an engineers guide to applying appropriate technology

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Olin College of Engineering

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2011 AHS Capstone Projects AHS Capstone Projects

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An Engineer's Guide to Applying AppropriateTechnology

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Recommended CitationFelser, Jacob, "An Engineer's Guide to Applying Appropriate Technology" (2011). 2011 AHS Capstone Projects. Paper 21.hp://digitalcommons.olin.edu/ahs_capstone_2011/21
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AN ENGINEERS GUIDE TO APPLYINGAPPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY

By Jake FelserMay 2nd, 2011


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Cover: A worker rides on the back of a milk collection truck in the Azuero region of Panama. He isresponsible for making sure the milk cans make it to the processing facility and back to each farmevery morning. The photo was taken by the author.


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CONTENTSIntroduction ............................................................................................................................................................................... 4Chapter 1: An Argument for Action ................................................................................................................................. 6

The Empathetic Engineer ................................................................................................................................................ 6The Problem(s) .................................................................................................................................................................... 7An Unstable System ......................................................................................................................................................... 10

Chapter 2: Defining Appropriate Technology ............................................................................................................ 11Appropriate ......................................................................................................................................................................... 11Technology .......................................................................................................................................................................... 12Engineering ......................................................................................................................................................................... 14Project Success Criteria .................................................................................................................................................. 15

Chapter 3: Methodology ..................................................................................................................................................... 17Appropriate Design Principles .................................................................................................................................... 17

Explicitly Identify Stakeholders and Value Proposition(s) ........................................................................ 17Quantify (and Be Comfortable With) Uncertainty ......................................................................................... 18Build Capacity ................................................................................................................................................................ 19Utilize Untrained Experts ...................................................................................................................................... 20Iterate Productively .................................................................................................................................................... 20Deliver a Top-Quality Product (Dont Reinvent the Wheel) ...................................................................... 21

To Profit or Not to Profit (Monetarily) .................................................................................................................... 22Casting a Net ....................................................................................................................................................................... 23Developing Tools .............................................................................................................................................................. 25

Chapter 4: Implementation ............................................................................................................................................... 27Adoption is Hard (In a Good Way) ............................................................................................................................. 27Building a Team ................................................................................................................................................................. 28Leveraging and Building Credibility ......................................................................................................................... 29Working in a Busy Space ............................................................................................................................................... 31

Moving Forward ..................................................................................................................................................................... 33Bibliography ............................................................................................................................................................................ 34


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INTRODUCTIONThis guide is written for a group of people who possess a unique skill-set: engineering

students. These people are well-qualified to help solve some of the worlds most pressing issues,

particularly through the development of technology. The idea of appropriate technology is to

develop products that are perfectly tailored to a specific context in order to enable a positive

change in a users life. This can be as difficult a problem as the hardest technical task. It is

impossible to evaluate these products in the abstract, without accounting for their roles in larger

systems of interaction, behavior, and culture.1 Creating a product that fits into these more nebulous

systems is much harder than simply making a part fit into another part correctly it requires

developing a deep understanding of a shifting, human context, filled with all of the good and bad

that make us who we are.

Why focus on engineers? First and foremost, because I believe engineers are very

important. Many decisions of an engineer or designer are magnified thousands or millions of timesby mass production. This gives them leverage to make real, material changes. Secondly, there is a

lack of focus on engineering within the sustainable design literature. There are countless books and

manifestos telling people to design but there are very few that encourage us to engineer. I believe

that engineering should be more than mechanics and materials and controls: it should include the

human component. There is a slow shift in engineering education towards including this holistic

focus, but it is not happening rapidly enough.

The goal of this guide is simply to provide a starting point for discussion of the development

of appropriate technologies and ventures. The examples in this guide come primarily from my

personal experience. I was deeply involved with developing the solar-powered milk chiller at

Promethean Power Systems as well as being one of the first students to participate in OlinsAffordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE) curriculum. I also lived in Panama for a semester,

researching and experiencing the development and adoption of technology in that country. My

experiences are not universal, but I hope that by discussing them I can persuade young engineering

students that developing appropriate technology is a valid career path and help them navigate it

successfully.

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come becauseyour liberation is bound together with mine, then let us begin.

Lila Watson

1Pilloton, 6


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Disclaimer

If you intend to save the world through engineering, put this guide down now. The

world does not need to be savedat all. There are people in the world that could use better

products and services, and perhaps you could help develop those but to say that you want to

save the world is not a well-considered goal. The best that any engineer can hope for is to help

others while helping themselves, and hopefully this guide can help with that.


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CHAPTER 1:AN ARGUMENT FOR ACTIONAs an engineering student or professional, there is no shortage of job opportunities. There

are rarely compelling technical or monetary incentives to use your talents to help tackle the difficult

problems of underserved end-users either half a world away or even in your own community. The

median salary for a traditional petroleum engineer is over $105,000/year2, with nuclear and

aerospace engineers close behind and the rest of traditional engineering lagging only slightly more.

Traditional engineering jobs provide plenty of technical challenge, and are less emotionally

complex. The success criteria for traditional careers are well understood. Why would anyone delve

into the engineering of appropriate technology of their own free will?

THE EMPATHETIC ENGINEERA common stereotype of engineers is that of the cubicle-bound, pocket protector wearing

nerd. This engineer is smart and tech-savvy, but lacks context and empathy. He or she focuses on

the technology to a fault. The primary motivation is overcoming the technical challenge, not the

value of a product to the end user. It is easy to be a successful and well-compensated engineer

without ever exploring the wider world around you.

But, the wide world is an interesting place. It is, with all its nuances and imperfections and

transients and nonlinearities, the largest and most fascinating system we know of. Engineering

thought routinely deals with system theory, and engineers relish complexity. Engineers know how

to get things built, because that is their job. Their skills are essential to addressing the most urgent

issues facing the world.

The engineer, reading this, might ask how to begin understanding the various issues that

need to be addressed. It is a valid question. There are many metrics for evaluating the state of our

planet: environmental metrics, health metrics, economic metrics and more. Depending on what you

care to look at, you can reach a surprisingly varied conclusion regarding our future. Traditional

engineers (and Americans in general3) can look at the same health statistics as an international aid

worker and reach a completely different conclusion about the urgency of what needs to be done. It

doesnt mean that we are callous or do not care, it just illuminates the inherent difficulty of

empathizing with strangers. Empathy is the action of understanding, being aware of and

vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and beingof another person without having them

explicitly communicated.4 Empathy (or lack thereof) forms the basis for how humans interact with

each other. As President Obama elegantly stated:

[It] is at the heart of my moral code, and it is how I understand the Golden Rule---not simplyas a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand insomebody else's shoes and see through their eyes.5

2Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition3In my experience only!4"Empathy." Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary5Obama, 66-69.


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Empathy is something that many of us are not entirely good at. How many times has each of us

walked past a homeless person in the street and felt no sense of guilt? It is at first difficult to watch,

but after a while that feeling fades. How many times have we heard about genocide, starvation or

disaster in a country that wasnt ours, and done nothing?

