Abstract
waves of the quake. The earth under my feet was gyrating like a drunken dancer, back and forth, back and forth. “We’re having an earthquake,” I typed. Not waiting for his reply, I calmly walked over to stand in the doorframe of the AIDG office, like they used to recommend when I grew up in Southern California. People are no longer told to do this, however; I should have gotten under a heavy desk, against an interior wall, or gone outside, away from falling debris. But I was lucky and the swaying soon stopped. I wasn’t at the epicenter, but in Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city, 85 miles away as the crow flies from Portau-Prince. I was working with our team there on the launch of our second annual business plan competition, Konkou Biznis Ayiti (http://konkoubiznisayiti.com/). We were just four days from show time, and I was working with a volunteer translator and a web designer to put the finishing touches on our website. I had no idea what the extent of the damage from the quake had been when I walked back to the Skype session some 25 minutes later, after checking in with other staff. “Check the water line right now!” my husband Pete, the founder of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG), had typed frantically.
Highlights
I wasn’t at the epicenter, but in Cap-Haitien, Haiti’s second-largest city, 85 miles away as the crow flies from Portau-Prince
A Haitian American social entrepreneur who transitioned into international development from academic pursuits in infectious disease epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and Oxford University, Lainé is passionate about finding sustainable business solutions to the problems facing the world’s poor
Networks, and capital to survive in the hostile incubated businesses help with business environments of financing ($10,000-$100,000) and their home countries
Summary
I was having a Skype conversation with my husband when I felt the first rolling waves of the quake. Not waiting for his reply, I calmly walked over to stand in the doorframe of the AIDG office, like they used to recommend when I grew up in Southern California. “Check the water line !” my husband Pete, the founder of Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG), had typed frantically. A Haitian American social entrepreneur who transitioned into international development from academic pursuits in infectious disease epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and Oxford University, Lainé is passionate about finding sustainable business solutions to the problems facing the world’s poor. He was repeating the same news over and over again, as photos and cell phone video slowly trickled in. Bill Clinton’s hopeful words from fall 2009 echoed cruelly in my head: “This is the best chance in my lifetime that Haitians have ever had to escape the chains of their past.”[1]
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