Supply Change aggregates excess fruit from remote communities, processes near origin, and generates rural income and increased food availability. At the MIT Global Challenge: http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/130

1. MIT IDEAS Competition 2011
Challenge or Opportunity?
75% of the world lives in rural area and depends on
agriculture for their survival

2. Laureano story
Laureano is a 54 year old fruit farmer with 5 children.
He farms diverse crops on 10 hectares on land and yet his
average income is around 3$/day
What Laureano lacks
1. A reliable market for fruit
2. Demand information
3. A way to turn his fruits in juice
How Supply Change can help
1. Providing more information
2. Bringing value to his crop

3. helps farmers like Laureano to build their
business and get out of poverty
Supply Change is a fair trade wholesale
processed fruits company that:
Aggregates fruit from hundreds of
remote farming communities
Processes the fruit near origin, and
Generates rural income
We are NOT Business As Usual

4. We address key information and processing
bottlenecks in the supply chain with 2 technologies
MIA -­‐ Mobile Information Aggregator
5
1
3 2
4
LPU -­‐ Local Processing Units

5. Feasibility
Engineering capabilities Partnerships
MIA Prototype developed; Demand side -­‐ Untapped market
pilot test in Paraguay starting potential for fair trade fruits; contacts
June 2011 with leading US fruit buyers
LPU Requirements and key Supply side -­‐ Relationship with two
components identified; next fruit cooperatives in Paraguay
step is to buy components to
test on the field
Others -­‐ Strategic partnerships, advisors
Team
9 enthusiastic individuals from MIT and RISD with a wide range of skills and work
experience in management, engineering, IT and design

6. Community connection and impact
Short-­‐term
1,000 Paraguayan orange and passion-­‐fruit
farmers over 5 years
Additional $4 million dollars in revenue to the
sector per year
$450,000 premium directly into rural
development
Partnership with cooperative
Long-­‐term
Build rural social capital through democracy,
transparency and participation
Expand further! Imagine Supply Change
multiplied across various fruits in various
countries!