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Tarsadia Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and TEDx

May 14, 2012 – 10:36 am

Over the past few months we’ve let the Fellows do most of our blogging. But, with our first group of fellows tying things up and the second cohort’s kickoff still a couple of months away, this summer we’ll be updating you more on what’s been happening at the core of our organization. So let’s start that off with some good news: new connections and opportunities that have emerged over the past few months!

Building design’s capacity with the NEA

We’ve recently been awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The NEA is the government’s top Arts funding mechanism, and we’re honored to have been selected by such a seasoned and comprehensive organization. The team of grant reviewers for the NEA chose our proposal because they were interested in the DI fellowship as a mechanism to increase the number of American designers engaged in improving community livability through creative processes. Secondly, they saw the DI fellowship as a way to build long-term design and innovation capacity within non-profit organizations. Their support will be invested directly into our next cohort of fellows–connecting design services where they are needed most. Thank you NEA!

The NEA funds design! Yeah!

Building design partnerships with Tarsadia Foundation

Last year we also had the chance to meet with members of the Tarsadia Foundation while on a trip to NYC. Together we discussed the need for innovative approaches to solving some of India’s biggest issues in education, health, and economic development.   We also agreed that it makes sense to use design to drive innovation within the body of successful organizations that are already tapped into the needs of their communities. From these discussions, Tarsadia has awarded us a grant to develop a measurement tool that helps assess the innovation and design capabilities of Indian organizations. This is an exciting opportunity to improve our own tools for capacity assessment, and, in addition, will allow us to create and share an open source document on the topic. Thank you Tarsadia—we’re looking forward to opening these doors for more people to collaborate!

Thanks to our new partners at Tarsadia!

Kate, Ramsey and Ted

Kate and I both had opportunities to present at local TEDx events this spring in our hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio. Kate spoke at Xavier University on her personal journey, and the need, at times, to ‘abandon the plans and embrace the search’ (the video will posted after May 21—we’ll be sure to send it your way).  At a separate event a few weeks earlier, I talked about the need for community involvement in development work (watch the video here).  We were both honored to be asked to participate in these events and were amazed at how beneficial the experience was to us personally.  Speaking at TEDx forced us to reflect on some of the most important learnings we’ve had over these past few years. We actually do this quite a bit on our own, but the event caused us to distill that insight down to a short presentation that others would (hopefully!) find engaging. This wasn’t easy, but as we both struggled to do it, we dug deeper in to our experiences and gained a fuller understanding of our organization’s journey. Thank you TEDx.

Ramsey Ford at TEDx Cincinnati.

That’s all for now! Keep an eye out for these upcoming blog posts: Congratulations to our graduating class of fellows with news about where they’ll be heading next, kickoff of our Indiegogo online fundraising campaign to support our work on malnutrition, and a post that announces our next class of super talented and dedicated fellows—who will start their 10 month placements in India this August.  Stay tuned!

By admin | Posted in DI Media, DI News, Uncategorized, funding | Comments (0)

Project Update: Bicycle Inventions at the NIF

April 25, 2012 – 2:52 pm

Below is a blog from DI Fellow Mario Varon, who is working at the National Innovation Foundation in Ahmedabad. We’ve also added new updates for all the projects, including Mario’s. You can check them out here: NIF, ARTI, Deep Griha, Quest, and Manav Sadhna.

For the last month we’ve been collaborating with the team at Kaleidoscope to develop concepts (and prototypes) for a bicycle weeder that reduces back labor and saves time for low-income, small plot farmers. We’ve gotten great human factors / ergonomics inputs from the Kaleidoscope team and have made really nice progress on engineering and design development. (Learn more in our March Project Update on DI website).

After reviewing the concepts with Rakesh at NIF, we decided to move forward and fabricate a ‘Test Rig.’ This prototype will allow us to experiment and get insights on performance, usability and ergonomic improvements for the weeder.  We’ll test it with current users and non-users in Jalgaon, Maharashtra—the place where Gope Malhari Bhise, the man who invented the bicycle weeder, comes from

Even though we had detailed concepts on paper, we wanted to get a feel for the actual size of the weeder, so we used some cardboard and built a full scale mock-up.