Empathy with those in need inspires people to help people. Without empathy, very little aidwork would ever get done. But empathy is also rooted in understanding the facts. As you read

about people in need, put yourself in their shoes. Imagine what life would be like if you had to

worry about getting enough food on the table (not for comforts sake, but to stay alive). Imagine if

infant mortality was commonplace, and those closest to you could die from diseases that are nearly

unknown to those on top of the economic pyramid. Life would be a little different.

THE PROBLEM(S)There are many ways to try and sort out the problems facing the world. One way to

categorize them is by contextual understanding: problems can be close or far away from home.

Home, in this sense, means ones context. For instance, a problem could be physically close butmetaphorically far away if a particularly isolated engineer has little understanding of the

surrounding cultural considerations. Yet both of these types of problems are hard to visualize, for

different reasons. A difficulty with local, close to home issues is in recognizing and facing the

existence of the problem. Few want to admit that they live their life in ignorance or denial of

problems around them, in their own community or in their own country.

Figure 1: World map with territories scaled according to the proportion of people worldwide living on theequivalent of US $10/day or less in each territory. India is huge! Source:http://www.worldmapper.org .6

The issues that fall far away are generally hard to imagine due to their scale and their

distance from our home context. It is possible for someone in a U.S. engineering context to live their

6There are many, many other maps here that are worth looking at.
http://www.worldmapper.org/http://www.worldmapper.org/http://www.worldmapper.org/http://www.worldmapper.org/


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life without knowing these problems exist.7 These problems are often larger and more complex

than domestic issues, and are not easily tractable. They are difficult to internalize because of their

distance, both physically and culturally, from the context of the engineer.

The progress of international development is often measured by the yardstick of the United

Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Unfortunately, reading the MDG progress reportis often a depressing reminder of how much still needs to be done. It is a defining document that

describes why, in fact, the world needs fixing. There are eight main goals covered in the document,

and the goals and some statistics about their current states of progress are summarized below8:

1. Eradicate extreme poverty and hungera. 51% of sub-Saharan Africa lives on less than $1.25 per dayb. 27% of the developing world population lives in povertyc. 97% of the global mortality risk from natural disaster is in the developing worldd. 830 million people regularly go hungry, and the number is increasinge. 42 million people are currently displaced by conflict

2. Achieve universal primary educationa. The number of new teachers needed in sub-Saharan Africa to achieve universal

primary education is equal to the number of teachers currently employed in thatarea

b. Primary school enrollment in the developing world is currently at 89%, butprogress is stalling

3. Promote gender equality and empower womena. Girls are globally underrepresented in the education systemb. Women are not paid as much as men, nor is their employment as stablec. Globally, only 1 in 4 senior officials or managers are women

4. Reduce the child mortality ratea. 7% of children in the developing world die by the age of 5b. 8.8 million children die per year nearly half of these deaths are by four main

causes: pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and AIDS5. Improve maternal health

a. 5% of girls aged 15-19 in developing countries give birth per yearb. In sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, most women give birth without skilled care

6. Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseasesa. HIV/AIDS is the worlds leading infectious killer, causing approximately 2 million

deaths per yearb. In many countries with high levels of HIV infection, very few people have knowledge

of the virus or its transmission (less than 30%)c. In most developing countries, less than half of young people use condoms during

high-risk sexd. Malaria causes nearly 1 million global deaths per year, mostly in Africa

7. Ensure environmental sustainabilitya. 13 million hectares of forest per year are destroyed or converted for other use

7This is probably being mitigated by an influx of foreigners into the engineering industry and engineeringschools. In many areas it is becoming harder and harder to stay isolated. This is a good thing.8The Millennium Development Goals Report, 2010. All of the statistics in this section are taken from the report.If you are interested, there are many more fascinating tidbits in the complete report this is only the tip ofthe iceberg.


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b. Nearly 17,000 plants and animals are knownto be threatened with extinctionc. In the developing world, only 84% of people have access to improved sources of

drinking waterd. 2.6 billion people around the world lack access to basic sanitation facilitiese. 1 billion people live in urban slums

8. Develop a global partnership for developmenta. Only 15% of the developing world has access to the internetb. 4.6 billion people have cell phones (67 out of every 100 people)

These are only numbers on a page, but to some extent they represent the state of the world

and can help illuminate the lives within it. Perhaps some of the numbers are too large to be

comprehensible. The number one billion, in particular, is hard to visualize. One billion seconds is

nearly 32 years. One billion inches is more than halfway around the world. Nearly one billion

people regularly go hungry. One billion people in our world live in an urban slum. Two point six

billion people in the world lack access to basic sanitation. Each one of those billions is a person,

with a story and a family.

It is difficult to internalize what these numbers mean without understanding the peoplebehind the numbers. One such person is an eighteen year-old Panameo named Miguel who lives

with his much younger wife in a single room cinder-block house outside of the town of Las Tablas.

They do not have a real kitchen, bedroom, or bathroom. He works twelve hour days at a chicken

slaughterhouse, and when I got to know them she was at home, pregnant (the baby has since been

born and is healthy). They rely on his meager income and on her family, who are subsistence

farmers in the neighboring hills. They are constantly vulnerable both fiscally and physically, and

unfortunately their lives are more the norm than the exception in most of the world. You do not

have to meet many people like Miguel to understand the real significance behind the statistics given

so blandly in the MDG report.

Figure 2: A typical urban/industrial market area in Pune, India. Photo is by the author.


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AN UNSTABLE SYSTEMOne way to think about the world, and one that might resonate with the audience of this

document, is from a systems engineering perspective. Systems engineering signifies a way of

thinking about a complex system of components (the space station is a canonical example) that

seeks to minimize the undesirable qualities such as cost and weight. There are many ways thatsystems can perform poorly, and system optimization can be extremely complex. Throughout this

document, we will return to the analogy of the world as a system.

The world, when considered from a systems perspective, has an incredible number of

degrees of freedom, and they tend to be related in a complex manner. The world is an interwoven

system of systems, and it is possible for the world to change in a limitless number of ways with

many connections between these axes of change for instance, given a small change in the way

rickshaws are dispatched, families could eat better, live longer, and be lesshappy with their lives.The world is a complicated place. While a cynical analyst might suppose that the world is a system

that is functioning as well as possible, this is probably not the case. In the next few chapters we will

define the methods of control we can apply to the world/system, define the criteria for

stability/success, and show how to actually implement these methods.

Analogy

In general, idealized engineering systems have only a few degrees of freedom, and they tend to

not be heavily interrelated. This means that there are only a few axes in which a system can

move freely a ball resting on a plate, for instance, has two degrees of freedom because it can

roll in two dimensions. The fewer degrees of freedom a system contains, the more predictable

the system behavior. This is because there are more constraints on the state changes that can

occur. It is possible for a system to be stable in one degree of freedom and unstable in another

(a ball resting in a saddle, for instance).

