Bop Book Online

Designing for
Emerging Markets
Design of Products and Services
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Designing for
Emerging Markets
Design of Products and Services
Edited by
Prabhu Kandachar
Ilona de Jongh
Jan Carel Diehl
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Printed on recycled paper
Editors: Prabhu Kandachar, Ilona de Jongh and Jan Carel Diehl
Cover design: Ilona de Jongh

Designing for Emerging Markets, Design of Products and Services
IDE Masters Projects - 3
Edition March 2009
ISBN 978-90-5155-052-8
2009 Delft University of Technology
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronically or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any other
information storage and retrieval system without explicit written
permission from the authors.
Delft University of Technology
Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering
Landbergstraat 15
2628 CE DELFT
www.io.tudelft.nl/BoP
Phone +31 (0) 15 278 3034
Fax +31 (0) 15 278 1839
E-mail p.v.kandachar@tudelft.nl
j.c.diehl@tudelft.nl
i.k.dejongh@tudelft.nl
bop-io@tudelft.nl
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On the right side of the pages with project summaries, the
specic domain(s) of the project are indicated with use of
icons. On the right side of this page all icons are shown with
the correspding domain in words. This can be used as a
reference throughout this book, or as a search tool for cases
in a specic domain.
Education
Health
Food & Nutrition
Water
Energy
Housing
Materials
Connectivity
Designing & Tools
Entrepreneurship
People
Planet
Profit
Each project in this booklet is performed with thought for
all three pillars of responsible business: People, Planet
and Prot. Sometimes however, a more nuanced focus is
distinguished. This distincton is indicated for each project
on the upper left side of the page, using the following
symbols.
Project Focus
Legend
56
Company Graduati on date
Despite recent progress, the Cambodian economy still
has to reconstitute from the effects of the civil war. The
population often lacks education and productive skills,
which leads to a high unemployment rate, especially in
the countryside. About 40% of the population lives below
poverty line and has to live of less than 1$ per day. As
90% of the Cambodian population does not have access
to a secure electricity infrastructure, economic and social
progress are slowed down as well.
These circumstances set the framework of Kamworks
business idea: securing sophisticated energy and light
supply and creating new jobs for young Cambodians. As
the country receives approximately ve full sun hours each
day, solar energy is one of the promising technologies. The
objective of this graduation project was the design and
development of a mobile solar kiosk for Cambodian micro-
entrepreneurs, enabling the setup of a self-sustaining
business by distributing solar products to the rural area of
Cambodia, in continuation of the intensive collaboration
between Kamworks and Delft University of Technology, see
page 116 .
Extreme road conditions
Through intense user and context research in Cambodia,
technical and usability criteria were dened, as well as
social and cultural inuences. These formed the framework
of this project. The rst constraint was the underdeveloped
road network and the extremely bad road conditions. Also,
with heavy rain seasons from May until October the road
conditions get even worse which poses a challenge to the
Kamworks December 14, 2007
Mobile Solar Kiosk for
Micro-Entrepeneurs
Miriam Reitenbach
In order to get an understanding on how the anticipated customer reacted
on the mobile store, the Cambodian translator was asked to drive around
the rural areas to obtain feedback. In the rst place he acted as micro-
entrepreneur who sells products, consequently he interviewed the potential
customers.
57
technical requirements.
Interviews with potential customers of the solar products
revealed that Cambodians were not yet familiar with solar
energy in general and that the way of communicating and
explaining products forms a major criterion for the success
of the sales results.
The outcomes of this research were translated into a nal
concept that was rened by means of iteratively building and
testing the prototype to guarantee not only the technical
feasibility of the mobile store, but also acceptance among
the future users - the micro-entrepreneurs.
Biking without pedaling
The nal design was a three-wheeled electric bicycle that
can be recharged by solar energy. By making use of this
renewable energy technology and being remarkably lighter
than existing mobile stores, this vehicle is less polluting than
traditional motorised stores and can contribute to promote
sustainable energy in an effective way. User tests showed
that an electric bike caught the attention of the customer
immediately as most rural people never saw someone
driving on a bike without pedalling before.
In order to cope with the bad road conditions a new
suspension system was developed that can damp the
wheels individually which makes it much easier to drive and
steer the vehicle, even on bumpy and unpaved roads.
In the front part of this mobile solar kiosk a yellow carrier
is mounted that serves not only to transport the solar
products, but also as a store front when the lid is opened.
Due to the, for the local context, innovative material
application of glass bre reinforced plastic an attractive and
eye-catching form of the carrier could be achieved.
In the context of a holistic approach this project did not
only focus on the design and construction of the kiosk, but
also presented recommendations on how to communicate
to the local customers in an effective and adequate way,
such as a LED display and posters explaining the benets
and cost savings of solar products. Additionally, a new
bilingual brand name and logo was created that made it
possible to communicate with Khmer customers as well as
Western stakeholders and contributes to a quality image of
the mobile solar kiosk.
Local Production and maintenance
When designing the mobile kiosk, only locally available
materials and production techniques were considered in
order to generate local income, as local manufacturing was
one of the greatest requirements for the design. These
manufacturing experts of the kiosk would also be able to
take care of the maintenance and reparations, keeping all
the work and the money local.
The bilingual logo on the side of the glass bre reinforced carrier.
www.kamworks.com
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Photo: Jimmy Ho
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Rice Fields
near Culik
Bali, Indonesia
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The number of student projects at the Faculty of Industrial
Design Engineering relevant to the Base of the Pyramid
(BoP) has increased enormously since 2002, when the
course Advanced Products for Masters students started
a small experiment with projects focused on developing
countires was started. The increase of projects is due to
several reasons.
Firstly, students of our Faculty have shown great interest
and enthusiasm to design products and services to meet
the needs of the citizens of the BoP. Secondly, the concept
of BoP has attracted the attention of many Dutch and
European entrepreneurs, leading to several assignments for
our students, often in collaboration with people living at the
economic BoP. Thirdly, the supervising staff of our Faculty
is equally active in supporting
such initiatives. And lastly, more
and more Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs), both in
the Netherlands and in some BoP
countries, have been opening up
their doors to such trials.
But what is this BoP? Base
of the Pyramid (or Bottom of
the Pyramid, as it is sometimes
termed) refers to the 4-billion
plus poor mostly in non-western
countries in Asia, Latin America,
and Africa, living on incomes
less than $3260
1
per year. Some
parts of these geographical
regions, such as China, India,
Brazil, Russia, have markets
experiencing phenomenal
economic growth not unnoticed
1 Monica Touesnard, http://www.bopnetwork.org/
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Base of the Pyramid projects executed all over the world by students from
Delft University of Technology, in the time period between 2004 and 2009.
8
Millennium Development Goals
The extensive response to these ideas is likely due to the
limited success of developmental assistance to alleviate
poverty in the past 50 years. For more than 50 years, the
World Bank, donor nations, various aid agencies, national
governments, and civil society organizations have all fought
the good ght, but have not been able to eradicate poverty
yet. The adoption of the Millennium Development Goals
(MDG) by the United Nations only underscores that reality.
Poverty has remained one of the worlds most daunting
problems even as we enter the 21st Century. Prahalad
advocates an alternative approach to help the poor.
Science Spread over the World
The projects described in this book are a result of several
students, entrepreneurs and academic staff stimulated by
this strategy. The BoP concept is spreading to all parts of the
world, both within the rich and in the poor countries. This
is also reected by the geographical spread of the projects
executed at our Faculty, as can be seen in the picture on
the opposite page.
It can also be observed that the projects cover very
diverse needs, from Water to Energy, from Healthcare to
Education, and more. These projects could not have been
executed without the involvement of students, companies,
NGOs, and professors. Together they have set up a base
to develop a new knowledge domain full of challenges and
opportunities. Thank you all!
Prabhu Kandachar
March 2009
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by the afuent west.
Although the BoP strategy to serve the underserved,
namely the poor in developing countries, has attracted the
attention of scientists and entrepreneurs worldwide, the
scientic publications in this area until now are often from
management sciences, often extending the concepts of
corporate social responsibility, sustainability, etc.
The uniqueness of our Faculty of Industrial Design
Engineering lies in its human centered approach. Needs are
the central driving force uniting technology and business.
By tradition our Faculty has propagated the practice of
designing products and services to meet the human needs.
The BoP strategy has stimulated us to look also at the needs
of the underserved, which represent a huge market and
was hitherto unattended.
The foundation for the BoP strategy was laid by Prahalad
& Hart
2
, in their publication published in the rst quarter
of 2002, promising fortune for entrepreneurs and at the
same time offering perspectives to the poor world majority
to escape from the poverty. This caught public attention
and unleashed an extensive response from academics,
businesses, NGOs and others. Prahalads book
3
delves in
depth by proposing a framework for the active engagement
of the private sector and suggesting a basis for a protable
win-win engagement. This vision of untapped great wealth
in the world waiting to be explored & exploited by human
ingenuity, by designing products and services to meet the
needs of the worlds poor, and then efciently manufacturing
& distributing by the capabilities of the modern corporation,
Prahalad contends, needs innovations.
2 The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, Strategy+business,
issue 26, First quarter 2002, p. 1- 14 (Booz Allen Hamiliton)
3 The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty
Through Prots, ISBN-10: 0-13-146750-6; ISBN-13: 978-0-13-
146750-7 (Published 2004) Pages: 432.
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Project Focus 2
Preface 6
Introduction Prabhu Kandachar Challenges for Industrial Designers 10
Student Projects
Inge van de Wouw Dec 8, 08 Lamp with insect repellent 26
Aparna Bhasker 2009 India Moves: Economic Empowerment of Rural Disabled 28
Ambika Samabasivan Oct 30, 08 Global Opportunities in Renewable Lighting 30
Lieke Pijpers Oct 24, 08 PRO-PORTION Affordable milk for kids 32
Sierk Hennes Sep 23, 08 Design a PSS for drinking water 34
Kirsten Rijke Aug 26, 08 Solar shop in rural Cambodia 38
Tom van Diessen Aug 22, 08 Solar Home System for rural Cambodia 40
Linda Schnieders Jul 28, 08 Redesign of a Smoke free Batana Extractor 42
Lumen Jun, 08 LUMEN light solution 44
Judith Goor Apr 04, 08 A battery charging system for youngsters 46
Jan Willem Findlater Feb 8, 08 Culturally appropriate cofns for Botswana 50
Water4Kenya Feb, 08 Water4Kenya 52
Alexander van der Kleij Feb 1, 08 Comparing Contexts; Solar Dew Technology 54
Miriam Reitenbach Dec 14, 07 Mobile Solar Kiosk for Micro-Entrepeneurs 56
Koos Munneke Oct 24, 07 Better Brace Project 58
Bernard Hulshof Oct 19, 07 Affordable Solar Lighting for rural Madagascar 62
Rutger Bonsel Oct 12, 07 Holy Cow or Cash Cow 64
Hoi-Kee Wong Aug 8, 07 Cooking in rural China 66
Fire4India May, 07 Fire4India 68
Yu-Kuan Chang Nov 27, 06 Knowledge Gaps in Product Development 70
Culture & Design Annemiek van Boeijen Design & culture in the BoP Domain 74
Annemarie Mink Nov 10, 06 Reeling Machine for Silk Yarn Producers 78
Marion de Groot Sep 21, 06 Support Tool for the Chinese Village Doctor 80
Cathelijne Huis in t Veld Aug 31, 06 Design of a Malaria Diagnostics Device 82
Roelie Bottema Aug 4, 06 Personal Water Purier 84
Mijntje de Caluw Jul 29, 06 Knowledge Framework: Design4Billions 86
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Elselien Epema Jul 7, 06 Product Service System for Plant Oil Stove 90
GhanaMoves Jul-06 Tricycle for Disabled Entrepreneurs 92
Willem Glasbergen Jun 21, 06 Human Powered Bamboo Splitting Tool 94
Marike Bijtelaar Jun 16, 06 Improving the Climate of Cooking Areas 96
Maria Nguyen Apr 28, 06 Safe Drinking Water 98
Leonie Ideler Apr 4, 06 Adoptable Woodstove 102
Fernando Del Caro Secomandi Apr, 06 Water Supply in Slums:P.I.P.A. System 104
Jon Rodriguez Feb 3, 06 Contextualizing Products 106
Cale Thompson Sep 14, 06 Online Micronance: into(context) 108
Jonathan Stranders Dec 23, 05 Creating Market Insight for Designers 110
Suzanne Hendrikse Nov 11, 05 Device for Early Oral Cancer Detection 114
Stephen Boom Oct 28, 05 Solar Lighting 116
Roseliek van der Velden Oct 21, 05 Adoptability of the U-Specs 118
Joan Boekhoven Oct 18, 05 Natural Fibres in Doors and Windows 120
H.S. Smallenbroek 2004 Small scale cassava starch processing 122
Epilogue J.C.Diehl The rst learning experiences of Design for the BoP 126
Acknowledgements 130
About the Editors 131
Photos
P.I.P.A. system Brazil Fernando Del Caro Secomandi Cover
Rice Fiels near Culik Bali, Indonesia Jimmy Ho 4
Kids swimming and playing Jakarta, Indonesia Ilona de Jongh 24
Girl Java, Indonesia Mirjam Lindgreen 36
Man Fishing on Citarum River Java, Indonesia Kees van Gastel 48
Man and horse at work Java, Indonesia Mirjam Lindgreen 60
Market for Holi Colours India Prabhu Kandachar 72
Boats Cambodia Stephen Boom 76
Girl Getting Water in Favela Rio de Janeiro Ferry 88
Girls in Favelas Rio de Janeiro Linda Schnieders 100
Man at Home Chongming Island Jaap Daalhuizen 112
Toilet in a Rural Village Chongming Island Jaap Daalhuizen 124
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Goal 1: Eradicate extreme poverty
and hunger
Goal 2: Achieve universal primary
education
Goal 3: Promote gender equality
and empower women
Goal 4: Reduce child mortality
Goal 5: Improve maternal health
Goal 6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria
and other diseases
Goal 7: Ensure environmental
sustainability
Goal 8: Develop a Global
Partnership for
Development
Challenges for Industrial
Design Engineers
Prabhu Kandachar
About two thirds of the worlds population of 6 billion people
spend their lives searching for food and shelter, ghting for
physical survival, and fearing for the future. These are the
individuals who earn less than three dollars per day: the
people living at the economical Base of the Pyramid (BoP).