Josh using the Mock-up outside NIF HQ

We tested it ourselves and with some of the NIF staff during the afternoon Chai Break (both men and women, especially with those whose height was closer to the Indian average). We asked them to adjust it where they felt more comfortable and we measured the distance from the wheel axel, the elbow height and grip width. It was nice to engage our co-workers’ in our work. Some were intrigued and wondered what were we doing, some of them laughed at the beginning, and others took it more seriously.  However, they all shared their thoughts and gave us useful feedback. We reviewed and compared the data from our co-workers with the strength and anthropometric data for Indian agricultural workers and adjusted the dimensions to fit both, from the 5 percentile of women to the 95 percentile of men.

Once we had most of the details resolved, NIF put us in touch with Chirag Patel, owner of Unique Industries, a manufacturer that’s been working closely with them for a couple of years, not only developing prototypes but sometimes improving the innovations as well. The shop is located in one of the Industrial areas of Ahmedabad, known as Bombay Conductors, a 45 minutes bus ride from NIF offices.

With Chirag reviewing the 3D model

We went down to his shop, observed his manufacturing capacity and the projects he is currently working on, and tried to determine if the 8 – 10 days deadline he told us was realistic.

We discussed material selection, availability, manufacturing process and of course, timeline (We only have 6 weeks left and we need to make sure we get the most out of them).

Even though we’ve been living in Ahmedabad for the last four months, moving around, especially to find specific materials, tools or spare parts is not always easy. Most of the time, not even the locals know where to go.  We asked Chirag to take us to one of the steel vendors to get a sense of what’s out there.

Some of the steel pipes available on a local vendor

Once again, we needed to adjust our design. Not knowing the availability and specifications of steel bars in Ahmedabad was a step back. Our telescopic handlebar for height adjustment needed a close fit in order to work. It took us almost two days to get the round bars that could comply with the requirement but also that were strong enough to support the load while using.

And this is just one example of the many changes that we have done to our original drawings; it’s been an iterative process with trials and errors and quick, yet creative solutions that evidence “Jugad”, the fix-it-solution approach that is very common in India to “improvise” solutions to any problem using local resources and traditional knowledge.

Chirag using random steel block to get the right angle on the drilling machine

But getting a prototype built is more than cutting, welding and drilling. It’s about building a relationship with the fabricator and the people who work there. It’s working collaboratively with them to get the right balance of efficiency, availability and feasibility. It’s an opportunity to learn and explore.  It’s rolling up your sleeves and helping to get the job done on time. It’s understanding why things are moving slower than expected and being patient, flexible and open to new ideas.

Here working with Sunilbhai on the protype

As of today, our prototype is 65% completed. We’re already four days behind our schedule but hopefully we will get it right in time to get out there and test it in the field. It will be nice to get a chance to meet the innovator and tap into the wisdom of current users to help improve the design. And to meet farmers who haven’t used a bicycle weeder before and see how it might fit into their lives.

Prototype parts already made

By admin | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (4)

You Spoke and We Listened

April 4, 2012 – 9:09 am

Dear DI Reader,

Last month we asked 247 randomly selected Design Impact readers to give us their opinion (anonymously) on DI’s communication efforts that keep you all updated on the latest news from DI, our Design Fellows, and our local partners in India.

Here’s what we found out:

  • We were excited to learn that the overwhelming majority of DI readers understand and support our mission to partner professional designers with innovative non-profits to design and implement life-improving solutions for economically-poor communities.
  • However, while most readers know about DI’s embedded design model, several readers did not know that DI’s Design Fellows live and work within the communities they serve for 6-10 months, while actively engaging local community members in the design process.
  • We heard a loud and clear call for more personal stories, photos, and news from the DI Fellows and communities on ground, as well as requests for perspective/reflections from DI’s co-founders Kate and Ramsey.

On that tip, we’re delighted to share with you the blue-colored links below–recent project updates from the field.

DI fellow facilitates a brainstorm to gauge assets and aspirations of teachers in Bihar

Each one of our fellows has compiled a deep-dive look into one of the processes they’ve undertaken in the last few months on their project.  We hope these insights give you a better idea of some of the methods we are using to engage community through design. (For a more comprehensive overview of their projects, click here).

--Improving job training curriculum (Fellow: Ali Maiorano.  Partner: Quest Alliance)

–Bicycle-based innovations to reduce manual labor (Fellows: Josh Treuhaft + Mario Varon.  Partner: National Innovation Foundation)

–Improving indoor air quality (Fellow: Jed Farlow.  Partner: ARTI)

–Creating Educational Opportunities for children (Fellow: Brian Gough. Partner: Manav Sadhna)

–Improving access to nutrition (Fellow: Anisha Shankar. Partner: Deep Griha)

Once re-designed, the bicycle weeder has the potential to greatly reduce labor for small-plot farmers around India.

