Countdown to Comic Relief assessment meeting. November 21, 2010

Today John Dada and I have been providing final pieces of information for Ron Dennis ready for his meeting with Comic Relief tomorrow to defend his application for funding. If he is successful then we will get a chance to field test some equipment (for recycling plastic waste) that his students have designed.

We will not only test it to see if it works as well in Nigeria "for real" as it does in a University setting in the UK. We will also test it over a period of nearly a year as the basis for an SME (Small/Medium Enterprise). If it works as a viable business then it will help to keep the local area a lot cleaner (by changing old "pure water" sachets and plastic bags into floor tiles) as well as  providing employment. John has done lots of initial work on the practicalities to make sure that everything could be put in place if the money comes through. We are hoping Comic Relief will be as positive about the possibility as we are. Final funding decision date is due in January 2011.

We are proud of the role that Dadamac has played in this process.  I met Ron Dennis on November 6th 2009 at Know How Now - a 'Technical Support Service' Fair and Forum, organised by Engineers Without Borders UK . We discussed existing collaboration between his students (at Imperial College and City University) and grass roots projects. More about this work at http://www.developingtechnologies.org/

Ron and I explored shared interests. We found we had both done intial work related to recyling plastic bags, so we decided to investigate further.  Marcus Simmons was on a Dadamac trip to Benin and Nigeria, so when he came back to the UK he brought some samples of local plastic bags for Ron. When he came back we met for an update (December 2009) and then went along to see Ron together.  Marcus gave Ron the samples and told him about the location and eco-related projects Marcus had been doing. More about this at Marcus update and sharing resources

Later Ron contacted Dadamac about putting in a proposal to Comic Relief. He didn't just want to test the equipment that his students had designed. He wants to find out if teh equipment could be used to create a viable small business, so he wants to run it for about a year. John provided lots of detailed local information to Ron, regarding labour costs, sourcing the waste plastics, providing accommodation for a UK visitor to work on the project, setting up the equimpment, recruiting local labour and so on. The application got through the initial screening, and now Ron has to go to along in  person to clarifly a few details. He got very late notice of the questions so there has been a flurry of emails over the week end to make sure he has all the answers he needs.