Guatemala Log

September 4, 2012

File:OSE - Guatemala - Ingenio Santa Ana - Collaboratio Proposal.pdf

Hi Aaron,

I am attaching a 3-page outline of how we are proposing to work together. You'll find that it is roughly what we have already discussed, with many details clarified including an estimated timeline for the 1st year, mutual expectations and in general - some simple proposed features of working relationship in order to maximze value for both of us.

Let us know what you think, any and all comments We are already starting to work - we had a great meeting last week at the sugar mill with the engineers that will be in charge of the project and are already digging right in. We plan on building out our first LifeTrac (with all the current available documentation which I believe is Lifetrac IV + wheels + 2-angle loader) by October 1st.

Have a great night,

Manuel

July 30, 2012

Sirs, I am the first Secretary of Food Security of Guatemala. I am an engineer and am very concerned about the issues you raise. I now am the president of a sugar processing plant in Guatemala so we are constantly working and repairing equipment. In Spanish, a sugar processing plant is called a "ingenio" which in Spanish means ingenious. We have more than 60 engineers at my ingenio. We have a collection of: chemical, mechanical, industrial, electrical, systems, computer, agricultural, civil, materials engineers. We have built the sugar industry in Guatemala by buying surplus and obsolete parts of old mills in other countries and tweaked them into production. We are EXTREMELY GOOD at modifying existing tools and machines to make them work for us. In short, we have a ton of academic and practical experience. We also have machinery, tools, etc. We have tons of scrap metal. And now we have your plans.

Five years ago, I was the first secretary of the SESAN (Secretary of Food Security of Guatemala), a cabinet level position during President Berger´s government. Even though I am now running my company, I am extremely concerned about our food insecurity and lack of productivity of our rural farmers. They don´t have the resources to be more productive since they basically only have hand tools.

I saw your initiative in Reader´s Digest and peaked my interest. I am now REALLY interested. I would like to have a chat with you to explore having a laboratory here in Guatemala. I can put it in our sugar mill and I can get the support in time and resources from other sugar mills in our country. Engineers LOVE solving problems and when we are talking about the possiblity of changing lives, they will be in full support.

Pls let me know how we can get some traction in this direction. I am a friend of President Perez Molina and of the US ambassador and the head of USAID here in Guatemala. I am sure we can get a whole lot of support and funding for this initiative.

I don´t want to do it by myself. You have the experience and have a learning curve that should be taken into consideration.

Let me know if this is interesting to you. I am also an Aspen Institute Global Leadership Network Fellow. By the way, you can google my name, you should get some info.

Best regards and awaiting your news, Andres Botran

May 19, 2012

Hi Aaron,

Thanks for following up. My work in Guatemala is going great, though a bit slower than I originally anticipated due to some unexpected work commitments with my company Quetsol, organizing Guatemala City's TEDx and a 3-wk trip overseas. Luckily, all that is finished now and I am entirely focused on moving this forward - though I have been doing a lot of design and administrative work in the meantime which is important and ready to go. In the coming weeks, I will purchase the land (a site has already been selected, pending visiting a couple more options) and begin preparatory work on the property in June/July. The summer months in the US are actually rainy season here in Guatemala, so construction of the first 2 buildings (house and workshop) will proceed as the rain permits in the summer. Also, during the summer, we will be selecting the groups of displaced people with whom we will build the village. This will take some time as we must get to know them and make sure they are fully cognizant of the terms and vision of what they are participating in. Once the group is selected, the will move into the property, on temporary housing, as we collectively build the houses of all 30 of them. The mechanics of which is not yet determined in detail, but the important thing is that people will help build their own houses. Certainly, it would take a very long time to train some of these people first and then begin fabrication of the machines and wait for that before we start building. In any case, these 30 families we will start off with will eventually be the pool from which talent will be drawn to train replicators and create productive opportunities.

In the meantime, now that a site has been selected, I will look for local experienced blacksmiths with the skills necessary to be trained in the fabrication of GVCS pieces. Construction of houses will begin in August/September, as soon as it gets dry enough. Subsequent construction and terraforming will be necessary of course as we build the village up over the next 2 years, so our need for GVCS machines will increase. In any case, I believe that training of the blacksmith and our first attempts at replicating a machine could happen around July/August. For now, I have to rethink which machine we will begin with, as I was originally going to use the CEB press, but the land that will probably be the final site has no clay and is very black organic, and because of the humidity nobody builds with adobe.

When will you guys completely open up Dedicated Visits for potential replicators? It will be hard for me to find a person that is experienced in the trade and can also speak fluent English, though Marcin told me Spanish would be no problem. In any case, I can certainly begin to try replication with him with the CADs and local resources - but at some point, for polishing and best-practices, I would like the lead on this to visit the Farm and get it straight from the source.

Thanks and we will be in touch soon, let me know if you want any further clarification.