KickStart International, Inc.

KickStart-International  www.kickstart.org is an award-winning, nonprofit social enterprise with a mission to lift millions of people in Africa out of poverty. They do this by designing and mass-marketing human-powered irrigation pumps. These low-cost pumps are bought by poor local farmers who use them to water their crops year-round rather than waiting for the unreliable rain that only comes for a few months out of the year. They grow and sell high value crops throughout the year—especially in the long dry “hungry” seasons when the prices are highest—and on average increase their net annual incomes by over $700. For the first time they can properly feed and educate their children, afford healthcare and plan for their futures. To date, more than 200,000 farming families have used MoneyMaker pumps to climb out of poverty.

KickStart and its Co-Founders are Skoll Social Entrepreneur Awardees and Schwab Foundation awardees as well as Forbes Magazine’s “Impact 30 List” as one of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs in 2011. Additionally, the U.S. Department of State presented KickStart with the first-ever Innovation Award for the Empowerment of Women and Girls in 2012.