Center for Social Innovation

In 2002, Jacqueline Novogratz traveled to Arusha, Tanzania, to meet Anuj Shah, CEO of A to Z Textile Mills. A joint partnership between Sumitomo Chemical, ExxonMobil, and UNICEF had been forged to develop a long-lasting insecticide-treated bed net for malaria prevention. The trio had called on Acumen Fund—a nonprofit social venture capital firm founded by Novogratz—to identify an African partner capable of locally manufacturing and distributing the technology.

Novogratz was confident that the nets could revolutionize the prevention of malaria, a disease that disproportionately affects the poor, killing approximately 250 million people annually. Although bed nets have been a proven prevention method against malaria transmission, the dominant technology in the early 2000s required retreatment every three to six months. The long-lasting insecticide treatment would extend the ... Read more