Figure 3: A ball resting in the above saddle would be stable in one axis and unstable in the other. Asdimensions are added to this system, it becomes more and more representative of real-world complexity.Photo is fromhttp://www-math.unice.fr/~dolean/saddles/ .
http://www-math.unice.fr/~dolean/saddles/http://www-math.unice.fr/~dolean/saddles/http://www-math.unice.fr/~dolean/saddles/http://www-math.unice.fr/~dolean/saddles/


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CHAPTER 2:DEFINING APPROPRIATETECHNOLOGY

It is surprisingly difficult to define some of the critical terms used when talking about

appropriate technology creation, yet it is vitally important to the framing of the problem that the

definitions are concrete and that everyone is on the same page before delving too deeply into the

various methodologies. In this section, appropriate technology engineering is defined, and a

success criterion for such projects is suggested.

APPROPRIATEAppropriatenesshas many facets: cultural, financial, environmental, technical, and more

but they all relate to the people involved. For each facet, the technology must match the user.

Appropriate is therefore highly specific depending on the target audience for a product. Manystudents of design also equate appropriate design with design for the underserved or those with

diminished autonomy, and we will use this definition here. One oft-cited metric for defining an

appropriatetarget end-user is Dr. Paul Polaks famous 90% rule:

The majority of the worlds designers focus all their efforts on developing products andservices exclusively for the richest 10% of the worlds customers. Nothing less than arevolution in design is needed to reach the other 90%.9

The implication, of course, is that in order to be appropriate a designer (in this case) must focus

their efforts on the bottom 90% of the worlds income bracket. For a designer in a developed

country, this generally means focusing their efforts in more impoverished developing countries in

order to achieve the greatest scale of impact and address the largest problems. Emily Pilloton, in

her manifesto Design Revolution, suggests that the appropriate tag has almost become synonymous

with developing products for the impoverished residents of the developing world.10

9Design For the Other 90% | Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.10Pilloton, 38. This manifesto and product exhibition is a must-read for the budding appropriate technologyengineer!

Key Definitions

Appropriate an appropriate design is uniquely (and in all facets) meant for a group of people

who are underserved or have diminished autonomy in some aspect of their life, particularly

economically.

Technology an appropriate technology can take nearly any form, from innovative high techdevice to business innovation to an adaptation or adoption of existing techniques.

Engineering appropriate engineering is the development of an appropriate technology. In

many cases, this can fall outside of the traditional definition of engineering.


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This attitude generally reflectsan us-versus-them mentality, almost reminiscent of the

white mans burden of earlier times.11 It also tends to result in designers and engineers working

well outside their comfort zone and in situations where they do not have an intuitive feel for the

context around them (something that goes against the grain of appropriateness). As Pilloton goes

on to suggest:

Before traveling half way around the world, look for local design opportunities: Who is notbeing served in your own city? Could a design investment in your community help supporta more productive and cohesive economy and culture?12

In some ways, focusing at home is the most appropriatething designers and engineers can do. 13 It

is the easiest and least wasteful situation to work in (flights around the globe are not exactly

carbon-neutral). It removes a large part of the language barrier, minimizes cultural

misunderstandings, and provides those trying to act with a somewhat more known set of resources

at their disposal. Collaboration can go a long way towards minimizing risk in designing across

contexts, but it is still important to realize that designing for anyone who is not oneself is an

intrinsically risky exercise, and that no matter how hard you strive as a designer to understand acontext, it is unlikely that you will ever fully grasp the complexities of a situation in a life that you

have not lived.

For the purposes of this paper, the appropriatepart of appropriate technology will be

defined as meaning that the design is uniquely (and in all facets) meant for a group of people who

are underserved or have diminished autonomy in some aspect of their life, particularly

economically. This group can be local, or they can be across the globe. It could include such diverse

groups as rural milk farmers in India14or impoverished residents of Greensboro, Alabama15.

Appropriate, in this paper, will also be required to signify that the group doing the design or

engineering is qualified and well-suited to do the job. It would clearly not be appropriate to have a

group of people with little experience with a given technology or culture attempting to work within

that context.

TECHNOLOGYThe toughest part to nail down in the engineering of appropriatetechnologyis undoubtedly

the technology. We traditionally think of high-technology and technology as being synonymous, but

this is not true in a developing world context. The goal is to apply engineering thought processes to

solve problems for real people, whether they be next door or across the world.

11Pilloton, 38. This refers to the idea, popular around the turn of the 20thcentury, that there was an implicit

mandate for the white man to help the noble savages of the world. The concept is extraordinarilypatronizing and is generally disparaged today.12Pilloton, 3813Pilloton is one example of someone who after much thought, decided to focus at home. Her base is now inNorth Carolina, where she runs a multitude of projects. Other groups, such as MITs FabLabs, also have localcomponents that aim to serve underserved nearby populations while also extending internationally.14Promethean Power Systems is developing a solar powered milk chiller for these farmers, and meeting withsome success.15The Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship (ADE) class at Olin is focusing nearly half its effort indeveloping solutions for a community partner in Greensboro.


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With this in mind, technology takes on a new meaning. There is no reason that business or

social innovations could not be considered technologyfor our purposes. There are countless

examples of appropriate technologyof all types, from simple clay water filters to methods of

structuring a refugee camp16to micro-lending practices17to venture models18to high tech

laptops.19These technologies are sometimes created by design or engineeringfirms20, sometimes

by students or educational programs21and sometimes by the users themselves. As they say,necessity is the mother of invention.

Unfortunately, it is a closely held belief of many engineers (particularly students) that

success is to create the most cutting-edge technology, to innovate, to invent. We are constantly

battered with the message that innovation is the key to national security, to wealth, and possibly

even to happiness. Innovation and invention are increasingly conflated with high technology, and

invention has been front and center on the national stage in the face of increasing economic

competition from overseas. As Thomas Friedman recently commented to Tom Brokaw on NBCs

Meet the Press:

America isn't sitting there saying, "Invent, invent, invent new, renewable energy," they'resaying, "drill, drill, drill." And you know we do need to exploit our domestic resource. I'mactually not against drilling. What I'm against is making that the center of our focus, becausewe are on the eve of a new revolution, the energy technology revolution.

Friedman advocates the invention of renewable energy solutions as a way to preserve our way of

life, and his viewpoint is increasingly popular. But his viewpoint still equates invention with

technology. Invention as it is generally thought of does not necessarily help real people in an

appropriateway. To truly innovateforpeople, our inventions must spread beyond technology to

encompass ways of interacting with the end-user, methods of selling the product, and countless

other complexities that are not generally considered. Creating the most advanced gadget without

any thought of the surrounding context, while an interesting engineering exercise, probably doesnot create new opportunities for those in the most need.

With this in mind, it is important to realize that invention and innovation as they relate to

technology are still critical they just need to be reframed. As Pilloton mentions, we tend to talk

about the iPhone and the newest Dyson vacuum cleaner as feats of innovation, but we would

hesitate to call a DIY water filter in rural Africa innovative.22 As long as engineering students keep

entering industry with this contemporary viewpoint on invention, the field of appropriate

technology engineering will have a tough time attracting the top engineering talent that befits its

cause.

