 Welcome to our entrepreneur pitches from Haiti in Mexico. I am Dana Afonsoa, program officer for economic development for Haiti from the Latin American and Caribbean team at the Kellogg Foundation with my colleague. My name is Stan Frías, good afternoon everyone. Also a program officer for the Mexico team and the international team for the Kellogg Foundation. And we're thrilled, we're thrilled, we're excited to share with you what feels to the both of us like our best kept secret. We've had the honor and privilege of working with all of those entrepreneurs for many, many years. I'm sure that many of you have had numerous conversations about risk, de-risking, anything. I think in our language we do feel that in many, many ways those entrepreneurs are at the forefront of change and we've worked with them for many years. We're wanting to share into what we know are tremendous, tremendously powerful and exciting opportunities in the context of Haiti and Mexico. This year we really wanted to showcase the work of these amazing entrepreneurs. We think what makes them unique is that they come from community, they're leading initiatives from community and they're representing really the opportunities and how innovation can face challenges in rural context. We've been working with some of them for many years. We think they're at a fantastic stage to be invested on and to partner with and we're very, very happy to have other investors join us as we've invested in these communities as well. We think that their voice is very important also showcasing the leadership of communities in Mexico and Haiti and really bringing solutions based on community to the forefront. We had a panel this morning, it was very interesting, some of you were there showcasing this and today is really a celebration, a celebration of their work, a celebration of Mexico and Haiti of these rural and indigenous communities. Thank you and with that, without further ado and again do connect with us and engage with us if you have any questions after because we're more than happy to share everything that we learn and everything that we've learned from them. So thank you and hope to connect with you soon. Thank you. Hello everyone. My name is Dani and I'm here representing Dos Tierras. We are an artisanal brand that aims to and is making a difference in the lives of artisans from marginalized communities. Unfortunately my friend and partner Guillermo Jester couldn't be here today to share our vision and all of our achievements with you but I'm very much excited to be able to do this here today. Our other two founders, Tania Gomez and Reina Jiménez are both artisan leaders from Chiapas. According to Coneval's Tony Tony report in Mexico, poverty rates are alarmingly high. Over 58% of the Yucatan population and a staggering 78% of the Chiapas population are living below the income poverty line. So our mission is to focus on projects that have actual economic impact in these regions to address this particular issue. Dos Tierras was born out of a dream and more than 20 years of experience working with artisans in various regions across Mexico. Guillermo, Tania and Reina came together to create a collective brand that not only showcases the cultural diversity of our country but also revalues traditional textile techniques for the international and contemporary market. We released two collections per year and we feature home decor textiles such as pillows, hammocks, table tops and a small fashion capsule collection. Let me show you here on our previous slide. You can see some of these. All of the items, all of the products that we develop are designed and inspired by these traditional techniques of these two regions that we work in. Currently we sell our collections at trade shows in the US and Mexico and we cater to both wholesale and retail customers. However, our primary source of income actually comes from collaborations with renowned brands and designers. We produce hundreds and sometimes even thousands of items annually for these partnerships. We've had notable collaborators that include West Elm, Forehands and soon we will be collaborating with Aeromexico, which is Mexico's largest airline. Now in our first year as an independent company, we've sold over 15,000 items and collaborated with nearly 300 artisans from Yucatán and Chiapas and we generated sales of $375,000. Now this represents a very significant growth of 55%. This is compared to when we were members of the NGO A2 Artisans and all of the production and administrative costs were being covered by them. To continue our growth, we are seeking an investment of approximately $150,000 or in-kind donations. This can be goods and services. This is going to help us achieve our goal of growing by 100% or more, which means that we aim to sell at least $700,000 worth of products this coming year. With this additional support, we can enhance the quality of life of the 300 artisans that we collaborate with and we can increase their income through sustainable projects. Now our main income currently comes from custom design production. We believe that investing and exploring other commercial channels such as e-commerce is really going to unlock new opportunities for us. This obviously also comes with the recent surge in e-commerce due to