Social Entrepreneur Profile
Joel
Selanikio
President
and Co-Founder
DataDyne Group
Shadowed
by:
Oren Harary and Roger Waltzman
Entrepreneur
Contact Data:
1804 Vernon Street, NW
2nd Floor
Washington, DC 20009
Phone: 202-470-0810
Email: info@datadynegroup.com
Website: http://www.datadynegroup.com/
Basics:
Founding Date: 1994
Corporate Form: Limited Liability
Company, which will become a 501(c)3
Geographic Focus: Africa and Asia
Industry: Healthcare
Social Mission Area: Health
and International Development
Mission:
The DataDyne Group is a
small, non-profit consultancy serving the data needs of governments, UN
organizations, and NGOs. DataDyne helps the CDC, WHO, the American Red
Cross, UNICEF, and others collect and share health information in
service to the world's most needy populations. Their award-winning
EpiSurveyor handheld data collection project has won funding and praise
from the World Bank, the UN Foundation, and others for making field
data collection on handhelds simple.
Q
and A with Students:
Q:
What led you to choose to shadow Joel
Selanikio?
A: Dr. Salanikio was a medical school classmate of
Roger, one of the team members.
Q:
What issues did your social entrepreneur face during the project?
A: The three main issues we tracked during the semester
were the following: 1. Funding, specifically related to a large UN
Foundation grant. 2. 501 (c)3 status 3. Administrative issues - office
space, personnel, etc.
Q:
What was interesting, surprising or inspiring about shadowing this
SE?
A: Selanikio, the founder of DataDyne, was an
interesting individual to work with. He is highly credentialed, working
for the White House before leaving to start this venture out of a
bedroom of his house. He was confident and knowledgeable and his
enthusiasm for the work was infectious. It was very interesting to
follow his experience in getting a significant new, large grant from
the UN Foundation.
Q:
What did you learn about being a social entrepreneur from this project?
A: One important thing we
learned was the double-bottom line theory in actual practice. Our
entrepreneur needed to focus more on the business issues than social
issues at this point in his organization’s development.
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