This does not go unnoticed. Global poverty, its extent and
distribution, is of daily news screaming for the attention of
all world citizens. The challenge at world level is enormous.
In Africa alone, poverty and hunger, unemployment,
disease, malnutrition, lack of shelter, gender inequity
and environmental deterioration are some of the main
challenges in addressing poverty.
The developments in the last century have attracted the
attention of world leaders. At the Millennium Summit in
September 2000 the largest gathering of world leaders in
history adopted the UN Millennium Declaration, committing
their nations to a new global partnership to reduce extreme
poverty and set out a series of targets with a deadline
of 2015, which have become known as the Millennium
Development Goals
1
. The image on the left shows the eight
goals.
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the worlds
time-bound and quantied targets for addressing extreme
poverty in its many dimensions - income poverty, hunger,
disease, lack of adequate shelter, and exclusion - while
promoting gender equality, education, and environmental
sustainability. Also included are basic human rights - the
right of each person on the planet to health, shelter, and
1 http://www.undp.org/mdg/basics.shtml
Eight Millennium Development Goals, to be achieved in 2015.
12
security and there are specic aims at combating child
mortality, AIDS, Malaria and other diseases.
The MDGs are an agreed set of goals that can only be
achieved if all actors work together and do their part. Poor
countries have pledged to govern better, and invest in their
people through health care and education. Rich countries
have pledged to support them, through aid, debt relief, and
fairer trade.
As an institution which is an expert in designing products
and services to meet human needs, it could be that some
of the needs of the population at the Base of the Pyramid
are addressable by the expertise available at the Faculty
of Industrial Design Engineering, Delft University of
Technology. Most problems can be grouped in the domains
of education, healthcare, food & nutrition, water, energy,
housing, materials, connectivity, designing & tools, and
entrepreneurship. Each of these domains will be discussed,
giving an overview of the needs and problems. The rest
of the book presents student projects that aim at solving
problems within one or more of these domains, with
two different chapters: on page 74, an insight is giving
on design and culture at the BoP, and the epilogue on
page 126 reects on the student projects and draws some
preliminary conclusions about the lessons learned.
Education
An essential ingredient for the full realization of human
capacity, education is considered to provide everyone the
opportunity to make a better life for themselves. Education
provides the basis for making informed choices, for seeing
beyond the immediate horizon and opportunities, and for
having a voice in public decision making. A sustainable
end to world poverty as we know it, as well as the path to
peace and security, requires that citizens in every country
are empowered to make positive choices and provide for
themselves and their families. This can only be achieved
if everyone is given a chance to learn in a high-quality
schooling environment at least through primary school.
At a country level, education is considered to be an
important determinant of economic growth and is frequently
hailed as one of the primary contributing factors to the
dramatic economic growth in East Asia. Individuals with a
strong educational attainment also have good earnings. A
greater access to good quality education is a key poverty-
reduction strategy advocated throughout the developing
world.
More and more children, youth and adults have a
chance to learn and the number of children in school
continues to grow. Today 680 million children are enrolled
in primary schools around the world. Yet, a lot more still
needs to be done. More than 100 million children, over
half of them girls, never get a chance to see the inside
of a classroom. Furthermore, the poor quality of education
provided, resulting from irrelevant and obsolete curricula,
overcrowded classrooms, untrained teachers, etc., causes
high incompletion rates.
Literacy empowers and nurtures inclusive societies and
contributes to the fair implementation of human rights. In
the case of mothers, literacy leads to an enhanced quality
of life for their families and improved education outcomes
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for their children. Parents education, and particularly
mothers education, is seen to result in lower fertility, lower
maternal mortality, and better child health and nutrition
status. It is also suggested that individuals with at least
some education respond better to HIV/AIDS prevention
messages. Nevertheless literacy remains a low priority for
national governments and the donor community. Worldwide,
781 million adults are illiterate (as of April 2006) and about
100 million children are out of school.
A large number of those who enrol drop out before attaining
literacy skills and some of those who complete primary
education remain illiterate. Literacy is an indispensable means
for effective social and economic participation, contributing
to human development and poverty reduction.
Goal 2 of the Millennium Development Goals has set out
by the year 2015 to ensure that all boys and girls complete a
full course of primary schooling.
The use of information and communication technologies
(ICT) in and for education is rapidly expanding in many
countries, and is now seen worldwide as both a necessity and
an opportunity. In different countries policies and strategies
to integrate information and communication technologies in
education are being developed. While ICT use in education in
developing countries is relatively recent, it has nevertheless
made an impact on the education system. It has generated
a wealth of experience, good practices and lessons for the
benet of countries where ICT application and integration in
education are being established2.
2 http://portal.unesco.org/en/
Everyone knows the resources in the world are not divided evenly over the
entire population. This inequal distribution of money and power needs action.
World Income Distribution 2000
14
the challenge of providing access to sustainable healthcare
in developing countries. Money is the single biggest barrier
to improving healthcare in the developing world. In many
countries people do not have enough food or access to a
clean water supply, no hospital or clinic in which to receive
treatment and few healthcare professionals to care for them.
Often the governments of these countries simply do not
have the resources needed to address the healthcare needs
of their people. The World Bank estimates that an annual
healthcare expenditure of $14 per person is the minimum
needed to provide the most fundamental services. Yet the
average expenditure in sub-Saharan Africa, for example, is
currently only $63.
Food and Nutrition
Food security and insecurity are terms used to describe
peoples access to sufcient quality and quantity of food.
They are affected by factors such as poverty, health, food
production, political stability, infrastructure, access to markets,
and natural hazards. Improved food security is important for
global reduction of hunger and poverty, and for economic
development. One aim of the Millennium Development
Goals (MDG) is to eradicate poverty and hunger, including
to reduce by half the proportion of people who suffer from
hunger between 1990 and 2015. However, by 2003 the
proportion of world population that was undernourished
had only decreased from 20% to 17% (823 to 820 million
people). It is predicted that many regions will not reach
their MDG targets, particularly sub-Saharan Africa where
a third of the population is food insecure and there is an
3 The World Health Report 2006, http://www.who.int/
Healthcare
Differences in health standards between rich & poor
countries are very high. Life expectancy varies between
36 and 85 years. A child born in a rich country receives
vaccinations, adequate nutrition and good schooling. When
a girl becomes a mother she will benet from high-quality
maternity care. Growing older, she may eventually develop
chronic diseases, but excellent treatment and rehabilitation
services will be available. On the other hand, a child born in
a poor country has little chance of receiving immunizations
and a high probability of being underweight throughout
childhood. She will probably marry early and give birth
to many children without the assistance of a trained birth
attendant. One or more of her babies will die in infancy, and
she herself will be at high risk of death during childbirth.
If she survives middle age she, too, will develop chronic
diseases but, without access to adequate treatment, she will
die prematurely.
This illustrates what medicine and public health can
achieve, and shows unmet needs in a world of vast and
growing health inequalities. The key task of the global
health community is therefore to close the gap between
such contrasting lives. Real progress in health depends
vitally on stronger health systems based on primary health
care. Attention is needed across all levels of the health care
system to integrate health promotion and disease prevention
on the one hand and treatment for acute illness and chronic
care on the other.
Experiences from past decades, ghting against diseases
across the world, show that there are no easy solutions to
15
actual increase (through population growth) in the number
of hungry people. Southern Asia is also not expected to meet
its goal, with increasing numbers of undernourished people
in countries such as Bangladesh and Nepal.
The factors affecting this problem include: (1) availability
of food, or the amount of food that actually exists (local
production and other sources) (2) peoples physical, economic
and social access to food (3) the quality or nutritional
adequacy of that food; and (4) peoples ability to utilize
this food, including the patterns of control over who eats
what and the physical ability to absorb nutrients (affected by
health status factors such as intestinal parasites).
Malnutrition, a widespread problem, is caused by
deciencies or imbalances in energy, protein and/or other
nutrients. Signs include wasting (thinness), stunting
(shortness), or being underweight (low weight for age due
to wasting/stunting). Protein-energy deciency is a leading
cause of child death in developing countries. Deciencies
in micro nutrients (vitamins and minerals) can also affect
mental and physical health.
Micronutrient malnutrition is a major global public health
problem affecting more than a third of the world population.
Consequences of this malnutrition are widespread and severe.
For example iron deciency anaemia remains a major health
problem and can negatively impact on health, life expectancy,
work productivity and economies. It has been estimated that
iron deciency impairs the mental development of 40 to 60%
of children in developing countries. Also, vitamin A deciency
affects 40% of children, and is a factor in 1 million child
deaths per year. Thirdly, iodine deciency during pregnancy
Countries with a critical shortage of health service providers (doctors, nurses
and midwives) are coloured dark. [World Health Organization, Global Atlas of
the Health Workforcehttp://www.who.int/globalatlas/default.asp]
Shortage of Health Service Providers
16
causes mental impairment in 18 million babies born every
year. Several strategies have been proposed to address
these problems. They include food fortication, dietary
diversication, dietary supplementation, nutrition education,
and public health measures to control intestinal parasites
and other infectious diseases. Also, when people do have
access to food, more efcient and healthy food preparation
methods and tools can address the problem of unhealthy
preparation.
Water
The most common substance on earth is water. Ninety-
seven percent of it is seawater, unt for human use. Of
the remaining 3%, two-thirds is locked up in glaciers or ice
and snow around the poles. Only 1% of the entire worlds
water is available for human consumption. Even this small
percentage should be enough for all, water being innitely
renewable. However, water is not distributed evenly. Canada,
Austria and Ireland, have more water than they can possibly
use; Australia, northern China and the Middle East, have too
little. In India and Bangladesh, rainfall is highly seasonal:
almost all the year's supply may arrive within a few months.
Water is also heavy, which makes it costly to transport over
long distances. In many countries, millions of poor people
(usually women) must walk for several hours a day to get
water; or they pay exorbitant prices to private water vendors.
And often water quality is poor. Inadequate sanitation makes
matters worse. As much as 60% of the world's illness is
water-related. Water shortage is expected all over the world
in the coming 20 years as shown in the gure on the right4.
