What is BRUTE LABS?

People often ask us "What is BRUTE LABS?"  Well, we're happy to share a new document called "Nine Principles of BRUTE LABS" that should help answer this question once and for all.  Check it out below and if you want to learn more, send us an email.

BRUTE LABS Top 9 of 2009

As 2009 comes to a close I thought it was time for a list of the 9 BRUTE LABS highlights of 2009:

9. Completing an entire project in a single day
8. Building a website to help artists in the developing world share their art
7. Having a project develop into a separate team to continue the important work of saving lives

6. Raising over $5,000 for disaster relief nearly 8,000 miles away
5. Growing the BRUTE LABS team to almost 20 people
4. Winning a design award for do-gooders
3. Launching a project for the homeless four years in the making
2. Raising over $8,000 for clean water wells in Africa by selling t-shirts and throwing a party

And the #1 highlight of 2009:

Receiving a $10,000 grant to get kids excited about physical fitness.

2009 has been the most exciting year yet for the BRUTE LABS team. Thank you for your support and everything that you're doing to change the world. We can't wait to see what we'll accomplish together in 2010.

Jason

Building Bridges Across the Digital Divide

The past three months in Guatemala have been fulfilling and eye opening, but not always easy to understand. It's been hard to comprehend how a family of seven, their wallets empty and their house too small, was so willing to give me a bed and a seat at their kitchen table for three months. It's even harder to comprehend how they have invited me to return at any time, on any notice.

In contrast, families in the United States, though unburdened by the fundamental challenge of survival, seem so frequently broken by smaller problems. The families of Lake Atitlan seem more willing to share their love - not just with each other, but also with strangers like me. And I wonder if their generosity is because, not in spite, of the hardships they face. Unlike families in the United States, they do not share material wealth; thus they do not have many possessions to fight over. Perhaps we have something to learn from the rural villages in Guatemala. Perhaps we need to reprioritize what is important and worth fighting for in our privileged lives.

Never was this clearer to me than one week after I left for El Salvador, when Chema, the oldest son of my host family, contacted me with some tragic news: his father, Sito, had passed away at the age of 42. Sito, a bus driver, died on a trip he makes six days a week, when his bus - essentially a run-down American school bus from the 70s - collided with another one head on.

Chema and his family were devastated. More than that, I sensed a fear for the future - fear that a family of four children had lost its only income; but five buses and 24 hours later, when I returned to pay my respects, I saw something amazing. I saw hundreds of friends and family flocking to Chema's home day and night to give what rice and beans they could spare, to offer their prayers and friendship and support for the future. A family with nothing suddenly appeared somehow to have everything. I've seen American families come apart in similar circumstances, fighting over the possessions of the deceased. In San Pedro, I saw family come together when family was needed most.

The sense that there's a community that's bigger than each of us is something I try to incorporate into my work. Many of you know that after graduation, I chose to forego a job in the private sector and have been donating my time to assist in the growth of Guatemala's third-world economy. I successfully created a micro credit program for the Mercado Global artisans and cooperatives of the Lake Atitlan region. Mercado Global now has a program that will provide a financial means for women to purchase the tools to innovate and the raw materials needed to increase production.


This undertaking brought some more harsh realizations. It was not just about creating a credit facility; in a society that's never had access to one, its worth needs to be explained. I had to visit each cooperative in the mission to explain the importance of credit and savings. And then I had to leave it in good hands.

The language barrier made that first step very difficult and frustrating for me: my Spanish is pretty good, but there are three languages other than Spanish that are spoken in the rural communities I was visiting. (Luckily, I had a translator.) But beyond language, the "digital divide" - the difference in computer literacy between the developed and the developing worlds - added another layer of complexity.

My final job before leaving was to hire a loan officer to run the program. Finding qualified applicants was a challenge. Under "technical skills," a section under which many Americans leave off Microsoft Office as too obvious, one applicant listed "calculator." (This reminded me of a time I made my host family a slideshow on my computer; instead of watching it, they were entranced by the ability to scroll back and forward within the video.) It began to dawn on me that my progress, though significant, is ultimately limited by the enormous technological gap that still separates the first and third worlds.

I talked about this gap in a recent Brute Labs post. But in my final days in Guatemala, I got closer to understanding one way to address it. It will be impossible to connect the digitally deprived to the digitally endowed if one group lacks that basic fundamental technological resource: the computer.


Computod@s

From this realization, I opened a new chapter in my passport. Along with Sam Baker, a friend and fellow SCU business grad who was having the same experiences and realizations in his work in El Salvador, we're starting a socially driven, sustainable business that provides low-income communities, NGOs, schools and small businesses with access to high quality, affordable computers.

We have forged a partnership with DPG, a large computer products distributor in El Salvador with over 20 years experience in importation, transportation, and distribution to big companies, governments and PC product retailers. DPG will provide us with a strong logistical backbone and the operational support necessary to get off the ground and begin supplying computers. (They have already provided us with the legal support to register our entity under the name "Computod@s" - "computers for everyone." They will also be supplying us with their warehouse to keep our inventory.) And we'll be importing the computers from our supplier, Interconnection USA, a non-profit located in Seattle, WA. Interconnection is a Microsoft Authorized Refurbisher that looks to provide a second life to the many computers in the United States that are destined for the landfills.

