An amazing new program that can change mobile health care as we know it

Today I spent a few hours with Björn Söderberg, the guy who is to blame for The Fair Tailor deciding to put the production of our Fair Trade fine dress shirts in Nepal in the first place.

First Björn showed me an amazing new project that his company WebSearch is working on together with Tirtha at Watabaran. It is system to handle medical journals via cell phones. Child Watabaran has a mobile health service, where they drive around to find street children who are injured or sick and give them medical treatment. One problem they have noticed is that it is very difficult to keep track on the kids, if the medical team changes it is no way to know if someone for example is allergic to antibiotics of if she/he has HIV. With the system developed by WebSearch they can use their cell phones to take a picture of the patient and to keep an journal with a medical history. The next time one of the kids is sick or injured they are able to find him/her in the database and can know their medical history.

I am not sure that I'm able to really describe in words how amazing I think this project is. It has such a huge potential world wide.

Here is by the way a video of Björn talking about WebSearch in general.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Work has started. We are making shirts

Work has started in the The Fair Tailor/Watabaran production house.

Govinda Nepali has become our first employee and he is doing a great job so far.

I just wanted to show a few YouTube clip of him instructing the kids from the youth production house how to make fine dress shirts.

Before starting at The Fair Tailor Govinda has worked in Jordan for six years, where he was in charge over production in a factory with 800 people. He is very skilled and I am really happy he decided to start working for us. He will definitly help us make fine dress shirts with perfect fit and finish.

There are by the way many more clips on YouTube, check them out.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

A meeting with Björn Söderberg

After yesterdays tour of the fabric markets to look for fabrics for our fair trade tailor made shirts this has been a much calmer day. Saturday is the day of in Nepal so I thought it would be more quiet today. Little did I know that the neighbours have an orchestra and the orchestra had practice time a 6am today. I am glad that I can sleep fairly well despite of the noice.

Me using public transportation on the way to the fabric dealers

If the video doesn't work, use this link.

Today I have met with Björn Söderberg, a Swedish entrepreneur that is the reason that we have decided to put our production in Nepal. We had originally thought of having the production in Cambodja, but we started talking and here I am, 8 months later, in Kathmandu, Nepal.

We talked for hours about what can be done here in Nepal and why some things can not be done. It was interesting to get his insight to the situation in Nepal. He also had some really exciting projects planned for the future, but I can reveal here what he has planned. Today we discussed entrepreneurship, our business and Nepal. On Friday we are going out to see the Watabaran paper production facilities.

I have uploaded nine videos on YouTube now, you can find them if you search for The Fair Tailor.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Cockroaches in the room and ants in the laptop

Yesterday I met with Tirtha and Poonam at the new office of Watabaran. It was great seeing them again and the new place looked great. They have changed offices to try to get many of ther projects located in the same area.

This is a video showing me and Tirhta going over some CVs and Poonam working by the computer.

During my visit Tirtha and I set up a busy schedule for my time here. I'm fully booked until Thursday so far, but I have a feeling that more things will turn up.

Video showing the outside of the new Watabaran office and the production house.

After the meeting with Tirtha and Poonam i found myself involved in a game of some kind with the locals. I don't know the name for it in English, but it is a little bit like pool.

I didn't get much sleep last night. I am a little, but not to much, jetlaged. But one thing that definitly kept me up was my bed company...

Big Bob, the king of my friendly room mate cockroaches

My first night here I was to tired to notice it, but the rooms was filled with cockroaches. I know that they'r not dangerous in any way, but I still don't like them. When I started my computer this morning I realized that I had some more friends. Suddenly there was an ant on my laptop keyboard. I flipped it away but soon there was another. And another, and another. I guess they moved in to my computer over night...

I have already called a new hostel, I'm moving after I have finished breakfast.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Getting ready to go to Nepal

It's just two days until I'm going to leave for little more than two weeks in Nepal. The work has been quite intense these last weeks and I doubt that it will slow down anytime soon. If everything goes as planned I guess I will be able to take a week off in about a year... But hey, the trip to Nepal will take about 24 hours, I can rest a little then. Right now I'm working on getting some pictures to use to describe to Watabaran what we mean with certain things. I have a short window when I'm able to work before Lina gets up. She doesn't like me working on the week end... And she is probably right, It would be better to get some rest right about now.