4 Water Scenarios in 2025, WBCSD, August 2006, http://www.wbcsd.org/
In developing countries, less than 10% of the naturally available water
is withdrawn [Adapted from Grey and Sadoff, 2006, The Global Water
Challenge].
Households (%) That Lack
In-House Improved
Connection to Drinking Improved
Water Water Sanitation
China 41 23 56
Russia 19 4 13
Mexico 11 9 23
Colombia 15 8 14
Peru 28 19 28
In China two-fth of the households lack an in-house connection to water,
almost a quarter lacks improved drinking water and more than half of all
Chinese lack improved sanitation [United Nations Habitat].
The Global Water Challenge
17
One of the millennium targets requires that an additional 1.5
billion people gain access to some form of improved water
supply by 2015, which is 100 million people each year (or
274,000 people each day).
Energy
Energy is required for most of the human activities. In 2003,
no less than 80% of the world's energy consumption came
from fossil fuels. The extensive use of energy technologies,
especially when utilizing fossil energy resources, has also
generated undesirable by-products, wastes and pollution
that threaten human health, climate and ecosystems. The
extraction, conversion to useful energy (such as electricity
for a home or gasoline for a car), and combustion of
fuels like oil, coal, natural gas, etc, releases into the
atmosphere approximately 80% of human-induced (termed
anthropogenic) greenhouse gas emissions. The environmental
consequences are causing concern rstly from the reliance on
natural resources, and secondly from the damage to global,
regional, and local environments from emissions.
The global requirements for energy are increasing rapidly
as the global population increases and the under-developed
nations become more advanced. Nearly two billion people in
our world of rapidly approaching six billion people currently
do not have access to commercial energy services.
Understanding and assisting in putting to use the laws of
nature for the transition towards a sustainable energy system
is the fundamental challenge of todays and tomorrows
scientists & engineers. One of the greatest challenges ahead
is to connect the 1.6 billion people in developing countries
currently without access to modern energy services in an
Prognosis after 2000 assumes a global economic growth of 3% and a global
population of 9 billion people by 2050 [Deutsche Shell, http://www.spiegel.de/
international/spiegel/0,1518,grossbild-685811-429968,00.html].
Worldwide Energy Consumption
18
environmentally benign manner. Other challenges include the
ongoing urbanization throughout the world creating higher
and higher energy demand densities, increasing demand for
mobility, especially in developing countries, and additional
energy needs for new processes such as desalination.
Clearly, meeting such a challenge requires a proactive & a
co-operative contribution from all involved.
In Africa, for instance, overcoming energy poverty is one of
the main challenges. The majority of Africans currently have
no access to modern energy services and technologies.
This has wide-ranging social and environmental
consequences. Lack of access to electricity means no
refrigeration for medicines or food, limits on what type of
businesses can be developed, as well as no effective lighting.
As a result, children cannot easily study in the evenings.
Most Africans, even in urban areas, still use rewood, crop
residues or charcoal for cooking and cook on inefcient
stoves, resulting in a high incidence of respiratory diseases
because of smoke. Many women and girls have to spend
hours collecting rewood, and cutting trees contributes to
deforestation.
There are also opportunities. A recent study5, by the
German Aerospace Center and Ecofys in The Netherlands,
commissioned by Greenpeace and Europe's Renewable
Energy Council. claims that half of the world's energy needs
in 2050 could be met by renewable energy and by improved
efciency. According to this study, alternative energy sources,
such as wind and solar, could provide nearly 70% of the
global electricity demand and 65% of global heat demand.
5 Report: Energy Revolution, Jan 2007
Housing and Urbanization
Some 1.2 billion people worldwide live on the equivalent
of less than one dollar per day. The United Nations Centre
for Human Settlements (UNCHS) has estimated that 1.1
billion people are living in inadequate housing conditions in
urban areas alone, and that gure is expected to double by
2030. UNCHS has also estimated that some approximately
35 million new housing units are required each year in
developing countries to accommodate growth in the number
of households during the period between 2000 and 2010
period. The bulk of these, some 21 million units, are required
to cater for the needs of the increasing number of households.
The rest is needed to meet the requirements of people who
are currently homeless or living in inadequate housing. In
other words, some 95,000 new urban housing units have to
be constructed each day in developing countries to improve
housing conditions to acceptable levels. Some 14 million
additional units would be required each year for the next
20 years if the current housing decit were to be replaced
by 2020. Among an estimated 100 million homeless people
around the world, available data suggest that increasing
proportions are women and children.
But the main event of the demographic change is in the
cities of the developing world and most of it in squatter
cities, the teeming slums of the uninvited. A billion people
live in squatter cities now. Two billion more are expected by
2050. Squatters are nearly one-sixth of all humans now, one-
fourth to one-third in the nearby future.
Historically, cities have been the driving force in economic
and social development. At present approximately 307 million
19
Indians (31% of the population) live in nearly 3700 towns
and cities spread across the country. This is in sharp contrast
to only 60 million (15%) who lived in urban areas in 1947
when the country became independent. During the last fty
years the population of India has grown two and half times,
but Urban India has grown by nearly ve times. In numerical
terms, India's urban population is second largest in the world
after China, and is higher than the total urban population of
all countries put together barring China, USA and Russia.
Facilities in houses are also of big challenge. Less than
20% of households in Africa are connected to piped water,
and only 40% have piped water within 200 meters of their
home. In the developing world, 29% of cities have areas
considered as "inaccessible" or "dangerous" to the police. In
Latin America and the Caribbean, this gure is 48%. Less than
35% of cities in the developing world have their wastewater
treated. In countries with economies in transition, 75% of
solid wastes are disposed of in open dumps.
Housing problems have far-reaching consequences. The
high cost of housing leaves low-income families little money
for other basic necessities like food, clothing or health care.
Substandard housing can endanger the health and safety of
its occupants, erode their hope and self-worth, and impair
their children's ability to succeed in school.
Materials and Resources
Developing countries are concerned with promoting
technological advancement as a means of economic
development, which in turn contributes to social development.
Raw materials and local resources provide basic building
blocks for such developments. Developed countries are much
20
further in application of material and resources by means
of industrial production wherein energy and raw materials
are fed continuously into the production process, resulting
in useful products as well as waste or other by-products.
Increasing concern worldwide for environmental protection
and growing economical constraints have led to development
and utilization of new materials based on renewable
resources such as natural bres and plant materials, as well
as recycling of industrial by-products.
Developing countries have often abundant local renewable
materials and basic expertise. For instance natural bres
produced from animals or plants are plentifully available in
developing countries. Animal bres are derived from sources
such as sheep, goats and rabbits, and the cocoon of the
silkworm. Vegetable bres are derived from the stem, leaf or
seed of various plants. Close to 30 million tonnes of natural
bres are produced annually in the world, of which cotton is
dominant with 20 million tonnes, wool and jute each around
2 to 3 million tonnes followed by a number of others.
Natural bres form an important component of clothing,
upholstery and other textiles for consumers, and many of
them also have industrial uses in packaging, papermaking
and in composite materials with many uses, including
automobiles.
Apart from their importance to the consumer and in their
various industrial uses, natural bres are an important
source of income for the farmers who produce them. In
some cases they are produced on large farms in developed
countries, but in many developing and least developed
countries proceeds from the sale and export of natural bres
contribute signicantly to the income and food security
of poor farmers and workers in bre industries. For some
developing countries natural bres are of major economic
importance, for example, cotton in some West African
countries, jute in Bangladesh and sisal in Tanzania. In other
cases these bres are of less signicance at the national level
but are of major local importance, as in the case of jute in
West Bengal (India) and sisal in northeast Brazil.
Challenges in this area include attaining economic growth
by designing and commercializing products based on such
local renewable natural resources without raising the
ecological pressure on the planet.
Connectivity
Communications in the richer part of the world by means
of newspapers, radio, TV, telephones are self-evident. The
latest technology, mobile phones, has become indispensable
in the rich world. But they are even more useful in the
developing world, where the availability of other forms
of communicationroads, postal systems or xed-line
phonesis often limited. Even though there is a substantial
subscriber growth in much of the developing world, only
a small proportion of people (affordability is the biggest
obstacle to broader adoption) around 5% in both India
and sub-Saharan Africahave their own mobile phones.
Using cell phones, shermen and farmers check prices in
different markets before selling produce. Cell phones also
help people to nd work, allow quick and easy transfers
of funds and boost entrepreneurship. A village can share
phones and prepaid calling plans reduce the need for a bank
account or credit check.
21
Grameen Bank, a pioneer in the practice of micro-credit
lending, has created a cell phone company to bring cell
phones into the villages of Bangladesh. The bank gave loans
to the borrowers to buy a cell phone and start selling phone
services. It became a growing business, especially with
women entrepreneurs. They never saw a telephone in their
life before, but they have accepted it as a business idea, and
more than 100,000 telephone ladies all over Bangladesh are
doing good business while connecting Bangladesh with the
rest of the world.
A recent study has shown that, in a typical developing
country, a rise of ten mobile phones per 100 people boosts
GDP growth by 0.6 percentage points. Mobile phones are,
in short, a classic example of technology that helps people
help themselves.
Nevertheless, the absorption of digital technologies
throughout the world has not been uniform, such that the
concept of digital divide has emerged. The digital divide is
the gap between those with regular, effective access to digital
technologies and those who do not have that option. Also,
the divide refers to those who can benet from those digital
technologies and those who do not. Countries with a wide
availability of internet access can advance the economics of
that country on a local and global scale. In today's society,
internet is becoming increasingly important inuencing
jobs and education. In countries where the internet and
other technologies are not accessible, education is getting
affected, and uneducated people cannot compete in our
global economy. The digital divide is also a term used to
refer to the gap between people who have access to the
In the sub-saharian Africa and South Asia, it is projected that people are
increasingly living without electricity [IEA 2002b].
Number of People Without Electricity
1979-2030, by region
22
internet (the information haves) and those that do not (the
information have-nots). It can also refer to the skills people
have the gap between people who are at ease using digital
technology to access and analyse information and those who
are not.
The digital divide is just as much a gap in understanding as
it is a gap in connectivity. There are often clear fundamental
differences between what is proposed by technology
visionaries, many of whom have never even seen a village,
and what is actually needed by end-users, many of whom
have never used a telephone or a computer.
A number of ICT initiatives offer a promise of closing the
gap that separates the some four billion people living in rural
communities from a future with greater literacy, productivity,
and quality of life. While the end goal is clear broadband
connectivity everywhere many ICT initiatives have faltered
due to a lack of a well-adapted, step-by-step approach that
considers social factors and the staging of capital investments
as well as technology.
Wireless technology has not only revolutionized the way
the developed world communicated; it also offers developing
countries an opportunity to leap-frog over wire line
infrastructures to the forefront of communications. However,
since many different types of wireless technologies exist, it
is important to choose the technology that best matches the
needs of these new markets. While some wireless techniques
have been very successful in urban areas, the rural ICT market
has its own set of unique requirements, including: low-cost,
low-power, scalability, robustness, and ease of use.
Entrepreneurship
Entrepreneurs are regarded as bearers of risk, agents that
bring together the factors of production, or organizers of
innovation. Entrepreneurship is essential in developing
countries, as it has played an important role in economic
growth, innovation, and competitiveness, and it may also
play a role over time in poverty alleviation.
Over 400 million individuals in developing countries
are owners or managers of new rms. Of these, over 200
million are found in China and India alone, compared with
just 18 million entrepreneurs in the United States. Yet, in
one of the best general books on the state of research on
entrepreneurship, China is mentioned on two pages and
India is not mentioned at all6.
Entrepreneurs in developing countries face a different
set of circumstances than their counterparts in developed
economies. These differences are rooted in the underlying
economies in which they operate. Emerging markets lack a
stable or mature market and the consistency that such markets
offer. Consequently, the opportunity for entrepreneurship in
emerging markets is pervasive. While Western entrepreneurs
operate at the fringes of the economy, emerging market
entrepreneurs operate closer to the core the needs and
opportunities are more widespread. Another difference lies in
the access to nancial resources. Internal nance comprises
the majority of nancing for small and medium enterprises
in most developing countries. Another major difference lies
in the access to technological advances which are largely
6 Amar Bhid, The Origin and Evolution of New Businesses, New York: Oxford
University, 2000, ISBN-13: 978-0195131444
23
developed and held by developed countries.
