Jumo: Now in Beta

Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes's online platform, Jumo, is now up and running in beta. 

I blogged about Jumo back in September, when it got a $750,000 grant from Omidyar Network -- it hadn't launched at the time. Now, the new site is open for testing. 

You can sign up using your Facebook username and password -- the site in fact looks like  a facsimile of Facebook, making it very easy/familiar to use, while also capitalizing on existing social connections. When I logged in for instance, after being prompted to pick topics I would be interested in following--health, education, human rights etc., I am then taken to organizations that work in these areas and allowed to follow them.

Barefoot College Trains Low-Income Villagers to be Solar Engineers

A Rajasthan based organization called Barefoot College that trains low-income men and women to be 'solar engineers'  in rural remote and non-electrified villages is making its mark across India, and around the world. 

The  organization, which has been operative in India since 1972, recently trained 6 grandmothers from rural, north western Zambia to assemble and build circuits and solar lanterns, solar lamps, charge controllers, choke coils and transformers, and learn to correctly connect modules, batteries, lamps and charge controllers. Solar engineers at Barefoot College are also trained to install, test, repair and maintain fixed solar lighting units and solar lanterns for a period of at least five years. A rural electrification workshop is also set up, which houses the components and equipment needed for the repair and installation of solar units. 

Philanthropists that Bankroll Social Enterprises

Pierre Omidyar/Wikimedia

On Saturday, Barron's released its list of 'The 25 Best Givers' -- high impact philanthropists who are changing the world through their donations. Many of these consisted of grants to help further educational, health or human rights issues in developing countries. Some of them consisted of funding for social enterprises -- ventures that once lifted off the ground, would be self sustaining.

Here's a look at some notable social enterprises being funded by the men and women who made the list:

Skoll Foundation (Jeff Skoll)

APOPO -- trains rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis. 

Kiva -- online platform for peer to peer microlending

Kickstart -- develops irrigation pumps suitable for steeply sloping land -- they push water uphill as well as pulling it from the source

IDEI-  affordable irrigation products that provide water one drop at a time