Positive Social Impact
USABROAD works with clients that offer products and services that will have a strong, immediate impact on a target international market to positively affect the largest number of people.
Disruptive Innovation
USABROAD specializes in trade finance services for clients who have products and services that create, or change, an international market by displacing an existing technology.
Facilitating International Trade
USABROAD leverages decades of experience with state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICT) to speed the financing process, reduce risk and competitively facilitate international trade for our clients.
Participating in Disruptive Innovation
USABROAD specializes in trade finance services for clients who have products and services that create, or change, an international market by displacing an existing technology. A good example of a disruptive innovation is the Ford Model ‘T’. Until then, early automobiles were expensive luxury items that did not disrupt the market for horse-drawn vehicles. The market for transportation essentially remained intact until the debut of the lower priced Ford Model T in 1908. The mass-produced automobile was a disruptive innovation, because it changed the transportation market. The automobile, by itself, was not the disruptive innovation. It was the mass production of the Model T that eventually ended the market for horse drawn vehicles.
USABROAD has participated in bringing disruptive innovations to international markets for over three decades: CB Radios to the UK in the 1970s, village funded water projects to Nigeria in the 1980s, C & Ku-Band TVRO satellite technology to the Persian Gulf region in the 1990s and WiMAX Internet with VoIP telephony to Iraq since 2003.
“The nature of an innovation is that it will arise at a fringe where it can afford to become prevalent enough to establish its usefulness without being overwhelmed by the inertia of the orthodox system.
– Kevin Kelly.
Facilitating International Trade
USABROAD leverages decades of experience with state-of-the-art information and communication technologies (ICT) to speed the financing process, reduce risk and competitively facilitate international trade for our clients.
Historically, international trade has played a significant role in the development of great civilizations; but it’s never been more important, or competitive, than it is today. Recent advances in information and communication technology (ICT) have radically changed the established network of interlinking maritime, air cargo and overland trade routes that laid the foundation for the modern world.
Today, billions of dollars are transacted over the Internet on international on-line Export/Import forums; inquiries, quotes and orders are received and processed with lightning speed over hand-held ‘smart phones’ that traders carry anywhere; traditional Bills of Lading and Documentary Collections are created, signed, sent and received electronically, in seconds; satellites are tracking freight door-to-door using M2M technologies that even monitor the temperature and security seal of a container; and, sophisticated international financiers are taking advantage of these advances to reduce the risk and compete for the lucrative opportunities that have always been associated with the exchange of capital goods and services across international boarders.
“Peace is a natural effect of trade.
– Charles de Montesquieu
Supporting Positive Social Impact
USABROAD works with clients that offer products and services that will:
An early example of a USABROAD project that supported positive social impact was our financing of water drilling work in the Eastern ‘Ebo’ lands of Nigeria between 1982 and 1987. At that time, USABBROAD organized short-term receivables financing for Basic Technologies, (Nig) Ltd., a US/Nigerian joint venture. At the time, the former ‘Biafra States’ had been excluded from Nigeria’s Federally funded water development schemes for political reasons. Local entrepreneurs with ‘tripods’ made from pipe and chains were drilling water ‘boreholes’. Their manual technique was technically incapable of drilling far enough to reach the clean aquifer that was typically 600 feet underground.
Over the five years of the joint venture, a US technical team trained local Nigerians by developing water systems at 32 villages across the Rivers, Cross-Rivers and Imo States of Nigeria. The Company brought clean water to 640,000 people for the first time in human history. By the end of the venture, the technology for drilling deep wells and the day-to-day management of the company were transferred to local Nigerians.
USABROAD served as the US Trade Finance office for Basic Technology, arranging: $250,000 of financing for the drill rig and the ongoing 6″ pipe for well casing, drilling mud and assorted materials for completing the five year mission. USABROAD also organized a barter-trade program for converting the local currency into US dollars during a time when the Central Bank of Nigeria had no foreign exchange.