Entrepreneurs are a crucial link in implementing designs
of products and services developed specically to meet the
needs of the BoP markets. They are the motors of economic
growth and poverty reduction. Small, micro and medium-
sized enterprises (SMMEs) are often the backbone of the
private sector in the developing world, creating jobs and
providing a tax base for local government. And frequently
SMMEs offer the only employment available to millions of
poor people.
Design and Research
Back in 2002, an experiment was conducted to design a
product to serve rural healthcare needs of China, specically
A model for design processes for the Base of the Pyramid
[Prabhu Kandachar, Jan 2008].
Focus of Base of the Pyramid Research
diabetes mellitus. In this project, students
and staff of the Faculty of Industrial
Design Engineering collaborated with
staff from a Multinational Corporation.
Almost at the same time the rst paper
expounding the Base of the Pyramid
strategy by Prahalad & Hart appeared,
promising fortune for entrepreneurs and
at the same time offering perspectives
for the poor world7 majority to escape
from poverty.
Needs of human beings are the
central driving force uniting technology
and business, resulting in products
and services. By tradition Delft has
7 Strategy + Business, Issue 26, digitaldividend.org/
pdf/bottompyramid.pdf, rst quarter 2002.
24
propagated the practise of designing products and services
to meet human needs.
Even though it is set up in an engineering environment,
such an activity needs an integrative approach from several
sciences: technical, social, management sciences, and
working together with entrepreneurs. Although several earlier
activities at Delft had been carried out in poor countries,
they were almost always within the context of developmental
assistance. The Base of the Pyramid strategy has stimulated
this Faculty to look also at the needs of the underserved,
which represent a huge market and was hitherto unattended.
It provides an opportunity to apply the well tried out model
at Delft (see gure at the left) for poor countries, but this
time within the context of alleviating poverty by means of
business endeavours.
25
Photo: Ilona de Jongh
26
Kids swimming
and playing in
ooded roads
Jakarta, Indonesia
27
Insect Repellent Lamp
for the Indian Market
Inge van de Wouw
Insect bites are an unpleasant fact of life in most parts of
the world. In addition to severe nuisance, mosquitoes can
also spread diseases such as Malaria, Dengue, Filariasis,
Japanese Encephalitis and Chikungunya. Malaria alone
causes an estimated 1.3 million deaths and 400 million
cases worldwide, and around 20,000 deaths and 15 million
cases in India, each year.
Liquid repellent
Philips Research Asia in Bangalore has developed the initial
product idea of an Insect Repellent Lamp (IRL) to provide
insect free environments for families in the Middle & Base
of the Pyramid of both urban and rural India. The proposed
lamp integrates an insect repellent ability with the normal
household light bulb, by using the waste-heat dissipated by
the lighting device to vaporize the liquid based mosquito
repellent. The aim of this project was to assess if, and how,
the idea could really become a successful and protable
product for Philips.
The project started with a thorough analysis phase in the
Netherlands to explore the mosquito problem, current insect
repellents in India and the target group. Also the working
principle and characteristics of the Insect Repellent Lamp
were investigated and effectiveness tests were done. After
the analysis phase a eld test was conducted in India with
the initial Philips prototype and two competitive IRLs. In
India, insights were gained on the magnitude of the insect
problem, current use of insect repellents, expenditure,
preferences regarding the three IRLs, local culture and
traditions, the actual target group and the context of use.
Philips Consumer Li festyl e December 8, 2008
Two user researches in India (48 families in 2.5 months) provided very useful
insights for the improvement and further development of the IRL.
28
CFL & portability
With the obtained information, several suggestions for
improvements were given. First of all, a compact uorescent
lamp (CFL) should be used as light source instead of a light
bulb. Regarding the repellent, it should be vaporized at the
correct temperature of the wick and bottled liquids should
be used. The lamp itself should provide more exibility; the
hanging type of lamp should be changed into a portable
lamp. Lastly, instead of only in the evening, people should
also be able to use the repellent at night together with a
night light.
The input from the eld test was translated into a redesign
of the IRL. The redesign of the IRL is portable with 3m of
wire, uses a 14W CFL and bottled liquids, has two switches
to use the lamp and repellent separately or together (day,
evening and night mode) and has an additional blue night
light that is lit together with the repellent. A preliminary
cost price estimation showed that a selling price of Rs. 500
(7.50) can be possible.
First reactions
With the manufactured 13 prototypes a second eld test
was conducted in India. The response of the target group
on the improved IRL was very positive and it seemed that
the insect repellent functionalities, the energy saving lamp,
the portability and the two switches (different modes
possible) provided very useful benets for them.
Currently, different departments of Philips have shown
interest in the IRL and possibilities are explored to bring the
product to the market.
www.philips.com
Two switches
make it possible
to use the lamp
and repellent
separately or
together (day,
evening and night
mode).The blue
night light that
is lit when the
repellent is active.
29
Movendi foundation strives to improve the quality of life for
physically disabled people. The foundations primary focus
is on developing countries and communities with a great
need for expertise in the eld of movement technology and
physical therapy. The goals are achieved through start-ups
and coaching projects using local knowledge and skills to
arrive at creative solutions for different problems faced by
the physically disabled. Movendi is also involved in setting
up rehabilitation workshops and training of local therapists
and technicians.
GhanaMoves
Movendi has previously worked in a business development
project for disabled people in Ghana. The project aimed to
improve the lives of the disabled by providing them with a
means to support themselves, see page 92. Four students
investigated the business opportunities for the disabled
and they came up with a hand-driven tricycle with which
the disabled could sell ice-cream on the streets of Madina-
Accra. The tricycles were manufactured at a local workshop,
MAK-D, which proted as well from the business by selling
tricycles, the ice-cream was supplied by Fanmilk, Ghanas
largest dairy producer and the disabled were able to obtain
a small credit (micro-credit) from a local bank at a very
reasonable interest rate. For more detailed information a
summary of the project is enclosed. Taking GhanaMoves as
a starting point and as an inspiration, seeing the benets it
generated for disabled persons, Movendi wished to initiate
a similar venture in India. This project is an exploratory rst
step in that direction, identifying strategies and business
Movendi Foundation 2009
IndiaMoves; exploratory
research study
Aparna Bhaskar
Concept areas; a market analysis of these individual concept areas and new
business opportunities and product service systems for self employment of
rural disabled within these areas are part of the results.
Cooka et al: A product-service system (PSS), also known as a function-
oriented business model, is a business model, developed in academia,
that is aimed at providing sustainability of both consumption and
production
1
.
1. M.B. Cooka, T.A. Bhamrab and M. Lemonc (2006). The transfer and
application of Product Service Systems: from academia to UK manu-
facturing rms. Journal of Cleaner Production (Elsevier Ltd) 14 (17):
14551465. doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2006.01.018.
30
entrepreneur are presented.The second part of the project
focused on generating self employment opportunities
suitable for locomotor disabled persons. In order to do so,
it was imperative to analyse the Indian market situation.
This included study of the consumer markets, with special
attention to rural India, and an overview of lives of the poor
in rural India. On the basis of this research, seven product-
service-systems (PSS, see box on the left page) that can be
operated by rural disabled persons were developed.
Strategies & PSSs
Ideas for product-service-systems are elaborated to levels
of market potential, consumer segmentation and role of
different stakeholders in the enterprise system. Ideas are
provided for enterprise alliances with private, governmental
and non-prot sector.
The project was initiated by the Movendi team and the
results are primarily intended for use by Movendi. The
report and its content are meant to support future initiatives
by Movendi in India. The report provides a comprehensive
overview to disabled persons and disability sector in India,
and would be of value to future Movendi project teams in
India. However the content of report is of value to other
reader groups as well: Disability Institutions, Rehabilitation
organization and NGOs in India: The report highlights new
possibilities and approaches for the betterment of locomotor
disabled in India. Organizations working in disability sector
are ideally placed with appropriate resources and prior
experience.
www.movendifoundation.org
opportunities.
Entrepreneurial businesses
In a country like India, the poor face numerous challenges
and poverty in itself is a handicap. The less fortunate
often have to deal with illiteracy, hunger and daily battle
for basic necessities, barely managing to make ends meet.
In addition to being born poor, if one has a disability, he/
she is confronted with an uphill battle at all stages of life.
The disabled poor are one of the most neglected and
marginalized communities with limited access to resources
and employment opportunities. These issues are magnied
many times over when it comes to rural India. This strategic
design project focuses on identifying and developing
business opportunities that would empower the disabled
poor in rural India, by creating entrepreneurial businesses.
The rst step is research.
Disability at the BoP India
In order to develop business opportunities, a thorough
analysis of disability at the BoP in India was performed; an
in-depth understanding of the disability sector and disabled
persons in rural India. The need for employment amongst
rural disabled was conrmed and the target group was
dened clearly. It answers questions such as; who amongst
the rural disabled or what sections of the disabled population
require additional support in terms of employment? Who
amongst locomotor disabled are capable/ not capable of
taking up responsibility of entrepreneurship? Additionaly,
symbiotic business opportunities with benets for Hindustan
Unilever Limited and Project India Moves & the disabled
31
In recent years, the poor are slowly being recognized as
consumers in their own right and therefore as potential
markets for business. Philips is one of the few global
companies committed to developing such markets. The
BoP, represented by the 4 billion poorest people around the
world, are becoming both a strategic focus for long-term
growth and critical for promoting social equity in line with
the companys sustainability policy.
Energy represents one such growing market. This
project focuses itself to electricity access. Electricity has
traditionally remained in the realm of public infrastructure.
However, from various insights, it is abundantly clear that
the conventional grid is not the answer to the electricity
problem of the poor. Only about 56% of the BoP is
connected to the grid. A large number of poor households
cope with candles, kerosene, generators or rechargeable car
batteries. These energy sources are unsafe, inefcient and
expensive in the long-run. Despite this, end-use patterns
are changing dramatically. Households are investing in
comfort and entertainment. Changes in consumption are
driven by changes in preferences, by big declines in prices
for consumer electronic goods, and by the increasing
energy efciency of these goods. Studies indicate that BoP
customers are tired of waiting for governments to act
and feel empowered by the choice offered to them in the
market.
Buy and Play
There is a need for clean, safe and affordable energy
solutions that can be available to BoP customers on the
Philips Light October 30, 2008
Energy as a consumer
product
Ambika Samabasivan
Opportunities in Base of the Pyramid markets: Powered by the four global
energy providers, consumer electronic applications could include mobile
phone chargers, lanterns, radios, table fans and more.
32
short term. With the rise of renewable energy, it is possible
to think of energy as a consumer product, where customers
have greater choice, exibility and control over the range
of technology and solutions. This project denes a market
niche for Philips using supporting arguments from contextual
analysis, customer research and competitor mapping. This
market niche is labeled as buy and play energy designed
to cater to small-scale household requirements, pertaining
to an energy output of <0.1kWh/day. Two categories of
products are of interest. The rst is individual appliances
with a built-in power source (~ <0.01kWh/day). The
second is an energy platform or a power pack (~0.1 kWh/
day) that would be exible enough to power two or more
applications.
Flexible set of solutions
These products can be powered by four potential energy
technologies; human powered, solar PV, micro-wind
and pico-hydro. Applications can include mobile phone
chargers, lanterns, radios, table fans and so forth. It is
almost impossible to have one standardized solution for BoP
customers. Renewable energy choices are dependent on
geographical variations. Product choices are dependent on
household requirements. As in the case of the product, the
business system is inuenced by a range of local factors;
the target customer group, value proposition, partner
network, available infrastructure and cost structures. To
serve such diverse markets, Philips needs to have a exible
set of solutions or a toolbox of options and conduct multiple
market experiments. This will help identify key value
propositions for BoP families and communities that can be
delivered in a unique way. To hone a keener competitive
edge, it is essential to work deeply with local communities
in order to bring out the variations in product needs and
desires, bringing about a feeling of this is our solution. To
achieve this, Philips must consciously work with a variety of
social organizations and informal partners. In addition, it is
crucial to invest in building local capacity to fulll societal
and business goals. Small-scale buy and play energy can
deliver a variety of benets:
Provide basic energy services to those who are
currently off the grid, taking the rst step towards energy
independence. Complete energy independence can be
achieved by a series of short steps, and buy and play
energy can be promoted as the rst step toward this goal.