Working with refurbished computers is good because it's green and it's cheap. Extending the life of one desktop computer with a CRT monitor is equivalent to taking one half of a car off the road for a year. And we'll be offering these computers at a price never before seen in Central America. Operating with a cost-recovery financial budget model, we will be selling brand name Pentium 4 desktops for $150. (Current stores resell comparable PCs for about $300.) Sam and I believe that computers should not be seen as a luxury, and we will be receiving our first shipment of computers very soon to begin working towards this vision.

Last week, I had the opportunity to talk with a delegation of students from Santa Clara on an immersion trip. They asked me if it was difficult to pass up many high paying jobs to come live down here as a volunteer. The short answer is yes. But I've seen firsthand that the value of even one volunteer where I am are often overlooked and underestimated. Plus, the ability to volunteer is itself a luxury: for many, it is impossible to survive in the developing world if you are not working for a wage every single day.

I'm lucky to be able to donate my time, and I'm lucky to be able to leave whenever I want to - to take a more lucrative job in a more prosperous country. This experience has taught me to wonder what it might feel like to live down here without that easy escape. But it's also made me realize that we need to do what we can to make staying put a little easier. I'm trying to do it one computer at a time. I challenge you to find out how you can contribute.

BRUTE: Standing Out

BRUTE LABS has, over the last few years, implemented a number of innovative and exciting projects. BRUTE: Standing Out is my story as an outside advocate of the team, its projects, and its mission. My interests span entrepreneurship and international development, but only when Josh To and I expanded our friendship as Google.org consultants in East Africa did I understand how to conjoin the two. While representing Google.org in TechnoServe's national business plan competition, "Believe, Begin, Become," Josh and I delivered 24 hours of lectures to Tanzania's top 70 entrepreneurs, led market estimation cases, and provided 160 hours of business plan feedback.

We came to observe sequential business taxonomy, and in Stanford Social Innovation Review, I attributed this to an Abraham Maslow hierarchy of opportunity in Africa. Though on the side we managed to chase lions in Ngorongoro and commission a one-way, cash-payment, Ramadan flight to Zanzibar with only a cell phone number as promise for return booking, our growth came in a dusty back-alley. Beneath the coconut palms, to the chorus of children playing soccer on the road-side median, we met Gregory Mchopa laying oil to canvas, conjuring imagery of the Masai.

Today the BRUTE LABS project featuring the work of Gregory Mchopa is open for business, but through the process of meeting the artist, developing the website on a dial-up connection from the lobby of Dar es Salaam's Golden Tulip Hotel, and co-founding a General Partnership, Josh and I learned a lot about entrepreneurship.

I have told the story of MCHOPA in the context of doing business in Africa. In 2008 I presented the story to Google Dublin, Google India, and as a representative of Columbia University at the Global Public Policy Network Global Governance Conference in Paris, France. In a recent Yale Journal of International Affairs article entitled "Bringing Africa Online: Leveraging Technology to Empower Entrepreneurs", I've articulated road blocks encountered, and suggested palliative technology changes. As a writer for Harvard's Internet & Democracy Project, I attempt to detail technology changes around the globe, and their impact on commerce and politics, and as a writer at Stanford Social Innovation Review, distill ways in which business and non-profits can seek innovative solutions.

But to me BRUTE stands out. It has created a precedent for innovative, open-source community problem solving that has impelled me to choose action in the form of voice. BRUTE invites your grassroots change, your tangible action.

BRUTE LABS Open Source Altruism

Episode 1. Greg gets Brutes TRASHED in San Francisco's Mission

Time commitment: 3 hours
Materials: ~$14
10 trash bags - $6.49
6 Pairs of gloves – $4.99 each
Transportation - $1.10

Project Description

BRUTE LABS rolled up their sleeves on Saturday the 26th of September to clean up the streets in the Mission district of San Francisco. Traveling south-east from 17th and Shotwell st, the team scoured over 2.5 miles of city neighborhoods through the Mission district collecting, sorting and recycling trash on the street. Passers-by paused from their cell phone conversations to deliver enthusiastic thank-yous which helped motivate the team to collect an entire pick-up truck load of garbage in just over 3 hours. Special thanks to Justin To for truck duties and to Dorothy Wu for getting her BRUTE on with us for the afternoon.

BRUTE LABS debuts the works of Tanzanian artist Gregory Mchopa

BRUTE LABS, in association with Otis debuted the works of Tanzanian artist Gregory Mchopa on Wednesday night in San Francisco.

Special thanks to Amanda and the Otis team for their amazing venue and all of you who came out to support BRUTE LABS and Gregory Mchopa.

Mchopa, 25, is an African artist and entrepreneur from Dar es Salaam. His art is inspired by the people he knows best, those of the Maasai. An artist who has been painting for 16 years, his original oil and canvas works can be found in the small shop he owns on the Msasani Peninsula or online at www.Mchopa.com.

To learn more about the project visit the Mchopa project page.

RUN! proposal wins $10k grant

Brute Labs will be scaling our RUN! project to 4,500+ kids in the bay area.

Project RUN! gives elementary school students incentives to run extra laps in their PE classes, with raffle tickets to win an iPod shuffle for every lap they run above the required.

Full grant proposal available here:
https://docs.google.com/Doc?id=ddqxjbn9_37ffw4v5ft