IDDS-y Bitsy

A few random quotes and descriptions from the last few days in Kumasi.

Bob Nanes (IDE Ghana): "You don't sell people a product, you sell them a dream. You may be making a chlorine water purifier, but you are selling them the vision of healthy children."

At the KNUST university books store, there was a pile of World Bank books on African development for sale for 200 cedis. That is about $142. I guess they want to sell a lot of them. The store also had one copy of Good to Great, for 25 cedis. That title seemed to be harder to keep in stock. Hmmm.

Bob Nanes: "Don't reinvent channels. There are hundreds of companies marketing to the BOP: soap, cigarettes, beer, buckets and batteries. NGOs always want to start a new channel, and it is usually a big mistake. Better to piggyback on what is there."

A student asked Bob what IDE's most successful product was. I figured he would say the treadle pump. But he said the "off season tomato green house" had the biggest return for family weatlh creation. Bob also mentionned that IDE had trained thousands of agricultural machinery technicians to service the treadle pump, and these technicians were often effective marketers for IDE products.

Amy Smith: "In design, there are no solutions, only trade offs."

Ben Linder: "If you don't want people to hold your prototype like a gun, make sure it doesn't look like a gun." [discussing prototyping progression for a demining clipper in Angola]

Amy: "how do you incorporate failure into the success of your design? how will your design fail? how will it fail first? what is the best failure mode? the worst?" [she described redesigning a plow so that when it hit a big rock, instead of bending the blade, a bolt broke. bolts are easier and cheaper to replace than blades.]

Last image: I got to attend my third IDDS International Potluck Dinner last night. Bigger and better than ever in Ghana. Participants grouped by country and then tried to show why their food is the world's best. And we all got a taste. The party lasted long into the pleasant evening. (Sule and I brought Enviro-banku... the world's first banku cooked on an Envirofit cook stove).

Design Reviews IDDS

Yesterday IDDS held design reviews on the 12 projects. These were held at ITTU, in the Suame area (an area with many small industrial workshops). Due to the format, I could not attend all the reviews.

I watched two teams who are working on chlorine purification approaches. It surprises me that chlorine is inexpensive and effective, yet not widely used to purify water. Why is this? Are more complicated technologies needed? The first team is looking to make a low cost chlorine manufacturing device. Using salt water and electricity to produce chlorine. The team was trying to figure out a way to do this without using expensive high power batteries. The second team was planning to use commercially available chlorine, but was working on a reliable way to dose water in smaller communities. They were also looking at business models- water committees, cooperatives or entrepreneurs- to distribute the device.

The other two reviews I watched were working on small scale energy. The first was looking for an alternative to batteries for LED lights. They had examined hand cranks, bicycles and salt water batteries (I had not heard of these before). They were also intrigued by a light we had seen in the villages that used an old music CD as a reflector and provided decent room lighting with 1w LED bulbs. The second team was working on a way of keeping produce from spoiling between the fields and the market. The cost of transport is not just the time and vehicle, but also the loss of up to 30% of a shipment before it is sold. This team has been looking at several alternatives to "pot in pot evaporation" which works well in dryer climates but not humid climates (West Africa). Their current design uses insulation, a small fan and inexpensive webbing materials.

The teams got good feedback from reviewers, a mix of development folks, business people, Suame artisans and engineers. Today is a rare "day off" and tomorrow will be back to work with prototyping and some "Build It" sessions (participants showing others how to make stuff).

BOP Bits: IDDS 2009

From Kumasi, Ghana, a quick report on IDDS'09:

This past weekend, the 12 project teams left on their second trip to rural villages to continue their design projects. The projects generally clump into 3 areas: agriculture (better threshing for groundnuts, or removing debris from rice), energy (storage, food storage, small scale energy generation) and water/sanitation (kid friendly latrine, small scale chlorine production). Interviewing potential customers, meeting with village chiefs, weighing babies. Dawn until dark, these were long, hot, hard days, but much was learned by all, and relationships bloomed.

I was impressed by how these participants really are working on co-design: what is the problem? what do you do now?, would this work? why or why not? what would be a good way to do this in your village/on your farm? can you think about ways you could pay for this? It is a team effort with the villagers. My impression was that, at least in the villages I visited, this was not the way they were used to interacting with visitors. Villagers were excited (but also surprised) to see the teams return, and are working on things to get ready for the next visit at the end of next week.

This week has been a combination of class work on thinking about entrepreneurial business models to disseminate the products, as well as preparing for design reviews tomorrow. The tools are out, and the participants are making prototypes and concept drawings. The halls at the hostel are humming and hammering!