Offer energy services for those who expect to be
connected in the near future as a transition to the grid.
Communities living close to the grid are often temporary
and/or extra-legal settlements.
Promote the use of renewable energy for those who are
connected to an often unreliable and expensive grid as a
back-up for power shortages, a grid supplement.
Global sustainability
Energy is an important enabler for a more modern lifestyle
for the poor. The wide range of energy services can have a
major impact in facilitating sustainable livelihoods, improving
health and education and signicantly reducing poverty.
By addressing the needs of base of the pyramid markets
through buy and play energy, Philips hopes to rmly
establish itself as both a future-oriented business and a
committed contributor to global sustainable development.
www.philips.com
33
Friesland Foods, a dairy multinational, conducted a deep-
listening project in 2006 among consumers at the BoP,
called Reach. This research was conducted in several
developing countries, where they measured an enormous
lack of nutrition amongst the BoP population.
Alternative protein sources
Milk is currently not affordable for the Vietnamese at
the Base of the economic Pyramid, as the dairy prices
in Vietnam are with an average of $0,82/kg the most
expensive in the world. Friesland Foods subsidiary, Dutch
Lady Vietnam (DLV), is one of the biggest players in the
liquid milk market in Vietnam at the moment and aims to
maintain and preferably improve its market share. To expand
its consumer base worldwide makes reaching the BoP a
necessity. DLV tries to reduce the prices by technological
improvements, like the use of alternative protein sources
(e.g. algae and soy). These attempts are unfortunately not
likely to succeed in the near future, and it was concluded
that the main challenge in reaching the customers at
the BoP was in the provision of nutrition enhanced dairy
products. Children between two and six years of age were
selected as the most important target group, since milk
protein is particularly important for the physical and mental
development in early childhood.
Synergy
A design ofce, called reggs, believes that the affordability
of milk protein can also be achieved differently. Besides
nutrition, children have other needs, such as education,
safety and healthcare. They wondered to which extent it

Friesland Foods & reggs October 24, 2008
PRO-PORTION
Affordable milk for kids
Lieke Pijpers
Storyboard of the strategy that makes milk protein affordable for children at
the Base of the Pyramid in Vietnam.
KINDERGARTEN
MILK
INFORMATIVE MATERIALS
M
34
was possible to combine these necessities (portions) and
initiated the pro-portion strategy. This approach proposes
that by combining the strengths of different organizations
such as local entrepreneurs, NGOs and multinationals, an
innovative business model could be achieved that creates a
win-win situation. On the one hand the needs of the BoP are
better fullled, while on the other hand operations become
more cost-effective. The developed pro-portion strategy will
eventually increase the affordability of milk for the poor as
well as the protability for the stakeholders. A eld study
in Vietnam revealed that the most effective place to reach
young children is the kindergarten.
Multi-stakeholder business model
The proposed concept aims to provide the BoP children in
kindergarten with milk and informative materials. Three
times a week, the children are given a cup of milk, for
which their parents pay a contribution that is based on their
average level of purchasing power. Together with the milk,
educational material is provided to kindergartens, which
improves the quality of education and increases awareness
among the children on different topics. Every month will
have a different, important theme. The children that
structurally attended kindergarten during the course of one
theme receive a reward, which increases their motivation to
participate. Additionally, the information will be bundled in
educative comics, on which the kindergartens get a monthly
subscription and could start a library with. These comics
could be borrowed by the children and brought home to
read together with their family. The whole campaign will
www.frieslandfoods.com
www.reggs.nl
be embodied by a cartoon character, which teaches the
children about important lessons in life in an attractive
way. Altogether this concept increases the accessibility and
quality of preschool education and the childrens future
chances of success (health and academic performance).
The government benets from the higher enrolment
of kindergartens and the increased mental and physical
development of children. This contributes to the national
goals on education and development. Organizations like
UNICEF and Unilever could benet from the opportunity
to communicate with young children. This allows them
to educate children on their rights or on the importance
of personal hygiene. Creating awareness among children
supports the strategic objectives of those commercial and
social organizations. Local communities clearly benet, as
it helps their children to develop themselves. It stimulates
parents to send their children to kindergarten, which in turn
enables them to work. On top of this, it creates teaching jobs
for the community. Teachers will earn some extra income in
exchange for distributing the milk in the classroom.
Last but not least, Friesland Foods can now serve poor
children they could not reach before. Although at cost price,
it supports their strategic goal of serving 1 billion customers
in 2015 globally. On a local level it increases their market
share in Vietnam and makes them market leader. In the long
run, Friesland Foods can benet from the created customer
loyalty among poor families. As soon as a poor family gains
purchasing power, they will be more inclined to purchase
Friesland Foods products.
35
BushProof is a social enterprise that supplies drinking
water and renewable energy products in Madagascar. The
company is convinced that a commercial/business approach
to poverty reduction is more sustainable than one based on
aid. BushProofs wish is to offer their products to the people
in the countries rural areas, however their current clients
are mostly non-prot organizations (NGOs) and changing
local rural people into customers requires a complete
different strategy.
PSS for the BoP
The aim of this project is to develop a new product strategy
for BushProofs drinking water products that enables the
Malagasy poor to purchase products from BushProof
without the nancial help of NGOs or foreign aid. During the
analysis of BushProof and its context it becomes clear that
their main product - the Canzee pump - is suitable for this
purpose. As a starting point of the strategy development
the two theoretical concepts of the Base of the Pyramid
(BoP) and Product Service Systems (PSS) are used.
The rst discusses the possibility and opportunities of
doing business with the world poor, which are seldom been
considered as protable customers. The theory stresses out
that companies are able to create important market growth
in lowincome countries and earn the same revenues by
earning small prots from many poor customers as when
they sell products with high prots to relatively few high-
income customers.
The concept of PSS is based on the insight people do
not necessarily need to own products in order to fulll their
y
BushProof Sept. 23, 2008
BushProof Safe Water
Subscription
Sierk Hennes
The Canzee Pump in use. This pump has already proved to be a very
appropriate product for the circumstances in Madagascar and is an affordable
and reliable solution for water provision.
36
needs. Substituting product components into services create
possibilities to better anticipate on customer requirements,
reduce resources and stimulate customer relationships.
In order to serve the Madagascar poor with their
Canzee hand pump, BushProof has to overcome different
problems companies in lowincome countries face. People
are little aware of the positive effects of having access to
reliable drinking water, the current system of community
management does not result in lasting solutions and local
people have too little knowledge to execute difcult repairs.
Finally, people have little possibilities to save for major
expenditures needed to purchase and maintain expensive
products while the risk exists that pumps preliminary break
down due the hostile environment of Madagascar.
Shared subscription, no maintenance responsibility
A subscription that guarantees access to safe drinking
water is proposed as the most suitable
solution for these problems. Offering access
to safe drinking water changes the focus of
selling pumps into supplying people with that
what people try to achieve by buying these
pumps; having easy access to an unlimited
amount of safe drinking water. Since pumps
will not be sold, the solution causes a change
in ownership. BushProof is responsible for
properly working pumps and the quality of the
water it supplies, resulting in limited nancial
risk for the users. BushProof will regularly
visit the villages for periodical servicing
and quality checks creating the opportunity to build user
relationships and collect user feedback useful for further
product development.
People have to form user-groups with their neighbours
that are willing to share one subscription. User groups pay a
monthly contribution. As people share one subscription and
do not have to buy the pump, the system will be affordable
for most people in Madagascar.
The nancial analysis shows that if 25 families use one
subscription, a monthly contribution of 0,63 per family
is needed to maintain the pumps. Because revenues are
reinvested in creating new pumps and subscriptions, the
system is able to triple the amount of pumps within eight
years. A start-up investment of 90.000 will result in about
500 pumps serving approximately 75.000 people and still
realize an average yearly return of more than 10% (in 10
years).
www.bushproof.biosandlter.org
37
Photo: Mirjam Lindgreen
38
Girl
Java, Indonesia
39
Kamworks operates as a social enterprise in Cambodia
and their mission is to provide affordable energy systems
in Cambodia in order to contribute to a sustainable
development of this country. The innovative no-nonsense
company is in the process of developing a new brand,
Kamunasal, which aims for the rural consumer market.
Kamunasal provides solar and human powered products,
distributed through mobile and xed selling points which are
run by micro-entrepeneurs. Several physical expressions of
the brand had been dened prior to this project, along with
a concept for a mobile selling point (see page 56).
Sustainable brands
The internal analysis showed the identity of Kamunasal,
based on the mother company Kamworks and the initial
Kamunasal product Angkor light (see page 116). The
Kamunasal brand is innovative, with Western roots and a
social mission to bring sustainable energy and employment
to rural Cambodians. Brands, as builders of trust and
providing consistency, play an important role in sustainable
development. Before moving into the market, it is crucial to
develop the Kamunasal brand to a complete concept, which
will form the basis of all future brand expressions.
Importance of factors
Through an extensive external analysis based on interviews,
observations and a test shop, important insight in the
rural Cambodian market were revealed. Most importantly
an adapted version of Rogers theory for acceptance of
innovations was developed, specically for the Khmer
culture. The importance of various factors for customers
Solar shop in rural
Cambodia
Kirsten Rijke
Kamworks August 2008
Above is the conguration of the concept as a solar shop, and below as a
theatre. Switching between the congurations is possible within minutes.
40
and micro-entrepeneurs were determined separately, but
the models turned out to be rather similar. The decision
model is a rational one, where many factors play a role. The
three most important factors were found to be price, quality
and the fullment of needs.
The results of the internal and external analysis
determined the course of the project. The results of the
project can be categorized in two distinctive parts:
A denition of the Kamunasal proposition light
and energy for a happy family in the form of a
strategy.
A complete concept for xed selling points based
on the Kamunasal proposition.
For a happy family
The strategy points out that the distinction between the
Kamunasal and Kamworks businesses should be more clear,
also within the company. The strategy further describes
how Kamunasal can use the methods of MicroFranchising,
by rst setting up a business and nding the right formula.
The next step is replicating this successful business with
other micro-entrepreneurs by supporting them with the
Kamunasal formula. Finally the complete strategy for
Kamunasal results in a market proposition that describes
the brands attitude in terms of a ve-P model; product,
price, place, promotion, people. A design vision was
then formulated, in order to design the solar shop as an
expression of the Kamunasal proposition: Design a concept
for a xed selling and service point for home lighting and
energy supply products and services of Kamunasal within
the rural areas of Cambodia.
Visible stock
Through an ideation and conceptualization phase, a tting
concept is developed and further elaborated, resulting in a
Kamunasal solar shop; an adapted and furnished shipping
container. Inside the shop a displaying cabinet contains a
show and try-out model for each item. As rural customers
and micro-entrepreneurs in Cambodia prefer to have stock
placed visibly (which also helps keep a clear overview for
the micro-entrepreneur) each product type is placed in a
separate compartment, along with additional stock, see
images on the left.
A working solar home system is demonstrated and
explained through an educational display. The solar system
also provides the power for a number of battery charging
services offered in the shop.
A shop and a theatre
The Kamunasal solar shop can be transformed from a
shop into a small theatre. The theatre offers educational
video entertainment and testimonials from other
satised Kamunasal customers. The exible and inviting
shop provides a culturally appropriate, friendly familiar
environment for both consumer and micro-entrepreneur.
Adding a brand expression in the form of the Kamunasal
solar shop, with the right balance between informational
and sales aspects, supports the brand Kamunasal and its
high quality appearance.
www.kamworks.com
41
Cambodia has one of the lowest electrication rates in Asia.
Therefore many households make good use of rechargeable
car batteries for lighting and television. This is however a
far from ideal situation as the heavy batteries have to be
charged several times a week, in a small shop where a
throbbing generator is present. Due to this charging abuse
and its poor use, the batteries are entitled to a short life,
bringing unnecessary high costs and a low energy efciency.
With oil prices rising and economy improving, people are
in need of better power solutions. This forms the motive
for this graduation project; to design an innovative user-
friendly Solar Home System (SHS) for rural Cambodia.