the pandemic and so it represents a significant potential for us to expand and reach a wider audience. Now, I have showed you and showcased our impressive results. I've shared what our expectations are for the coming year and I've explained to you what our business model is. However, I believe that it's crucial for you to really understand who we truly are. I want to give you three words for this. This means thank you in Sotsil, Seltal and Maya. These are the languages of the artisans we collaborate with and this embodies our gratitude towards them, towards their craftsmanship and the opportunity that we have to uplift their communities. Thank you for your time. Thank you very much for your time and for being here. Please feel free to scan our information over here for more details on this QR code. We really look forward to connecting with you. You can find me around as well and we greatly appreciate your consideration and you being here. Thank you very much. Good evening, everyone. I am from Haiti and my name is Magalino Eldres, the founder and CEO of Caribbean Craft, a company that has been working with artisans across the country. Featured in Ford's magazine, New York Times, Vogue, Better Homes and Gardens for the work that we've done. Over the years, we've developed collections for anthropology, Potry Barn, Crate and Barrel, West Elm, Donna Karen, to name a few. We attended major home decor shows such as New York Now, Shop Object, America's Mart. Our company generated $1.5 million in a year in revenue for artisans. Hearing all this, what's the problem? We all know that Haiti has been going through the past three years major crisis that greatly affected the artisan craft sector. The international buyers were forbidden to come to Haiti. In addition to the long list that is on the screen, the access to market became the most pressing issue. Once again, we had to find a new solution to keep artisans employed. More than ever, we had to make sure that they kept their job that is in a country like mine a true luxury. We had to readjust our strategy and step out to the world. But how? With a market-driven approach. We created something unique based on alliances. By creating these alliances in and outside of Haiti, engaging fully our diaspora and partnering with institutions on the ground to help us develop our own expo, our traveling arts and crafts expo, to create a new sales channel for artisan groups in need of a job. A sales force unit is designed to be the engine of all activities as we want to move forward with a market-driven approach. The wind of hope is playing a key role. Our traveling arts and crafts expo between January and now was featured five times in the United States. Our online platform is fully operational for direct sales and giving visibility already to 14 groups. While at Korean Craft, we continue to serve as a mini hub for the sector. By doing so, we aim to retain jobs, which is crucial at the moment. Too many companies are shutting down, people are giving up, entrepreneurs are quitting. We need to remain in business. We want to create new jobs. And we also want to bring back the revenues of $1.5 million for year one and double by year three. Besides the alliances that we're seeking here in partnership, we are also seeking for a grant of $300,000 to invest in our communication strategy on marketing and sales and investment of $750,000. We believe in the sector. We remain committed to our artisan. And we are proud to say that we are a resilient company, adjusting through difficult times while developing a very strong plan for a bright future. On behalf of the artisans and our very powerful dream team on the screen, I thank you for your attention and look forward to continuing our conversation with you whenever you want to reach out to us. Thank you. Hello everybody. Welcome for being here. I am Monce and I am here to represent the 83 women artisans who are part of juxtamination. Juana Lopez Diaz is an artisan from Chiapas, Mexico. The lack of market value and opportunities discourage her to continue the practices that are part of her textile cultural heritage in search of a better paid opportunity. Her involvement with NGO Impacto, founded by Adriana Guerrevere ten years ago, encouraged her to pursue these textile traditions in Mexico. Juana's story is just an example of the 83 women who make up the social enterprise, juxtamination. Historically, women belonging to the indigenous people of Mexico have been subjected to three oppressions, by class, gender and ethnicity. 65% of indigenous women over 12 years are engaged in unpaid activities. 18% receive an income of their work and only 1% is an owner of some type of personal property. Artisanal activity is not seen as a source of income for women and their families. On average, a woman artisan in Chiapas, Mexico receives $1.6 per day selling their pieces at lower prices. Formed by seven cooperatives of Los Altos de Chiapas, Juxta is a commerce platform that connects artisans with consumers who are conscious and who want to pursue new products. Women in Juxta Nation are producers, owners and partners. 