So thanks for telling us what you think!   We will focus on posting more personal stories and news from our fellows and their partners/communities in India.  For those who asked to see what is happening, we will be sharing short videos in the future—so stay tuned.  We understand that it may be more fun to follow us via Facebook and twitter; so please do sign up.

Finally, for those of you that weren’t in the randomly selected group of folks, or if you were in that group but have any other remaining thoughts, we’d love to hear from you about your ideas for our work and how we can improve our communication.  As always, feel free to email us anytime: kate@d-impact.org, ramsey@d-impact.org.

By admin | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments (1)

Becoming the ladoo lady

March 21, 2012 – 7:31 am

The following blog post is by DI Fellow Anisha Shankar who is currently working with the Deep Griha Society in Pune on improving health in the communities they serve.

After the first three months of researching local nutrition issues and developing recipes for nutritious snacks, a sneak-preview sampling was finally coming to fruition. I was at the first user-driven activity in the design of an improved nutrition program for Deep Griha – an all-staff taste evaluation of “ladoos”, the sweet healthful snacks we had developed. These 30-gram ladoos are dense little balls of whole grain, seed, and nut flours, sweetened with jaggery and brought together with a little clarified butter and milk.  If added to the children’s diet in the nearby communities, the ladoo could represent a significant health gain that can help increase body weight and reduce anemia.

Adults at Deep Griha providing feedback on the ladoos.

The parents of these children often don’t have the money, time, or information they need to feed their kids well. Meat, eggs, and dairy are expensive, white rice is prized over traditional whole grain breads, and fussy children are easily soothed with sugary candy. The result is that many children are protein-deficient and anemic. They are underweight, have low energy, and prone to disease and infections. The impacts of this early nutrition deficit, which often starts in the womb of an undernourished and underfed mother, are far reaching. School sick days, poor concentration, and weak performance deliver a serious blow to the chance many children have to get out of poverty.

Deep Griha and Design Impact believe that the solution – better nutrition for children – might also have a positive impact on the livelihoods of local women. What if we could show higher weights, heights, and hemoglobin counts for the 270 children at Deep Griha’s day care centers through a snack feeding program over a 6-month period? What if we then shared these results with and trained interested groups to make and sell these as a healthy alternative in the community? Could it work – healthier children and better-off women in one shot? This is where the ladoo project comes in.

The kids either like the ladoo or they don't.

Now it can be hard to get people excited about yet another program. But I had an advantage with this food-focused project. Both the children and the staff at Deep Griha were equally qualified to provide an opinion on the snacks. I figured that a participatory taste-testing process could generate stronger buy-in that might just guarantee project longevity.

We chose three ladoo recipes to sample – (Ladoo 1) wheat with sesame and peanut, (Ladoo 2) wheat with sesame and garden cress, and (Ladoo 3) millet with flax seeds and dried coconut. We invited staff to choose from one of five happy or sad faces to indicate a range from “like very much” to “dislike very much” for appearance, taste, texture, and overall experience, in addition to providing comments. The children simply had to choose a happy or a sad face.

A close-up of the adult form.

All went swimmingly with the children who had been coached the previous week to associate the faces on paper with their own feelings. It was only when I found myself explaining the faces to every adult taster that I realized that those smiley and sad face icons are far from universal. For the average Indian, a smile is often used as a way to maintain a relationship regardless of his or her actual feelings. I am now busily re-thinking how tasters can rate their satisfaction with the snacks. And am hoping to use this insight as we try to understand how much they’d be willing to pay for the snack.

Fortunately, this error in understanding was quickly overshadowed by the tasters’ excitement and thoughtful selections. We watched in wonder as 30 of 33 respondents even took the time to write a comment, often to say they liked the ladoo, on the feedback form. But each comment reiterated the point – staff were pleased to be asked an opinion and I was happy to bring this form of staff engagement to the organization.

And oh, the favorite ladoo? The one with the peanuts.

"What? This still tastes like health food!"

By admin | Posted in Deep Griha, Nutrition, Rural, Urban | Comments (4)

One year later

March 7, 2012 – 12:37 pm

“A businessman in Africa told me that Coca-Cola lost money there for 12 years. In other words, it required over a decade for one of the most competent companies on Earth to break even on the sale of a mildly addictive sugary drink that is absurdly cheap to make.”

