Jonathan Finger said:

Could you tell us a little about your vision/work that brought you to Ashoka (or brought them to you)?

http://www.ashoka.org/fellows/vi ewprofile3.cfm?reid=144022

that description was written in 2001. There was a time a few years ago when I felt it was very far from the direction I'd evolved in, but these days it's feeling like a fitting description again. After starting with an online microfinance program through lifeinafrica.com back in 1999, I understood that the audience who was engaging with our borrower also wanted to engage on other levels (buying crafts, in-kind gifts, donations etc.) that we weren't prepared to handle.

After receiving the Ashoka fellowship, I spent a long phase (2002-2004) doing research and development on how to connect communities online. The past 2.5 years have been spent actively building up a grassroots African community that people in the rest of the world can connect to.

Right now I'm working on a new lifeinafrica.com that will be the beginnings of an online superstore of impact alternatives for Africa - tried and tested first in a very depressed and war-torn context. An example I have often given in the past for what kind of impact generation I was after was that you'd eventually be able to buy home-made peanut butter from a widow you read about online for delivery to a local orphanage you also read about online and thereby maximize the impact of every dollar you spend. These past couple of years have been extremely useful in understanding a community's needs and assets. So the new site will provide a framework for generating targeted impact resources that not only the Life in Africa WE Centers but also other orgs can tap into... in fact, my plan is to work exclusively with Ashoka projects in the first stages of scaling the concept beyond the LiA communities.

Meanwhile, all these years down the line, I've actually now got a real widow making peanut butter connected with a food aid program for children in northern Uganda. :)

this long story leads to another interesting point about Ashoka - they don't select projects but people. On average, the people they select start making a visible national level impact 5-7 years after being awarded the fellowship, and not necessarily with the work that led Ashoka to them.