Opinion: Design for the Other 90%

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My roommate, an industrial designer, pointed out this excellent website highlighting designs that are beautiful, functional and affordable.

Anyone interested in how technology can really help the poor should check out the 25 designs (for shelter, health, water, education, energy, and transport) presented there.

The water section leads off with this:

Of the world’s poor, roughly 70% live in rural areas, and depend on agriculture as their main source of income. Designers have devised a variety of extremely low-cost micro-irrigation tools to extend the growing season for these small-scale farmers. The resulting increases in crop yield and income have proven to be one of the fastest and most effective ways for the rural poor to emerge from poverty. The simple human-powered treadle pump has had the most significant impact in the developing world: over two million treadle pumps installed worldwide have been cheaply manufactured and maintained.

Innovators and leaders in this emerging field work directly with the farmers, listening to their needs and conducting extensive field tests to better understand what they require. Since a rural farmer’s plot in the developing world is an acre or smaller, technology is miniaturized to fit the land and designed to be easily expandable as their income grows and they purchase more farmland. Updating older and outmoded inventions with new materials can yield highly affordable irrigation technologies. Farmers growing high-value crops ready for market transform into micro-enterprises.

What I found to be most important and most useful, was the philosophy of the people creating these objects. Kickstart International says it best:

Each of our products must be:

* Part of a highly profitable business model
* Affordable
* Safe and efficient
* Portable and storable
* Easily installed and repaired
* Useable without training
* Strong and durable
* Made from common materials
* Culturally appropriate
* Environmentally sustainable

What that means in practice is that Kickstart's customers are expected to buy the products and that the products are expected to pay for themselves within 3-6 months. That's sustainable development!

Click on the links to get more details on each design solution

* Bamboo Treadle Pump
* Ceramic Water Filter
* Drip Irrigation System
* LifeStraw
* MoneyMaker Hip Pump
* Pot-in-Pot cooler
* Q Drum
* Super MoneyMaker Pump
* Water Storage System

Bottom Line: The poor want to improve their lives. Don't give them charity, give them opportunity.