Our Story
The Beginning (2005)
Ventures in Development was born in the Boston-area at Harvard
University. While pursuing their Masters’ at the Kennedy
School of Government, classmates Marie and Carol spent two
years immersed in the academics of international development,
which reinforced their belief in sustainable development.
In the process, Carol and Marie began brainstorming ways to
utilize their education, skills and experiences to build businesses
that could impact impoverished regions. Having spent much
of their lives in Asia, their geographical focus naturally
turned to China, a country with increasingly severe income
disparity where many inland regions suffer from poverty and
lack of access to markets.
 Initial
discovery trip (Jan 2006)
Over their school winter break, Carol and Marie traveled to
Western regions of China to investigate the needs and resources
of the local people and brainstorming ideas to help. They
found an abundant resource of yaks and an NGO partner - China
Exploration and Research Society. Marie and Carol learned
that the fiber of yaks can be processed into a cashmere-like
textile and their milk can be turned into yogurt, cheese,
or even ice cream. With no means to connect to international
markets for these exotic products, yaks were merely used for
domestic consumption. And here began the concept of yaks as
a potential means to bring incremental income to the nomadic
communities
Business plan competition season
 Ideas
from the initial discovery trip was crystallized through participating
in the Harvard Social Enterprise Competition “Pitch
of Change” in spring 2006. With help from new team member
Jose Dias de Barros, Shawn Tan and Esther Hsu, “Yashmere”
captured the first place award the Harvard Business School
Annul Business Plan Competition 2006 – Social Enterprise
Track. Propelled by large amounts of positive feedback and
encouragement from members of the Harvard community, the team
was encouraged to further develop its plan. Shokay also placed
first in the 2006 Global Business in Development (BiD) Competition
in Holland.
Company formation
Ventures in Development was first established in the USA
in March 2006 as a non-profit 501(c)3 organization with a
long-term plan to incubate and launch other for-profit social
enterprises like Cheese for Change and Yashmere. Ventures
in Development was also registered in Hong Kong in January
2007 as a non profit organization.
 On
the ground
With their degrees complete from Harvard Kennedy School ,
the team embarked on an itinerary that would take them across
Yunnan, Sichuan, Tibet, and Inner Mongolia for months of laying
the groundwork for the both the cheese and yak fiber project.
With the end goal of producing market-ready product for 2007,
the team liaised with potential manufacturing partners, evaluated
different yak fiber products, contacted academics and experts,
and liaised with NGO partners to build community relationships
The
future
The Ventures in Development team will continue to press forward
in launching both programs and enterprises to raise awareness
of social entrepreneurship in the region. For our projects,
the team has completed their first phase of yak fiber collection
in summer 2007 and a cheese shop was opened in August 2007
in Zhong Dian, China. All along this long path to launching
our enterprises, we are grateful to our supporters for their
encouragement and hope that you will also join our cause for
alleviating poverty through supporting entrepreneurship.
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