–Kevin Starr via Stanford Social Innovation Review Blog

In the middle of 2010, we worked with ODAM (our first partner organization) to write a grant that would fund a test market of our joint Erikoodu Briquette project. We had worked hard to develop briquette production and understand the user, and we knew that the smokeless briquette product could not only reduce upper respiratory disease, but could also sustain itself financially through profit from sales. Near the end of the year, we received word from 1% for Development Fund that our proposal was approved and ODAM was to receive funding.

This set off a flurry of activity—finalizing marketing plans, recruiting distributors, developing packaging—but it also provided the funds to purchase an essential piece of equipment; a charcoal pulverizer. We identified a producer in Madurai who could deliver a grinder in our price range—a small model suitable for our test market and see if the business was sound—and he agreed to deliver it within one month.

That was in early February of 2011. Our pulverizer just arrived (February 17, 2012).

She ain't much to look at, but we need her.

First let me explain why this piece of equipment is crucial to the project. The charcoal pulverizer takes bits of charcoal and grinds them down into a fine powder, which is necessary to make a briquette that can produce enough heat output to be attractive to users. The pulverizer makes the hazardous and tedious task of grinding this charcoal into a safe and efficient one. It also allows for speedy production that keeps the briquette prices low enough to be accepted by our users. Because this machine is a necessary part of charcoal production, the lack of this critical object held up the project for a full year.

During that time we waited, we fumed, and we kept working on the other six projects. It was hard to explain to people that this entire project was held up over a $1,000 piece of machinery. And it was uncomfortable to explain that we have been working on a project for almost 2.5 years that has not netted the projected impact we had aimed for by this time.  We questioned ourselves, our model, and our partners.

However, this amount of time for product development isn’t abnormal. Many for-profits take two years to move a new product from R&D to shelves. When considering a product for low-income consumers (a foreign concept to most companies), it takes even longer. The way we approached this project, from the point of view of a community organizer—working closely with a grassroots non-profit to develop the capacity to run a business—places relationship before speed, and tends to slow development down even more.

But, we’re happy to say that the process is still moving. ODAM is reorganizing under the ODAM Rural Crafts Ltd. banner. They have developed confidence and desire to work on social enterprises and are pursuing traditional loans from banks, as well as grant funding, to secure start-up capital. When this project is implemented, it will be run by a group of local individuals that are connected to the community they are serving. They will employ local people in need of a livelihood and will channel profits back into their other social service projects.

Soft-good products that ORC has developed for sale in India.

If it took Coke over a decade to become profitable in Africa, how long should it take to start a locally-run social enterprise in rural India? Designers are used to instant gratification. Development practitioners are used to one year funding cycles. Maybe making a social enterprise work, especially one run by people working at the grassroots, doesn’t fit these kind of expectations.

One thing that we’ve learned from this long wait is that the most important thing social changemakers can do is stick around. It is going to take time; the kind of time that you count in years, not weeks or even months. Expect it to be thankless. No one will (or should) celebrate your work, but if you stick around and keep working, positive, local change is very possible.

Examples, of this kind of commitment abound—here are few that you can read about to see what I mean: a designer working on rural women’s health; a design organization working in craft communities; a company working on turning agriculture waste to rural electrification.

By admin | Posted in ODAM, briquette, funding | Comments (2)

ARTI Update: Technical Testing

February 20, 2012 – 5:41 am

The blog below is from Jed Farlow, the DI fellow working with ARTI. In this post he explains the research he has done thus far on the Sarai Cooker, and outlines his next steps for user interviews. Also, we’ve added new content on the project pages; visit the updates for ARTI, Manav Sadhna, Deep Griha, NIF, and Quest.

I’m coming up on the end of the first major testing phase of the Sarai redesign.  We’ve been running technical tests on the system for the last month to gather baseline efficiency and emissions data and to determine how basic design changes affect performance. The tests are based loosely on a standardized stove test developed by Aprovecho called the Water Boiling Test.  By measuring the temperature rise of 2.5 liters of water using a standard amount of fuel (100 grams of ARTI’s sugarcane-leaf charcoal), the fuel efficiency and cooking speed can be measured.  (For more detail, see my process presentation on the DI website)

Jed testing the Sarai cookers efficiency.

