Tell us a little about what you were doing before Columbia Business School? MB: I worked in Ghana doing water treatment for Community Water Solutions (CWS), which I co-founded in 2008. CWS’s mission is to implement community-level water treatment businesses in rural, tribal villages that are off-the-grid for piped water. In most cases, a community’s only source of drinking water is a shallow, manmade dugout that it shares with wildlife, so can be loaded with fecal coli form, which is a leading cause of fatal diarrheal disease. Our approach is to work with the village to build a for-profit business that will not only improve the quality of life for the community at large, but also empower women in the community by letting them run the business. There are very few opportunities for women in developing counties to improve their own being, and by teaching them how to run their own business, they improve their quality of life and at the same time become role models for others. To a bunch of profit-motivated b-schoolers, your experience seems pretty unique. How did you end up interested in social enterprise? It happened kind of by chance. I was at UVA studying business management, and one day just happened to find myself at an info session for Engineers Without Borders, mostly for the food. Next thing I know, I’m on a plane bound for Nicaragua to work on the business plan for an engineering-focused community development project. That led to a call the next year to establish a for-profit water filtration business in Cameroon. However, I found a lot of what we were doing—selling individual household filters—wasn’t effective. We ended up monitoring more than implementing because of the difficulties of properly training the users and could only claim social impact based on product sales. I learned a lot from this, like how treating water in bulk and using household storage containers is much more effective at controlling the process from treatment to consumption, ensuring that people are truly getting clean water. So you saw an opportunity and took it. We can relate to that. The main mantra at CWS is to keep the technology as simple and usable as possible. We essentially bring some equipment and a big tank and let the villagers maintain it. The real value isn’t in the building of the centers though, its community organizing. We teach people how to clean the water and the importance of clean water. teach money management skills. Our goal is to help people learn to problem solve for themselves and eventually back away from each village, knowing that the villagers are equipped to run the business themselves. Do you have a sense of what your impact has been so far, or how big it could be? We’re in process with our seventh village right now—about 3,600 individuals so far. The villages we’ve worked with range from 100 people to more than 1,000. In the first village that we went into, there was a woman who we helped start a CWS system. For the first time, she was able to send her children to school. That she was able to pay for because she worked with the CWS system. She was empowered, and that’s energizing. That’s what it’s all about. This summer we’re launching a fellowship program. It’s a tuition based model. Teams of five will pay a team tuition, which will cover a week of training and then two weeks of implementation of a new CWS system. Hosting these teams will enable the organization to sustain itself financially and continue to grow. It’s exciting. it helps to build the CWS community, spread awareness of the water crisis and, hopefully, will lead to more people working in public health. It’s quick and impactful. I’ve been busy interviewing people from all over who are interested in the program. It’s clear you’ve created a lot of good change. Thanks for sharing and good luck! Find out more about CWS or donate.