Social Entrepreneurship Research : Q Drum

      Each student in our class chose a social venture to research and create info-graphics so that everyone in the class could be exposed to the current world of social entrepreneurship. My subject was the Q Drum : A portable plastic longitudinal shaft that can be easily rolled for long distances to help people who use the better part of their day fetching clean water. 

     Although the product proved to be very appealing and helpful for the users, its unfortunate that there wasn't enough support (financially and popularity) at the time to continue the venture. Because of this failure, it's difficult to say if the Q Drum was a successful social entrepreneurship. But one can argue that since the idea of the Q Drum still lives on in services like Invent for Humanity or Hippo Roller and continues to help people fetch clean water with ease, Q Drum should still be considered as a product of  social entrepreneurship. 

EMPATHY + DESIGN APPROACH

     The idea sprouted from what Pieter Hendrikse observed during his volunteer program in South Africa. It's clear that Hendrikse took a pain point and improved it in many ways. Through his process he developed ways to cut down the work and time used by making the containers store water, transport with ease, and usable by anyone. The Q Drum is a product addressing a clear social issue that simply didn't have enough support to  

      The main problem stemmed from the lack of support social entrepreneurs had in the early 1990's. Hendrikse stated that the Q Drum was an idea ahead of its time. Sponsors and stakeholders didn't see the point in investing in a non profit idea just to help people in need. Hendrikse drew from private financial sources to keep the Q Drum alive until he was forced to abandon the project. 

COMPARISON 

       One of the other social ventures a classmate researched was One Laptop Per Child (OLPC). OLPC was targeted to increase education in developing countries by making an affordable laptop to be given to students at schools. Like the Q Drum the solution became a product that was manufactured. One of the biggest differences with OLPC and the Q Drum is their financial backing. OLPC sold their laptops to governments who distributed them to schools for free. They also had a board of sponsors who helped fund the laptops. Although, like the Q Drum, OLPC also became abandoned, it wasn't because  of funding problems. It was simply not effective in solving the issue it was supposed to improve. There was only a minor increase in attendance and students actually spent less time reading.  

      Overall, OLPC took the inventive approach in developing their idea. The founder speculated that if children can have free access to the internet they would open up new ways of learning. However, because they began by coming up with the technology to achieve a $150 laptop and then finding the users with the need, OLPC failed to realize the real needs of the users.