design

If you haven’t voted in the People’s Design Award competition sponsored by the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the clock is ticking!

Acumen Fund investee D.Light Design is a nominee.

You can cast your vote HERE. Hurry - you have until 6 pm EST today to get your vote in!

UPDATE: As of 9:45 AM EST, D.Light Kiran was in FOURTH place (out of 196). Do submit your vote and push D.Light to the top!

Emily Smith is a second year MBA student at the Haas School of Business, interested in using social enterprise solutions to address poverty on a global scale. After receiving her degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Cornell University, Emily worked as a corporate consultant in New York City. She then spent time consulting with a nonprofit organization in Africa, where she discovered her passion for international development. After her time in Africa, Emily came to Haas to study market based approaches to poverty alleviation. Emily is President of Global Initiatives at Haas and head of Marketing for the Global Social Venture Competition. In addition, Emily has worked for a number of social enterprises in industries including microfinance, international health and fair trade.

Jacqueline Novogratz, Founder and CEO of Acumen Fund, and Tim Brown, CEO of renowned innovation and design firm IDEO, are old friends with a world-changing business partnership. Last week at the University of California at Berkeley, they united on stage for the first time to discuss human-centered poverty alleviation.  Another close friend (and Acumen Fund board member), Stuart Davidson of Labrador Ventures, moderated the discussion. The intimate and engaging conversation addressed the intersection between design and development, which has made a partnership between two seemingly different organizations so profoundly impactful.

Jacqueline and Tim’s friendship began at a TED conference, where Jacqueline was discussing water issues in the developing world, and IDEO had just recently been involved in a design project with KickStart aimed at increasing access to water. They immediately realized that they were both working towards a very similar goal: helping people innovate in order to grow. Jacqueline explained that “we were putting ourselves in other people’s shoes to better understand what they want, and that’s design thinking; that was a whole new lexicon for Acumen Fund.”

According to Tim, IDEO’s questioning process is about “drilling down and spending enough time to get beneath the surface. Making people notice things they might not have noticed themselves.” The challenge with bringing this method into development is being aware of cultural context. For that reason, he emphasized the importance of getting design thinking out into the world.

To support this effort, IDEO has developed an incredible guide, called the Human Centered Design Toolkit, to help organizations and entrepreneurs use design thinking in their work with impoverished communities. The aim, as Tim explained, is for people in need to be co-collaborators, for design thinking to be a co-owned process. This approach, in these extreme markets, will lead to innovations never dreamed of in the developed world.

Stuart brought up a common question in discussions about social entrepreneurship and innovation: how does this scale? “It’s not about the insight scaling, it’s about the ideas scaling,” Tim explained. The process is about getting ideas; then you develop the ideas which are truly scalable. Jacqueline noted that many top down approaches are scalable in theory, but they don’t work effectively and lose traction quickly if locals are not involved from the start.

The discussion shifted to how the language of the industry has changed over time. In Jacqueline’s opinion, “language precedes change.” She recalled that eight years ago, when Acumen Fund started, she had to argue with individuals who refused to be called “investors” because they weren’t getting any financial return. Now the concept of social return on investment is becoming widely accepted. The lexicon of the industry is shifting and acknowledging the power of an investment-oriented approach.

At the core of the investment approach is a full respect for all human beings, a sentiment that continually surfaced throughout the conversation. Market-based approaches aim to treat people as consumers, who despite their income level, desire all the things we desire. Jacqueline explained that instead of telling people what they “should” do, it’s about asking what people want as consumers and truly listening. In forcing accountability and investing in growth, we are able to actionably demonstrate a belief that all people are capable of achieving success.

The sessions closing sentiment related to each firms contribution to change in the developing world. Tim explained IDEO is about enabling choice; creating new choices that didn’t exist, so that people can make them if they desire. At the core of what both firms seek to produce, Jacqueline concluded, “real dignity ultimately comes from choice and opportunity.”

The event was hosted by Global Initiatives, a student run organization at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, focused on exploring market-based approaches to international development. The discussion was part of a Haas class called Market Based Approaches to Poverty Alleviation taught by former Acumen Fund Fellows Jocelyn Wyatt and David Lehr. Not your average business school course, this is one of the many opportunities offered by Haas, bringing innovative market-based approaches to students with a passion for social change.

The event was sponsored by The Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership, The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the Blum Center for Developing Economies.

Editor’s note: Video of the event can be seen on YouTube.