80% of the cost of production corresponds to the artisanal labor of the members, which they receive upon delivery of their pieces. This increased their income by 500% without increasing their working hours. By becoming owners of this enterprise, they receive additional profits of the sales. In the long term, they will have financial freedom and they can self-manage the enterprise Juxta Nation. This improves the quality of life of their families and their communities. The sales market is looking for better options for consumption practices. On a study by GlobalScan on sustainability, they found that 1.1 billion of women are responsible consumers who are seeking high-quality products that are artisanal, ethical and sustainable. $723 billion dollars are in the world textile industry. In Mexico's textile market, it is equivalent for the 4% of this, and in five years, our goal is to reach the 0.01% of the national market of Mexico. In Mexico, there are 12 million indigenous artisans. 742,000 are textile artisans, of which 67% are women. Currently, there are 83 women who are part of Juxta Nation. We are planning to bring new members. This is what we want to do. We want to have 4,917 members who represent the 1% of the women artisans in Mexico. Today, we have strategic alliances like NGO Impacto and Ensemble Artesano to help us reach throughout Latin America and Mexico. For the 500,000 investment, we are searching to scale the growth of the enterprise. This will allow us to reinvest in the growth and expansion of Juxta Nation, allowing us to make national and international commercial alliances and to make Juxta Nation grow. This will set a new precedent in the textile sector with master artisans of Mexico and Latin America. The essence of Juxta Nation is based on social commitment, generating gender-focused enterprises where women increase their income by reducing their working hours. And this, in turn, reduced the environmental impact of the processes' productions and the safeguarding of their cultural heritage. The future of fashion is sustainable, timeless, artisanal, and female. Together, we work this path, Juxta Nation. Thank you. I'm Sebastian Mortimer with AgriLog. AgriLog is a agricultural services company. We provide three key services to farmers in Haiti. We're looking to solve a key set of problems. One of them is low crop yield, lack of access to financing, 60% post-harvest loss, and limited access to local buyers and export buyers. We do this through what we call a flex concept. With flex, we provide financing, logistics, and expertise. One of the key areas of finance that we're doing today is a small accelerator where we choose small projects that we put capital into. Usually, these are amounts ranging from $5,000 to $10,000. On the logistics side, we take a full operational control of the crops, meaning from the farm and to the final buyers. This includes processing the crops, storing it in our warehouse or co-chain, and the export process to U.S. markets. On the expertise side, we also provide business management services to the farmers, meaning accounting, marketing connections to buyer groups, and also partnerships with universities and other institutions, such as the government or, for example, minister of finance for farming. Right now, we have pilots running nationwide. These pilots have allowed us to reach around 2,600 farmers. The key crop right now in our pilot is peppers. So if you like hot sauce, we export peppers to the U.S. and also mash it in a process, which is a process before converting it to the hot sauce. Our goal right now is scaling these operations to be able to reach more farmers and more distribution. Right now, we're at a run rate of roughly $800,000, and with a $2 million investment, this will allow us to reach a $18 million run rate in 18 months. This target is based on discussions with our distributor groups that we're already selling into, and they're asking us for more product, more product, but this requires capital and time and investment. The use of funds is fairly straightforward. We're investing in the farmers directly into the infrastructure to allow us to process more products. What we've seen so far is for every $1,000 investment into the program, we're able to increase farmer income by $500 per year. As I mentioned, our key asset is a $2 million investment. In addition to that, we're looking for partners in the agriculture sector. This includes food importers, a new program, the government, and for example, institutions such as universities that have agricultural programs that can provide technical assistance to our farming operations. I just wanted to invite you guys to visit our website, AgriLog.ht. This is our good friend, Kabe. He is the leader of one of our key cooperatives in the north of Haiti. With him, he's been able to increase his income but also provide services to his community. One key example is he provided water fountain and cleaning and arranging, for example, the small road work in the area. I invite you to reach out to us on either our website. We've been featured by CBS News and other news companies so you can see more visuals about our operations. Thank you for your time and thank you for Kellogg for inviting us to this presentation. Good afternoon. My name is Pierre Noel. I'm the Executive Director of the Haiti Development Institute. Going up in Haiti and world Haiti with my grandparents, I often had to take care of livestock before school