Two social DIY examples: Wii Whiteboards and Microphone Rainsensors in Africa

Responding to the earlier post of Chaitanya on OpenSource, DIY projects, I would like to share two other different, but similar examples of innovative, low-cost DIY products.

The first example is one that some of you will have seen already. It is short 6 minutes TED talk by Johnny Lee:



Although I advise you to watch the movie, it's great, here a short summary: Johnny Lee observed that the presentation equipment for schools is very expensive. For example digital whiteboards. They are now used in a lot of schools, but it costs them a lot of money. In the spirit of what was termed 'frugal engineering' in the papers of Seghal and others and the Scientific American article, Lee hacked a wii remote, which is stuffed with advanced technology and sold for less than $35. He did some quick programming and within a couple of days he created a digital whiteboard for less than $35. Compare this with the price of  regular interactive whiteboards  ranging from $1000 - $4000! Using technology like this could open up opportunities for all kinds of regions with less money available to spend on education facilities.

The second example I would like to share with you comes from an acquaintance of mine Rolf Hut. He is a researcher at my home university in Delft. Watch his TEDx Delft Talk:



It starts with the same kind of observation: Weather matters for people who rely on agriculture. Because having accurate weather data can provide you with more accurate forecasts. And in agriculture, you want forecasts, since you need to know when the best time is to harvest to crops. But accurate weather information is costly. And especially scarse in Africa. So Rolf Hut, whom I would describe as a true Frugal McGiver, set out with some of his students to design a better solution for this problem. Over night, they designed a cheap sensor which can detect rainfall. Combine this with a similar cheap sensor for wind data (Dr. John Selker), spread it out over Africa, connect it to existing platforms such as the One Laptop per Child program which was mentioned in the class, and you have a cheap, detailed data set on the weather in Africa which can increase crop production and thus wealth. http://www.tahmo.org/120422%20EGU%202012%20TAHMOs.pdf

Some similarities: Detailed observations of sub-issues of problems. Smart engineers who go from problem to prototype overnight. Using exisiting, low-cost technolgy as a basis for their solution.

How can markets contribute to poverty solutions?

Below, William posed the question “Is the market-based approach the solution to poverty?”  His is a crucial question.  I’d like to respond by reflecting on a similar question: “How is the market-based approach a (potential) solution to poverty.”

                We would think that a 5 trillion dollar market would attract business investment from around as strongly as a medium rare T-bone steak would my hungry-swimmer brother from the next room.  But BOP markets are as structurally different from established markets as a T-bone is from ground beef.  The analogy is better served if we compare a medium rare, perfectly seasoned T-bone to the same weight of ground beef – scattered across a soccer pitch.  The steak is ready to eat - established markets are optimized for conventional business investment.  Even if you think it’s worth the time to scour the soccer pitch to find the ground beef, it’s no T-bone.  The rural nature and disconnectedness increase the costs of finding and developing business opportunities in the BOP markets. 

                But I’m not asking why businesses aren’t investing in BOP markets, we are asking how market-based approaches can provide effective solutions to reducing poverty. 

                An anecdote: on a humanitarian trip to Haiti, our group was discouraged from personally donating any clothing, money or food to individual Haitians in village where we worked.  In fact, we were dissuaded from bringing large donations with us and we were not permitted to share our food even with the Haitians who were working side by side with us.  We strongly felt the moral ambivalence as our Haitian hosts waited while the Americans broke for lunch.

 The rationale was three-fold.  First, large donations of clothing had historically contributed to driving Haitian clothing manufacturers, distributors and retailers out of business.  They couldn’t compete with zero-price donations.  Second -- and this was drilled into us by the local Haitian leader – the village economy and the regional environment couldn’t improve in the long run without a single-minded focus on the long run.  We were there to build a school and a bread oven – two economic “innovations” that would bear fruit in the long run.  The bread oven would add substantial economic value to the village’s economy; the school would increase human capital.  The local Haitian leader firmly stated that, yes, he wanted the villagers to help, but for the hope of a long-term reward, not a short-term (I should add that the village was not in any state of food crisis.)  He argued that to some extent Haitians had optimized their behavior around prying donations from bleeding-heart westerners (an ultimately unsustainable and thus counterproductive strategy) instead of value-adding economic activity.  He pointed out that the people who had the strength and time to leave their homes and hang out with the Americans weren’t the ones who needed the most help.  The local agricultural practices were also counter-productive in the long term.  The main cash crop was charcoal, produced from clear-cutting trees.  This practice, though enough for a barely above subsistence standard of living, is completely unsustainable.  Large parts of Haiti suffer from deforestation. 

