The AIDG Model

Imagine an organization that starts small businesses in developing countries that produce clean and green technologies to meet the rural poor’s need for clean water, sanitation, and energy. That organization is here.

Business Incubation

Business incubation is the cornerstone of AIDG’s work. Through our business incubation program, we locate engineering talent in developing countries and help them to form businesses that provide small-scale renewable energy and sanitation technologies to underserved communities, development agencies, and private individuals. Our objective is to create a global network of micro-manufacturing facilities (a.k.a. workshops).

The benefits of investing in such businesses include:

Sustainability. Locally based businesses produce lasting change and ensure long-term access to sanitation, electricity and clean water in the communities they serve.
Wider Distribution. Our businesses establish distribution channels to disseminate their products as effectively as possible to the people who need them the most.
Lower Cost. Local production means cost-savings for the farmer, development NGO or community organization that wants access to our clean or renewable technologies.
Lower barriers to entry. There are many barriers that would prevent businesses aimed at serving lower income communities from getting off the ground. Our incubation program helps remove some of those obstacles.

The AIDG provides each workshop with:

Training
Financial assistance
Technical assistance
Equipment and material procurement
Aid in business planning
A 2-year incubation commitment

Community Outreach

As part of AIDG’s commitment to the communities where our incubated businesses are located, we contract our workshops to install technologies for local organizations, such as schools, hospitals, and community centers. These projects allow our businesses to contribute positively to their communities by providing much-needed services. This community outreach also augments the financial stability of our businesses during the incubation period.

Through our TecoTours program, volunteers participate in our Community Outreach efforts. On a TecoTour, they help and work alongside inhabitants of the communities that they visit.

Education: Internships and Project Placement

The AIDG Internship Program gives qualified professionals, undergraduate, and graduate students hands-on experience in international development and appropriate technology implementation in developing countries. It also fosters the transfer of technical knowledge between university students/faculty and the workers at our incubated businesses. As part of the Project Placement Program, students with novel designs are invited to manufacture and test them in one of our incubated busineses. Successful designs can also be rapidly introduced to other incubated workshops in other regions. We are currently pursuing long term testing relationships with Engineers Without Boders, MIT, Berkeley RAEL and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab.

Though our programs are described separately above, they are interconnected and integral to the fulfillment of AIDG’s mission.
The income generated from TecoTours supports our incubated businesses, which in turn provide a working space for employees and volunteers. Community outreach increases local demand for the workshop’s products, while also increasing the skills/expertise of employees. Our workshops provide an environment to run our education programs, while the products from the Project Placement Program aid the innovation of better technologies.

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