ABOUT CPES

Bottom-Up Solutions for Development: Engaging the Fortune at the Bottom of the Economic Pyramid

CPES utilizes an innovative, and successful business model to engage "the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP)," as C. K. Prahalad, the father of the concepts of core competency and BOP notes. CPES also follows the strategies of Clayton Christensen to use “innovation to lift nations out of poverty” as described in his 2019 book, “The Prosperity Paradox.”

This bottom-up wealth creation model gives local populations a significant ownership stake in the development of their communities, leading to long-term sustainable growth. CPES has a “top-down” solution as well. Led by its CEO Richard N. Swett, FAIA, a former U.S. Representative and Ambassador, CPES has direct access to top political, corporate, and knowledge leaders anywhere on the planet. The combination of trusted relationships at the top and engagement at the bottom of the political and economic pyramid dramatically diminishes risk and increases profitability:

Economic Pyramid.png

Building Sustainable Economies: Our Sequential Development Model

Our sequential development model is based on the successful model that co-founder Michael Rowan helped create in the 1970s for the State of Alaska. This model propelled the State of Alaska from the bottom to the top of the states for reducing poverty and inequality.

Alaska Natives were capitalized to form 200 totally Native-owned, directed, and operated enterprises, which have produced over $65 billion in corporate earnings by 2020, raising the Native population from poverty into the middle class. Updated to include clean energy technologies, digital economy capacities, and innovative finance, the development model of CPES follows a sequential, methodical process:

  1. Building a profitable local enterprise (primarily in agriculture, but there are industrial applications).

  2. Generating renewable power to provide electricity for the community and market, using solar energy sales to leverage modern housing construction, and creating community enterprise profits by selling surplus electricity back to the grid.

  3. Developing the community infrastructure for the farmers, workers, residents, and builders of the community, which includes solar housing, health and education facilities, waste-to-energy facilities, transportation services, and more.

  4. Creating downstream local sustainable wealth through 25 Community Enterprises owned by the local population, which develops partnerships with external investors who apply digital technology and innovative management to businesses.

Modeling the 3P Communities: the Same Way 3D Modeling Does for a Building

CPES is creating software that integrates two relevant databases:

  • The construction and operations database of buildings or communities (as in 3D Modeling), and

  • The relevant databases measuring the human use of those buildings or communities (as in a Customer Relationship Management database).

The result is what we call the Ultimate Enterprise Solution: the built environment, energy, and human uses visualized virtually, prior to any construction.

Case Study: The Sudan Project — Agricultural, Solar, and Community Development

CPES is working with local partners and an international hedge fund to develop up to 2.34 million acres of fertile agricultural land that will grow a variety of crops. The local partners have existing agricultural operations that will provide extensive experience to the new joint venture.

Once the P1 project is underway, CPES will develop power (P2) from solar housing and other renewable sources, which will supply electricity to approximately 150,000 farmers, workers, and their families. This sustainable project will be profitable for P1 investors while it transforms the standard of living and social mobility of a million Sudanese people. The project can also be replicated all over the world since the project finance model is driven by private financing for P1 and a Public-Private-Partnership for P2 and P3.

With the improved political environment in Sudan as well as the natural advantages it holds in growing agriculture, Sudan has the potential to become the "breadbasket" of Africa.