and after school. Also, once a week, we would find time to go irrigate the land. Sometimes we would stay at nine until dawn. I knew then that lack of access to water, lack of access to facilities, machineries, and lack of access to financing were key obstacles to local farmers in Haiti. Over the years, these gaps have grown quite a bit and they have made local life for local farmers almost virtually impossible. This is why HDI has partnered to actually propose the AgriFood Enterprise Entrepreneurship Center. This is a one-stop shop that proposes and it is informed by work that we've done with thousands of rural farmers over the years. This center will provide three key services. It will provide farmers access to training inputs and it will also create a space for storage and processing that will help to reduce the devastating post harvest losses. Also, it will create a space for entrepreneurship and training for farmers and young people to ensure that we have agricultural enterprises. Now, 43% of the Haitian population is currently insecure. That is one of the highest in the world. As we look at this, Haiti is a country of remarkable beauty. It's also a country full of resources and potential. Now, as we look at the post harvest losses in the country, post harvest losses in Haiti is about 50% for vegetables and fruits and 33% for cereals. That's actually a whopping $452 million in losses in income for smallholder farmers. And this is why we're proposing this center because this center will do away with all the losses and reverse this trend. This one-stop shop will be built on 40 acres of land owned by HDI, worth about $2 million. It will help to accompany farmers like Marie, like my late grandfather, who would have used this service. Now, imagine where we are in a place where farmers in Haiti can access services financing. They can access an entrepreneurship center that will create enterprises and also will get young people in Haiti a renewed interest in agriculture. This center is going to revitalize agriculture, but also it will create an economic boost for the 200,000 people who live on the Akadem Coast. It will also give farmers a space to reverse the loss that we have from post harvest losses. What we're seeking for this initiative is $5 million, with $3 million of that in grants and $2 million in investments of diverse types. This initiative is catalytic for communities and for people like Marie to help to take care of their families, and it is also catalytic to give young people in Haiti a stake in their communities and in their future. Please join us in creating viable communities in Haiti. Thank you. Hi. Good afternoon. My name is Manel Modelo, and I want to invite you to take a deep breath with me and to visualize yourself within this landscape. From 2013 to 10 years now, we have been working with and for small farmers from coffee growers from Chiapas, southern Mexico, to set up an innovative economic development model that aims to break the vicious circle of poverty and to unlock the potential for sustainable impact. In close and in-depth conversation with them, we are addressing the three main challenges to reach prosperity in rural communities. First, small farmers require credits to invest in their plots and improve productivity and therefore income. Also, their cooperatives require credits to sell that coffee into direct markets and get better prices, and they all need also access to knowledge through training and technical assistance, to make things happen, but also to empower them as a primary subject of what we do. The synapses model does that while putting the impact on rural communities at the center of what we do, and by coordinating and synchronizing those three main services in a way that works for them. In other words, we are setting up an open environment which from any smallholder or cooperative can take advantage of. We have two social enterprises for financial inclusion, one for smallholders and a new one for cooperatives. We have a channel, a trading company, to export the coffee and we also have an NGO with five integrated programs that empower farmers, leaders, youth and women. We have demonstrated the results for more than 3,000 families and eight cooperatives so far. The synapses model works and we want to grow and scale it and scale also our impact. We are asking for $5 million through four years to get the necessary scale for systemic change. But that is not the most important thing that we are looking for. We need passionate partners that are committed with rural development and are willing to work with the most vulnerable and impoverished people. We also need new and fresh talent and creativity to work with us through this new path of growth and scale. And more than capital, we are looking for sustainable wealth for all of us. Thank you very much. Good afternoon. Hola. How are you today? Good. Hi. I have my audience. So, hi. The first thing is that I really appreciate all of you being here and the intentions that brought you here above all. And, well, I would like to make a little bit of the change in the way we approach social development. I want to make it through our smile, through our good news, through our happiness and through sustainable ways in a very economical point of view. So, let's