His argument essentially was that donations distorted the incentives that best facilitated real, long-term economic growth for his village.   Cheap imports of food and clothes hurt those Haitian producers and distributors just like cheap imports decimated the auto and steel industries in the US – except of course that there was is social safety net in Haiti.  Yes, we donated money for building materials, but they were bought in Haiti, growing the local economy.    Americans carried a lot of symbolic weight.  If we showed a commitment to long-term goals, he believed that Haitians would buy into the long-term perspective, leading to a deeper transformation than could be achieved by pure charity. 

The key to market-based development isn’t just dumping an innovation onto a population; it is identifying those innovations that can begin to construct an integrated network of producers and consumers within a region.  Integrating people into markets allows one-time investments (donations, even!) to reverberate through the networks of consumers, vendors and distributors.  This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t focus on education or healthcare.  But without a functioning economy that can receive the human capital, an investment in education doesn’t reverberate beyond the building and the students.  A market-based mindset is critical to optimizing a local economy.  Optimization enables growth. 

Lastly, business investment must take the charitable approach.  That is, the businesses must target their investments and innovations in products, services and infrastructure that build up the local economy.  This week’s articles list several examples of indigenous firms that, because they can’t compete on a branding level in established markets, are able to dominate market share and build up local economies in the BOP markets.  Ironically, McKinsey argues that these firms, selling low-cost refrigerators in India, for example, have the capability to outcompete “traditional” firms and products in established markets.  The “4 billion” article asks us to imagine not the challenges but the potential of re-optimizing business planning around the poorest instead of the richest.   Focusing on making a great meal with ground beef instead of steak.

Open Hardware - Democratizing Tech-Innovation

The issue of Open Source vs. Proprietary systems has been been debated for at least the past two decades in the the context of Computer Software. In the time frame, quite a few enterprises have established empires by selling proprietary software. In contrast to this, many technological innovations in Computer Science and Information Technology have been facilitated by Open Source software platforms. Today, Open Source Software form the core of super mission critical systems at places such as the International Space Station, nuclear submarines and CERN's Large Hadron Collider.

http://www.comparebusinessproducts.com/fyi/50-places-linux-running-you-might-not-expect

The interesting thing to note here is that many of these software projects began not in well-funded laboratories at centers of technological excellence or in the guarded wall of enterprise research labs; but in garages and basements as spare-time projects.

Open (source) Hardware promises to be a collaborative platform which takes its cues from the software phenomena. Unlike the software, hardware can be anything tangible. Any electronics chip, a car, a bicycle or a chair. The idea of open-sourcing hardware is making it easy to replicate by others around the world. This could be the catalyst in social innovation for innovators who work in their own little garages on DIY projects. The idea of reusing the innovations from someone half way around the world is powerful.
In this link, Marcin Jakubowski talks about how Open Hardware can help farmers attain industrial level productivity:
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/marcin_jakubowski.html

For innovations to be successful, it is important that they can be scaled and adapted to different geographies. The open hardware license allows innovators to create, re-use and improve on current innovations and hence -  democratizing innovation. With the open hardware tools and the improvements in communication in the recent years (in the remotest parts of the world), innovators anywhere can design and create products that are comparable to the ones that are created by industrial units. Analogous to the case of software, we can expect some path-breaking advancements to happen in the garages and home workshops more than the ones happening in research laboratories operating on million dollar funds.

A few interesting projects that have come up from the Open Hardware movement are:

• RepRap - A 3D printer platform
• Arduino - An open-source physical computing platform based on a simple I/O board and a development environment that implements the open source Processing / Wiring language.

Open Hardware does seem to hold the potential for great innovations in design and in technology just as were observed in software. If this movement can gather the 'critical mass', it will be a remarkably revolutionizing in terms how technology and design can spread across regions and across areas of application. It would be interesting to watch out for this movement for a couple of years to see the impact of this movement to the social innovation space.

In the blog for next week , I will talk about one such innovation which is trying to make the water bodies around the world cleaner.

Designs for social structures

This week's readings and week #1's lecture helped to show how ideas for innovation can be instrumental for changing the lifestyles of many people (mostly targeting those with the greatest need from around the globe) in a very positive way. And we can see how design is the make or break of these innovations upon implementation. Whether we are talking about innovations in practice of needy communities (like carrying wood more efficiently) or introducing a product which can help people be more productive or contribute to their communities (like the glasses with adjustable lenses) they have to be designed at the right price, with the right level of recognition and of course they have to be a better idea than anything else. Which is part of this context we see our innovation in. Its that context which I'd like to discuss in some more depth and see if we can discover innovation in another part of that.

