5) Description of housing product/service offering: Production of affordable housing by producing interior and exterior wall panels from compressed agricultural waste fibers, typically wheat straw.

The plan is to organize local farmers to form a cooperative in their region as stakeholders in the manufacturing operation. Farmers will appreciate an additional cash crop by selling their waste straw to the Panel Plant. The finished goods can then be sold back to the farmers (or bartered) and to the locals in the region at a very low cost. Our mission is high volume at low margins.

Our company will form a joint venture with local farmers, governments and business organizations. ABT Insulpanel will then provide the needed machinery, training and set up at our cost.

The primary beneficiaries will be those peoples living at the base of the economic pyramid.

6) Description of innovation: The main difference is that our technology creates full sustainability and eliminates the need to import construction materials.

The raw material is renewable, does not destroy the local environment (no cuttinf down forests). Reduces air pollution (no need to burn fields after harvest).

We will employ a local unskilled labour force to make the panels, erect the housing and harvest and deliver the waste straw.

7) Benefits to clients: Typically it is in the agricultural regions that we recognize the poorest living conditions.

The farmers will benefit from an additional cash crop. The cost of housing is the lowest avaialable world wide. Craetes jobs for unskilled workers.

Currently ABT Insulpanel is working with many funding organizations world wide and is building madel homes in Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Romania, Pakistan and is also involved in many "Home Shows" in Africa.

8) Key operational partnerships: There have been many strategic partnerships formed over the last year as follows:

1. To reduce the cost of machinery a Turkish Joint Venture manufacturing plant has been established and is producing at least two (2) machine lines per month. 2. A factory in Sivas, Turkey will be in full production this coming August to supply First, Fast, Response Emergency Housing ( a village in 15 minutes).

3. A joint venture has been established in South Africa with a Mining Company that initially will build housing for the previously ignored miners and their families. Then they will supply housing to others in need.

4. A joint venture has been formed with several farming enterprises in Calarasi, Romania to produce low cost housing in that region and then will grow throughout Romania.

5. Joint Ventures are currently being negotiated in Mexico, Pakistan and India.

9) Financial model: Due to the extreme low cost of our houses, we have not as yet needed to source financing for the buyers. However with the added income we offer locally, buyers can afford to purchase or trade straw for homes.

          • Costs as percentage of income: 5

          • Financing: ABT Insulpanel supplies the machinery, tools, installation and training at cost and relies on it's local partners to supply the needed cash. It is proven that the operation is self supporting in six months after going into production.

10) Effectiveness

          • Project outcomes: The initial factory opens in August and is targeted to supply 4,000 low cast homes.

          • Number of clients in past year: No data available at present.

          • Percentage of clients that are poor or marginalized: 90

          • Potential demand: This is a global housing solution. Currently we are focusing on wheat growing regions such as most of Africa, Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Romania, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Afghanistan, Russia and etc.

However, an intense Research and Development Program is underway to incorporate other fibers into our panel System such as the following: Rice Fiber Elephant Grass Typhus Australis (a reed blocking many rivers in Africa such as the Senegal Delta crisis) Sugar Cane Fiber and Many Wild Grasses

11) Scaling up strategy

          • Stage of the initiative: Scaling Up stage.

          • Expansion plan: There are approximately 1,500,000 to 2,600,000 hectares of wheat grown in Romania per year, which produces 2,000,000 – 6,000,000 tons of grain.

Each mill requires 3885 hectares of wheat straw harvest. Each plant has production capacity for approximately 4,000 homes/dwellings of 80m²– 120m² of living space annually. This would consume 40,000 tons of straw waste/year.

Based on preliminary estimates that Romania burns 80% of the straw, 4,000,000 tons/year.

There is a potential for an additional 9 factories/machine lines in Romania or factories with more than one machine line if the straw is within a reasonable shipping distance.

It is calculated that a single factory can maintain three (3) machine lines (Mills). That will require 11,655 hectares of wheat crop. Above this, collection becomes too expensive and an alternate location will be required.

12) Origin of the initiative: Initially John Daniels, Founder of ABT Insulpanel, set up a low cost light steel framed housing operation in Kosice, Slovakia in 1990 and made a large impact in Slovakia, Croatia Romania, Ukraine and Russia. However once this technology was realized in those regions in became unaffordable to the lower incomes peoples. In 2000, John Daniels found a company that had produced straw panels in Western Canada for roof decking and relocatable site offices. He purchased the machinery and technology and began redesigning the machinery to produce a better product by increasing the density, introducing different applications and incorporated his light steel framing into a complete, low cost housing technology. Over the past 18 months he has been active establishing joint ventures world wide, working closely with funding organizations.

Contact Information:
John  Daniels
President
ABT Insulpanel Limited
(Business)
814-8501 Bayview Avenue, Richmond Hill, Ontario L4B 3J7
Canada
Tel: (905) 882-2499
Fax: (905) 882-5168
Email: danielsabt@sympatico.ca
Website: http://hometown.aol.com/danielsabt/myhomepage/business.html