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Many residents of the poverty-stricken village of Wawonasa in Manado, North Sulawesi, suffer from eye problems. But the nearest optometrists are located far away, in larger cities, and most of the villagers simply can’t afford to buy eyeglasses anyway. Even the village’s Balai Kesehatan Mata Masyarakat (Community Eye Care Center) lacks the necessary equipment and expertise to help.

But some unexpected assistance arrived in November 2009.

The nongovernmental organization Christian Blind Mission visited the BKMM to distribute self-adjustable lenses, eyeglasses with a device that allows users to find the right amount of silicone oil to be applied to the lenses, correcting their own vision. Thanks to this technology, about 30 people in Wawonasa now enjoy clearer vision.

The distribution of the lenses was part of a pilot project by a newly established non-profit online venture called Kopernik (www.thekopernik.org), an initiative that offers appropriate technology for disadvantaged communities in developing countries and assists in sourcing donors to cover the costs.

“The main concept behind Kopernik is [the realization] that amazing, life-changing technologies are out there, but are not reaching those who really need them,” said co-founder Ewa Wojkowska.

“The producers of the products speak of two main challenges that they face, [which are distribution and high costs].”

The way Kopernik functions is to cooperate with local NGOs, which must register and go through an approval process to become an official partner of the project. The local organizations, termed tech seekers, determine the technology they require.

The tech seekers then submit a proposal explaining how the technology would assist them in their work and how they plan to distribute it.

Approved proposals are then posted on the Kopernik Web site, and visitors to the site can select proposals to donate to. Once sufficient funds have been collected, Kopernik places an order with the relevant company or the technology provider, and ships the items to the local NGO.

“We generally don’t support proposals from tech seekers that simply want to give products away for free,” Wojkowska said. Kopernik instead encourages local organizations to devise a distribution system, including selling the products at an appropriate price, renting the items or developing a lease-to-buy system.

Kopernik offers an array of items under five categories: health, agriculture, education, water and sanitation, and energy and environment.

“One thing that is very important to us is ensuring that the technology we feature on Kopernik is effective and appropriate in the context of a developing country,” Wojkowska said.

She said that because the charitable venture specifically aimed to assist in the provision of innovative technologies that were tailored to the needs of the poor, it did not feature widely available commodities such as regular computers.

The innovations Kopernik offers include LifeStraw, the cheapest item at $6.50 per piece, which is a portable, straw-like drinking device that purifies unclean water.

Another item is Solvatten, meaning Sun Water in Swedish, a solar-powered, portable household unit used to treat and heat water.

The most expensive item is the Freedom Toaster, which operates like a vending machine of information. It allows users to burn massive amounts of digital information, from electronic books, training manuals or software, onto a CD, DVD or USB flash drive.

“At around $5,000 [per unit], it’s expensive, but would be a great investment for a university or government office,” Wojkowska said.

The most popular item is currently the K-Light, a solar-powered lantern with bright, energy-efficient LEDs that runs for between 10 and 20 hours.

“I think it’s [popular] because people can understand immediately how their lives will improve through its application,” Wojkowska said.

The K-Light helps families save money on kerosene and increases productivity by facilitating evening work, including allowing children to study, she said.

A number of groups in Nigeria and Kenya are requesting K-Lights, as a lack of access to electricity is widespread in these countries. Nigeria and Kenya rank 69th and 106th in the world respectively for electricity consumption, according to the CIA’s World Factbook.

A women’s NGO, Centro Feto, based in Oecusse, East Timor, is hoping to acquire 30 Q-Drums, which are rollable water containers, to make it easier for women to collect water from distant water sources. The amount needed for Kopernik to be able to place an order is $4,990 for 30 drums.

An NGO in Sierra Leone is hoping to obtain 30 N-computing units, which are virtual desktops that allow several users to share the one computer, to aid in the education of young people in the war-torn country. The units are priced at $100 each.

Only officially launched in February, the Kopernik Web site already features plenty of proposals. So far it has run only two pilot projects — both in Indonesia.

Aside from the Manado project to distribute the self-adjustable lenses, Kopernik also approved a proposal by Yayasan Pecinta Taman Nasional (Friends of National Parks Foundation), which was implemented in Tanjung Puting National Park in Central Kalimantan.

YPTN requested Firefly, another solar-powered lighting device, to distribute to villagers who live near the park’s Sekonyer and Cabang rivers, as a way of rewarding their support for the group’s conservation efforts in the 400,000-hectare national park.

“The lights have been very popular,” Wojkowska said. “The community members now want to purchase more lights through Kopernik.”

Kopernik is the brainchild of Wojkowska and Toshi Nakamura, who have both been working in international development for the past 10 years. They have both worked for the United Nations Development Program in Indonesia, and between them have NGO experience in a number of countries, including East Timor, Sierra Leone, Laos and Thailand.

Wojkowska said working with the UN helped the pair to understand the challenges the development sector faced. Moreover, she added, their backgrounds meant they already had well-established networks to assist them in identifying technology seekers and technology providers.

“Most importantly, we are responding to what we know from first-hand experience is a real need,” she said.

Through their work with the UN, Wojkowska and Nakamura saw that new ideas and innovations were necessary.

“Frequently we felt that in the UN things were done the same old way that they’ve been done for years,” Wojkowska said. “The community of development experts tends to be very small and rather closed — and is not conducive to sudden innovation.”

Kopernik, which was established in New York but has plans to move to Indonesia, is named after Nicolaus Copernicus, the first scientist to realize the earth revolves around the sun.

“[Copernicus] is known for changing how people viewed the world around them,” Wojkowska said.

“In our own way, we hope to change how people approach development and how some of the greatest challenges facing the world today are addressed.”