see. Okay. Next. Ready? Because I am. So, hi, everybody. I'm here to present you a remarkable opportunity that not only addresses a unique challenge faced by the thousand, sorry, by over an 11,000 of beekeepers in the Yucatan Peninsula, but also taps into the ever-growing honey market. In Yucatan, these beekeepers represent more than a quarter of all Mexican producers, and it's time we empower them to thrive. Let me introduce you to Mukap, a project that is destined to revolutionize the honey industry. For decades, honey companies in Yucatan have act as intermediaries standing between the hard-working beekeepers and the end customers. Mukap, hence, represents nowadays a monumental shift and a way to professionalize beekeepers in the region and with it to elevate the quality of life. Given the fact that the honey market shows no signs of slowing down, Mukap operating as a social business and using a short-circuit commercialization model is now creating an ever-growing win-win scenario for everyone involved. Ergo, by having invested in training, skills development and ensuring beekeepers are equipped for success, Mukap is now supporting its local economy with real employment opportunities within their communities. Our product is second to none. We take pride in overseeing every stage of production from the hive to the customer hands. Our customers trust our product because it's traceable, offering confidence and security. The honey is differentiated by its origin steaming from endemic flowers in both monoflora and multi-flora presentations. And the product has already found its way to the shelves of major retailers such as Walmart, among other relevant Mexican franchises. In 2022 alone, we sold 49,000 pieces, generating over $29,000 in sales. And this is for families which income used to be, I'm going to say some data, I'm sorry, but this is very important because their income used to be a little bit less than $6 per week, per family. So this is just the beginning. We know we have the capacity to increase our production by 357%, unlocking an immense potential in this market. From our stash of socially relevant data, the social investment over the past 12 years from the Legorettor-Nandes Foundation, the WKK Foundation and the Ray Dalio Foundation has transferred MUCAB's big keepers into self-managers, self-learners and agents of change. Having overcome what we've named the social breaking point, and a real, real, real social return on investment have been reached with ourselves, profits, and above all, noticeable increase of quality of life. This journey is very far from over because we are committed to seeing the MUCAB project throughout for the next five years. We firmly believe that the incredible people behind MUCAB have the power to change not only their lives, but also the destiny of their communities. Together, we're taking the big keeping industry to new heights. Join us in this incredible journey towards empowering big keepers driving its economical growth and delivering a high quality product to the world. Thank you. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Patrick DeSous. I'm the executive director of Kazele and a funding member of the Haiti Food System Alliance. I don't know how many of you have been to Haiti. I would like to present you to Moise. Moise is a young, energetic farmer and a client of the Haiti Food System Alliance. Haiti is in trouble. Forming communities are in trouble. So I want you to meet Izzé and Sarah, one of the millions forming families in Haiti. Izzé and Sarah, they're harvesting a little small plot because we do have a lot of small scale farmers in Haiti. So the sector is curated by NGOs for many years we have a lot of investment that was made in the agriculture sector and on seeing now we're still having a lot of difficulties to see the result. And what we have now, if you look at CNN and other news outlets, you see a lot of forming communities, the people, they're moving to the US, moving to other countries for better livelihood. I want you to look at the screen. That's Haiti in 1980 and Haiti today. So in 1980, we used to produce in all of the regions and now what we have, we have more Haitians. In 1980, we had about 6 billion and now we have about 12 billion. So we're not producing enough for to feed the nation. Now you see, as you see on the table, 60% of Haitians, they're living in poverty and 40% of them chronically food insecure. Local production only meet 40% of the national need compared to 80% in 1980. So we want to do something, we live with a new salary. That's what we create the Haiti Food Stem Alliance. The Haiti Food Stem Alliance is what we call a agriculture value chain optimization approach to the problems we're facing right now where it's led by locally led organizations, proven organizations that well know by the international community, farmer centric and we're promoting radical collaboration. What we do, we deliver resources, services to farmers like Moïs, you saw at the beginning, smiling and so far we have achieved, we have supported 30,000 farmers and help feed 40,000 Haitians most renewable. So what we're looking for exactly, we're looking at like a combination of 2.5 million. 