I have not started packing yet, but I think I know where everything I need is at least. I should be able to make it in time.

Sebastian Stjern

THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Our logo is almost finished

We are working together with a designer do develop our new logo and the work is going great. I think we will maybe be finished this week. Stay tuned to see the logo here in the blog.

If you are interested in climate smart fashion I can recomend that you check out this article.

I am currently getting ready to send out a new newsletter, if you are on the e-mail list you will get it later today.

Sebastian Stjern
THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

Our website is on it's way!

We have signed a deal with our website suppliers, Monator.

They will produce our soon-to-be-excellent website during the upcoming months. It is a big step for us and it means a huge financial commitment. But it also means that we are really on our way.

The applicants for the job in Nepal has started pouring in. Some of the applicants looks really exciting, I can't wait to get to Kathmandu to meet with them.

Lina did a great job in Stockholm last week. She made a lot of important contacts, both with interesting people that works with social entrepreneurship and with potential customers. I can really understand that she was exhausted when she came home on Friday evening.

Sebastian Stjern
THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

One thousand and one things

I know that I've written about this earlier, but things are moving forward really, really fast right now.

Lina is in Stockholm right now, getting ready for the Eco Now fair on Thursday-Saturday. She caught the train on Monday morning and will not be back until Friday evening. While she is in Stockholm she is meeting with potential customers and with some interesting people.

I am currently doing everything at once. Yesterday I worked with a tax form between 8pm-9pm before I decided that it would probably seem a little bit more understandable is I waited with it until today. I have not dared to check yet today. It is a two page form and it has a 28 page instruction... I'm trying to find fabric suppliers in India, button suppliers in Sweden, trying to hire people in Nepal, trying to decide on website design, blogging in two languages and loving every minute of it.

We meet so many inspiring people, both here at IQube but also when we meet potential customers, people who work with Fair Trade, at events and at fairs. And it is really fun with all the comments I get at Veckans Affärer.

Sebastian Stjern
THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

The Fair Tailor exists!

I just got of the phone with Bolagsverket, the Swedish company registration agency. Three weeks ago we sent in our registration forms to them and I wanted to make sure that they would approve our name. They informed me that August 7 2009 will go down in history. It was the date when The Fair Tailor was officially founded.

I don't know if it will be make a huge difference on the day to day work but it feels really great that we got the name we wanted, that can always be a little tricky.

Yesterday I booked my flight to Nepal. I will leave Sweden at September 1st and return on the 17th. Last time I flew Etihad and I liked them so I'll take the exact same route again.

Lina is preparing for her trip to Stockholm next week, she will visit the EcoNow fair and meet with some interesting people while she is there.

We are also working on updating the budget. The previous version was made a couple of months ago and since then we have made small changes here and there. I feels better to wipe out all the all figures and make a clean start. Our website project is also moving forward, we had a workshop yesterday. Yesterday we also started working with a designer, everything seems to be happen a once.

Sebastian Stjern
THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet

We're cutting up fine dress shirts and sending them to Asia

In order to show our producers, DEM Collective and Watabaran, what shirt quality we strive towards we have bought fine dress shirts on Second Hand. The plan now is to cut them in half and send one part to South Asia and keep the other part here as a reference.The shirts we are sending are Gant, Stenströms, Eton and Hugo Boss. It feels a bit strange to run a pair of scissors through such fine garments, but what else to do?

Lina, my wife, is in charge of sales for The Fair Tailor and yesterday she started calling companies that might be interested in doing business with us. It didn't take long for her to book two meetings, with Göteborg Energi and Semcon. I'm impressed by her and convinced that she will sell a lot of shirts.

We are in the process of registering the company The Fair Tailor, on Thursday we plan to send the forms needed to the government agency.

Sebastian Stjern
THE FAIR TAILOR
-Dress Responsibly

Tailor made Fair Trade and ecological fine dress shirts via Internet