Previous experience
The idea of a SHS came from an elaborate analysis of the
local contexts. Many Cambodian families were visited to map
their energy needs, desires and living situations. Before this
project, a number of pilot SHSs were developed. Prototypes
were made on the basis of a preliminary design, to evaluate
the technical functioning of the system and practically test
the system in operation. The experiences of installation and
production of a SHS could therefore already be taken into
consideration early in the design process. Three systems
were evaluated in the eld by test families. The product use,
performance and appreciation was monitored technically by
data logging and practically by a series of surveys. Based
on this extensive design research the pilot SHS was further
elaborated to a nal product design, ready for production.
Functional and aesthetic value
The result of this project was the design of three types of
Kamworks August 2008
Solar Home System for
rural Cambodia
Tom van Diessen
The family Chum Voung consist of 3 people and belongs to social class of
the rural poor. Miss Toch Komh runs a small store under the house and is
home all day, her son goes to school and her husband is hardly ever home
being a construction worker. The house is build traditionally, small but well
maintained and is located on the corner of a road next to a battery charging
station. Making it an ideal location for Kamworks to test the SHS, since its in a
visible location next to the one thing it should substitute. The SHS will entirely
replace their current use of a car battery and kerosene and is initialy installed
under a renting construction for 3 months.
42
Solar Home Systems as one product family and one complete
product. The SHS has become a true modern powerhouse
for rural Cambodia. A distinctive desirable product of superb
quality that matches with the Khmers culture, styling, way of
living, energy consumption and house situation. The system
is easy to install, durable, strong and can be produced locally
at Kamworks. The solar panel can be mounted securely to
the house with the use of a new composite support. The
technical components are enclosed in the Dragon box, a
user friendly connection station with a highly aesthetic
value in terms of creating product desire, a commercial
value in terms of being distinctive and a functional value
by protecting the system components. A charge regulator
furthermore guarantees a safe use, an extended battery life
and provides the users with the desired energy feedback.
All this makes the Kamworks Solar Home Systems a secure
energy source, for an affordable prize.
Kamworks had the desire to bring the SHS on the
market soon, the outcome of this project enabled them to
do so. Currently four systems have already been sold and
installed according to the nal designs. Many customers are
already eagerly waiting for what could be seen as the new
generation of Solar Home Systems in Cambodia.
www.kamworks.com
43
Extracting Batana oil is the main way of making a living
for the Miskito women in La Mosquitia, a difcult to
reach tropical wetland in the northeast of Honduras. The
production process of the special oil released from the
kernels of the Palma Americana has remained the same
for years, but is subject to changes at the moment. Health
problems related to the production of Batana constitute a
major constraint to the development of the people. The
extraction process generates very hazardous smoke which
causes respiratory diseases among the women involved in
this activity. Additionally, the amounts of rewood needed
in the traditional process causes extreme deforestation.
These negative aspects of the Batana production render
this activity unsustainable.
The Non Government Organization (NGO) MOPAWI
is assisting the Miskito in selling Batana. Moreover, this
organization aims to improve the current production process
such that related health problems will be addressed and
environmental sustainability improved.
In the recent past various attempts have been made
to address both the health problems and environmental
damages associated to the Batana production. To date
however, no denite solution has been found. In this project
these attempts have been assessed and analyzed and the
outcome of this reserach was used as a basis for a redesign
process of the stove used for extraction of the oil, the so
called Ecofogon.
Multi-stakeholder redesign
This redesign process has been done with participation of
ICCO and MOPAWI July 28, 2008
Redesign of a Smoke
free Batana Extractor
Linda Schnieders
The cooker hood is placed close to the pan during frying of the kernels.
MOPAWI initiated the Ecofogon project in 2005 and since then has taken
several steps in implementing the Ecofogon in La Mosquitia.
44
various local stakeholders, accounting for cultural values
and traditions, local infrastructure and local resources. This
has resulted in a new concept with a number of essential
improvements compared to the existing stove. One of the
main adaptations has been the provision of a vertically
placed chimney connected to a cooker hood in combination
with correctly applying the so called rocket principle. Other
improvements include the use of a pan and a sieve to
separate the oil from the kernels, without the user being
in contact with the stove or the hot oil. Furthermore, the
dimensions of the entrance and the combustion chamber
are optimised to ensure a more efcient combustion. The
new concept also provides arrangements for signicant
savings of re wood, which means enhanced environmental
sustainability. As a result of these improvements, the
women are not directly exposed to the hazardous smoke
anymore, resulting in less health threats. Moreover, because
of a more efcient use of
re wood, environmental
degradation will be partly
addressed. Besides a new
design concept, a plan
for implementation of the
Ecofogon was developed
during this project.
Implementation
Instructions for end users
as well as constructors
are listed. Also a training
plan is included on how to build capacities among the future
constructors of the improved Ecofogon. The implementation
plan also includes the construction of a prototype and ways
to involve the end users and other stakeholders in further
shaping of the nal product.
In view of the potential health and environmental
benets MOPAWI, a local NGO, is recommended to follow
up on the new concept by executing the implementation
plan. Financing sources need to be found for this purpose
and nancing partners are recommended to embark on
this project. It is expected that by doing so this project
contributes to the sustainable social economic development
and resilience of the minority tribe of the Miskito and
particularly their most vulnerable community members.
Use of the pan and sieve. Before removing the pan the skirt needs
to be adjusted, N.B. In the right picture the irritating smoke
coming from the oil has not been visualized.
www.icco.nl/en
www.mopawi.org
45
LUMEN light solution
Integral Design Project
Executed by Ana Maria Alvarez, Loucas Papantoniou,
Stephanie Wirth and Doortje van de Wouw.
Kamworks is a young company specialized in the supply and
manufacturing of affordable solar energy solutions for rural
communities and people who do not have access to reliable
electricity in Cambodia.
Currently the companys core business is the installation
and distribution of Solar Home Systems. One of Kamworks
previous projects, the Angkor Light, is a quality lamp in the
price range of $60-75 (see page 116). In order to reach the
rural population, Kamworks concluded insight was needed
into possibilities for a more affordable lighting solution in
the range of $10-20.
No running costs
From the product portfolio of Kamworks it became clear
that there was a lack of an affordable ambient lighting
products. The main outcome of the technical analysis was
to use white LEDs due to their energy efciency and price
range compatibility of the product that could easily be
tailored around the basic needs of the target group. For the
energy supply of the system, two options were possible:
a battery charging system with low initial costs but higher
running costs or a totally independent system with higher
initial costs but no running costs.
Rural households
House visits and interviews in the rural areas of Cambodia
gave better insight into the context, living standards and
wishes of the target group: The new lamp should completely
substitute the kerosene lamp, which use is widely spread
in the rural households. The poor quality of the light, the
ammability and health hazards as well as the highly volatile
Kamworks June, 2008
An exploded view of the design; the Moonlight.
Most of the families of the nal user test were enthusiastic
and even willing to buy the prototypes on the spot.
46
fuel prices were the main drivers.
The eld research lead to several main conclusions: First,
people need a portable lamp. Different rooms are to be lit,
and most consumers cannot afford more than one lamp.
Furthermore, a dimmed light during the night was needed,
to orientate in the dark and to feel safe while saving energy
at the same time. The dimmed light only has to last for
a few hours per night, and about three hours of full light
are needed during the evening. In addition, the inventive
character of the Cambodians and the completely improvised
style of their houses called for a exible product that people
could use as they wished, without too many restrictions.
Poverty makes people use everything they have as long and
as efciently as possible and the usage of the new lamp will
not differ in that point.
Ampoul Preahchan
The nal design is called MoonLight (Ampoul Preahchan in
Khmer). It has a triangular shape and includes a cord that
is attached at the three corner points. It can be hung from
a wall or ceiling, carried by hand or hung around the neck.
It has 6 wide-angle LEDs with a total luminous ux of 42 lm
in the normal mode which is equivalent to the light output
of about four kerosene lamps. The dimmed mode provides
a light output of 7 lm.
It comes with a 0.5 Wp solar panel which can be xed
to a bamboo pole with a standard clamp. This option was
chosen as several people had stated during the interviews
that they were so afraid of the solar panel getting stolen
they would prefer to keep the panel inside all day, leaving
a window open for charging. Currently, this anti-theft
technique is used for TV antennas, so this technique is not
new to the people.
The product mainly consists of two vacuum-formed outer
shells and two also vacuum-formed blisters that hold the
electronics together and buffer them at the same time for
possible shocks.
The nal user tests pointed out that the product is indeed
an appropriate solution for the stated problem. People could
easily understand and use the product: hanging it around
their neck and placing it at the walls and ceiling of their
houses. Most of the families of the nal user test were
enthusiastic and even willing to buy the prototypes on the
spot. These reactions were similar to Kamworks reactions;
Kamworks indicated they would like to start producing the
MoonLights as soon as possible.
Installing a 0.5 Wp solar panel on a pole, to prevent theft.
www.kamworks.com
2008
47
Energy has a strong link with poverty reduction;
unfortunately about one third of the worlds population does
not have access to electricity and deals with expensive,
alternative energy sources. As a reaction on the high
need for affordable energy, NICE is set up as a network
of multidisciplinary shops offering low prices and high
quality. The solar powered shops offer internet, education
and a mini-cinema, and are set up in The Gambia, where
about 70% of the population does not have access to the
electricity grid.
Batteries
Standardized batteries form a low investment for instant
energy. Batteries are available worldwide, are cost-efcient
and t into many products, which makes them an interesting
energy source. However, the disposable batteries that are
currently used in The Gambia are of very poor quality and
leak hazardous, toxic chemicals. This causes ground water
pollution and health problems. Offering a battery charging
service with rechargeable AA- and AAA- sized batteries,
would provide a low cost, sustainable solution.
Youngsters and NICE
Through literature studies and explorative research towards
the potential users and their context, the framework for
the design of a battery charging system was set up. The
biggest group of potential users are youngsters (10 25
years old). With a growing population of nearly 2.8% per
year, this group forms a rapidly growing market segment.
Furthermore, the current customer base of NICE is mainly
formed by youngsters, which makes them an approachable
NICE April 4, 2008
A battery charging
system for youngsters
Judith Goor
A rendering of the design; the left side is for AA batteries and the right side
for AAA batteries.
48
group. Youngsters are very trend sensitive and care
much about their image. NICE batteries can add to their
appearance as being a high quality and popular product.
Membership
In The Gambia, registration is unwanted by costumers. To
avoid the need of registration a different setup is needed;
new customers will pay a start-up fee to join the system,
and whenever NICE batteries get empty, they can be
switched for full ones in exchange for a small charging fee.
A NICE battery is the evidence of being a member of the
system. Customers receive different batteries every time
they exchange. In order to assure them a good quality, the
batteries will go through a quality check that lters out bad
batteries.
The system assures users a cost advantage within 1.5
months, because the charging fee is 30% lower than the
cheapest batteries available in The Gambia. It is projected
that prot is generated for NICE within a year.
Battery Testers
With respect to the NICE context it became clear that
the most important requirement is an obvious, structured
system that is easy controllable by the management team.
The design proposal consists of the following different
components:
- Charger with 16 AA(A)-battery cells
- Intake for empty AA- batteries
- Intake for empty AAA- batteries
- Dispenser for full AA- batteries
- Dispenser for full AAA- batteries
- Quality check to assure quality of the batteries
- Energy tester to test if the battery is fully charged
The systems are placed on the wall behind the NICE
reception desk. In this way the system is visible and triggers
the customers by the bright colors, shiny appearance and
blinking led lights. The employee can operate it from behind
his desk and keep a good overview.
A functional prototype of the system was built and was
ready to be tested in the NICE shop to continue with further
development of the product.
The prototype in use. The lights visualize the charging.

www.nice-gambia.com
49
Photo: Kees van Gastel
50
Man Fishing
Citarum River,
Java, Indonesia
51
Funerals play a central role in Batswana culture. High death
rates, increasing expectations and funeral costs impoverish
citizens as they struggle to provide a dignied burial for
their loved ones. The Everybody Company had identied
this social need and had set about providing access to
affordable cofns throughout Southern Africa and developed
a pre-cut click-to-construct cofn. The Everybody Cofns
struggled to gain a foothold in the market due to material
costs, availability and consumer acceptance of their product
line. The aim of the project was to investigate the practical
and emotive implications of the Everybody Cofn.
