Dear Maqsood and Iftekhar,
I am very interested by the Waste Concern's solution that you described in your entry, as you are basically offering an economically sustainable and replicable model FOR slum dwellers BY slum dwellers - creating self- reliance in low-income communities. Waste collection is obviously a very much needed service in slums and this will hopefully inspire other commercial or social ventures to develop other critical services for these markets... The commercial partnership you established with the fertilizer company is also a great strategy to leverage the core competencies of the business sector - in this case marketing and distribution channels to reach out to small farmers.
Many competition participants would probably be interested in your perspective on a few points including:
* What is your strategy to organize local communities given that your model is based on a large number of slum dwellers participating? Do you engage local authorities or community associations? * Are slum dwellers willing to pay for this service? Are you facing the issue that they may expect free services/ subsidies from the government? * What motivated the fertilizer company to buy the waste in the first place? Was it purely commercial or as part of their corporate social reponsibility agenda? * How easy or difficult has it proven to be to get the initial investment to set up a new composting plant? What kind of investors do you attract? * You already replicated the model in 20 cities. It is very impressive! What are the key conditions for replication?
Looking forward to continuing the discussion,
Stephanie
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