16Pilloton, 32. Seehttp://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/for a fascinating read on theman who tried to save the world and was killed doing it.17"Kiva - About Kiva.18"Rickshaw Bank - The Concept."19"One Laptop per Child (OLPC): Mission.20Such as IDEO, Frog Design, Continuum, Cooper Perkins, and many more21Such as ADE (Olin), d.school (Stanford), and D-Lab (MIT)22Pilloton, 34
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cuny/


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ENGINEERINGAppropriate designis a common term that describes the act of creating products and

services for the less fortunate. There is a large body of literature on sustainable and appropriate

design, and much history behind the movement. It is beyond the scope of this guide, but the

interested reader can delve deeply. See the introduction to Walkers Sustainable by Designfor agood overview of how design thinking has evolved over the last hundred years and continues to

evolve and grow. Appropriate designis also starting to include other subfields such as social

entrepreneurship.23 There are many situations where technological innovation and ingenuity need

to be paired with innovative or specially constructed business models in order to provide a

sustainable solution.24

Figure 4: A traditional view of engineering as it fits into the process of developing a venture (time is flowing tothe right). One reason why appropriate technology is so exciting is that it requires the engineer to step out of thissingle chevron and deeply understand the other parts of the process.

Engineeringis generally defined as the application of scientific principles to practical uses.25

It is actually quite difficult to draw a distinction between design and engineering in the creation of

appropriate technology, when technologyis defined to broadly include systems that are not

generally considered engineeringsystems. Pillotondefines appropriate technology engineering as

being a discipline guided by three basic principles:26

1. Building as a generative process2. The optimization of local resources3. The use of craft production as economic empowerment

If you consider technologyto include non-engineering systems, this definition becomes more

flexible and the role of engineering starts to blur with the role of design. Building could include the

building of communities or the building of communication channels. Local resources could include

the local people. Engineering is not just the creation of technology; it is a method of problem-

solving.27

23Pilloton, 17. Design for social impact and social entrepreneurship are, in a sense, made for each other andare so closely intertwined that they are often synonymous.24Pilloton defines social entrepreneurship as: the application of entrepreneurial business practices andprinciples to organize, create, and manage a venture that both incites social change and makes a profit forsome or all stakeholders.25"Engineering." The American Heritage Science Dictionary.26Pilloton, 3627And one used often in many places, particularly in the developing world where resource constraints aremore common and encourage engineering innovation on a daily basis.

Ethnography Design Engineering Venture


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PROJECT SUCCESS CRITERIAIn most engineering systems, the basic success criteria are straightforward. Keep the

Segway upright. Keep the ball on the table. Yet one of the trickiest parts of control theory is

defining what is optimal for a given system and method of control. Sometimes it is difficult to know

what quantity needs to be minimized or maximized. Is it best to create a controller that uses theleast energy or a controller that moves most precisely and reaches equilibrium the fastest?

The same problem is apparent in analyzing our unstable world/system. Some definitions of

success already exist, mostly for specific projects or cases. In the corporate world, thetriple bottom

line is often used as a justification to be more appropriate: people, planet and profit.28The triple

bottom line symbolizes that it is indeed possible to justify a corporate action based onsomething

other than profit. In the academic world, the success criteria are generally fairly focused. In Olins

Affordable Design and Entrepreneurship class, students begin by focusing on having an impact in

reducing poverty. In practice, this both devolves into other goals (improving comfort for rickshaw

pullers, for instance, does not directly reduce poverty) and generates sub-criteria for success. In

particular, every solution is analyzed through the double lens of scalability and sustainability.

Sustainability represents the ability of the solution to stand on its own over time. There is

no way to make a real impact in making lives better if the designed solution must be maintained by

the designer in order to ensure consistent success. Sustainability encompasses all aspects of

responsibility and foresight: environmental, social, economic, cultural, and humanitarian.29

Scalability is another key factor in determining the success of a solution. It represents the

ability of the designed solution to be adapted and adopted in other parts of the world. If a system is

highly scalable, it is possible to make a very large impact very quickly.

28Hart, Stuart.29Pilloton, 15

Analogy

In our control systems analogy, sustainability is analogous to stability. That is, if you push the

system and send it off, will it maintain its state without extra input? A Segway is stable it will

stay standing by itself until the batteries run out.

Analogy

In our control system, scalability is akin to robustness. That is, if disturbed, or if the system

changes, will the controller maintain the stability of the system? A Segway has a very robust

controller. It will stand by itself on flat ground or on a hill, with weight on it or empty. If

systems that are not scalable or robust are applied too broadly, it can be extremely dangerous.


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Beyond the criteria of sustainability and scalability, there are several other indicators that

can be used as a measure of project value. The most commonly used are the trinity of desirability,

feasibility, and viability:

Desirabilityis a measure of the excitement of the consumer about the product. If nobody

wants it, the project will be neither scalable nor sustainable. The core problem with a large amountof international aid is the lack of interest in finding the most desirable solution. For example, I have

watched Panamanian villagers be persuaded into trying a particular method of shellfish farming, in

the end adopting an inefficient system against their will and better judgment. While it may last for

a short time, the technology that was given to them will almost certainly be left to rust after a

season or two of fishing.

Feasibilitysimply measures whether the technology can function as designed. It is

unlikely, for instance, that Western-style derailleurs are a feasible solution to gear shifting for

Indian rickshaws. They simply dont hold up to the harsh conditions of Indian roads during the

dusty summers and monsoon winters. Clearly, technology must work in order for a project to

succeed in a sustainable and scalable fashion.

Viabilityindicates the economic worth of a system. It essentially asks whether or not a

product pays for itself, and is a key measure of whether or not a solution will be financially

sustainable.

Figure 5: Only by fulfilling all of these criteria together can a venture maintain success in the long term. Thethree circles encompass human desire, economics, and technical possibility.

In general, the success of any appropriate technology project is determined by the amount it

empowers a real person to succeed in their day-to-day life, its scalability, and its sustainability as a

solution.

Desirability

FeasibilityViability


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CHAPTER 3:METHODOLOGYThere are many different design methodologies and considerations that should be taken

into account when creating appropriate technology. Having established a definition for success in

the previous chapter, this section sets out some guidelines for acting to actually create a successful

project. These are not be-all-end-all rules, but are merely suggestions for some major points to

think on before embarking on a project.

APPROPRIATE DESIGN PRINCIPLESThere are countless ways to make appropriate technology ventures achieve their success

criteria. There is no magic bullet. There are, however, some general principles and design

strategies that form the basis for creating successful projects. These principles are distilled from a

variety of sources and experiences, and while this is not a complete list these are all generally good

things to keep in mind.

EXPLICITLY IDENTIFY STAKEHOLDERS AND VALUE PROPOSITION(S)

A stakeholder is anyone who has an interest in the outcome of a certain project.

Stakeholders can include the target end-user, the design team, local partners, community members

and families, NGOs30operating in the same space, government officials and/or any number of other

30For the engineer: NGOs are non-governmental organizations, generally non-profits. They do all kinds ofwork, all over the world.

A Brief List of Appropriate Design Principles

Explicitly Identify Stakeholders and Value Proposition(s) identify everyone affected by a

project, and understand what they will gain by supporting it. Use this information to pitch

yourself in different ways in order to gather support from different stakeholders.

Quantify Uncertainty nothing is ever certain when creating these types of technologies. It is

important to understand which pieces of information are assumed and which are definite, and to

actively work to verify assumptions.

Build Capacity in general, it is always better to build the ability of the end-user to achieve their

goals rather than create a product that achieves their goals without transferring ability.

