This morning I came across a project from Imperial College, London that I think really illustrates the concept of Creating Shared Value.

E.quinox is a non-profit, humanitarian initiative designed by a group of engineering students from the university that is already successfully running in Rwanda. It focuses on making power accessible to rural communities in the developing world.

It consists of a system where renewable energy - such as solar power - is used to charge portable batteries in a central kiosk. The batteries can then be hired out to local householders in areas without mains electricity to provide power for a range of uses such as lighting, radios and keeping medicines refrigerated.

Fees from hiring the batteries are then channelled back into maintaining the kiosk, which in turn provides a salary to local people employed on the project.

The project recently won top prize in the IEEE Presidents’ Change the World Competition, with members of e.quinox collecting their award of USD 10,000 and the title of IEEE Student Humanitarian Supreme in a ceremony in Montreal in June.

The IEEE is the world’s largest professional association dedicated to advancing technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. The competition rewards students who develop, design or implement technology to solve a real world problem.

With a similar aim in mind, last year we launched the Nestlé Prize in Creating Shared Value, awarded annually to an individual, non-governmental organisation (NGO) or small business for an outstanding innovation or project in the areas of water, nutrition or rural development.

To the Laureate, we will commits not only an investment of up to CHF 500,000 (approximately, USD 475,000) for a specified period of time to assist the development of an innovation and bring it to scale, but also the opportunity to share knowledge and best practice with expert members of our CSV advisory board.

This year the non-profit organisation International Development Enterprises Cambodia received the CSV Prize for its Farm Business Advisors programme. Watch the film here.

Applications for the 2011 prize will open at the beginning of next year.

This afternoon (18.30 CET), the London Overseas Development Institute is holding a public discussion on the role of technology in improving the productivity and efficiency of African agriculture.

Sir Gordon Conway, Professor of International Development, Centre for Environmental Policy, Imperial College London; Dr Christie Peacock, Chief Executive, Farm Africa; and Jim Sumberg, Research fellow, Institute of Development Studies are heading up the panel.

Part of a series on Agricultural futures in Africa, the event will explore how innovations should be generated: by formal scientific research, farmer-to-farmer communication, or an intermediate approach.

Considering the significant investment Nestlé has made has made over the past 12 months in improving the quality of raw materials we source in Africa – specifically cassava, cocoa and coffee - I will be watching the webcast with interest.

Last month we released the first of our higher-yielding, disease resistant cocoa crops – propagated at our Regional Development Centre in Abidjan, Cote D’Ivoire - to three farming cooperatives, who we are also training in improved farming techniques as part of the Cocoa Plan.

So far the signs have been very promising, but it will take sustained commitment from Nestlé and the farming cooperatives we work with to make this new method of sourcing a long-term, commercially viable success.

As this Guardian article notes, a similar project undertaken by the newspaper group, the African Medical and Research Foundation (Amref) and Farm-Africa in Katine (a rural sub-county of north-east Uganda) experienced a setback recently when cassava farmers did not fully benefit from new agricultural techniques because of poor weather conditions and not enough supervision.

The challenge for our Cocoa Plan therefore lies not only in staying on the cutting edge of plant science to create the best possible quality crops, but also to ensure that the farmers who receive these are equipped with the knowledge and tools to optimise their output and given the incentive to apply them.