Empty Nesters on a Green Global Trek

A quick update is in order.

First and foremost, is the company’s progress on the Post Hurricane Felix Reconstruction program of 84 houses awarded in October 2010. The first few houses are now completed and the customer is superlatively happy with the results. The current “batch” is comprised of 3 houses on a road with high local visibility + 15 houses tucked in a beautifully scenic environment, overlooking a river down below and nestled in forested hills.

Here are pics of the finished 34m2 houses.

The factory in Fruita de Pan is also progressing nicely, and cranking out 11 panels, equivalent to 1 house, per day. This is typical industrial ramp up type challenge, and I am sure that if and when we need it, the current factory can support a ramp up to 40 houses per month. For now, we have a customer-driven schedule of 15 houses per month, till June 2011.

The challenge won’t be so much about producing pre-fabricated kits, as it will be about building up assembly teams and managing so many teams in parallel. For now, we have 5 teams working in parallel, and are preparing a 6th team that will be our “roving team”, so that the company can pursue, capture and fulfill opportunities outside of our RAAN program.

Here are some pics of the panel assembly process:

Program #1 is going well. Community workers are pleased with the income. The Co2 Bambu team feels good about interaction with the communities. The Mayor’s office is pleased with the progress, and so is the funding NGO.

This is of course what is needed to set the stage for follow on business with this customer. There are several other “vendors” for this programs, but so far no one else is showing progress on the ground. Therefore, we may have an opportunity, down the line, to pick up additional houses for this program.

Beyond that, I launched two initiatives upon returning from December holidays. Track one is “mayors”. Now that we have something to show, in Rosita, we can invite other mayors in Nicaragua to see what we offer as an alternative to “traditional housing”. We believe our pre-fabricated homes are more robust, more attractive, competitively priced, more ecological AND offer the opportunity to create local jobs. With this in mind, we started reaching out to potential mayors and the first set of discussions have been extremely encouraging. While it’s not appropriate yet to blog about who and where, the first two meetings with mayors yielded two concrete opportunities. We will soon be entering the “schools” market. There are literally HUNDREDS of schools that are needed, in particular rural schools, that correspond well to CO2 Bambu’s technical attributes (on pillars, light weight for transportation etc…). We have a first potential order for April delivery of a first green school.

Track “two”, is an initiative to reach out to Non Governmental Organizations working in Nicaragua. Armed with a long list of existing NGOs, we are working our way through the NGO ecosystem, and doing so with good results. The first priority for us is to gain support from a well established NGO to become an active participant in our 2011 R&D initiative to develop a flood-safe house. We are aiming for the creme of the crop, talking with three very reputable NGOs with a great track record in post disaster reconstruction. Too early to tell who will step up to co-develop a flood-safe home, but what’s clear is that the idea is not “off topic”. There is enormous demand for flood-safe housing solutions. It’s up to us to demonstrate that we have a viable, cost effective, transportable, pre-fabricated kit. This will be a major Research and Development initiative for CO2 Bambu in 2011.

Final update on CO2 Bambu, before there was the Mayors initiative, and the NGO initiative, there was the Haiti initiative. This 2010 push is finally bearing fruit. We were notified yesterday that a large US social impact fund has received confirmation from Haiti that our strategy of offering micro-financed homes in bamboo is indeed a valid strategy and that our prospective partner in country, the largest micro-finance entity in Haiti, is sitting on a portfolio of customers with now-destroyed homes and a desperate need to rebuild. These are known customers of the micro-finance institution, have a track record of paying back loans and, in this sense, are “pre approved” for loans. With this done, we now have just a few more steps to secure funding of a few launch containers as well as to pay the logistics organization that will be required in Haiti and Dominican Republic and we’ll be off and running. This of course will become a major execution challenge in 2011. However I feel that the CO2 Bambu team is currently “on top” of the RAAN program and I will dedicate a chunk of my energy to activating the similar high functioning team that I have set up in the Domincan Republic and Haiti.

Looks like 2011 will be a busy year. Happy New Year to Co2 Bambu!