What should be the primary motive of a Social Enterprise - Maximizing social impact or ensuring enterprise sustainability or both? The debate is still on but I do sense this growing tendency amongst many of us (including me) to be more concerned with enterprise sustainability. We believe that if the enterprise is made sustainable, then it’s ability to create social impact automatically goes up. Nothing wrong with that, but shouldn’t we also be thinking of the of the “social” side of the enterprise?

The other day David Kuria, the founder CEO of Ecotact, walked into office and said, “Suraj! We need to do a demographic based study to understand people’s behaviour around accessing a toilet. We need to ensure that everybody can access a Ikotoilet!” (the pay-per-use toilet facilities built by Ecotact are branded as “Ikotoilet”)

My immediate thoughts - “We are already building toilets and maintaining them. We are already providing access to all. Why do we need to do a study? What more could we do? We have so many more toilets to build, so many systems and processes to put in place as we scale up and grow the Ikotoilet presence in other parts of Kenya.  More importantly should we be spending our already stretched out resources on doing a study? That too now?”

David continued - “For hygienic reasons all our Ikotoilet facilities have asian-style toilets but are asian style toilets comfortable for old people, pregnant women or for people with joint pains who find it difficult to squat?”

Very valid question which had honestly never crossed my mind.  While, my thinking continued to be around - do old people, pregnant women and people with joint pain constitute a large enough population to justify re-design of our toilets, David’s thinking was totally committed to improving access to toilets for everbody. I could sense my initial thoughts and questions melting and a sense of awe taking over in my head as I saw David deeply thinking of the “social” side of the enterprise.

(Kindly note that every Ikotoilet facility already has provisions for the disabled)

Editor’s note: Jocelyn Wyatt leads the Design for Social Impact initiative at IDEO (a global design consultancy). Prior to IDEO, Jocelyn worked as an Acumen Fund fellow in Kenya and served as Interim Country Director for VisionSpring in India. Jocelyn has an MBA from Thunderbird and a BA in Anthropology from Grinnell College. She blogs (periodically) on www.jocelynwyatt.com.

By Jocelyn Wyatt

Fully admitting my bias here, I did think the Design in the Developing World panel was an especially interesting conversation between a top-notch set of designers and practitioners. Caroline Balerin launched the panel with the question "What would it look like to design for the other 90%?" I fully expected the panelists, who have traditionally designed products, to respond with something about appropriately designed technologies. I was pleasantly surprised to hear each of them respond with the need to design not only the products, but the systems around them.

Paul Polak noted that the design of tools is trivial compared to designing how to mass market them. Tim Brown followed up with the need for us to design the distribution channels, supply chains and marketing strategies to ensure they get to market and scale. "Breakthrough innovation in the developing world is happening by designing systems." Kristen Peterson built on this with a story about how Inveneo started by designing hardware, but realizing that wasn’t enough, has moved to building partnerships with local entrepreneurs who can distribute the IT services.

The second point, which was made by Paul Hudnut, was the importance of empathy and the need to speak to your customers in a way that makes sense to them. In his example, the fuel efficient motorcycles that Environfit designed are appealing to its customers because they are faster and cheaper to run, not because they have lower emissions.

A major point of Paul Polak’s during the panel and in his book, Out of Poverty, was that design for the other 90% needs to be about the "ruthless pursuit of affordability." If we can design for people who make less than $1/day, the tools will scale. It’s not enough to cosmetically change existing technologies, rather, they must be designed for the needs of the customers. Tim Brown talked about the need for rapid "just enough" prototyping and close collaboration with customers to ensure that designs are appropriate and useful.

A point which echoed what I had heard throughout the conference was the need to take a business approach to designing for the poor. By showing that profits are possible, big business will be encouraged to enter the market and will start designing for the other 90%. Paul Hudnut emphasized this and mentioned that he’s most proud of the large factory in China that is manufacturing Environfit’s clean burning stoves, which is making it possible for them to be priced affordably enough to sell 10,000/month. Tim Brown added that "all progress has happened because of profit drivers." Philanthropy doesn’t have the potential to make systemic change or scale happen, but business does.

Finally, the panelists all emphasized the need to build local capacity. Kristen Peterson mentioned that designing a local delivery channel for installation and repair of IT solutions will allow for scale. Paul Polak and Tim Brown both emphasized the need to teach innovation and design thinking at universities worldwide. Paul’s plan is to create 100 Stanford and MIT-like design courses at universities, 50 of them in the developing world and Tim hopes to see the creation of design schools in India and Africa.

