
Philippines called Gawad Kalinga (GK). GK aims to radically reduce poverty in the
Philippines by developing productive and safe communities, while creating social
enterprise opportunities. GK is a center for social innovation, hosts social business
summits, and attracts and trains young entrepreneurs. Our team is working towards
illuminating GK communities because there are little to no light sources to illuminate
pathways to and from villages and in between homes. Leaders of GK have brought their
struggle of finding sustainable and affordable light sources for the village to our attention
and we have been developing products in order to help sustain and further the village’s
success in providing safe communities and solutions for families to pull themselves out of
impoverished situations.
We hope to bring safety to the community with aesthetically pleasing, yet easily
constructed and cost effective, portable solar lamps that can be used to light up pathways
and streets. Our product is designed to be multipurpose as the product can be converted
into a lantern that an individual can pick up and use for various day to day activities. The
solar lamp we have created is not only innovative, but it is completely replicable and cost
effective in the Philippines, as the lamp is constructed out of bamboo and other local
materials easily found in the Philippines. While the GK community is a center for social
innovation, the entrepreneurs associated with the community are usually foreigners that
employ the Filipino villagers. Instead of employing them, our team will be providing them
with all of the tools necessary to use our innovation and turn it into their own viable
enterprise.
Overall, our team’s goal is multi­faceted. OVP will bring safety and help foster
productivity through illuminating the community with our sustainable solar powered lamp,
while also building a sustainable social business where the villagers have the power to use
our innovation to create a socially viable enterprise to pull themselves out of poverty.
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4. II. Social Impact
One Village Philippine’s has had the privilege to work with Gawad Kalinga of the
Philippines for the past 6 years. 'Gawad Kalinga,' translated in English to 'give care,' is a
Philippine­based movement that aims to end poverty by first restoring the dignity of the
poor. GK began with a simple desire to give care and leave no one behind, with a mission to
end poverty for 5 million families by 2024. The organization and its many affiliates, like our
team One Village Philippines, will employ integrated and holistic approaches to
empowerment with values­formation and leadership development at the core of all of our
initiatives and projects.
In order to create a solid and sustainable social impact on the community, OVP took
a client and data centered approach to the development of our innovation and social
business project. Quite often, organizations do not understand the true need of the
communities they work with because of the lack of an empathetic approach, the lack of a
deep understanding of the community’s culture, and the lack of communication between
project developers and the community itself. In order to ensure the success of our project
and that our social impact is needed and wanted , our team updates GK leaders often with
our ideas, progress, and developments for feedback in order to tailor our innovations to
make as big of a social impact as possible.
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5. Our project directly impacts the thousands of families that live at the GK villages, as
our solar powered lamp can be easily produced to provide light throughout the village.
Community members have communicated there there is a large issue of villagers being
unable to travel out of the village at night due to safety risks and the possibility of getting
lost because of the lack of lighting. Furthermore, it was communicated to us that the lack of
lighting within the villages as well proved to be an issue as well. The problem of a lack of
light and electricity is not confined to this one GK village. The issue of light is universal in
many developing countries and our innovation provides an easy, affordable, and
sustainable solution that can be utilized globally.
Ideally, the social impact of our project is endless. With proper project management
and passionate partnerships, we can bring light into homes and communities throughout
the Philippines and in other areas in need of aid in the form of light. Costing just around 5
US dollars, with the possibility of the price lowering through partnerships with parts
distributors, families can purchase our lamp with the peace of mind of it working without
having to find or pay for expensive batteries, gas, or electricity to maintain the product.
Furthermore, our project also impacts the community by providing educational
programs and an opportunity for community members to launch their own social business.
Our team’s goal is to fundraise in order to get enough capital to bring as many parts as
possible for our product in order to train a select group of individuals on how to engineer
the lamp, how to create a sustainable business, and how to manage their personal finances.
We will measure the success of our impact by analyzing how many families are
positively affected by the illumination of our lamp and by how families are able to create a
sustainable income through our product. Our team will be first focusing on making an
impact on the general community of the GK villages and then ideally, our project and
impact will expand to surrounding communities for a greater impact. By focusing on the
efficiency of our product, by meticulously researching markets in the Philippines, and by
continuing to dedicate ourselves to the success of the project we will be able to reach our
goal of implementing our product and business project at the GK villages this summer in
June where we will teach, guide, and empower individuals with our product and programs.
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6. III. Creativity and Innovation
Pictured above, you can see our solar lamp prototype made out of local materials
and an easy to replicate circuit design. Our client explained that they needed light sources
that can be stuck in the ground, can last for several days on one charge, and can reliably
withstand the intense wet and dry seasons of the Philippines. Our design creatively follows
all of our client’s design specifications, while creatively using recycled parts and a structure
that comes from easily obtained and locally sourced materials. The base and weave of the
lamp is made out of bamboo, the canister that the light is placed in can be made out of any
recycled plastic container, and the circuit itself is easy to replicate. Our innovative circuit
powers the light for 120 hours on a full charge, approximately 5 days on one charge, and
after 5 days, the light begins to dim but can still function. Our team is also providing the
community with a full manual that is translated into Tagalog, the community’s native
language, and upon visiting the Philippines in the summer, a workshop on how to construct
the solar lamp prototype.