An in depth analysis of lengthy and extravagant burial
rituals highlighted why the Everybody Cofn is not widely
accepted; functional, aesthetic and emotive aspects of the
Everybody Cofn design make it inappropriate for product
placement within this consumer market.
The Cofn Industry
The market can be split up into two categories; state funerals
and consumer funerals. If a cofn manufacturer opts for
government tenders they must compete on price with other
manufacturers. The advantage for the manufacturer is that
the consumer has no choice between cofns, and for the
consumer the advantage is in costs: these services are
provided for free. In the commercial cofn industry price
is not the most important factor in cofn design. Status,
protection and style (aesthetics) are key product values.
The funeral parlour network is currently responsible for
distributing and selling cofns as part of funeral service
packages. Although selling direct to the market appears as
Everbody Company Feb 8, 2008
The product and company name is branded into the lid of the cofn with
a hot iron. In South Africa this would include the Working for Water logo.
People will know that they are buying a product that is supported by the
government. The lining can be custom made or modied in the villages.
These children, Elvis & Kabo, expressed an interest
in constructing the cofns as a job. The elders in
the village approved the full sized prototypes and
agreed to cooperate in the interests of the village.
Culturally appropriate
cof ns for Botswana
Jan Willem Findlater
52
an attractive alternative, doing so is a logistical challenge.
The infrastructure does not exist (or permit) cofn sales
without distribution through the funeral parlour network.
It is therefore a challenge for product designers and
manufacturers to effectively provide access to affordable
cofns.
Investigation of cofn purchasing behaviour in Botswana
showed, alongside the aforementioned product values of
status, protection and aesthetics, that culture orientated
cofn design provided new product values which were
independent of costs. This nding is an opportunity to
reduce spiraling cofn costs whilst improving the emotional
experience when choosing a cofn. Flat, prefabricated
cofns are most suited for rural communities across
Botswana. This is currently the key product value of the
Everybody Cofn. Re-designs of the Everybody Cofn were
evaluated within rural communities. Unexpectedly, these
communities appreciated the re-designs differently. The
design could be used to create jobs in the rural areas, which
is a big need for rural communities. The design criteria
changed during the design process to reect the local
context. Continuous feedback during the re-design phases
noted improvements in aesthetic appeal, product function
and cultural orientation.
The new Everybody Cofn
Based on the feedback throughout the design process it
can be concluded that the design has improved in terms
of product acceptance. Regarding material selection, Bosa
(the nal design proposal of this project) utilises regionally
available waste wood. This necessitated a re-design of the
construction. The nal design may be considered as less
efcient, heavier, more labour intensive and requires a
longer production time. On the other hand it is desirable in
the consumer market, adds value to the materials, reduces
toxication of the ground water and is creates more jobs
in the rural areas. Product acceptance by funeral parlours
also improved. They identied more with new aspects of the
design, primarily the ability to hold more stock, attractive
pricing and reductions in transportation costs.
During the process of this project new product values
were identied. Using these product values for cofn design
may help to positively change purchasing behaviour in
Botswana. This study indicates that a culturally appropriate
cofn can be highly desirable and need not to be expensive.
Designers can play an essential role in helping societies
to change towards more nancially and environmentally
sustainable practices. It is their duty to help societies and
governments achieve their long term goals.
Unexpectedly, this study unveiled a great opportunity to
stimulate entrepreneurship in the rural areas. Cooperation
with Chiefs, tribes, Burial Societies and Church groups play
an essential role when implementing Everybody Cofns. For
the cofn to realise its potential as a culturally appropriate
cofn it requires the involvement of local craftsmen to
personalise each cofn. This must be done commercially.
Government and NGO hand outs can have a detrimenal
effect on proactive entrepreneurship in the rural areas.
Cofn assembly can be seen as an ideal rst step to
economic empowerment.
www.everybodycofns.com
53
The mission of Dutch Water Limited is to provide clean
and affordable drinking water for everybody in developing
countries. This goal is very clear, but highly ambitious and
not feasible to reach at once. Therefore, a group of students
from Delft University of Technology had been asked to
research the current situation and develop a Product
Service System (PSS) to distribute the clean water that DWL
is capable of producing. Keeping in mind on the one hand
the desire to become a nancially sustainable company and
on the other hand the desire to help the people in need, the
initial advice was to target people in the near surroundings
of the water factory in Mtwapa. These people are not the
very poorest, but still drink unclean drinking water and are
therefore in need of DWL water. Transportation costs are
minimal and little prot can be made on the water. This way
DWL could start establishing the company by creating a
solid nancial background and gaining experience for water
processing (manufacturing and distribution) in a non-
western context.
Governmental Water
Currently, almost all drinking water for the people in
Mtwapa, Kenya, comes from one governmental tap point,
located in the outskirt of Mtwapa. The people in Mtwapa
buy this unclean governmental water from the so-called
mikokoteni (handcarts), which deliver the water at home.
The system works pretty well and supplies most people with
drinking water on a regular and frequent basis when there
is water available. However, in times of scarcity this way of
water supply is less reliable and prices increase rapidly, up
Dutch Water Limited February, 2008
Water4Kenya
Executed by Elly Doek, Merijn Janssen , Regine van
Limmeren, Charl Smit and Stefan Versluis.
A prototype of the Strolley: unlike the current competition, the Strolley
complies with ergonomic demands.
54
to 200% of the original price. Scarcity occurs several times
a year.
The proposed Product Service System
Some boundary conditions were kept in mind. First of
all, DWL is a start-up company, with little investment
power. Furthermore sustainability was very important: the
PSS should be economically, ecologically, politically and
socially sustainable. The proposed PSS enables DWL to
provide the people of Mtwapa with clean, affordable and
reliable drinking water by selling the water at the gate and
distributing it to the houses of the customer by means of
human powered vehicles. The PSS provides the customer
with several additional advantages like xed prices, xed
quality and constant supply. In addition, the water is sold
in a special, sealed package which decreases the chance
of the water getting contaminated. The PSS consists of
the following product
elements: the water,
the vehicles, and the
packaging. The service
elements in the PSS are
selling at the gate and
delivery at home.
A subscription service is
offered for water delivery,
which ensures customers
of water delivery, also
in times of scarcity, and
ensures DWL of a certain
amount of regular clients. In addition, the subscription
allows for the possibility to pay off the deposit for the jerry
can in terms.
Three different stakeholders were determined for the PSS,
and solutions were offered for each of these stakeholders.
For customers; by offering clean, affordable and reliable
drinking water, customers are served with advantages
for health, living standards and nancial benets. For
employees; Several new employees are to be hired in order
to make the PSS function properly. Being employed at
DWL comes with advantages concerning health (unlike the
current mikokoteni, the Strolley complies with ergonomic
demands), and are offered a xed salary. For DWL; The
PSS enables DWL to reach its vision by providing water to
people with a need for clean water, creating employment
and meanwhile establishing a solid nancial base.
Drinking
Processing water
No treatment
Use
Filling package
Sealing package
Selling and
returning package
Cleaning package
Sales channels
DWL source
Full
package
Empty
package
Coast Special is
both sold at the gate as well as
distributed to the houses of
the customer.
Aer use the package is returned to
the factory to be cleaned for reuse.
The empty jerry can is exchanged with
a new one when new water is being
bought. No new deposit needs to be
paid if the seal is unbroken.
The jerry can is closed by a cap
with integrated tap and sealed
to prevent the package to be
tampered with.
Coast Special is safe
to drink directly from
the jerry can; it does
not need to be
treated before use.
Consumer cycle
DWL processes the water from
the source into high quality
drinking water.
DWL cycle
1
2
3
4
5
6
9
8
7
www.dwlwater.com
55
One of the most important global problems is that of
poverty. Apart from the obvious humanitarian justication,
nding improved ways to alleviate poverty will become an
intricate part of creating a sustainable future. Although
many will argue, and rightfully so, that the present
industrialized nations are mainly responsible for many of
the current environmental problems, it is in the developing
world with its rapidly growing population and rise in living
standards where the problems of the future will be found.
It is therefore important to nd sustainable solutions in the
present for problems of the future.
The Base of the Pyramid (BoP) theory does not explicitly
exclude any countries, yet the focus of most BoP projects
has been on relatively large countries which are developing
rapidly, such as India, China, Brazil, Mexico, etc. On the
other hand many smaller countries which are not developing
as rapidly also contain a large portion of the population
making up the BoP. They too have an interest in improving
their quality of life and may form a worthwhile opportunity
for companies to invest in. The main problem however is
market size; often these markets are not large enough on
their own to warrant investment.
Different contexts
Considering many of the problems facing the BoP are
similar across a wide variety of developing countries, it may
be possible to design a single solution for these different
markets. In that case, these smaller markets could be
combined to create a larger market which may be of interest
to companies looking to develop BoP products.
Solardew & ICCO Feb 1, 2008
Comparing Contexts;
Solar Dew Technology
Alexander van der Kleij
The working principles of the Solar Dew Technology .
In coastal areas the sea provides people with an unlimited source of brackish
water, which in combination with the Solar Dew technology can provide a
steady source of clean drinking water.
56
The question is therefore to determine whether it is
possible to cluster these different markets. The rst step to
answering this question is to determine if it is possible to
design for multiple markets, each with a different context.
Therefore this project provided an insight into:
- What is context
- Requirements for research in a BoP environment
- How to structurally translate research results into a
product/business vision
- How to compare, evaluate and design for different
contexts
This was done by researching both Pakistan and Madagascar,
and developing a concept that is suitable for both.
The technology
Solar Dew technology consists of two chambers separated
by a membrane. The contaminated feed water in the upper
chamber is absorbed by the membrane. As the feed water
is heated by the sun it can only evaporate downwards into
the lower chamber, which increases the humidity inside the
chamber, where it eventually condenses on the condensation
plate. Thus, leaving the contaminants on the upper side of
the membrane and distilled water on the other.
Water Station
The purpose of this project was not only to describe this
process in theory but also apply it to practice, in the form
of a case study. As a result, with the help of ICCO and
their partners, research has been conducted along the
South-West coast of Madagascar and in the Thar Desert
of Pakistan, with regard to the context surrounding the
drinking water problem. The purpose of this research was
to develop insight for the further development of a product
around a technological solution created by Solar Dew
International.
The nal design of the product is based around the insight
that people at the BoP are unable to make large investments
and in general are not concerned with the health benets of
clean drinking water. The product has been designed based
on this understanding of the context, such that it can provide
a solution for both the Malagasy and the Pakistani context.
The product has taken on the form of a water station, run
by a local entrepreneur from which he sells water to the
people of the village. This allows the local entrepreneur to
earn a living, whilst the consumers can focus on their own
economic activities without the daily concerns of fetching
drink water. Although the design is still conceptual it gives a
clear indication of what the future may hold for both water
purication solutions in general, and specically for the
Solar Dew Technology.
The water station, designed for local entrepeneurs.

www.solardew.com
57
Despite recent progress, the Cambodian economy still
has to reconstitute from the effects of the civil war. The
population often lacks education and productive skills,
which leads to a high unemployment rate, especially in
the countryside. About 40% of the population lives below
poverty line and has to live of less than 1$ per day. As
90% of the Cambodian population does not have access
to a secure electricity infrastructure, economic and social
progress are slowed down as well.
These circumstances set the framework of Kamworks
business idea: securing sophisticated energy and light
supply and creating new jobs for young Cambodians. As
the country receives approximately ve full sun hours each
day, solar energy is one of the promising technologies. The
objective of this graduation project was the design and
development of a mobile solar kiosk for Cambodian micro-
entrepreneurs, enabling the setup of a self-sustaining
business by distributing solar products to the rural area of
Cambodia, in continuation of the intensive collaboration
between Kamworks and Delft University of Technology, see
page 116 .
Extreme road conditions
Through intense user and context research in Cambodia,
technical and usability criteria were dened, as well as
social and cultural inuences. These formed the framework
of this project. The rst constraint was the underdeveloped
road network and the extremely bad road conditions. Also,
with heavy rain seasons from May until October the road
conditions get even worse which poses a challenge to the
Kamworks December 14, 2007
Mobile Solar Kiosk for
Micro-Entrepeneurs
Miriam Reitenbach
In order to get an understanding on how the anticipated customer reacted
on the mobile store, the Cambodian translator was asked to drive around
the rural areas to obtain feedback. In the rst place he acted as micro-
entrepreneur who sells products, consequently he interviewed the potential
customers.