Utilize Untrained Experts people in the context of the end-user, however formally

uneducated, are often extremely knowledgeable and provide an invaluable perspective on what

is possible.

Iterate Productively use low-cost, progressive test methods to be able to use limited travel

and user-interaction time to the most benefit.

Deliver a Top Quality Product hacked together products and half-baked ideas will not do

much good for anyone. Focus on delivering a high quality, professional product.


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people or groups. A project generally has to deliver a value proposition to every stakeholder in

order to be successful. This value proposition does not have to be monetary it simply has to

include some type of improvement over what currently exists.

For several reasons, this can put a design team in a tricky spot. On one hand, it is very

difficult to please every stakeholder, and is often not possible. Occasionally, stakeholders havedirectly conflicting viewpoints which are difficult to resolve.31 It is also often the case that

something is the way it is because there is no value to the different stakeholders in changing it. It is

also sometimes difficult to identify all of the stakeholders in a given situation, and certain types of

stakeholders (NGOs, for instance) can react poorly to being cut out of a design process.32

An additional consideration is that many appropriate technology projects involve creating a

productthat does not have an easy comparable33, making the value proposition difficult to

express.34 Delivering clean water to an area without clean water, for instance, may improve the

quality of life for residents but is difficult to compare to their current situation (especially if there is

not a perceived problem with water quality). This inability to clearly express the added value of a

technology can make it very difficult to persuade end-users to part with their hard-earned money.

QUANTIFY (AND BE COMFORTABLE WITH)UNCERTAINTY

It is common in this type of project to spend a lot of time working remotely from the context

of the consumer. Even with a lot of local collaboration and conversation, it is easy to lose track ofwhat aspects of a project are known and what aspects are simply assumed. Depending on his/her

personal context, every designer has assumptions that may influence the outcome of a project. For

this reason, it is important to identify and constantly update the assumptions that underlie the

decisions being made. By quantifying uncertainty in this way it makes clear the aspects of a project

that need further research and enables the remote team to continue iterating without being

paralyzed by an ambiguous uncertainty.35

31

This happened particularly with Promethean Power Systems, a for-profit milk chiller developer. Theyreceived investment to develop a system specifically with solar power, which ended up directly conflictingwith the values of their customers. Resolving this direct conflict ended up influencing the company towards acompromised system which made neither stakeholder particularly happy.32See the later section on working in a busy space, especially with regards to the ADE Alabama example ofstakeholder mis-identification.33A comparable, in this case, is designer jargon for a comparable or competing product.34As described by Dr. Ben Linder in ADE lecture, January 28 th2011.35Quantifying uncertainty is a constant point in Olins ADE curriculum and I can think of many teams thatmight have been helped significantly by remembering to do so.

Strategy

It is rarely easy to please all stakeholders. When thinking about this problem, recognize that a

product or venture can deliver very different value propositions to different people or

organizations, and pitch accordingly.


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BUILD CAPACITYBuilding the capacity of the consumer is a key component of appropriate technology

development. In many cases, the capacity referred to is an earning capacity. Creating extra income

for a family may enable that family to pay for a better education for their children or to take better

care of their health. It is recognized that increasing access to financial services can increase income

and enable families to lift themselves out of poverty.36 This is the fundamental reasoning behind

micro-lending programs, and it is for this reason that many affordable design programs focus

specifically on increasing employment and income generation instead of particular technologies.37

In addition to finding ways to increase monetary capacity, it is important to create products

that fall within the existing spending capability of the consumer. There are many ways to do this,but in particular there are many interesting success stories that involve breaking down ventures or

products into bite size spending chunks. Rickshaw Bank, for instance, is able to sell rickshaws by

creating a venture model that allows consumers to pay a small but significant amount of the price of

their rickshaw each day. There are other examples where the products themselves are broken

apart and modularly fit together the creation of solar electric capacity is a good example of a

technology that lends itself to this technique.

Educational initiatives provide another way to build capacity. By introducing new

techniques or knowledge, a program canenable users to improve their lives by making slight

changes in how they go about their lives.38 The end result of this knowledge transfer is generally to

increase income and monetary capacity, with the goal that this becomes a perpetual positive cycle.A great example of a product specifically designed to increase educational capacity is the One

Laptop Per Child project.39

An additional indirect way of building capacity is by developing tools that can be used by

locals to develop technology for themselves. There are not many examples of true tool

development being done in this space, but it is an intriguing possibility. This is discussed further in

the tools and products section of this chapter.

36http://www.kiva.org/about/microfinance37ADE, for instance.38Many agricultural programs revolve around this kind of knowledge transfer.39They also provide a great description of their indirect goals on their website:http://laptop.org/en/vision/index.shtml.

Strategy

Keep a running list of assumptions or uncertainties, and try to use the iteration process to

eliminate items.

Key Point

Capacity can take the form of earning capacity, useful skills, or any other method that can be

used by an individual to help themselves.
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UTILIZE UNTRAINEDEXPERTS

As an engineer or designer working outside of the context you understand from your own

experience, it is important to realize that even the most seemingly non-technical person in the

context of your product is more of an expert than you are.40 In short, you can learn from everyone.

There is no philosophy of appropriate design that does not involve learning from users and other

untrained experts, and there are countless examples of situationswhere these people have createdbeautiful technologies that defy even the best outside designer.41

This pillar of

appropriate design is

perhaps one of the most

rewarding parts of being

an empathetic engineer.

Ask questions of your

users, talk to everyone and

be taught by others. Being

taught a skill by someone

who does it for a living is a

fantastic way to appreciate

both their skill and their

needs. It is also humbling.

Realize that you are

designing for your user,

and not for yourself, and

that what may make it

easier for you to do their

job is not necessarily what

might help them.42

ITERATE PRODUCTIVELY

Rapid and productive iteration of the entire picture of a project is often critical to the

success of projects developed remotely from the actual deployment context. Travel (and time withthe end-user) is often a very scarce resource and can become a limiting factor if not used wisely. It

40Pilloton, 2041Some particularly beautiful examples can be seen athttp://www.mayapedal.org/.42This is not to say that designing for oneself is a bad idea at all in fact, in many ways it is the best thing youcan do (because you already understand the context, you are able to do a better job).

Strategy

When you are working outside of your own context, never stop asking questions. Absorb as

much as possible, as fast as possible.

Figure 6: The streets of Delhi are filled with experts. It would be wise to get to

know them. Photo is by the author.
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is thus very important to effectively plan the use of your time while traveling (or otherwise

interacting).43

One recipe for productive iteration involves creating five cent, five dollar and fifty dollar

tests for a given idea. This concept has been popularized by Andrew Hargadon.44 In the very early

stages of a product, it is often possible to prove or disprove an assumption through a very cheap

test. These tests are referred to as five cent tests, and provide a way to reduce risk upfront. As

ideas become more refined, more expensive tests allow the engineering team to further explore the

nuances of the proposed projects and prove or disprove assumptions definitively. The final test, of

course, is a full-blown prototype of the venture.

