The low-down on AidPods
The AidPod is at the heart of the ColaLife model. It is a wedge-shaped container that fits between the… [more]
ColaLife research Northern Uganda
Click image to download the report (PDF, 684KB) I've reported before on the work of a group of young… [more]
Supporters
The idea behind the ColaLife campaign is more than 20 years old but got nowhere until there was a mechanism… [more]
Royal Society of Medicine presentation now live
For those of you who were unable to make the ColaLife presentation at the Royal Society of Medicine last… [more]
ColaLife wins Global Health Innovation Award
ColaLife is one of three winners of the Boehringer Ingelheim/Ashoka Changemakers 'Making More Health' awards. We were chosen from more than 470 entries from 82 countries.Thanks to all those who campaigned and voted.
Building unlikely alliances to save children's lives
We are working to get Coca-Cola to open up their distribution channels in developing countries to carry 'social products', such as oral rehydration salts to save children's lives. You can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere but one in five children die before their fifth birthday. This mortality rate has not changed significantly over the last three decades which indicates that we need to look for new options like ColaLife.ColaLife is independent and run by volunteers [more]
Aid: Supply-led versus Demand-led assistance
Left: Supply driven assistance – food relief delivered by helicopter. Right: Demand driven assistance – prototype ColaLife anti-diarrhoea kits Consider the two pictures above – both are efforts to save lives – one is supply-driven the other demand-driven. Many would group these types of initiative together as ‘aid’ as opposed to ‘trade’ type activity. However, [...]
Pack of innovation – your ORS: shaken, not stirred
Who knew that packaging could be so exciting? We’re delighted with the way PI Global has taken our ideas and made them into a functional reality. In fact, there is a chance that our original innovation, that has captured everyone’s imagination – the piggy-backing of simple medicines on the Coca-Cola secondary distribution system – may [...]
At last! A peek at the ColaLife Trial Plan
Many of our regular readers will be itching to see the culmination of our work over the last 3 years: our plan for the first field trial of the ColaLife concept – the snappily named ColaLife Operational Trial Zambia (or COTZ, when you are trying to fit it into a funder’s 600 character project description!). [...]
Supply chain theory in 140 characters
One of the good things about Twitter is that in concentrates the mind. Can you get your thought, your hypothesis, your joke or witticism down to just 140 characters? As we’ve got deeper and deeper into the ColaLife project a hypothesis has been developing about supply chains. I’ve been trying to get this hypothesis down to 140 [...]
The ColaLife Pilot Business Model explained
This video clip explains the business model on which we are basing the ColaLife pilot. This is still subject to refinement but this is where we stand at the moment. Jane and I are off to the World Economic Forum on Africa in Cape Town on Sunday (more on that tomorrow) and we will be [...]
Child survival – why innovation is needed
In 1990 the eight Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) were published and are the blueprint for development agreed to by all the world’s countries and all the world’s leading development institutions. They have galvanized unprecedented efforts to meet the needs of the world’s poorest. MDG#4 relates to child mortality and the target is: TARGET Reduce by [...]
The latest AidPod – details released
This image shows the latest version of the AidPod (Version VIII) and its component parts: We went through this with the PI Global team last night over Skype. Enhancements in this version include: Increased ‘draft angle’ to allow more effective ‘nesting’ of empty AidPods De-nesting features that stop the nested AidPods getting stuck inside each [...]
