airmOnia

A Moldovan born, Greek raised, British educated global citizen. My education varies from Economics and Finance to International Relations. My interests expand to Astronomy, Philosophy and Technology.

Before starting my professional career, I had to undertake compulsory Greek military service, where I served for nine months. Subsequently, I have gained professional experience working for two and a half years for a London-based investment firm. Currently, I am working for a startup investability assessor company also based in London. We assess startups and provide a report on how "investable" they are.

Problem:

There are currently over 705 million people living in extreme poverty, using the World Bank’s international poverty line of less than $US 1.90 per person per day.

Our solution:

We believe that the best way to alleviate poverty is through promoting entrepreneurship to the affected communities. Therefore, airmOnia aims to provide the necessary access to financial capital and technical knowledge to existing and aspiring social entrepreneurs.

Outcome:

85% of people living in extreme poverty are located in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, therefore it is very important to focus on these geographical regions. We believe that our solution will positively change these people's lives by reducing unemployment and providing learning opportunities on entrepreneurship. In addition, we would like to emphasise a polydimensional factor: our solution addresses a range of issues that communities face, varying from environmental issues to agricultural and digital matters.

The problem we are trying to tackle is extreme poverty through inclusive entrepreneurship.

According to the World Bank, 736 million people lived below the international poverty line of US$ 1.90 a day in 2015. In 2018, almost 8 per cent of the world’s workers and their families lived on less than US$1.90 per person per day. Most people living below the poverty line live in two regions: Southern Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, more specifically in India, Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, according to the most recent comprehensive data available. High poverty rates are often found in small, fragile and conflict-affected countries.

According to recent studies (e.g., Berge et al., 2014; Chliova and Ringov, 2017; Valdivia, 2015) provision of scarce resources, such as finances or training, are central to poverty alleviation. This is where airmOnia comes in.

We enable small and new businesses or ideas, in untapped communities, to weather economic shocks, prosper, and create good jobs through access to airmOnia's capital, network, and technical know-how.

airmOnia considers itself to be a for-profit social impact investor that engages beyond its financial commitment by participating in the strategic development of its partner companies. 

airmOnia provides consultation for the development of the partner organization via business know-how, mentoring, strategic knowledge, and access to its network. 

The process we use to accomplish our goal is the following:

1. Search for countries and communities that live in absolute poverty.

2. Source and screen any local entrepreneurial initiatives. airmOnia finds out about these opportunities in different ways. Sometimes the entrepreneurs contact us using our website. Sometimes the entrepreneurs reach us through our network.  We also aim to organise scouting tours in target countries. 

3. Build a framework of cooperation with our partners. A well-established, comprehensive process that defines clear goals as the basis for a long-term partnership between airmOnia and its partners.

4. Invest in carefully chosen partner companies or promising ideas that focus on absolute poverty and fulfil our investment criteria. 

5. Post investment monitoring and managing and value building. airmOnia provides the necessary guidance to the entrepreneurs to accomplish their goals and create value for communities.

6. Exit after an investment period of circa five years. 

Our initial geographical focus is people living below the poverty line in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. A significant amount of the people in these regions are unemployed or self-employed, usually in low-paying work that keeps them in poverty. More than three-quarters of workers are farmers or non-agricultural self-employed workers.

Small-scale entrepreneurs tend to be older and less educated than wage employees, with more volatile labor market activities and a greater likelihood of exiting the labor market rather than moving to other forms of employment. Consequently, the chances of living in poverty are higher for small-scale entrepreneurs than for wage employees.

As most of these farmers still have no direct access to local, regional, or global markets, airmOnia invests in entrepreneurial initiatives that aim to make these markets accessible to the farmers.

Moreover, airmOnia supports entrepreneurial projects which create market-oriented opportunities for capable and motivated but underprivileged youth and women, allowing them to apply their knowledge to the job market.

Through our close partnership with local entrepreneurs and communities, airmOnia envisages that socially disadvantaged people will obtain a chance to secure their existence and to live a more independent and dignified life.

