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This morning I heard a pitch from a team of designers that included MBAs, electrical engineers and mechanical engineers. Using a customer-centered approach and field research in Nepal, they had designed a prototype for a low-cost incubator for rural Nepal, and were looking for seed financing to complete product development and move towards field testing and roll out.
The exciting thing about this group is not only that they are working on an issue that is relevant to 50,000 babies born prematurely in Nepal every year and over 1.5 million in India, but they are doing it as graduate students in an innovative course at Stanford University. Taught by Professor Jim Patell, “Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability” gives student teams a chance to design products for organizations in the developing world that face pressing design challenges.
These students come from multiple disciplines, including business, engineering, development, and design. What they all have in common is a willingness to get outside of their comfort zone to hone their skills on real-world projects with the potential to have a tremendous impact on the ground.
The first class, co-designed by Professor Patell and David Kelley, the founder of IDEO, was held in 2003 and launched a business called Ignite Innovations that still produces and sells low-cost LED lights in India. One member of that team, Matt Scott, was a classmate of mine at Stanford Business School, and is now involved in social investing in the UK. Another founding member of Ignite is now a designer at IDEO. But the class has yielded more than inspired students.
In last year’s class, a team found a way to double the effectiveness of a low-cost mechanical pump for small-scale farmers, while cutting out 30% of the cost. Five thousand of these systems have been sold in Myanmar, and the organization that Patell identified as a partner for this project may now make this design the staple of its product portfolio. This years’ class is addressing the need for incubators, water storage devices and health technologies to help patients take asthma and diabetes medications.
In small and large ways, this course is impacting students, local entrepreneurs and the customers they serve. This morning, as I listened carefully to the pitch so that I could provide some guidance to the team, I thought about how the world of social change is evolving. As students compete for opportunities to bring their talent and creativity to the world’s most pressing problems, we see entrepreneurs that are hungry for this kind of talent in a great position to benefit.
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