Testing has gone well in terms of data, though more slowly than I expected. ARTI owns an impressive collection of measuring equipment. But much of it hasn’t been used in the last couple of years, since which the staff member trained to use it left.  From what I have heard, this is a common issue with technology and tools in development organizations.   An ARTI engineer suggested a good future-proofing solution, which I am helping implement: as we read manuals and re-learn how to use the devices, I’m helping the Pune office create sets of clear instructions with photos so that newer and non-technical staff members can use them.  The engineer, Mr. Mahajan, is translating those sets of instructions into Marathi.  We are testing the instructions as if they’re a product we’re designing—having other staff members try to follow them and note which steps prove challenging or confusing.

This has also been a lesson in terms of the design and maintenance required for this type of equipment—especially important to consider when using high technology in a low-tech environment.  Software versions have fallen behind, operating systems have changed and new drivers must be downloaded, batteries have died and connections corroded, and some components, after days of testing, have been determined to simply be faulty.

Results from the Saria cooker testing.

At this point, I’ve collected a good set of baseline data on the Sarai: measurements on the efficiency of the current system and how the efficiency is affected by basic changes such as airflow and distance from the burner to the cooking vessel.  Watching the graphs of results add up has been really gratifying.  Even halfway through a test, it becomes easy to see whether a change we make is helping or hurting the system.

As we find out from users what they need from the next version of the system, these tests will provide a set of comparison data with which to evaluate our progress. For example, ARTI has heard that many users want to be able to fry roti (flatbread) with the Sarai.  If we build prototypes to test this new functionality, we will now have some optimization guidelines for the placement of the burner relative to cooking surfaces, amount of airflow, etc.  We’ll also be able to use the baseline efficiency and emissions numbers as targets to beat.

Popat and Imtiyaz working on Sarai burner changes.

I’m especially excited for the next phase of the project—contextual user research.  ARTI has years of experience selling and responding to user questions and requests about the Sarai.  But by observing and interviewing users in their actual cooking and living environments, we’ll document behavior, use patterns, fixes and preferences that ARTI may never have had access to. To begin this research, we’re arranging a week-long visit to an area on the Konkan coast, where there is a high density of Sarai users because the local diet is structured around steamed rice.

A well-known problem in user research is that we human beings don’t necessarily understand our own habits as well as we think we do—a user will believe and tell you he uses a product one way, but then he may actually do something completely different when subtly observed.  The current best practice for getting around this is to observe users acting in relaxed conditions (this takes multiple visits), and to “triangulate” – answering any question or hypothesis from multiple angles by corroborating observations with survey questions and responses to later prototype tests.

In my triangulating, a major challenge is going to be how to avoid skewing the research by being the foreigner in the room.  I’m working on finding a local female translator, both to put the female users of the Sarai at ease and to help me see the context without too much outside bias.

This research is coming up in the next couple weeks and I’m psyched to get moving on the next phase of this project. We’ll post result on the ARTI project page in the next month!

By admin | Posted in fellowship, partners, prototypes | Comments (0)

A platform for social business

February 8, 2012 – 12:05 am

This post is from friend and DI supporter John Rougeux. John is the VP of Social Giving at Sojo Studios, a start-up web organization that enables people to give to select charities through online gaming. Below, John shares his insights on the possibility for creating a platform for non and for profit collaboration:

“People don’t buy what you do, they buy why you do it,” says Simon Sinek, visionary thinker and speaker. In other words – being genuine matters. This isn’t true just for people; it also applies to businesses. And consumers are increasingly demanding that businesses to take “genuine“ to a whole new level – by actively creating positive social change in the world. But accomplishing that isn’t something corporations can do alone; they need strong non-profit partners who can help them turn good intentions into meaningful outcomes.

According to Havas Media, “nearly 85% of consumers worldwide expect companies to become actively involved in solving [global] issues.” Not only that, but 44% of consumers are willing to “punish” a company for acting socially irresponsibly. Furthermore, a separate study done by Cone Communications, with Duke University, found that “79% [of consumers] say they would be likely to switch from one brand to another, when price and quality are about equal, if the other brand is associated with a good cause.” It couldn’t be clearer: businesses can no longer get by with only making a good product. Instead, they have to be able to say, “Because our business exists, the world is a better place.”

John on a Sojo Studio partner visit.

While it’s a nice idea, how many corporations can actually make this claim?  Havas also notes that “only 28% of consumers worldwide think that companies today are working hard enough to solve our social and environmental challenges,” and that “20% trust companies when they communicate about their social/environmental commitments and initiatives.” Ouch.

