I’ve just got back from the field, with so many stories to tell and pictures to show, to the news that ColaLife’s Kit Yamoyo has won the Product category of the Designs of the Year 2013. The maverick in me thinks it’s fantastic that something designed with the poor and for the poor, and with the word [...]
Designs of the Year 2013 | ColaLife gets a high profile
The Designs of the Year 2013 exhibition opened yesterday (20/3/13) and we would have loved to have been there. The next best thing was watching the #designsoftheyear tweets. It wasn’t long before photos of the ColaLife exhibit came through (isn’t social media wonderful?). The first from @Clerkenwell2013 and the second by @dfid_innovation who said: novel partnership, [...]
ColaLife featured in The Mail on Sunday – credit where credit is due
We are very pleased with this coverage in The Mail on Sunday about our nomination for Designs of the Year 2013 but I’d like to expand on it a bit. As the ‘front man’ for ColaLife I tend to get all the recognition which is not entirely fair! The idea of piggy-backing essential medicines on [...]
It’s the value chain stupid!

Private sector people with supply chain experience will chuckle when they read this. It will be so obvious to them. But it’s not obvious to the rest of us. This is just one example of how public private partnerships are so helpful. What’s obvious to someone from the private sector may not be obvious to [...]
Top 10 achievements in 2012
Evaluating ColaLife Operational Trial Zambia – COTZ
[The following article was written by Rohit Ramchandani & Jane Berry and was published this week in UNICEF's internal M&E Newsletter EvalNews. It looks at the issues we have faced designing the evaluation framework for the ColaLife Trial in Zambia (COTZ)] COTZ is funded by DfID, J&J Corporate Citizenship Trust, COMESA and Honda with in-kind [...]
The great unveiling – the production AidPod – the Mark XI
Tim Llewellyn of PI Global describes the latest version of the AidPod (Mark XI) over Skype Yesterday (28/3/12) was a big day. The highly anticipated Skype meeting with our packaging partner to present what is likely to be the version of the AidPod that will go into production was postponed from 11am to 3pm to [...]
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 [...]
Our response to the PRA – the AidPod Mark VIII
The AidPod moved to a new level of refinement this week in response to the challenge presented to us by Zambia’s Pharmaceutical Regulatory Authority (PRA). We had shown them the previous version (pictured) which I featured here. The PRA had an issue with soap being in the same kit as ORS and Zinc. There are [...]
The ORS Question answered . . . by you
ORS sachets bought in Zambia – note that they all make up 1 litre I never tire of telling people that Open Innovation is an amazing phenomenon. Happily, it disproves the old adage: Ask a silly question… Because, in fact, you don’t get silly answers. Nearly a dozen people, including several international experts in Oral [...]






