Happy New Year! A column about innovation in designing products for the poor appears in the International Herald Tribune. It’s very much in keeping with the Acumen Fund philosophy that the poor should be thought of and treated as consumers — solutions must be designed with their needs and constraints in mind. The article highlights the importance of the ruthless pursuit of affordability (sometimes forgoing fancy technology for simplicity) in designing technology to improve the lives of the poor.
Definitely worth thinking about as we move into 2006.
Jacqueline:
Thanks for this article.
My first reaction to this piece was that a fund should exist to invest in inventors and inventions that will have the greatest impact on developing communities. This led me to the Lemelson Foundation mentioned in the article.
After reading through some of their documents though, I started wondering—how do they know what inventions the people in these communities actually want? I assume that they do extensive research on the greatest problems and challenges that each region/community faces, and undoubtedly this work leads to the type of problems that most development experts would suggest, namely disease, hunger, sanitation, human rights, etc.
Certainly these are formidable problems and resources should be spent to alleviate them. But are there other problems that, in the eyes of the people that are living through them, are just as great that we may be missing? The three part series, Voices of the Poor, put together by the World Bank in 2000, are great resources for learning more about what poor people think about their world and their concerns, problems, and priorities. I wonder, does the Lemelson Foundation do similar work asking people what they want before investing their dollars, just as a company investing in the region would do?
That question brought me back to Acumen. How does Acumen source its investments? How do problems that you are addressing get defined? Does your team survey the people within the communities where your investments are directed, inquiring as to their greatest needs?
Developing a successful project that creates employment, empowerment, and dignity is always impressive and should be encouraged. Is there a chance, however, that the projects that already have the support of intelligent, ambitious entrepreneurs, which presumably make them much easier to invest in, are not the ones that provide the greatest return on capital in the eyes of the community? And shouldn’t that be the ultimate goal?
It would be great to hear your thoughts.
Thanks,
Jeffrey Spector
Reply to Jeffrey SpectorOK! Look! We are now in 2008 and nothing changed yet! I hate it! Everyone talks about poverty, feels mercy for those who had no luck in their lives, but no one is actually doing something. I know, there are some programs to help, but I mean…like making something really big, something enormously big… because this is what they need: a miracle.
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