"Scale" was a frequently-used buzzword at the conference and the question of how to get good ideas to scale is one that remains on the table. We are now seeing how design can address issues of scale. Whether it’s by designing appropriate products or services for the other 90%, by designing the systems around these products or services, or by teaching the design thinking approach to social entrepreneurs and students, design certainly has a contribution to make to this sector and truly has the potential to help good ideas scale and create deep and lasting impact.

The Skoll Foundation funds a fantastic ongoing interview series called the X Interview. Posted online to Social Edge, the X Interview is conducted by a mysterious blogger named Global X. Recently, Global X sat down with Acumen Fund ally (and Advisory Council member), IDEO CEO Tim Brown.

The interview - only 2 minutes, 30 seconds long - covers a few different topics, but Brown focuses mainly on insights he gleaned from a trip to India in the company of Acumen Fund CEO Jacqueline Novogratz:

…he [Brown] was impressed by the systemic thinking and level of innovation that Dr.Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr. V) had brought to the Aravind Eye Care Hospital in Madurai.

It is now believed to be the best eye care and teaching facility in the world. The lesson?

“By trying to serve those who have the most needs, you can end up being truly innovative, to a point where those innovations have relevance not only in the developing world but in the developed world also.”

Via the new Skoll Foundation blog.

Over at Social Edge, former Acumen Fund Fellow and current IDEO employee is leading an online discussion about designing for social impact. This is a natural topic for Jocelyn, whose blog - Design and Reach - covers these topics. Beyond her blog, Jocelyn has - in her IDEO capacity - worked with The Rockefeller Foundation to develop a very handy workbook and guide for companies looking to design for social impact. Finally, she wrote a guest post about the project over at NextBillion.net, the Acumen Fund / World Resources Institute blog exploring development through enterprise and base of the pyramid strategy.

The Social Edge-hosted online discussion is underway. Jocelyn has introduced it as follows:

Design and innovation have been increasingly recognized as important factors in the success of social enterprise. At IDEO, we believe in the power of design thinking, a human-centered approach to innovation and problem solving. We have seen firsthand that social entrepreneurs can incorporate the principles of design thinking to develop product or service offerings that better connect with the needs of their customers, move more quickly from design to implementation, and communicate the benefits of their offerings in a compelling manner.

Design thinking is applied to more than just products; it can be used to design programs, services, experience, spaces, or just about anything you can think of. Three aspects of design thinking that are especially relevant to social entrepreneurs are empathy, prototyping, and storytelling.

Check it out, register and chime in.

This week I attended the seventh-annual NID Design Summit in Bangalore (more on that later).  Gregg Davis from Design Central got me thinking about the connection between the lives of designers and social entrepreneurs. It’s a work in progress; I’d love to get your feedback.

Designers and social entrepreneurs share a few things in common:
1. They think with their hearts
2. They are chronically underpaid
3. Their interests lie outside the status quo

1. They think with their hearts
Both designers and social entrepreneurship require a great deal of empathy for the condition of others.  Not everyone desires the opportunity to walk in someone else’s shoes but both of these groups have created careers around immersing themselves in other people’s problems. 

Deciding to live in uncomfortable circumstances when you don’t need to is not a “rational” exercise.
Seeking to create desire rather than need is not a “rational” exercise.

2. They are chronically underpaid
Design and social impact outcomes are difficult to track.  The designer’s work is conceptual.  The value she creates is realized often years in the future.  The social entrepreneur’s work is distant from infrastructure.  The value she creates is often a public good or too expensive to quantify.  Since these outcomes are intangible, the economic value of the work is hidden and neither designer nor social entrepreneur can capture the maximum remuneration for their personal sacrifice.  But, like real estate: Labor costs what people are willing to be paid.  The non-financial benefits must make up the difference or the industry would not exist.  (I’m sure lots of people have written about this.  If you have any reading suggestions, please let me know.)

Recently, Acumen collaborated with Google to create a beta database that keeps track of the financial and social impact of their investments.  This is ground-breaking work because now impact data will be sharable and comparable.  Acumen can track the value it creates across investments, across time.  Acumen can learn more rigorously about its portfolio’s performance and communicate its impact more effectively. Once Acumen opens this database to other organizations, it can start a dialog about effective change. Might the design community also benefit from mechanisms that track the intangible value design creates?

3. Their interests lie outside the status quo
Designers and social entrepreneurs spend their days thinking beyond established systems. For the designer, it is in the unrealized future of goods and services.  For the social entrepreneur, it is what has fallen between the cracks of the public and the private sectors.  If all the problems of the world were systemically solved, neither designers nor social entrepreneurs would be needed.  We could all be artists and philosophers.