Why such a discrepancy?  Sure, you can shop at Starbucks and support the fight against AIDS and malaria through The Global Fund. Whole Foods will support causes like the animal shelter when you use your own grocery bags. But these are one-offs, not the standard.

Would more be done if businesses were simply better educated on social issues? I don’t think so. Obviously, businesses don’t have much expertise on the subject. But they shouldn’t have to. Pursuing such knowledge wouldn’t allow them to focus on what they do best – building quality products. Instead, businesses should turn to the expertise that already exists, by partnering with proven non-profits that match their brand. By finding a non-profit whose mission is aligned with the values and attitudes of its customers, a forward-thinking business certainly take advantage of the consumer preferences that Cone noted. The non-profit would benefit, too, of course, though increased exposure and likely some meaningful financial support.

Work on the Erikoodu Briquette being conducted by Kaleidoscope.

Here’s a great example: Design Impact has partnered with Kaleidoscope, a product design-firm based in Cincinnati. The partnership is really meaningful, because it goes deeper than surface level. Sure, Kaleidoscope has provided Design Impact with resources such as office space, staff time, and even financial backing. But beyond that, the two organizations also share something more meaningful: they both use a design-oriented approach to come up with products, ideas, and processes that meet the needs of their customers. Kaleidoscope does so with consumer goods; Design Impact with eradicating poverty. Because the two organizations have so much in common, the partnership is one that all their stakeholders can get behind.

Partnerships like these are definitely steps in the right direction, and encouraging for any organization looking to pursue something similar. Unfortunately, though, such arrangements are still uncommon. Regulatory filings, legal contracts, paperwork, and generally not knowing where to start can keep plenty of organizations from ever moving forward. We learned this first-hand at Sojo Studios (my own place of employment), where we had to devote considerable resources to creating partnerships and navigating the associated regulatory landscape. Had non-profit partnerships not been critical to our business model, it’s unlikely that we would ever have found the time and resources to make them happen.

Sojo Studios website, featuring Wetopia.

Without a streamlined way for a for-profit and a non-profit to find each other, that statistic about 28% of companies not doing enough isn’t going to change much. What we really need is an “eHarmony” for cause marketing. Something open, flexible, transparent, and large-scale. This doesn’t exist yet, but there is no reason why it shouldn’t. With an obvious desire from consumers to see the companies they patronize “do good” in the world, and high barriers to entry for-profit/non-profit partnerships, the world is ripe for a better solution. Groupon built one for daily deals, Amazon and eBay did it with retail, and Kickstarter make it happen with crowdsourcing. Why not something for corporate social good? Keep your eyes peeled; something is bound to develop soon.

In the meantime, speak your mind about whether or not the businesses you patronize are doing enough to create positive change. And lastly, share your thoughts: are for-profit/non-profit partnership the best way for corporations to create social good? What needs to happen in order for them to more easily occur?

By admin | Posted in Uncategorized, funding, non-profits, partners, social design | Comments (1)

Will the Real NIF Please Stand Up?

January 26, 2012 – 7:04 am

The blog below was written by Josh Treuhaft, reflecting on his first couple months at the National Innovation Foundation. We’d also like to direct your attention to new photos from each of the projects that can be accessed through the individual project pages: NIF, ARTI, MS, DG, and Quest.

Do you ever get the feeling that no matter how much background research you do about an organization (or a person, or place, or whatever), that you can’t really know the story until you actually meet them, and see their world, and experience at least a piece of it for yourself? I don’t mean to make a shameless pitch in favor of Empathy-based practice, or Human-Centered or Embedded Design (though I have no problem admitting that I’m a firm believer in all those concepts). I raise the question because it nicely captures the essence of the first leg of our journey here at the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) in Ahmedabad.

It’s a truly ambitious organization, tasked by the Department of Science and Technology of India (DST) with helping ‘India become an innovative and creative society and a global leader in sustainable technologies.’ It’s hard to summarize all their activities in one short post, but for now let’s say that they strive to achieve the above objective by cultivating, scouting, collecting, evaluating, protecting, supporting, financing, refining, commercializing and disseminating Grassroots Innovations – i.e., innovations submitted by individuals who are mostly uneducated, informally trained, and typically not affluent – from all over India. As you can infer, based just on that short list of verbs, it’s a complicated, multi-faceted organization, not easily summarized or understood at first glance.

