We are thankful for the many people and organizations that make the work we do possible. This ranges from financial support to technical development support and promoting our technologies around the world. The types of collaboration possible are really limitless. Click on an organization's logo to be taken to their respective websites.
Donors
A complete list of donors can be seen in our Annual Report.
Field Organizations |
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AT Uganda |
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ECHO |
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| Full Belly The Full Belly Project, headquartered in Wilmington, North Carolina, designs and distributes income-generating agricultural devices to improve life in developing countries. Their strategies include invention, design, construction, collaborations with locally based social entrepreneurs, distribution of appropriate technologies, and education. CTI has collaborated with Full Belly in Africa by pairing their peanut sheller with CTI’s grinder to create an appropriate, village-level method of processing peanuts in from start to finish. |
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Lutheran Aid to Medicine in Banglaedsh (LAMB) |
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Medicine for Mali (M4M) Founded in 2000 by Dr. Stephen Devore, M4M is an Iowa-based NGO that provides life-saving medical devices, microfinance loans, clean water, and educational opportunities for a cluster of villages in southwestern Mali. Since 2005, M4M village groups have been using CTI’s hand-powered Omega VI grinders to make groundnut paste and cereal flour as a fee-paying, revenue-generating service for the community. These sites and users have served as an excellent forum for evaluating grinder performance and obtaining user feedback. |
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Meds & Food for Kids Meds & Food for Kids (MFK) combats childhood malnutrition in Haiti using an innovative approach: Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF). This product, also known in Haiti as Medika Mamba, is an energy-dense peanut butter that has been significantly fortified with nutritional supplements. The name Medika Mamba means “peanut butter medicine” in the Haitian Creole language. Medika Mamba is created by grinding peanuts with a motor-powered CTI Omega VI grinder, then combining the peanut paste with vegetable oil, powdered milk, sugar, and vitamins and minerals in another CTI Omega VI grinder. Several CTI grinders have been integral to MFK’s operation and CTI continues to provide simple solutions to support their life-giving program. |
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Sonje Ayiti Sonje Ayiti is a group of Haitian and international humanitarians who are collaborating to uplift the Haitian community through education, economic development, and health promotion. Sonje Ayiti works with a women's co-op, RAFAVAL, that uses CTI's grinder to help make chocolate for sale in the Haitian and international markets. In the words of one Sojje Ayiti worker, "This is not relief, but development and empowerment." |
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Taller de Salud Campesina (TASCA)
or Workshops for Rural Health |
Professional/Technical/Academic |
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Center for Technology Appropriate for Rural Areas (CTARA), |
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Engineers Without Borders This group of engineers is divided up into two distinct sections, one based upon engineering students working on projects mentored by their university’s faculty, and the other based upon professional engineers working on projects on their own. Most project activities require a multi-year commitment to achieve their goal. Engineers can and will make a difference in improving the developing world. |
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International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) Headquartered in India, ICRISAT is a major non-profit global agricultural research organization and a member of the Alliance of Centers organized under the CGIAR-World Bank umbrella with multi-lateral funding. Its crop focus includes groundnuts (peanuts), sorghum, and pearl millet which are critical staple foods in the semi-arid tropics of the world, including vast areas of Africa and India, which are primary targets of CTI technologies. CTI is collaborating with ICRISAT in West Africa, especially in Mali, on small-scale groundnut-cereal grinder technologies and pearl millet threshing systems. In East Africa, ICRISAT is assisting CTI to expand grinder testing in rural areas of Kenya. Recently CTI has held discussions with ICRISAT/India to collaborate on village-level post-harvest technologies. |
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The International Sorghum and Millet Collaborative Research Support Program (INTSORMIL) INTSORMIL supports international collaborative research to improve nutrition and increase income in developing countries and the United States. The program focuses on enhancing production and use of sorghum, millet and some other grains (finger millet, folio and tef). INTSORMIL has used the CTI Omega VI grinder to promote more efficient milling processes in rural areas of developing countries for converting small to medium size quantities of sorghum into flour. The Omega VI mill is cost effective and significantly more effective than the disc mills that have been used by small millers in the past. Several of the Omega VI mills are being evaluated for use in rural areas of El Salvador with another being used by INTA in Nicaragua. The collaboration between CTI and INTSORMIL promises to lead to progress for rural farmers. |