DELIVER A TOP-QUALITY PRODUCT (DONT REINVENT THE WHEEL)Many programs that develop appropriate technology seem to interpret this as an excuse to

develop technology that would be deemed inferior in their own context. This is not only

unacceptable from a technology adoption perspective, but is fundamentally inappropriate. End-

users in all contexts can understand when they are being provided with top quality products and

when they are being sold products that are sub-par, and there is a strong desire on the part of end-

users to use technology that they are proud of. There are many types of quality a few of the most

important are manufacturing quality, engineering quality, and the quality of the innovation, venture

or design. It is important to recognize that all aspects of a product or venture need to be of high

caliber, and it is not enough to simply start with a great idea.

One way to ensure that a technology under development comes out with a high quality

result is to ensure that the product is not a reinvention. It is very rare that a complete reinvention

of any well-characterized system will come out more refined than existing products on the market.

Rather than reinvent, it is better to adopt and adapt. Understanding the complete space of

competing or existing products allows a team to select the best aspects of many products in order

43It is somewhat of a side note, but the concept of soft failure is very interesting. A hard failure is obvious itcould be the failure of a team to meet with people, or to get a project completed on time, or the failure of adeployed design. A soft failure, though, is the failure of a team to gather enough information to truly make adecision after traveling. Even though a trip may initially seem successful, it is possible that a failure toadequately engage could result in a later, softer failure. I was introduced to this idea by Ben Linder of OlinsADE lab.44http://andrewhargadon.typepad.com/

Strategy

Use a list of uncertainties and assumptions to guide your test planning. Develop flexible, real-

world tests that answer real questions and can guide your design process.

Strategy

Look for existence proofs. If you are developing a new product or venture, your success is more

likely if similar implementations already exist on the market.
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to create their own. It is very rare to encounter a situation where a product does not have a

competitor or an existence proof of a similar technology. If, by chance, it happens that there are

no competitors, there is either no market or the market is wide open take your pick.

It is important that a project team be aware of their core competencies (their strongest

assets and skills). Any team willdeliver a high quality product if the product falls nicely into the

categories that they understand.45 However, it can be dangerous to focus exclusively on these

instinctual results, as a narrow focus can result in the development of a slick product that does not

actually provide a value proposition to every stakeholder.

TO PROFIT OR NOT TO PROFIT (MONETARILY)At first glance, it seems odd that profit would be a motivator for doing social good. Yet

many of the best non-profits are run like for-profit companies, and many for-profit companies also

exist with the side effect (or explicit goal) of doing social good. Promethean Power Systems is an

example of a for-profit enterprise that is fundamentally focused on appropriate technology and

design. According to their website:

Promethean Power Systems is a for-profit enterprise. We believe that creating a cost-effective solution for cold-chain food distribution in emerging markets is an excellent

business opportunity that could deliver enormous social and environmental benefits.46

In Prometheans case, the focus on profitability provides a few major benefits to the enterprise.

First, it gives a sense of urgency. Without showing profitability, the company will fail. This puts the

onus on the engineers and the designers to come up with a quality, adoptable, cheap solution

quickly. If the solution takes too long to implement, the company will fail without further funding.

The products of a for-profit company must be actually worth purchasing for the end-user they are

tested by the market.

45Look at the well-known Grameen Danone example for a good example of this.46http://www.coolectrica.com/

Key Point

There is a well-known story of two shoe entrepreneurs who go to China to do market research.They find, to their surprise, that no one in China wears shoes. One entrepreneur comes home

and laments that there is no market of shoe-wearers to sell to. The other entrepreneur returns

with a smile on his face, knowing that if he can access it the market is enormous. Be optimistic!

Key Point

Deciding whether to run a venture as a charity or as a business can be an interesting choice.

There is no defined rule for making the decision, and success stories exist from both regimes.

Consider the options, and do what makes sense.
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There is another reason that for-profit companies can be a resource for helping those in

need profitable companies tend to have money, and resources. Wielded correctly, these resources

provide a means for undertaking projects that are more complex and R&D intensive then could be

possible with the resources of an NGO. Harts book Capitalism at the Crossroads focuses on ways

that companies can use their resourcesto generate more business opportunities through solving

the worlds most difficult problems.47 The differences that companies or public sectororganizations enable can be quantitatively measured through accounting methods such as the triple

bottom line (taking into account transactions in human, ecological and monetary capital or

people, planet and profit for short). It should be noted that the use of these accounting methods is

often criticized as being either too idealistic (harming the companies by not delivering monetary

profit to their shareholders) or too publicity oriented (by only going light-greenand not making a

real difference) and both criticisms have some weight depending on the example.48

Charity models are business models in which the target end-users do not pay for the

resulting service or product. Whether run by for-profit or non-profit ventures, the model does not

pay for itself and the funding source is not directly dependent on the adoption of the product

(although it could be indirectly dependent on sales through some contractual obligation). This can

actually be a really important aspect. It allows designers some freedom to iterate and experiment

that is not easily accomplished in an environment where getting to market is key.

There are many criticisms of charity models. In particular, these models are criticized for

being more polarizing (more us versus them), less market tested, and not sustainable in the long

term. It is easy to develop a charity model that does not fix the root problems behind an issue, and

the success of a charity project often does not include long-term economic viability. For these

reasons, it is particularly important that the success criteria in Chapter 2 are considered carefully

before implementing a charity model.

CASTING A NETThere is an interesting tension between projects that try to cast a very wide net and those

that affect only a small number of people at once. An engineering parallel is the difference between

product designers and architects, as described by Pilloton:

Product designers are much less contextual and responsive than architects, for example,who usually have specific and singular programs, sites, and clients,and can thus bettergauge the path between their actions and subsequent receptions.49

Yet, product designers have a much more distributed power they can affect hundreds of

thousands of people at one time, with a single product. They wield a very large double-edgedsword. They can help or hurt many, many people at a time. They can also contribute to

environmental problems very quickly by creating large amounts of waste the most oft-repeated

example is possibly that of the IDEO designer who designed the first over-molded, disposable

47Hart.48http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_bottom_line,accessed April 28th, 2011.49Pilloton, 14
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toothbrush for Oral-B. Later, walking on the beach, he noticed one of his toothbrushes floating in

the water. He swore he would never create another toothbrush50and publicly apologized for his

mistake.51

Technologies affecting many people at once (casting a large net) need to be very robust.

That is, they must be very tolerant of situational differences between the different situations in

which they are expected to work. It is very difficult (if not impossible) to design a technology that

functions everywhere in a predictable way that improves peoples lives. For technologies

implemented widely, it is also very difficult to track what is actually occurring and whether the

applied technology is helping or hurting end-users. With this in mind, the next few paragraphs

explore a few examples of technologies of varying robustness and net size.

The Promethean Power example is a fascinating case study in the limitations of the

robustness of a technology. The company developed a village-level milk chiller for rural Indian

farmers. The product is functional and innovative, using a two-stage heat exchanger to rapidly cool

the milk to a safe temperature using minimal energy. The buyers are the dairy cooperatives, a

group that has significant desire and purchasing power. The technology allows the dairies to

reduce fuel costs and reduce milk spoilage.

When the system was designed, stakeholder input was sought and reacted upon. In this

case, the primary stakeholders were the Indian dairy companies purchasing the system.

