Author: MLo

Scaling v Multiplying | NYC Design Week

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It’s been a while since we’ve written. JLee very recently finished up her MBA training, I’ve been living the startup life in NYC. We are both headed back on the road this summer with Turkey, Solvenia, Croatia, Ireland, Morocco, China & Netherlands on the itinerary. The Socient Life continues in our search both philosophically and through product and real business models that are making impactful good in the world. For myself, I’ve been interested in seeing the evolution of social impact becoming generationally an ethos within entrepreneurship. Lately, discussions with my business partner have revolved around scalability, the magic word that has become an ethos in of itself within the startup world, particularly in Silicon Valley. As we wandered Brooklyn artisanal markets for NYC Design Week, perusing the “slow foods” equivalent of craft goods, she became increasingly nonplussed about lack of scalability for any of the products we saw. From marble-hand-chiseled-glazed cups (personal wabisabi favorite of mine, costing its creator 120 hours of work, selling for $34), to art print transfers of surely a graphic student’s …

Bright Shoes, Bright Future

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MLo investigates a mysterious shiny shoe fashion phenomenon in Kampala and discovers a spirit of entrepreneurship and aspiration among young Ugandans.

It wasn’t immediately apparent during my first two days in Kampala that there’d be a substantial fashion story to cover. In fact, my initial wardrobe assessment after checking out red soil roads crowded with black-smog spewing trucks and plaintains transported on bicycles, was to go grunge. Read on…

The Secret Life of Teabags

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Cape Town, South Africa — For most teabags, skinny-dipping is the pinnacle of their existence. But for some, there is a life after tea time. Particularly those that make it to Original T Bag Designs, where they find a new existence in the hands of Hout Bay artisans. Bringing art and prosperity to previously disadvantaged residents of South Africa’s Hout Bay, each bag is uniquely hand-crafted into a new creation – stationary, cushion covers, table decor. Read on…

Maranatha, a secret of Advent waiting…

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“The secret of waiting is the faith that the seed has been planted, that something has begun. Active waiting means to be present fully to the moment, in the conviction that something is happening. A waiting person is a patient person. The word “patience” means the willingness to stay where we are and live the situation out to the full in the belief that something hidden there will manifest itself to us.” – Henri Nouwen

Meet us there

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Social Entrepreneurship happens everywhere. Around the world, people are creating businesses, designing products, building infrastructure, investing in needy communities, creating ethos-inspired fashion to drive real impact on real lives. Inside Travel, we traipse the world to bring you stories exploring indigenous innovations, cultural nuances and everything we find interesting and raises the bar of our imagination on how change can happen through the marketplace.

Better shoes than the ones you buy

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Product design is an essential component to making the world a better place. How? Good products solve consumer problems and like TOMS, can inspire others, particularly within fashion trends. But more so, good design and material choice have significant impact on the environment and people working within the supply chain that produces it. Read more…

Selling crops by phone

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One of the fastest ways for a society to leapfrog its economic development is through technology. We saw this in China, where traditional landlines that were communally shared quickly gave way to mobile tech before landline infrastructure were even built. Grandmas manning telephone stations on the street with long phone cords paralleled youth riding bicycles while talking on their cellphones. However, the commercial and consumer uses for tech can be very unique and require well-thought out planning and product development.