Sometimes you meet someone who goes after a big idea and can enthuse his family, friends and others to join the adventure and to make a difference in this world. It does not happen that often. Maybe more often than none in Silicon Valley, where Apple and Google started in family garages. That is what happened to me when I interviewed Mathias Craig who co-founded blueEnergy with his brother Guillaume and his childhood friend Lâl Marandin to bring basic energy and clean water services to poor population off the grid.
By the end of our chat, I could not help caring about his cause because his passion is not just about finding a technical solution or helping others. It is about connecting people, and this goes beyond infrastructure. More than 1.5 billion people still do not have access to electricity. Actually there are more people without basic lighting today than at the time of Thomas Edison. Some populations like the ones on the Caribbean Coast of Nicaragua live outside the pyramid, with little resources and in remote areas. That is where Mathias and blueEnergy come in to play.
Everything started with Mathias traveling with his mother who is a linguist specialized in endangered indigenous languages and worked throughout Central America. He learned about the importance of communication. "I learned early on though my mother's lens that it is very hard to understand what people are trying to communicate" tells me Mathias at his office in the social entrepreneurship neighborhood in San Francisco. He also sees miscommunication at the office every day where people speak the same language. "I am always assuming that people are not understanding."
After graduating from UC Berkeley, Mathias went to MIT to complete a Master of Science in Civil and Environmental Engineering and took a class in 2002 on Entrepreneurship in the Developing World. That is where he got the idea to build wind turbines to purify water and competed in the following Fall $1k MIT business plan competition where he won in the Global Markets category with two classmates. Encouraged, he decided to implement the project in late 2003 as a non-profit and focused on Nicaragua, which is the 2nd poorest country on the western hemisphere.
Over the next few years, Mathias spent a lot of time in Nicaragua with his brother and childhood friend. They created a sister non-profit in France in 2004 and the organization expanded its foot-print in Nicaragua. By 2008 they had succesfully installed nine energy systems, meeting the needs of six remote communities in Nicaragua with dire needs. Mathias's brother now leads the operational team on the ground in Bluefields (see map - courtesy of blueEnergy).
"Part of the issue is that one community to the next can be vastly different" explains Mathias Craig. "They might only be dozens of kilometers away but they are worlds apart." That goes againt the cookie-cutter approach to scale in the developped world. It is a "non-linear process" and there is a lot of listening involved to gain the trust of people who have nothing to look forward to, and work out a solution that meets their needs. The process always starts by building a relationship with a community leader who has heard of blueEnergy or by they tagging along with a local partner like the UN or the World Bank.
The type of "non-linear" relationship that Mathias describes reminds me of the type of relationships involved in charity or business fundraising. We reflect on whether the two extremes of the social and economic bell curve have things in common -- the top 1% of the economic ladder and the 10% of the population completely cut from modern infrastructure in Nicaragua. It is not rational process for them to join a project because they are somewhat detached from material constraints. One difference that Mathias notes with donors or investors though is that remote populations have no concept of discount value.
Most of the populations they interact with have been through bad experiences or suffered the impact of grueling regimes in Nicaragua. As a result, they cannot fathom that the future can be materially better, and live day to day. It is difficult for them to grasp how energy and water services can create forward value. The mission of blueEnergy is to serve those who are not served at multiple levels. blueEnergy have been recognized for its innovatibe work by CNN Heroes and Tech Awards among others, and developped an extended network of coprorate and instutional supporters.
"The recognication on CNN came early" answers Mathias when I ask about how it felt being interviewed by Larry King. "I was not trained to leverage an opportunity like this". In the interview (photo and link below) Mathias answers genuinely the questions and comes across poised. "People thought we had everything figured out and we received a lot of requests for help" he explains further. "I could have been clearer on what we needed." As a matter of fact, being featured on the 2007 CNN Heroes edition did not help with direct donations. However, it helped immensely building credibility with local Government and third party organizations who saw the CNN segment in Spanish when it was broadcasted throughout Latin Ameria.
When I ask about how it affected the dynamics of the team -- he was the only one interviewed on Larry King Live -- Mathias dismisses quickly the personnal accolade and warns against the imagery of the "lone cowboy fixing things on his own". That is something that exists in western countries, even more so in Silicon Valley where companies compete fiercely to launch new products, but it is not how it works according to him. The accolades that came to him publicly did not affect blueEnergy because they know it takes team work to address such complex problems. One cannot have a loner attitude to help people in under-served communities.
Mathias has strong life values but no particular religious beliefs. Local Government programs appreciate the work that blueEnergy carries out beyond their reach. They do come across Jesuit missionaries sometimes and they share some common approach when it comes to helping underserved and remote communities. The team of blueEnergy in the US has a collaboration with the Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley. Students can do internships with the non-profit and many become passionate alumni who later raise more awareness and organize small fundraising events.
Like many other international non-profit organizations, blueEnergy was affected by the economic downturn. Suddenly one of their major donors in Europe could not follow-up on a multi-year commitment. Mathias did welcome the Ashoka Fellowship in 2008 as it supported him for the following three years and freed money to go towards projects in Nicaragua and other staff members. They are about thirty people now with most of the staff in Nicaragua.
The other tricky part of fund-raising is that country priorities can change. Unlike Haiti, Nicaragua is no longer on the "must fund" list. It would be easier to raise money by focusing on other countries in Africa. blueEnergy would like to go there, and the team in France is making steps towars that. But Mathias wants to stabilize the work in Nicaragua before investing in Africa. He knows it takes time to connect with people and make a real difference on the ground.
Comments