Unfortunately, each dairy company wanted something slightly different in the final product. Their

needs varied slightly by region, milk collection model, and countless other additional factors. The

diversity of stakeholder input to the project resulted in several redesigns, and in the end the design

of a system that no customer felt strongly about and that is not being widely adopted.

This variety of end-user needs was found across dairy companies in India, a single country

(although admittedly a varied one). When further research was done in Panama to assess whether

a similar technology could be implemented there, the result was a resounding no. Dissimilarities indairy business models were one barrier, but the more important barrier discovered was cultural.

Panamanian farmers have not generally adopted cooperative milk collection models, a key

component of the Indian business model. Because of this difference, there are not end-users in

50Of course, maybe he should just create a bettertoothbrush next time, to try and reverse the damage healready caused51http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/valerie-casey-introduces-the-designers-accord_b4581

Analogy

The concept of net size fits very nicely into our control systems analogy. Some control systemsare perfectly tailored to a single system, but fall apart when applied more broadly. Other control

systems can control a wider variety of systems, but cant control any system perfectly. The

amount to which a given control algorithm is tolerant of system unknowns and variation is

called its robustness. The degree to which the algorithm succeeds reflects the stability of the

controlled system.
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Panama thatcould afford the overhead of the chilling system and the technology is not viable in

that context.52

To combat the difficulty of designing very robust technologies that can thrive in a variety of

markets, there exist a category of system models that address highly local needs in a distributed

fashion. An individual Peace Corps volunteer is an example of someone doing appropriatetechnology work that has a very small total impact (and a small net) yet the sum of all Peace Corps

members is quite large. The network of Peace Corps volunteers is a robust model, because each

individual can adapt to their environment in a very deep manner. Cross-pollination of ideas across

the network of volunteers further strengthens the organization.

Unfortunately, that local adaptability comes at a cost. In the case of the Peace Corps, one

cost is monetary. It is very, very expensive to have a payroll large enough to support local

volunteers in every location where they are needed. Another downside of a Peace Corps type

model is that in many cases the input of the volunteer becomes integral to the success of their

project. Although volunteers live in a community for two year stretches, it is sometimes difficult to

maintain successful projects once those volunteers depart. In our analogy, the controlled input ofthe designer becomes critical to the stability of the system the system cannot function without this

input. This is indicative of a poorly designed system, but is a common occurrence.

DEVELOPING TOOLSCombating this cost of local uniqueness, there are a few projects which have tried to

develop extremely general technologies that can be very widely implemented. One example is that

of the One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) project, an inexpensive, low-power laptop developed by

Nicholas Negroponte and his team. The project is not supposed to be developing a technology, per

se. At its core, OLPC is developing a tool a means to learn.53 This is a paradigm shift from the way

many engineers consider technology development. Yes, mostproducts are tools, in at least aneconomic sense. Successful appropriate technologies are all tools for escaping poverty, disease, and

hunger.

Yet not many projects develop real tools. A real tool helps the end-users develop their own

products, creating local technology that is perfectly appropriate for a specific situation. OLPC is a

tool for education, indirectly helping the users design products for themselves. In this way, OLPC

provides a platform for sustainable development that is missing when outside companies come in

with ready-built technology and sell it at cost. It must be mentioned that there is a fundamental

chicken-or-egg problem with developing tools for appropriate technology development: the tools

are probably also highly specific to local situations, so it may be equally as difficult to develop the

tools as to develop the products in the first place. OLPC somewhatescapes this moral quandary by

developing an educational system, a tool for tool design if you will. 54

52From the authors research in Central America, particularly in the Azuero region of Panama.53http://laptop.org/en/vision/mission/index2.shtml54Of course, there is still a chicken or egg problem it might be impossible to deliver an educational systemfor a specific context without already having tools in that context but you have to start somewhere.
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OLPC is not perfect.55 The project has faced strong criticism, particularly with regards to

the unexpected consequences its implementation has created. As with any project that casts such a

wide net, it has hurt some people at the same time that it has helped others. It has been behind

schedule and over budget, with some critics pointing out that the academic types who have run

OLPC have never run a real business. The project has also been criticized for encouraging

leapfrogging, or the idea that developing markets should be able to skip (or leap over) inferior orless efficient technologies and move directly to the more advanced ones.56 The cell phone is an

obvious example. OLPC has been criticized for encouraging leapfroggingwhere it is not

appropriate, particularly in communities where children have been provided with cutting-edge

computers but lack basic sanitation or healthcare.57

Regardless of the problems that OLPC has faced, the tool development model makes a lot of

sense. To loosely quote the Chinese proverb: give a man a fish and you feed him for a day teach

him how to fish and you feed him for life. The goal for the development of these tools is to enable

end-users to design their own products on a local level, escaping the need for foreign designers and

creating more appropriate products.

55Readhttp://www.fakesteve.net/2007/09/100-laptop-now-200-and-delayed-again.html. This is not ascholarly source by any means, but Fake Steve points out some interesting problems with OLPC. Thedifference between academic projects and real projects is enormous.56Pilloton, 1857Pilloton, 173

Analogy

Returning to our control systems analogy, successful tool design is similar to the design of

automated algorithms for control system design it allows non-designers/non-engineers to

successfully implement complicated systems.
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CHAPTER 4:IMPLEMENTATIONEven once a well-considered path has been laid out for a new idea or venture there are

many pitfalls that can occur during project execution. This chapter provides a discussion of a few

considerations that can be critical to the success of a project. This is by no means an exhaustive

discussion, and is meant to be a starting point for thinking about how to implement an appropriate

technology project.

ADOPTION IS HARD (IN A GOOD WAY)Unfortunately, even the most thought-out products will fail if nobody wants to use them.

Adoption is the actual act of the end-user choosing to use a new technology. Particularly if your

project is meant to be implemented far away (either culturally or physically) from the designers,

adoption is a serious concern. It is unlikely that a foreign team will be able to fully grasp the

context and unique design challenges of a particular space without years of cultural experience in

the area. This is yet another reason to add a collaborative aspect to your team, but even with the

addition of local team members adoption is difficult.

Charity models avoid the challenge of getting their product in the users hands by giving it

away. For this reason, the consumers have part of their choice made for them. There are no

comparables that easily compete with a free solution, so any product has a decent chance of being

used. Why not adopt a free technology? This model can be useful, particularly when there are not

established comparable technologies as a benchmark or when the value of a solution has not been

established in a particular area.58 However, projects that are successful in the long term generally

prove the adoption of a for-profitmodel in order to ensure that they are actually delivering a

sensible and improved solution. I have personally seen examples of free technology that burdened

a community with unnecessary maintenance and running costs and were eventually left to rust.

Adoption is hard because the traits that make a product adoptable can vary significantly

from place to place and user to user, even over a relatively small geographic divide. The

Promethean Power example in Chapter 3 is a perfect example of the difficulty of adoption. The

product was designed for the Indian dairy industry through the feedback of a few willing dairies.