| Peace Corps Many of Compatible Technology International’s volunteers are returned Peace Corps volunteers. (website) |
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Texas A&M, Department of Soil and Crop Science |
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University of Minnesota, Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering Department (BBE) The mission of the Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems Engineering is to integrate engineering, science, technology and management for sustainable use of renewable resources and enhancement of the environment. Both faculty and students of BBE have been involved in CTI through either project work, volunteering, or service on our Board of Directors. |
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University of St. Thomas, School of Engineering CTI is cosponsoring a Senior Design project with UST Senior Engineering students to design a system for converting breadfruit into flour. (For more on breadfruit see What We Do > Crops.) This project will encompass all conversion steps from peeling to grinding, and the design requirements of each step will be examined so that a world wide process can be finalized. Two other cosponsors, the National Tropical Botanical Garden (Hawai'i) and the Episcopal Diocese of Milwaukee (Madison, WI) will be supplying breadfruit varietals, botanic support and access to an in-country test site. The project will be completed by five students and technical evaluation will be by Dr. Camille George, Associate Professor and Dr. Don Weinkauf, Dean, School of Engineering. |
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United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) The Agricultural Research Service of USDA has worked with CTI on the development of our pearl millet and sorghum Thresher. This assistance has extended into the areas of equipment design, field testing, evaluation of performance, supply of millet and sorghum, technical research and interagency liaison. The availability of these resources has been of vital assistance as we have developed this new technology. |
Other Nonprofits |
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Solar Oven Society (SOS) |
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Quantum Connections |
Contract Manufacturers/Suppliers
- Changepond Engineering
Changepond developed CAD drawings from designs by local artisans through reverse engineering for various potato processing in India. This has enabled CTI to build a library of drawings for its various devices and has allowed a collaborator in India to source, manufacture and ensure safe and reliable devices. (website)
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JBT Engineering Works
JBT has a manufacturing plant in Kampala, Uganda where they fabricate the bodies for our Ewing III grinders. There they also assemble the finished Ewing III’s using their fabricated bodies and special component parts that CTI sends from the US. They primarily sell the grinders into Uganda and to a lesser extent into East Africa.
- Med-Tek Inc.
Our grinders have many unique features, but one of the primary differences that separates us from others is the quality of our burrs. Not only do we use special chemistry in the metal, but our defined heat treating optimizes the effects of our chemistry. Med-Tek is the company that performs that heat treating function. Located in Minneapolis, MN Med-Tek has special capabilities that ensure that the quality requirements of our product are maximized.
- Midtown Manufacturing
Contract and short run machining projects is an integral part of an organization like CTI. Midtown is able to respond to both facets of our needs. Being able to respond to high quality volume runs, while at the same time reacting to individual research requests makes Midtown Manufacturing in Minneapolis, MN a valued partner.
- Modern Metals Foundry Inc.
Located in Bloomington, MN this aluminum sand casting foundry is the source of three component parts of the bodies for our Omega VI grinders. Obtaining a high quality casting is the first building block upon which the reputation of our Omega grinders’ is built. The ability of Modern Metals to respond to short run demands is appreciated by our limited space for inventory.
- Pengo – A Paladin Utility
The difficult manufacturing process of wrapping a flat piece of stainless steel into a helix for use as an auger in our grinders is performed for us by Pengo located in Cokato, MN. This critical component conveys the raw material to be ground into the cavity between the fixed and the turning burrs. The helix is, in many ways, the most design sensitive part of our system, and Pengo performs their tasks well.
- Smith Foundry Company
Ductile iron burrs form the core of our grinding technology. Our burrs are cast by Smith Foundry Co., of Minneapolis, MN into the precise chemistry and shape necessary for the machining and heat treating processes to follow. This ISO 9001-2000 certified company ensures that the starting point of our technology has a solid foundation.
- Turning Inc.
This St. Paul, MN based company uniquely meets the often extreme requirements of a small not-for-profit organization that is making a place for itself in the developing world. A machine shop with special talents for material sourcing and conversion, Turning Inc. know how to go from a “napkin sketch” to finished product with a minimum of disruption.