Thursday, March 18, 2010

Ethical Gems

Working at a startup in Silicon Valley is just straight up insane. One week is so different from the next that I feel I might as well be working at completely different companies. Ahh, such is life at a social gaming company. I went through three different job titles in the past three months, and somewhere in the middle of that, I began to dream of starting my own company.

Rules for the new company were:
1. Tangible product
2. Ethically sourced and manufactured products
3. A product that could paradigm-shift an existing, traditional industry in an ethical direction
4. A product and industry I, personally, found exciting

So, I created it!

www.LanyiGems.com


Check it out. I source ethical gemstones for consumers, custom jewelers, and ethical artisans. I work with a small-scale mining association in Tanzania, and am hoping to expand to similar organizations in other countries. These associations, with help from the World Bank, bring together women and small-scale miners to collectivize their products so that they can compete with larger mines and lapidaries, all the while educating workers on ethical, sustainable and fair-trade practices.

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