In the villages of the Philippines, most impoverished communities utilize candles,
kerosene lamps, or lanterns that need batteries. The GK leaders have identified this issue,
as these light sources are not sustainable and can be expensive for families over time. Our
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7. client has attempted to purchase other solar lamps around the same price point as ours
from the commercial market, but all of their purchases have either not been durable,
aesthetically pleasing, or the light lasts for only hours rather than days making them
inefficient.
Overall, our solar lamp is creative as it uses recycled and locally sourced materials
making it easy to replicate. Aside from its ease of replication, it is also very aesthetically
pleasing in comparison to competitors at its’ low price point. It is innovative as the design
of our circuit is simple enough that anyone should be able to replicate it using our manual,
yet complicated enough to surpass competitors in its durability and the hours of light that
it provides on one charge. Furthermore, the social business that we are aiming to build
through the GK community is also innovative. GK communities foster labor and
entrepreneurship, but to this day, all of the entrepreneurs have been foreigners or wealthy
Filipinos that employ villagers within the community. We are taking the GK model one step
further and changing this status quo by empowering villagers with the safety and
convenience of light, the knowledge of sustaining a rural business, and the understanding
of how to replicate our product to bring to market.
IV. Financial and Operational Viability and Sustainability
One Village Philippines aims to create a sustainable yet affordable mode of
solar­powered lighting, money is required to get the project started. First, the initial costs
must be covered. These include the cost to travel to the Philippines in order to make
significant contact with the villagers at Gawad Kalinga. We will also be using this
opportunity to hold workshops and teach potential entrepreneurs how to both
manufacture the pathway lamp and run a successful social enterprise. Other initial financial
costs would go toward tools for manufacturing ­ such as knives and soldering iron ­ and
building materials such as bamboo, circuit boards, solar panels, batteries, LEDs, etc.
Although initial financial costs are a significant investment, the ongoing costs will be
much lower. These costs include costs of building materials, maintenance or replacement of
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8. broken parts and tools, and employment. Due to the low cost of manufacturing, funding the
venture should not take much more than the cost of initial start­up. Long term revenue
streams are expected to be generated primarily from the business of the social innovation
in order to provide a sustainable financial income for the villagers in need. However, funds
may also be obtained via other sources such as donations and business investments.
To test the assumptions of the innovation, One Village Philippines has personally
visited Gawad Kalinga and interviewed its villagers multiple times in order to gauge their
needs and willingness to begin a business venture. We also used this opportunity to
understand the culture and context that the innovation fits into. Currently, all the
resources required to manufacture the lamp are available, or abundant in some cases, in
the Philippines for a relatively affordable price.
Human resource power is readily available in the Philippines, as many of the
villagers conveyed their desire to work and earn a respectable living for themselves and
their families. In order to facilitate interaction and contact between One Village Philippines
and the villagers, we have significant support from executive members of Gawad Kalinga.
For guidance and contact with Gawad Kalinga, One Village Philippines is also one of various
projects that are part of the University of California ­ San Diego’s humanitarian engineering
program, Global TIES (Teams in Engineering Service). Global TIES has an outstanding
partnership with Gawad Kalinga and a personal relationship with its famed founder, Tony
Meloto. He has personally tested our prototype and has approved of its design. He also has
asked to be more involved in regular communication with the operational staff at the
enchanted farm. In addition to its founder, several employees of Gawad Kalinga, and many
other outside organizations have also expressed interest in investing in this innovation.
V. Team Capacity and Readiness
The One Village Philippines team is extremely excited this year to be working with
Gawad Kalinga again to help further their missions regarding self­worth, eradication of
poverty, education, and championing Filipino culture and values. As a team consisting of
many Filipino­American leaders and students of other ethnicities that identify with the
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9. systematic struggles of Filipinos and under­represented communities, we are all motivated
to making a large social impact on the Filipino community.
As a team of multidisciplinary engineers, we hope to design solutions to make the
world a more positive place by empowering communities through education and our
innovations. One Village Philippines is invested in perfecting this project and has come
along way in from researching, designing, and prototyping phases. In order to keep on
track for our June deadline where we will be bringing our lamp and project to the
Philippines to implement, each member of the team is assigned designated tasks based on
their engineering, business, or research expertise. Within the team, certain experienced
members work on specific aspects of the product such as the circuitry of the solar lamp,
making sure it is aesthetically pleasing and designed efficiently, researching the
sustainability of our design in the Philippine’s weather conditions, and some work on
assembling a marketing and business plan to effectively implement a social business.
During these upcoming weeks of UCSD’s spring quarter, our team will meet at least 2­3
times a week in order to work on the prototype and to meet our June deadline.
One Village Philippine’s solar lamp and social business proposal is a top priority for
all of those on the team. Despite being students at UCSD and having to manage personal,
academic, and professional duties, One Village Philippines has and will continue to dedicate
themselves to the success of the project in order to make a lasting and beneficial social
impact on the Gawad Kalinga Filipino communities.
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