That is, innovation in  the social paradigm, social behaviors and social structures of our targeted groups. In the process of introducing a new idea or a new product into a community we ensure that it will see "uptake" or "buy-in" or however we want to phrase that people are using this new idea. But there are many barriers to that process which may not seem entirely simple for us. In many Western communities we have practices which may not be typical behavior in every part of the world- and I think that deserves special mention. One great example was said at this year's orientation meeting on Academic integrity; many Western cultures like to celebrate their failures. It is good for us to fail and move onto a better or new idea more quickly, learn from our mistakes and I too believe that is optimum- shamelessly. In a greater context for our social structure, we encourage businesses to fail so that new and innovative ideas can flourish. But that idea is not human nature, it is trained and ingrained to some ways of thinking which might not be shared by so many people around the world. In this same way, when an innovative idea from America comes out to help people in countries which have some different set of beliefs and understanding of the world it is very difficult to pick-up these different social structures. This puts a major risk in our implementation.

So if we have a very non-materialistic culture which does not put a major emphasis on the belongings, property or discovery of depreciated use on physical objects we might have a very hard time sharing our new low-cost anti-microbial ShamWow that also serves as a water filter (made-up idea as a for instance). If the material requires delicate cleaning after each use or special drying in order to preserve its integrity only certain cautious behavioral people will enjoy this. There are many exaggerated ideas about this as well and sometimes we can see that the greatest challenges circle around a central issue.

In the small country of Djibouti the people's major pass time is chewing of cot. The substance is plentiful and easily acquired and addictive. Programs to encourage children to learn sports and develop industrious lifestyles ends about age 16-18 when it is accepted that he or she gets cot. Ideas about efficiency in work and other practices can be adopted but when noon strikes the streets go empty to hide from the heat and work may not start again for entire day. The desire for long working hours to better themselves is not on the highest priority. Whether this is an abuse of substance isn't questioned, and there isn't much room for enforcement but some of these communities are designed around this. Identifying this problem is easy but how do help this community innovate and design a better life?

The policies and practices of other cultures have had great cases of overcoming this sort of issue but it simply is not the same in a small country like Djibouti. If the community was to change their lifestyle choices it would have to be a difficult process with community leadership to teach a social design. Somewhat in the same way cultural leaders have shaped the Western world. Everyone from Einstein to Ghandi, MLK Jr. to Thomas Edison - we learned from modeling our lives off of others. But that does not mean it will work everywhere and it doesn't work with everyone.

Organizations have had to face these challenges of social design for many years and we have records of massive variety on their implementation. The social design of the community in which we wish to contribute an innovation has been entirely shaped by previous designs. Twenty years ago, a CEO would never be caught talking to his daughter over the phone during a meeting but now in days the upper management is just as likely to be txting away during a meeting as anyone else. Our lives are constantly shaped by design for better or worse and we have to be mindful of the unique social designs of each community and how their lives will be changed by introduction of these new ideas.

The Great Rebalancing: Alive and Kicking.

After reading the article “What Happens Next? Five Crucibles of Innovation That Will Shape The Coming Decade”, I was particularly interested by Crucible 1; The Great Rebalancing. The “Great Rebalancing” in a nutshell refers to how the emerging markets of the world have several untapped opportunities that if harnessed correctly could not only greatly boost the revenues of the companies that invest in them but also improve the economic shape of that geography in general.

Perhaps my interest was piqued since I belong to Pakistan; an emerging market in every sense and also because before starting at Heinz I worked for Unilever Pakistan Ltd, a company that was living the exact same philosophy as envisaged by the article! For those of you who don’t know, Unilever International is an established Anglo-Dutch FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) that operates in the same market segments such as Nestle and Procter & Gamble in over a 100 countries.  While I was still an employee at Unilever there was an intentional shift in trying to win over rural markets and tap into consumer segments that were previously thought of as too “rural” or “agrarian” for their products. Unilever approached these markets with a 2 pronged strategy of (a) providing the same products in smaller, more affordable sizes and by (b) making the product resonate with the local culture and tastes.

