Speaker: Paul Polak; Profile in the Times. (My comments in parantheses.)
“90% of the people who work on design try to solve the issues of the richest 5 to 10% of their customers.” 1.2 billion live on less than a dollar a day. 3 billion live on less than two dollars a day.
Polak’s precursors to good design: 1. Go to where the problem is. 2. Listen to what they have to say. 3. Understand the context.
Polak has talked to hundreds of “one-acre farmers” about their needs. IDE == International Development Enterprises, Polak’s company. “Helping people move out of poverty is helping them earn $500 a year.” (I don’t think I got that quote word-for-word correct.)
Don’t bother: “If you haven’t had conversations with at least 25 poor people before you start.” “If it won’t pay for itself in the first year.” “If you can’t sell a million of them.”
The products that IDE have sold to people at full price. It’s not charity. Their products pay for themselves. They are affordable, divisible, and infinitely expandable. Many of the Western products are too large and expensive for small farm plots. Yet the IDE products can be added to as the needs expand, “like a LEGO set.”
There are three great poverty eradication myths, according to Polak: 1. We can donate people out of poverty; 2. We can end poverty through national economic growth; 3. Multi-nationals as they are now will end poverty. Most of the rural poor are passed over by economic growth in urban areas of countries, as in in China or India.
Of the 525 million farms in the world, 85% are less than 5 acres. Average farm size in Africa are 4 acres. Agriculture in most of the world is a discipline of small farms. Small farms are actually getting smaller due to population growth.
IDE has 550 staff in nine developing countries. They’ve helped 17 million dollar-a-day people moved out of poverty in 25 years. 150 more out by 2025 is their goal.
Example products from IDE: Treadle pumps for $25-35 dollars that allow farmers to grow a third crop by drawing up more water in Bangladesh. They are advertised by a troupe of musicians who travel villages singing a song about treadle pumps. They also financed a movie with a leading Bangladeshi director that shows a love story between two young people who can afford to get married after they use a treadle pump. They’ve sold 2.1 million treadle pumps to great success.
Drip irrigation system. Women carry water for their households all over the world. This is designed that a second bucket or two will irrigate a 250 sq. ft. kitchen garden. Retail price is $3.
(That Times article linked above has several more examples.)
Polak has handed over to IDE to others to run and started D-Rev, an institute that intends to revolutionize how design is taught in rich and poor countries. (I can’t find a web site for D-Rev.)
He’s showing a cell powered by a thimble full of water and salt, powered by a rechargable lithium battery, that will make enough chlorine dioxide to purify a liter of water in 90 seconds. They’re also working on a “$15 information device.”
(This all sounds very dry but he’s made some amazing products that have made some real impacts. And the idea of selling for-profit gadgets that have an immediate, tangible affect is where it’s at.)
See also: PopTech: Paul Polak Inspires [EthanZuckerman.com]
Not dry at all. This sounds amazing. It’s heartening to read this and know there’s stuff like this going on. World shaping tech and design and it seems feasible…
It’s the economic equivalent of the long tail theory.
I had the pleasure of spending a week in Aspen last summer with Paul Polak, as well as others from IDE (not to mention a large amount of other designers). They really are doing great things and really helped to inspire me to try and do the same.