Multi-tasking seems to be the default mode at NIF. Here’s the FabFive (all engineers from the VARD Team) illustrating that point.

So with an eye toward creating a lasting, long-term relationship between DI and NIF and setting our project on a firm foundation, we spent our first few weeks really trying to get to know NIF: Who’s working here? What do they do? How do they do it? What’s the NIF process? And over many cups of chai, many informal conversations, a few select formal interviews, and some collaborative working sessions, we pieced together some organizational process maps to capture the key activities of each department, the key stakeholders, the organizational structure, the workflows (at least in theory), the network, and basically anything we thought would be useful to really understand the organization.

The Intellectual Property Rights team is one of the six streams at NIF. They focus on trying to get patent protection for the grassroots innovators who submit their ideas and also take care of other legal issues on the innovators behalf when needed. (Click the image to see it bigger.)

In the long run, this exercise will help us understand NIF well enough to identify strategic opportunities to build Design into their process. And by doing so, we should be able to help them improve outcomes for the grassroots innovators they support, and benefit society by bringing sustainable and useful innovations to market.

Obviously, that’s no easy task and probably won’t happen overnight. So, in the nearer-term, we’ve started working on one small piece of the NIF puzzle: VARD. The ‘Value Addition, Research and Development’ team consists mostly of engineers and tends to focus on technically improving innovations from the NIF database in hopes of bringing them to market. We’ve worked with the NIF team to select some really interesting innovations to start working on, hopefully from a more user-centered perspective to compliment their engineering focus. Last week, we ran a workshop to prioritize a set of shortlisted innovations across our key dimensions: 1) Potential for social impact, 2) Potential for commercial success, and 3) Internal interest (both NIF and DI).

Innovation prioritization workshop with Rakesh (Senior Fellow – VARD), Mahesh (Director of Business Development) and Nitin (Senior Fellow – Scouting and Documentation)

It was an enlightening meeting both in terms of learning about running collaborative exercises here at NIF and in helping us refine the scope of our project. It wasn’t easy, but it seems that we’re on the right track now. We’ve narrowed in from a database of more than 150,000 innovations to four potential innovations for long-term evaluation and project development, and one innovation that we’ll start working on immediately. The four long-term innovations are:

1) A Pedal Powered Rice Paddy Thrasher for small-scale, low-income rice farmers

2) A Bicycle-based Water Pump

3) A Bicycle-based Sprayer for fertilizing crops

4) A Multi-purpose Wood Working Machine for small-scale carpenters

And for our near term project we’ll be refining a Bicycle-Based Weeder/Hoe/Tiller for small-scale, low-income farmers. Check out the picture below…

Gopal Malhari Bhise is a farmer from Jalgaon, Maharashtra. That’s him with his bicycle weeder. It’s easy to operate and ideally suited to the needs of marginal farmers who can’t afford to maintain bullocks.

If you’re interested in the project (or any of the short list mentioned above) and want to discuss, feel free to get in touch. We would love the support.

And now, back to work.

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2012 Design Impact Call for Fellows!

January 9, 2012 – 7:19 am

Are you passionate about working for a more equitable world? Are you willing to live and work for ten months amongst the challenges faced by resource-poor communities? Do you want to apply your design skills to some of the world’s most pressing needs? Does the idea of working on teams made of social sector experts and grass roots implementers excite you?

Then becoming a 2012 Design Impact fellow may be the perfect thing for you.

DI Fellow Jed Farlow. ARTI staff, and visitors at the ARTI headquarters in Phaltan.

Design Impact is looking for self-motivated, multi-skilled designers who genuinely want to work full-time in Indian communities affected by poverty. But, we aren’t just looking for great designers; we are looking for great organizers, communicators, and relationship builders. We need individuals that can quickly adapt to new environments, demonstrate the value of design in the social sector, lead diverse teams, and constantly improve their own process.

Think you have what it takes to become a fellow or want more information? Then check out our 2012 Fellowship PDF which covers all of the details. The initial application is easy—just a detailed letter of intent and current resume. The application period closes on February 28th and the ten month Fellowship commences on July 1st, 2012!

What will I work on?

Design Impact currently has six fellows in the field and is planning to embed six more in July of 2012. 2012 Fellows will likely work to continue the projects already established, more information on which can be found on the respective project pages. In addition to these projects, we are also planning on adding projects that focus on rural access to potable water, on rural access to healthcare, and rights advocacy for displaced communities.