The latter task was obviously the harder but through extensive market research and by sending teams to each area to help familiarize them with the local nuances, Unilever helped tailor their products according to the particular demands of that area/culture. An example of this was Unilever launching a product unique to the South of Pakistan that demanded a more traditional or stronger blend of tea then that which was being currently provided. The approval of this had to come through multiple steps from the Head Office in London and showed how serious Unilever Global was about tapping into untapped market segments even if it meant launching a whole new product for just one country out of more than a 100!

The results were outstanding. The new product(s) was immediately accepted and in fact the entire targeting of the “rural” market segments was an unprecedented success. Nestle Pakistan also invested in similar initiatives, strengthening their supply chain to reach areas that were previously thought of as too remote from main transport routes to be viable. The results of both these companies were documented in an article published on Bloomberg.net and can be seen on the following link http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-10-04/pakistan-terrorists-no-sales-bar-as-unilever-converges-with-nestle-retail.html

As documented the growth rates seen were unprecedented especially keeping in mind the political upheaval in the country during the relevant time period. I am curious however that with the United States being a fully developed economy are there still areas that could be classified as rural within the United States? I mean obviously there is hardly any area of the country which is inaccessible due to lack of infrastructure, but what I am trying to ask is there any area where modern day commodities have not permeated enough for local companies to focus on them in a similar manner to that done in Pakistan? If possible these areas could become the United States’ very own “emerging markets” within the obviously very well developed national spectrum.

the new bottom of the pyramid - the washing machine line

In the article  "The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid," Hammond discusses how we need to expand the bottom of the pyramid economic base to encompass the bottom 4 billion individuals in this world. However, what if we increase this base to the bottom 5 billion? This group would comprise of consumption of under $40 a day.  Hans Rosling, a Swedish medical doctor and statistician, classifies this new benchmark as the washing machine line.

Hans Rosling: The Washing Machine


If 5 out of the 7 billion people do not have access to a washing machine in this world, how do they efficiently wash their clothes on a daily/weekly basis? More importantly, will significant innovation for laundry come from large multi-national organizations like Proctor & Gamble, or will it arise from an innovative social entrepreneur?

Currently, Proctor & Gamble relies on 37% of their annual revenues from emerging markets. This percent of total revenue is only expected to increase with the rise of the middle class in these developing economies.  With access to large advertising agencies and almost unlimited cash, large multi-nationals may have the upper edge when it comes to marketing, but they may not be at an advantage when it comes to design.

Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability (DESIS)  is an organization comprised of design schools and design-oriented universities that seek to find solutions for sustainable change.  With a cohort of inspired students and professors placing design as a their primary solution in lieu of profits, perhaps the bottom 5 billion will efficiently learn to clean their laundry from a small group of students, not by a fortune 500 company.

If Coke and Marlboro Can Sell

http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/09/st_essay_pennies/

I came across this Wired article that talks about how companies and governments are embracing social innovation. And the tools they begin with? Design Thinking and Frugal Engineering.

Quote: "if Coke and Marlboro can sell to the world’s poor, companies whose products are actually useful should be able to do it, too."

What are the world's poor willing to pay for useful products? Not much. However, we have seen numerous examples in the recent decade that it is indeed possible, and maybe even becoming easy, to serve the Bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) and still run a successful business. While we might find very few instances of large enterprises that ventured into social innovation, like Tata, this new field is more conducive to startups who have the *privilege* of frugality. This is precisely what puts every startup at an advantage, because today's governmental and philanthropic organizations are stepping up to fund companies that are producing goods at negligible costs to solve the world's problems.

Drawing from the article, consider D.Light whose founder decided to put $20 solar-powered LED lamps in every home and Tata's $22 water purifiers that work without electricity or running water. Going beyond the low selling price and what profits they bring, these are things that save those parts of the world that would otherwise still be dark or suffer from unclean water and related diseases.

Increasingly acknowledging social problems as something to worry about, educational institutions have become a sort of cradle for ideas. To name a few highly driven ones, we have Institute for Social Innovation at our very own CMU, and the Institute of Design (d.School) at Stanford is another hotbed of human-centered design thinking. History has proven beyond question that when all the major institutions of society come hand in hand for the social good, we are headed in the right direction.

Self empowerment through innovation: The Acumen Fund

After reading the article “The Next 4 Billion: Market Size and Business Strategy at the Base of the Pyramid” I was struck by the themes of self empowerment to drive innovation rather than trying to simply pour aid into a community in order for it to improve.  The reason for this could be that the East is often contrasted to the West as being less individualistic and more community oriented. Hailing from South Asia, I was always taught to give and share. My grandmother, in particular, frowned upon turning even a single begging hand- no matter how many glittering gold bangles the hand may be wearing. As such I would like to share a similar initiative of empowerment started in Pakistan by the Acumen Fund, one of the key organizations to recognize this problem.

