The Agenda - Social Justice

In exchange for his demands, Hutchinson offers a huge amount of freedom. The company has box seats at the national rugby games, and Hutchinson rotates tickets among team members. He also takes team members up in his ultralight plane, a passion that he's had since the 1980s, when he built his own makeshift rig from a hang glider and a chain-saw motor. To Hutchinson, flying is the perfect model for the team's working relationship. "Once you're in the air, it doesn't matter who the hell you are or what your title is. You're totally exposed. You have to trust each other."

Not only do Freeplay engineers have to trust each other, they also have to trust in the technology's potential. This small, resource-strapped company has taken on some big-time risks. The company is feverishly developing self-powered products -- a global-positioning system, a land-mine detector, a water purifier -- for which there is no proven market. The purifier is particularly ingenious: When water and salt are combined in the prototype's metal cup, the machine produces enough hypochlorite to sanitize 10 liters of water. Its potential is vast: It could purify water supplies in disaster areas; it might even prevent the spread of AIDS by generating clean water to mix with powdered infant formula. (One source of infection is communal breast-feeding.)

"We have a real sense of commitment," says Hutchinson. "It comes from doing honest work, for an honest wage, to make a product that's meaningful. The Red Cross, for instance, gave radios to a village in Afghanistan. One little boy had the job of winding the radio. The whole village would gather to listen to the radio; it was an incredibly important part of their community. One day, the boy accidentally broke the handle. He was so distraught that he ran away from home! If that story doesn't teach us the importance of quality, nothing will."

Chris Rhomberg sums up the sentiment this way: "We're like a family that works together." That philosophy is reinforced by the Afrikaans phrase that the engineers use when answering their cell phones: Ja, boet. Hello, brother.

Money and Mission

Breakthrough innovations -- from the Apple Mac to the PalmPilot -- usually begin with a simple idea that redefines people's expectations about what a product can do. But even the most brilliant idea requires staying power -- the wherewithal to handle the kinds of setbacks and slowdowns that are part of the entrepreneurial process. Stear and Staines have had a lot to do with Freeplay's stamina. The two of them figured out early on how to marry a powerful idea to deep pockets -- and still maintain the company's original vision.

Chris Staines remembers precisely when he first encountered the idea that led to that vision. It was April 15, 1994. Staines, who lived in London at the time, was flipping through TV channels while waiting for his wife, Emma, to get ready for an evening out. He stumbled across a BBC show, called "Tomorrow's World," that profiled Trevor Bayliss, the inventor of a wind-up radio. Bayliss built the rig after learning that one of the biggest hurdles in slowing the spread of AIDS in Africa was the inability to inform people in remote regions about safe sex. Bayliss, a blustery, optimistic sort, figured his contraption could do the job -- if he could find a partner to build it.

Staines wanted to be that partner. The British native was a finance whiz who'd honed his skills while working in Australia and Britain for the accounting firm known then as Deloitte, Haskins & Sells, and as head of mergers and acquisitions for Seff Corporate Finance in Cape Town. "It was just a brilliant idea," says Staines. "Anyone who couldn't see that was foolish. I had the contacts in South Africa and in the U.K. I knew how to raise money, and I lived less than 100 miles from Bayliss. I couldn't think of one reason why I wasn't the best person to help."

Apologizing to his wife, who was by now ready to go, Staines called Rory Stear in Johannesburg. Staines had worked for Stear for three months at Seff. The two made a great team: Staines, an accountant by training, is as reserved as Stear is gregarious. Stear, a serial entrepreneur, started his first business as a disc jockey at age 18. Staines is more the passionate tactician. "I'm no great humanitarian," he quips. "I suppose I'm an accountant with a vision."

Stear shared Staines's enthusiasm for the radio, so Staines called the BBC and got Bayliss's fax number. That night, Staines stayed awake writing a business plan, which he faxed to Bayliss the next morning. Bayliss agreed to meet for brunch, and a few days later, the three had an agreement. Although Staines and Stear intended to raise money to launch the product, they didn't expect to be doing business with some of the biggest companies in their country and the world. Nor did they intend to run a multimillion-dollar operation with two factories and 270 employees. "We're like the dog that catches the bus," jokes Stear. "What do we do with it now?"