While the fellowship has a design focus, it is not limited to only designers. Many of these projects require strategy, engineering, and business skills for completion. So, if you are creative minded and fulfill all of the other requirements, but are not a traditionally-trained Designer, please feel free to apply!

Arjun working in Manav Sadhna's Earn n Learn.

IDSA Innovation Journal

On an unrelated note, DI was invited to guest edit this seasons edition of Innovation. Our focus was on “Overcoming Barriers” and we were able to invite a few people that have inspired out work to submit stories. Appropriately, this is the first online edition of the journal and is freely available to anyone who is interested! Check it out!

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Learning about e-learning

January 2, 2012 – 12:21 am

Over the next few months each of the Design Impact Fellows will guest write a blog. The first up is Ali Maiorano, who is working on rural education solutions with the Quest Alliance in Bangalore. Below, Ali talks about her first week with Quest and discusses the scalability of e-learning platforms.

But first, a quick note of general DI news. We wanted to draw your attention to our first Annual Report—this is a great document to catch up with our newest ideas and to see what we’ve accomplished in the past year. Also, if you’ve got extra holiday cash, we we’re recommended by the Design Observer as one of ten design non-profits to support this season!

And now, here’s Ali:

So much can happen in a week. I went from a state of overwhelming uncertainty to a place of more comfort and resolution with the chaos. It was a great week. Don’t get me wrong, I am still navigating through waves of confusion and fear, but I am more at peace with it somehow.

My coworkers at QUEST and Bhagya Rangachar, the founder of Children's Lovecastles Trust.

I focused this week on getting to know my coworkers. I set up hour long interviews with everyone to get a grasp on who they are, what they are looking for in life, and where they see the organization going. All of this is to help me best see where I can fit into the mix. It’s a little complicated though, because I am not designing a six month project just for me, but a longer engagement that another fellow will pick up with wherever I leave off. So it gets tricky. I need to choose a direction with research, design and a series of iterations, but know that I will probably only make it to the design phase while I am here. After the interviews, I felt more in tune with the team. I now know more about their experiences and, more importantly, their aspirations for the future. It was good to just listen and be. It was an exercise I found which I appreciated and will probably use in the future.

Children at a learning station in after school.

This week, the team went to visit a program that is sponsored by Cisco, HP, Intel, MIT and the Boston Children’s Museum. It is called Children’s Lovecastles Trust. These guys have been doing distance learning for 10 years; they have their system mostly worked out and it is impressive to see. The teachers translate state-regulated subject curriculum into 30 minute e-lessons. Each lesson contains a digital presentation that the teacher creates in PowerPoint and includes supplementary learning videos, if necessary. All communication is done through Webex. Each classroom is outfitted with a camera, screen, and internet. One teacher uses video conferencing to teach a lesson to an average of 5 different classrooms at the same time. The teacher skillfully pairs classes against each other and facilitates interactions between the students. This approach obviously relies on a lot of donated technology and a stable internet connection to the schools, so it isn’t completely scalable, but it is an amazing case study for distance learning.

E-learning is a challenge anywhere it is done. I am learning this after my first few weeks at QUEST. Students are individuals, with independent needs and learning styles. Learning must be flexible enough to accommodate your targeted user group and in India, there is an additional layer of regional challenges that must be factored in. India is not a homogenous community. That is its beauty and biggest provocation.

A teacher using Webex to do long distance learning.

One of the arguments supporting e-learning is the potential for scalability. I am beginning to question this agenda. Scalability is a great goal to have in regards to access and impact but the question becomes, how impactful is a scalable solution? If the digital structure is too rigid and restricts the creativity required by the pedagogy, then how useful is it? One challenge with some e-learning applications is that teachers have a structured plan they feel they must follow to complete a course. It takes a self-aware and confidant teacher to understand her student needs and craft the course accordingly. E-learning is a channel for delivering lessons but should not eliminate a student’s need for a meaningful adult relationship. Only a teacher can offer the guidance, support and relevant challenges to move a student forward in life. It takes two to tango. This is the challenge I am facing at Quest, understanding the roles of the teacher (or facilitator, to be more accurate) and the digital lesson. Both players must be intelligent and flexible enough to step aside and allow the other to take control. It is a dance, that when done well is fluid and powerful enough to engage a student to join the journey.

If you want to know more about Ali’s project, we’ll post monthly updates on the project page.

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