It was an article I read about a Ghanian educator who taught MS Word on a chalkboard that triggered my interest to actively get involved and tackle such societal issues such as poor education, poverty etc.

Feeling responsible for providing a solution, my initial idea was to set up a charitable project. A donation-based project to promote education and sports in developing countries that are experiencing limited development due to the level of poverty.

But then I realised there are many similar projects going on and according to some research these do not always provide the best solutions. So, I had to come up with a new approach to tackle poverty.

Subsequently, I read a research paper by scholars based at Princeton University demonstrating that the lack of capital perpetuates poverty. To be more precise the lack of financial resources itself can lead to impaired cognitive function. The very condition of not having enough can actually be a cause of poverty.

Finally, I came up with the idea of a VC style investment in entrepreneurial ideas that focuses on people with below poverty-line salaries or investment in projects that employ this target group.

Born in one of the poorest countries in Europe, Moldova, I was deeply affected by the situation in the country. Moldova is still facing political and economic instability, lack of capital, trade obstacles, and other hardships stemming from the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991. An increasing number of people are leaving the country in search for a better, more promising future.  

These are the main problems that are causing Moldova's economy to remain stagnant and perpetuate poverty. Taking this national problem on to a global scale, other developing countries face similar issues that are obstacles to progress. Therefore, I envisage that airmOnia will promote entrepreneurship in Moldova and other developing countries in South Asia and Subsaharan Africa and be a catalytic factor to tackle poverty.

This project is at the intersection of three pillars that I am passionate about: entrepreneurship, startup investment and international relations.

To begin with, I believe entrepreneurship is the most effective way to solve any problem, poverty included. For example, I have created BorderStatus.info an informative website to tackle the uncertainty caused to the travellers due to the coronavirus epidemic. So, travellers can get access to other official websites and learn more about the rules that apply when visiting a country.

In addition, I have three years’ experience in investments, working in one of the most influential financial hubs in the world, in London. This experience taught me how to conduct analysis of investment opportunities, how to facilitate market analytics and demographic studies. I have also learnt how to assess startups across various industries and determine their suitability for investment using pitch decks, financial models and web research due diligence. I can assess what a “worth investing in” project looks like, checking a team's credibility, market dynamics, what the problem is and if the proposed solution is appropriate and sustainable.

Finally, studying International Relations at the University of Cambridge, provided me with the right network in the fields of International relations and diplomacy to support my idea: this could be an important factor assisting in the effective development of my idea thus helping to ensure poverty alleviation through my project.

In conclusion, I believe my skills, background, and experiences uniquely position me to deliver the project and tackle the poverty problem.

My initial idea was to tackle the problem by creating a charitable organisation. The business model was based on donations and volunteers. Unfortunately, this model did not work out. The people I communicated with although initially very impressed, enthusiastic and willing to help at the end could not commit themselves to the project. Consequently, the project was not going anywhere for a long time. 

Therefore, I decided to approach the issue from a different angle. I realised that I had to adopt my approach closer to my professional experience, utilising more of my own skills. This led me to develop a new and much more effective strategy to tackle poverty through promoting entrepreneurship. 

Not only do I have a clearer view of my client proposition but I also feel more confident speaking about the project and analysing it. Moreover, using this U-turn strategy I also realised that entrepreneurship is the one factor that could combat poverty from its roots.

Since childhood, leadership was one of my main characteristics in the peer groups I was part of. When studying at high school because of my leading roles at sports like soccer, volleyball and tennis and involvement in many other activities I became a popular person. Consequently, I was voted president of the school, representing circa 300 pupils. This was a very important experience early in my life which taught me how a society operates on a smaller scale.

Some of the achievements of that year could be summarised in the following. I successfully led the school's football team to the "Mathitiada" a sports competition for schools, where I was my team’s top scorer. I organised social events varying from theatrical performances to school dances. In addition, on a personal level, I represented the school at a competition in mathematics and at the end of the year I received a commendation for top academic performance.