The Fund believed in sustainable welfare, and not just free aid- its innovative approach led it to success in many countries, including Pakistan. As per the reading’s suggestion, the Acumen Fund brought together the public and private sector in order to realize its potential to change Pakistan’s poverty landscape.

Following IFC’s model of ‘localizing’ and ‘enabling’, the Fund’ initiative of Jassar Farms is a way of helping the large dairy industry of Pakistan. According to the website, “Milk is the largest and single most important commodity within Pakistan’s livestock sector. Yet more than 75 percent of livestock owners are poor farmers who own less than four cows, and most struggle with low milk productivity. On average, it takes five Pakistani cows to produce as much milk as one cow in the U.S. or Europe.” (http://www.acumenfund.org/investment/jassar-farms.html)
The innovation that they have brought is to artificially inseminate the cows to improve breeds, and thus increase milk yield.

Thus, adopting a bottom up approach and targeting a differentiated local sector of the industry, the Fund has enabled multiple actors along the livestock supply chain to improve their living conditions through acting and enabling. However, the question remains that without foreign assistance, how more of these technological innovations can come about in a localized context, and how much impact they can have given the regulation and resources in South Asia.

IT Development for Nonprofit Organizations

Increasing productivity is a key driver for social innovation that can be successfully achieved through technology development. As organizations with small staff and budget sizes, nonprofit organizations could benefit greatly from these productivity increases, but often lack the technological capabilities to make them happen.

Reading the McKinsey Special Report What Happens Next? Five Crucibles of Innovation That Will Shape The Coming Decade, made me think about this problem. While discussing the need among US businesses to increase productivity, the authors (Bisson et al.) mention that “…[c]ompanies spend, on average, 5 to 10 percent of their total revenues on IT. Yet reliable estimates suggest that upward of 70 percent of server capacity goes unused, and even more at midsize and small companies, since they can’t achieve scale” (45). However, companies that are able to “do it smarter” utilize technology in an effective way that can both increase their productivity and better utilize IT resources. The report also mentions that industries such as health care, education, and government are traditionally the “less productive” (46) sectors, and thus could benefit most from such improvements.

Nonprofit organizations are classified among the“less productive” and, in my opinion, are among those that would benefit most from increased productivity due to stronger IT practices. In my own experience in the nonprofit sector, I have seen that IT resources can be extremely limited. Many smaller organizations do not even have an IT specialist on staff.

As this need gains more visibility, new programs are being launched to help address it. This August 12^th article from Fosters.com highlights New Hampshire’s “Cause We Can” program, which pairs volunteer technology professionals with local nonprofit organizations. 30-40 volunteers worked in teams of about 8 to develop solutions for IT needs identified by each of the five participating nonprofits.

However, the boost offered from this type of program is only temporary. To truly help resolve nonprofit organizations’ IT deficiencies, more long-term solutions are needed. In 2010, Philanthropy.com addressed this issue in an article titled “A Wealth of Technology Talent Offers Opportunities for Charities.” The article illuminates that, even with a large number of technology professionals applying for jobs with nonprofit organizations, salary restrictions and over-qualification prevent needed talent from joining nonprofit staffs.

Of course, nonprofits cannot rely on assistance from other organizations or job candidates with flexible salary requirements to meet their needs. Re-evaluating priorities and creating strategies that address IT development specifically are within the organizations' powers. Consider this statement from the Philanthropy.com article:

With so many abundantly qualified applicants available, Mr. Ishaug of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago is trying to figure out the best ways to take advantage of their skills. He cannot hire them all, despite a new, $210,000 grant his group received from the Michael Reese Health Trust, in Chicago, to help bolster its technology efforts and improve its database systems.

One solution, he thinks, might be to ask some of the rejected but highly skilled job applicants to help the organization as volunteer consultants. The charity is in the middle of putting together a strategic plan for its information technology.

“And we have qualified people in the office to do it,” he says. “But to have the leadership of someone with a lot of experience, I think that would be fantastic.”

With an ever-increasing need for effective use of technology, a volunteer consultant might not be enough to achieve the kind of productivity and success described in the Five Crucibles of Innovation report.

What strategies do you think nonprofits can employ to increase productivity through technology?