1.5 we're going to use it to improve our program, have a strategic plan, pay for the staff and the secretariat and we need 1 million to use it as a revolving fund so we can use it and trade credit to make sure the farmers like Moïs you see at the beginning and it's there in Sarah, like you saw it's there in Sarah on the second slide to actually make ends meet, pay for the school traditions for the kids and actually make a better life for them. Thank you. This apparently is just a jar of a gourmet product. It looks like a tropical habanero marmalade but for us it's our tool to bring social innovation to low-income communities in southeast of Mexico. My name is Carlos Ponce Leon and I'm the founder of Ethic Foods and I want to share with you our recipe to social innovation gourmet. Our first ingredient is working with the producers of the raw materials. We use a method of agroecological to have the best quality of products and ingredients possible. Then I want to introduce with you with the stars of our story. They are Atala, Maria, Juana and Marbella and they are the women who produce and transform all our products. There are Mayan speaking women who live in low-income communities and they work together to make like the products of marmalades of tropical marmalades and tomato all products like hot sauces like watermelon and pineapple. When they start to work with our model they increase their income in 30% and nowadays we are working with 27 families who most of them are women. Now we have reached like the coffee please certificate that is the national certificate we have FDA and we start to sell the products here in New York and we will be in the East Coast very soon. Also we have these partnerships like A2Artisans Mexico who is the nonprofit which we work together to bring all these opportunities to the communities. Now we are seeking for $220,000 the health investment and the health to ground and that will be used to improve our marketing strategy and to find more small producers to increase our impact and still spread our and to spread our recipe with more people. Dioz Botic, thank you. Hello. I'm Drico DeCasi I'm the managing director of Alina Energy and today I'm going to tell you a little bit more about Alina Energy. So Alina Energy is a solar renewable energy company and the first thing I want to start with is our origin story. So our origin story starts with a seven-year-old kid who sat in a dark room. This seven-year-old kid was sad to say the least. The reason so is because it was the summer. It was the summer and he thought that he was going to go to sleep late and he was going to have fun with his family and friends but unfortunately it got dark and all the lights went off. Well, there were no lights but it was off. But what happened on that day was something that was like a miracle. We had this incandescent light bulb that was in the middle of the room. This light flickered and then it turned on and from there the whole neighborhood erupted. People were ecstatic. They were yelling, saying they gave power, they gave power and that was the reality back then. We were all excited and so from that day on I made the commitment to myself that I would make sure that no kid ever gets that excited for electricity. So one thing that we from then on one thing that we decided to do was to ensure that electricity or the availability of electricity becomes a normality and it's not, we don't get excited for receiving it for one hour but we get disappointed when we don't get it. And so as I clickered it doesn't seem to be work. Got it. So the problem is so when we, so fast forward now let's say 20 years later we looked into the problem, we dug deep and we tried to figure out why is there an electricity problem in Haiti. And one thing that we saw was the problem is magnified in rural areas. So while the country the electrification rate in the country is 72% only the electrification rate in rural areas is only 15%. And this is because of a combination of things. So one thing is the upfront cost of electrifying those areas. And the second reason is opportunity cost the ability to accurately size and the fact that households aren't so close together. So we came up with the solution. So this solution allowed us to address these problems. So we don't go into the technicalities of this solution. But one thing that I'll say is we've partnered with experienced suppliers and we found a way to deploy at a rate that's 70% faster than the solutions that's on the market today. And then in addition to that we save our consumers 60% with this current solution. So what we've done to date is we've raised enough funding to provide 50,000 people with energy. In addition to that we've created over 200 jobs and by 2025 we believe that number is going to be over 325 jobs. We've assisted entrepreneurs which means we've helped them increase their standard of living and in addition to doing this in a clean way where we're providing them with clean energy. So what we're asking for today is approximately $4 million. What this $4 million would do is it would help 100,000 people not get excited when they receive electricity for one hour. It would help children be disappointed when they go on to turn on the lights and it doesn't turn on. So this $4 million would energize 23,400 households in addition to the 10,000 that we've already energized. Thank you very much.