When going to sell the finished device, however, few dairies wanted it. Relying on the words of a

few potential customers (and being dismissive of the potentially large differences across the

58For instance, bringing clean water to a village that has never had clean water. There is no benchmarkedvalue to the solution, so unless a compelling value proposition can be conveyed it is unlikely that a solutionwill be adopted at cost. Successful programs such as Water Health International provide an educationalinitiative in addition to simply providing water,

Key Point

Adoption is difficult, because it encompasses many aspects of a successful product. Having a

product or service be adopted and used by the end-user, however, is a fantastic indicator of a

well-designed system.


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market) led to the development of a product that was not actually sensible for enough users to

make the manufacturing of the product worthwhile.

Getting users to embrace a product or venture is additionally complicated by cultural

nuances. For example, a project team in Olins ADE class was working on a multi-gear system for

bicycle rickshaws in Guwahati, a city in India. They arrived, logically, at the use of standard, cheapderailleurs for shifting. To their surprise, they discovered that derailleurs are not culturally

accepted in Guwahati. They are perceived as unreliable and easily broken, possibly due to British

influences over the bike design in the country or perhaps due to an actual reliability problem in

monsoon season. Even the design of a bulletproof, derailleur-like system would likely face an uphill

battle in getting users to adopt the product. By investing time doing user research on this cultural

phenomenon, the project was able to change directions before wasting too much time in developing

a standard shifting system. The end result was the adaptation of an antiquated gear-changing

system known as retro-direct shifting. This reduced the chain movement problem and will

hopefully be adopted by rickshaw pullers over the next few years.

BUILDING A TEAMIt is impossible to build a solid product without a skilled, multi-faceted team dedicated to

the cause. Current teams are often comprised of design professionals, with end-users playing

smaller collaborative co-design roles. In some educational models59, teams are designed to include

students working from the partner communities (although they are not necessarily the end user).

The input of team members who are closer to the appropriate context is invaluable in making good

design and engineering decisions.

While adding collaboration increases the odds of success, without a solid team it is unlikely

a project will succeed. Enthusiasm can only go so far. In my personal experience, I have watched

many engineering students leave college without realizing that there is a market for appropriate

technology. They mistakenly conflate high-technology and technology, and do not see the upside to

building simple devices. Yet, designing appropriate technology is not simple. Like designing the

piston of a car engine, a single engineers contribution may be small; but it is the seamless fit of that

small part into the larger system that makes the engineering both meaningful and difficult.

There is also a relatively distinct stereotype of young engineers and designers who create

appropriate technology. These people are generally imagined as liberal, somewhat hippie do-

gooders wearing their Toms shoes. Obviously, not all engineers fit in this category: in fact,

relatively few of them do, even among young and less traditional groups. For these reasons, there is

59Particularly, the Olin ADE model.

Strategy

As with any venture, building a good team is critical to a successful experience. Strike a balance

between technical backgrounds and provide a compelling value proposition to each team

member for their participation in a project. Each employee may have different priorities.


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a stigma among many engineers that the field of appropriate technology is not really real

engineering. It is a stigma that must be overcome, for without a perception of real engineering and

technical challenge it becomes harder to attract new engineers to the field.

A parallel situation has resolved itself on the business side of appropriate technology over

the last several years. There has always been a desire toapply business principles for lastingpositive change both in the large scale business setting60and in smaller scale social

entrepreneurship ventures. Once the idea of for-profit social entrepreneurship took off, it started

attracting more business talent. The fact that you could now do social good while making money

was the deciding factor for a group of skilled employees who might otherwise have worked in more

traditional industries.61 They could now work in the area they desired without the perception of

sacrificing anything. Asthe for-profit appropriate technology sector expands, the financial benefits

will grow as well, allowing more engineers to follow their desire to help others through their work.

LEVERAGING AND BUILDING CREDIBILITY

At times, the best way to proceed is not to forge your own path. No matter how perfect yourtechnology or venture model may be, it is difficult and inappropriate to impose a solution on a

community where you have no ties and no credibility. This is particularly difficult in student

initiatives, since students tend to be inherently transient in working on projects and do not

necessarily have the incentive to follow through to complete more than the coursework.62

Leveraging an existing NGOs credibility to complete a project is a highly valid method for

speeding adoption within a limited context. Working with Rickshaw Bank in northeastern India, for

instance, one of the Olin ADE projects was able to leverage an existing factory and distribution

framework for developing a two-speed rickshaw drive train. This saddled the project with the

limitations that already existed in that context: limited manufacturing capability, a desire for

extreme affordability, and existing connections within and preconceptions about the rickshawindustry. But if the technology works well, it will be adopted quickly by Rickshaw Bank and

implemented on the rickshaws that they sell. In this case, trading a few extra constraints in order to

more rapidly spread the technology will allow the project to make a quicker impact.

60Hart is a particular proponent of this.61Haas, personal interview.62This is an overheard criticism of MITs D-Lab, where students often only work on projects for a singlesemester. It is something that Olins ADE model is trying to remedy through the creation of multi-year,persistent team projects.

Strategy

When trying to make a real difference in the real world, it is often advantageous to embrace

existing constraints and learn how to leverage them to everyones benefit.


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Many times the

situation is not so clear

cut. Another ADE

project partnered with

Rickshaw Bank is

currently working tocreate a venture model

for healthcare in very

poor communities.

Rickshaw Bank sells

rickshaws: they are not

experts in healthcare by

any means. They

initially surprised the

team by making strong

suggestions as to how torun the venture.

Particularly, they

suggested that care be

provided through a

rickshaw service model.

While initially skeptical, the team grew to grudgingly accept the idea of rickshaw distribution as an

available way to rapidly prototype the venture model. By embracing this constraint, the team was

able to be productive.

While the Rickshaw Bank example provides a case where a partner relationship was

necessary for the success of the project, this is not always the case. An ADE team working inAlabama provides us with a firsthand example of the difficulty of working through a mission-

oriented non-profit. In this case, the NGO had already established a sound but specific relationship

with the community and filtered the design teams community interactions through this

relationship. This relationship was built on the NGOs mission and tended to favor those who were

receptive to being helped. As a result, the design team had a very difficult time understanding the

true nature of the community and found it impossible to create a unique product-venture vision

under the umbrella of their strongly mission-oriented partner. At this point, the engineers are

faced with a decision to bow to the mission of their partner in order to build therelationship and

create a lasting impact or to leave the community and find a new place to settle.63

63Haas, personal interview.

Key Point

Appropriate technology products or services often fail (sometimes catastrophically). It is a very

natural stage for a project, and is not a reason to shy away from attempting another such

venture. Failure is an opportunity to learn.

Figure 7: Rickshaw Bank rickshaws lined up at a taxi stand, ready to takepassengers. Their presence in the community is a huge lever for implementingnew ventures. Photo is by the author.


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WORKING IN A BUSY SPACEEvery engineer or designer working in the appropriate technology space has a vision of

what their ideal world is, hopefully somewhat informed by the views of the stakeholders involved.

Yet even if those ideals are carefully considered, they can differ substantially between design teams

because of team differences and nuances in how each team approaches the project. Working in asetting where other project teams have been or are currently working poses a unique set of

challenges, particularly if the other teams definition of success is significantly different from your

own.

A major criticism of

an engineers guide to applying appropriate technology

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