Free Business Opportunity

Here is an idea I'm just giving away for free.

Build a supply-chain transparent, human-rights positive set of devices.

My research on this is not extensive, but I put about 5 hours into the investigation so far. As far as I can tell from my initial look at secondary research:

There are no human rights-positive hardware manufacturers.

Anywhere.

We are interested in sustainability here, but, for us, human sustainability is at the top of the list. It all impacts humanity. We have all the respect for companies and individuals who prioritize the planet. It's a choice. For our mission, we make a specific choice that organizes all of our other ones because being perfect is impossible, and occasionally, you have to compromise.

For us and our mission, human rights are the most important part of that sustainability equation and we believe environmental sustainability is subsumed within that category.

When humans are not treated with decency and respect, you can bet that the earth, space, and animals are not. For us, it's the rate-determining step for sustainability of all kinds in business.

We are about to make a rather humble but, for us, sizable hardware investment. We have our pick of tech companies who want to partner with us as a woman-owned and managed innovation start-up, educational institution, and charitable organization with generous deals and options. We have not successfully found anyone with a human-rights-positive supply chain anywhere in the world.

We have found many manufacturers with better control of their supply chain than others. There aren't any (that we have discovered) who have hit all the top areas of the human rights positive industry that we've set, which is:

1) no conflict minerals

2) fair-trade labor practices

3) no union busting

4) supply chain transparency

5) no publicly recorded, substantial complaints of human rights abuses

What do we define as human rights abuses in number 5?

1) physical harm

2) harm to community and family relationships

3) unpaid or underpaid workers

4) abrupt termination of jobs or breach of contract with no compensation

5) environmental harm

6) harm to worker mental health

We have been considering refurbished, upcycled, closed-loop recycling, and the conversation will continue internally. We've considering starting a student program teaching people around the globe how to source and build their own.

We've zeroed in on four possible choices, but none fulfill all 5 of these criteria.

Surely some billionaire and trillionaire business owners can do better than this? What about committing to just a thousand such devices? What about a hundred?

Surely, someone can set up a small but dedicated company committed to building human-positive hardware?

In the meantime, we will publish a report and a public statement about our choices when we decide. If you have any thoughts about this, please drop them here or hit me up in direct messages.

Or perhaps you are an investor and entrepreneur who wants to partner with us and build your prototypes for our organization? (I mean, dream big, right?)

I cannot believe this is that difficult.

Lazy? Sure. Not that difficult.

Thanks all.