The Agenda - Social Justice

The Freeplay Group, a young, fast-growing company based in Cape Town, South Africa, wants to build products that capture the imagination of the world. It also wants to change the world -- which means it has to operate in many different worlds. January in Las Vegas: Hundreds of thousands of businesspeople and technology geeks have gathered for the annual International Consumer Electronics Show. Even by Las Vegas standards, the show is a spectacle. A maze of booths sprawls across more than 1 million square feet of convention space. Some 1,800 companies are competing for the attention of the attendees. There is glitz -- and schlock -- galore: Three people in six-foot-tall, rhinestone-bedecked parrot suits dance to a company jingle; a bright-red sports car provides a place to demo new speakers. The whole scene is set to a bone-shaking hip-hop beat -- the music of choice to showcase new audio technology.

Freeplay doesn't have to shout for attention. The company's booth is lined with a collection of stylish, transparent radios in eye-pleasing colors: wild cherry, lime, blueberry. They look as if they've been carved from giant Lifesaver candies. Each radio has a handle that, when wound up, generates the power to play the radio. There are no electric cords and no batteries. People can play these "self-powered" devices, which sell for $79.95, for free -- hence the name.

"What's this?" asks a curious visitor, clad in a black T-shirt and jeans. "An iMac radio?" A Freeplay staffer hands him a device. "Wind it up," she says. The man folds out the handle and turns it for 10 seconds. The chorus from "Zoot Suit Riot," by Cherry Poppin' Daddies, blasts from the speaker. The base of the handle, now retracted snugly against the radio's face, spins slowly backward as the gears -- visible from the outside -- turn kinetic energy into electricity. "This is incredibly cool," he says. "Where can I buy one?"

Meanwhile, an ocean away, in a tin-shack classroom in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal, a Freeplay radio is attracting eager attention from a very different audience. A group of kids is crowding around for an English lesson. In this part of KwaZulu-Natal, Zulu is the primary language, and electricity is a luxury, not a utility. Few residents can afford to buy batteries. And few teachers are fluent in English. Enter the Freeplay radio, donated by War Child, an aid organization based in London. War Child has purchased enough self-powered radios to help 150,000 South African children to learn English. Every morning, the kids listen to a 30-minute lesson that's broadcast over the radio. Each lesson begins with music and dancing and then moves on to storytelling. The students -- ages five through seven -- follow along in bright-colored workbooks. "In the rural communities we serve, when the batteries die, the learning stops," says Gordon Naidoo, who coordinates the program. "When we implement the program with these radios, it is instantly sustainable."

Plenty of companies aspire to make money and also to make a difference. Freeplay has delivered on both of those aspirations in dramatic fashion. The company was formed in 1995, shipped its first product in 1996, has generated revenues of $20 million as of March 1999 -- and expects to reach $35 million by 2000. Freeplay's investors include General Electric Pension Trust; WorldSpace, a satellite-broadcasting company in Washington, DC; and Liberty Life, a top South African insurance company. The company's famous advocates include Nelson Mandela (who made an appearance at a Freeplay factory opening) and Jimmy Carter. Gordon Roddick, chairman of the Body Shop, serves on the board of the Freeplay Foundation. And Terry Waite, the former envoy of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was held hostage in Beirut, is a trustee of the Freeplay Foundation.

Waite has a decidedly personal connection to Freeplay's flagship product: "I know what being cut off from communication is like. I spent five years in captivity, four of them in solitary confinement, during which time I got no news from the outside world. But near the end of my imprisonment, I did get a small, battery-operated radio. I was terrified that when the batteries died, the guards would not replace them, and I'd be back in total isolation. There are millions of people in this world who are in similar situations -- cut off from the flow of information."

So although Freeplay's products have made a big splash in the rich countries -- its radios (along with the Freeplay Lantern, a self-powered flashlight that retails for $69.95) are available at RadioShack, the Sports Authority, REI, the Sharper Image, and Harrods, the London retailer -- the radios are actually making a difference in the poorest countries. The United Nations Development Program used them to broadcast election results to the people of Liberia; the government of Ghana purchased 30,000 radios so that villagers there could also listen to the elections. War Child may distribute radios to refugees in Zaire, to warn them about land mines in that strife-torn country. And Rotary International plans to use the radios to broadcast information about a child-immunization project in India.