friends at unreasonable institute in boulder, colorado recently announced the finalists in their inaugural unreasonable marketplace competition…

view a cool clip here!!!

from 284 applicants, u/i selected 35 of the boldest, baddest (good bad), most determined young social entrepreneurs out to change the world.

the standard? ventures must effectively address a social or environmental issue, be financially self-sustaining within 1 year, have a model which can be scaled out of the country of origin within 3 years, and must eventually meet the needs of at least 1 million people…easy right???

the challenge? a race to crowd source funding in increments of $10 for a total of $6,500, which - for the first 25 teams to reach that milestone - covers their investment in an intensive 10-week summer skills and mentorship training program at the unreasonable institute (in lovely boulder; tough luck huh?).

vote your alexander hamiltons (10s) here!!!

the payoff? besides incubation and global networks, at the end of the ten weeks u/i fellows receive start-up capital from the unreasonable village fund, sponsored by first light ventures (sister enterprise of gray ghost ventures).

the catch? the entrepreneurs decide who gets funded! inspired by village banking models used in microfinance, u/i will test first light's village capital investment thesis that, by working with and supporting one another, entrepreneurs are better positioned than arm's length investors to make intelligent investments in one another’s companies. so not all may come away with seed investments.

among my favorite finalists:

light up malawi, which aims to get an entire nation off the grid through 100% sustainable energy.  now that's bad ass…and totally unreasonable!  (full disclosure: i work with these crazy people on unrelated projects).  in partnership with the government of malawi (world's 4th poorest country, with 12 million people) l/u/m plans to launch a national pilot program that provides import and domestic production incentives for manufacturers of solar, biomass and wind energy products, and that creates village level coalitions to install and maintain distributed energy sources at low cost or no cost.

get lit up by their short here!!!

rickshaw bank, which organizes and provides loans to pullers for new rickshaws, uniforms, licenses and a photo ID for 25-30 rupees/day. rickshaw bank also provides family health care, family planning, clothing, cooking gas and schooling for the children at affordable cost through micro-finance intervention.

get carried away here!!!

and another favorite:

who gives a crap!, which plans to support water sanitation projects in the developing world through the sale of non-profit toilet paper in developed economies…now that's what i call a closed loop system! the facts: 1 billion lack access to clean water and 2.6 billion lack access to hygienic toilets, acutely increasing incidence of preventable diseases and death. the g/a/c boys did a back-of-the-envelope and realized their fellow australians spend $750 million annually wiping their asses, yet it only costs 50c a year to provide individuals access to clean water. conclusion: 1% aussie t/p market share = 1,000,000 people with clean water!

catch their crappy video here!!!

for another blog featuring unreasonable shit (click Oct 08!) check out pamela hartigan's entry at harvard's center for public leadership on gram vikas of india, and why never to underestimate the power of a toilet! pamela also penned "the power of unreasonable people: how social entrepreneurs create markets that change the world"...got the gist yet?

with that, i suppose it's worth closing with the wisdom from george bernard shaw that inspired some of this radical shit:

"the reasonable man adapts himself to the conditions that surround him…the unreasonable man adapts surrounding conditions to himself…all progress depends on the unreasonable man [and woman]."

amen...now go vote you bums!!!