58
technical requirements.
Interviews with potential customers of the solar products
revealed that Cambodians were not yet familiar with solar
energy in general and that the way of communicating and
explaining products forms a major criterion for the success
of the sales results.
The outcomes of this research were translated into a nal
concept that was rened by means of iteratively building and
testing the prototype to guarantee not only the technical
feasibility of the mobile store, but also acceptance among
the future users - the micro-entrepreneurs.
Biking without pedaling
The nal design was a three-wheeled electric bicycle that
can be recharged by solar energy. By making use of this
renewable energy technology and being remarkably lighter
than existing mobile stores, this vehicle is less polluting than
traditional motorised stores and can contribute to promote
sustainable energy in an effective way. User tests showed
that an electric bike caught the attention of the customer
immediately as most rural people never saw someone
driving on a bike without pedalling before.
In order to cope with the bad road conditions a new
suspension system was developed that can damp the
wheels individually which makes it much easier to drive and
steer the vehicle, even on bumpy and unpaved roads.
In the front part of this mobile solar kiosk a yellow carrier
is mounted that serves not only to transport the solar
products, but also as a store front when the lid is opened.
Due to the, for the local context, innovative material
application of glass bre reinforced plastic an attractive and
eye-catching form of the carrier could be achieved.
In the context of a holistic approach this project did not
only focus on the design and construction of the kiosk, but
also presented recommendations on how to communicate
to the local customers in an effective and adequate way,
such as a LED display and posters explaining the benets
and cost savings of solar products. Additionally, a new
bilingual brand name and logo was created that made it
possible to communicate with Khmer customers as well as
Western stakeholders and contributes to a quality image of
the mobile solar kiosk.
Local Production and maintenance
When designing the mobile kiosk, only locally available
materials and production techniques were considered in
order to generate local income, as local manufacturing was
one of the greatest requirements for the design. These
manufacturing experts of the kiosk would also be able to
take care of the maintenance and reparations, keeping all
the work and the money local.
The bilingual logo on the side of the glass bre reinforced carrier.
www.kamworks.com
59
Grarbet Tehadeso Mahber (GTM), an Ethiopian non
governmental organisation (NGO), offers healthcare to
the inhabitants of the rural area around Butajira, Ethiopia.
Due to a lack of funds in the last decade, the capacity
and quality of the delivered services of the department
of physiotherapy and orthotics is lagging in development.
Together with The Three Aid Foundation (TTAF), a Dutch
NGO, this project was conducted. The goal of the project
was to develop a comfortable and durable knee-ankle-foot
orthosis for young polio victims in Ethiopia using appropriate
production technology.
Current KAFOs
A lot of children with polio have been complaining about
the comfort of their knee-ankle-foot orthoses (KAFOs, or
also long leg braces); these braces are often found to be
heavy, clumsy to use and awkward to put on and take off.
Moreover, pressure excesses, detrimental to skin tissue,
frequently occur. A lot of orthoses fail prematurely, and
since there is no communication between the patient and
the clinic, this is a great problem. Furthermore, as the
children grow the orthoses have to be adjusted to ensure a
good t. Right now this happens by cutting and welding; a
way which weakens the construction.
Customization and adjustability
In order to create solutions to these problems, an analysis
was done of the current issues, and requirements were
formulated. It was clear that the future orthosis technology
must offer custom support and correction; each orthosis is
to be tailored to the specic needs and dimensions of each

The Three Aid Foundation:
Graduati on date
October 24, 2007
Better Brace Project
Koos Munneke
Overview of the features of a knee-ankle-foot orthosis
built with the proposed technology.
60
patient. Also, the future orthoses should offer more comfort
than the current orthoses. Improving the construction
should increase the durability of the orthoses and to ensure
a good t over time, the orthosis should be adjustable. The
technology must be appropriate for the context of GTM;
utilising locally available and affordable materials and locally
maintainable machines.
ApproTech
The proposed solution consists of several changes in
the design of the product as well is the production of
the product. The at tubular prole used for the upright
construction is strong yet lightweight. The combination
of the steel at bar brazed (i.e. copper welded) in the
at tube provides a durable option for adjustability. The
perforated thin sheet steel of the thigh and calf bands and
the plastic correction shells distribute the pressure over a
larger area of the limb and follow the contours of the limb
better - thus decreasing pressure and improving comfort.
The construction of the ankle hinges and the connection
to the shoe is strengthened; increasing the longevity of the
orthosis. The proposed technology makes use of locally
available and materials and locally maintainable machines
and tools. The technology is affordable as well, concerning
the start up costs as well as the running costs.
Several prototypes were built during the project,
materials and tools have been purchased, and the orthotic
technicians were trained. In produceability tests it became
clear that the proposed technology offers all options for
custom support and correction. Furthermore appropriate
technology was employed; the prototypes were produced
in the workshop of GTM using affordable materials from
the local market. In user tests it became clear that the level
of comfort has increased. Future observations will have to
prove if the durability and adjustability has increased also,
but as it seems now, the product is a success.
www.ttaf.org
Fitting of the new brace; user tests for comfort and durability.
61
Photo: Mirjam Lindgreen
62
Man and horse
at work
Java, Indonesia
63
In Madagascar, only three percent of the population in rural
areas is connected to the electricity network. In order to
fulll their lighting needs, people have to rely on kerosene
based lighting and candles. Not only in Madagascar but also
in the rest of the world, kerosene based lighting is still an
important way of indoor lighting; one fourth of the world
population has to rely on it every day.
Unhealthy and dangerous
Kerosene based lighting has many disadvantages. Firstly, it
is a very unhealthy and even dangerous way of lighting. The
smoke of the lamps causes health problems and is a major
cause of death among children below the age of ve years
old. Besides this, the lamps often cause res in rural homes.
Secondly, this way of lighting is unreliable and inefcient;
lamps are easily blown out, do not provide sufcient light
and cannot provide light in a downward direction. Finally,
kerosene based lighting is relatively expensive and bad for
the environment. In Madagascar, people spend about one
fth of their income on kerosene for lighting. The use of
kerosene lamps results in an average annual CO2 production
of 130 kg per household.
Alternative to kerosene
Since LED lighting and solar cells are becoming less
expensive and more efcient, they can become the basis
of a possible alternative for kerosene based lighting.
Exploratory research in Madagascar and further market
research have demonstrated that a solar powered lighting
product with a maximum retail price of 10 Euro could be a
realistic alternative for the current lighting solutions.
BushProof October 19, 2007
Affordable Solar Lighting
for rural Madagascar
Bernard Hulshof
A prototype of the BALL, developed as an alternative to kerosene lighting.
64
The possibility to dim the light is an important opportunity
to save energy during the night. Many people use light
to keep evil spirits away from their babies. They spend
over one third of their lighting budget during the night,
since kerosene lamps and candles cannot be dimmed.
The investment in a solar powered lighting product that
can be dimmed during the night could be earned back in
approximately three months.
Design criteria
The most important criteria stated by BushProof were:
- The product should be affordable
- The product should be desirable
- The product should be BushProof
BushProof stands for Simple (people who have no
knowledge about solar energy should easily understand the
product), Tough (the product can resist the environment in
which it is used), Durable (the product has a long lifetime)
and the product aims at high value at low cost.
Affordable light
Hulshof designed a new solar powered lighting product for
BushProof: the BALL (BushProof Affordable Life Light).
The BALL is a combination of a small solar panel and a
lamp. The separate solar panel can be mounted on a roof
to charge three AA 600 mAh batteries. These batteries
power four wide angle WLEDs of 3 lumen each, providing
12 lumen in total; enough to illuminate a room of 4 by 4
meter. A micro controller is used to dim the light at night to
1,2 lumen without losing efciency and saving the lifetime
of the batteries.
An exploded view of the BALL and the panel.
BALL from top to bottom: non transparent housing part, power
connector, electronics, rubber ring, transparent housing part.
Panel from top to bottom: transparent housing part, solar panel
and non transparent housing part.
Rendering of the ball in detail.
www.bushproof.biosandlter.org
65
This project was executed for DSM Innovation Center,
a corporate body within Royal DSM N.V. responsible for
accelerating and stimulating innovation throughout the
whole company. This division had identied an opportunity
at the Base of the Pyramid and intends to use DSMs
capabilities for addressing needs within the Indian diary
and cattle sector.
The objective of this project was to identify a strategic
direction for a business opportunity in the Indian cattle
and dairy industry, taking into consideration consumer
needs, stakeholders interests and trends in the contextual
environment, resulting in a nancially viable business case,
including business model and related product concept.
Successful Strategies
The preliminary research question in this project was;
what are successful strategic methods for an entry in the
Base of the Pyramid? This question was addressed with a
literature research, resulting in a list of strategic elements
serving as an input for the project. Two elements had a
fundamental impact on the process: Firstly, the involvement
of unconventional stakeholders and secondly, the need for
integral development of product and the accompanying
business model.
Method
To reach the objective, three phases were executed; a
strategic analysis, the denition of the strategic direction
and the development of the product and business case.
An internal analysis into the strategic position of the focal
DSM business unit Animal Nutrition & Health (producer of

DSM October 12, 2007
Holy Cow or Cash Cow
Rutger Bonsel
A farmer milking her cow. Note that eighty percent of the farmers in India
have less than 3 animals.
66
animal feed) in India revealed that the ruminant sector
currently is neglected, due to its unorganized and scattered
character. DSM faces tough competition from local feed
manufactures and has no direct leads to the farmers. Its
vitamins are from a higher quality than competitive products,
but are also more expensive. DSMs major strengths are its
technical knowledge and one of DSMs diagnostic tools; the
iCheck, currently the only available tool measuring instantly
animal health at farm-level.
The external analysis showed the diversity within Indian
dairy farming; India is the worlds largest dairy producer,
but 80 % of the farmers have less than 3 animals. A focus
group discussion revealed that these farmers do not have
the knowledge of the function of vitamins in premix feed.
Furthermore, their actual need is education and training on
all kind of aspects concerning dairy farming; animal health,
feeding and dairying practices. Finally, some farmers lack
the appropriate infrastructure for dairy procurement and
have nancial difculties, due to their bounding to local
middlemen.
Animal Feed to Animal Health
Pivotal element in the strategic direction was the transition
from selling animal feed to delivering animal health. A
Product Service System model satises this demand by
offering a full package of education, training, micro-credit
and insurance, on top of the animal feed. Through this DSM
can address a broad range of needs of the farmers, which
also justies a higher selling price with respect to other
feed products in the market. The iCheck plays herein a role,
since it can monitor the actual use of the feed premixes
and can show the farmer instantly the effect of feeding on
fertility. Use of the system results in a benet for farmers
of 0,05 per animal per day, in terms of decreased health
costs and increased milk yield. To reach the BoP customers
it is essential to cooperate with local partners, who have
direct contact and are trusted by the farmers.
Building trust
A pilot project is essential for showing the farmers the
advantages of the system, for building trust and for proving
the actual benets of the feed premix, since trust appeared
to be a very important element for the BoP consumers.
Concluded, there is an actual business opportunity for
DSM at the Base of the Pyramid. The Indian small-scale
dairy farm sector is a largely untapped market for the cattle
feed industry. A pro-active approach is required to reach
the farmers and to support the professionalization of the
currently unorganized dairy sector.
Participants of the focus group, held to gather user insights.

www.dsm.com
67
In China, every 90 seconds a life is lost due to indoor air
pollution. Philips DAP aims to bring sustainable solutions
to the BoP regarding the reduction of respiratory problems
due to indoor air pollution. Consumer tests have been
conducted in India with prototypes of a smokeless and
efcient woodstove developed by Philips Research. The
consumer tests have generated useful insight in the context,
in the benets for the consumer, and in the required
product improvements. In parallel they are investigating
opportunities to introduce the solutions in the Chinese Base
of the Pyramid.
Similar usability issues
The rst eld research in six provinces resulted in the
denition of the Chinese rural BoP and the target market.
It also provides knowledge into the renewable energy
development and the market of high efcient low emission
biomass stoves in China. In the second eld research,
twelve Philips woodstoves had been tested in two different
provinces beneath the Yangtze river. The ndings show
similar usability problems but different needs and wishes
between the provinces. Two personas, which are one of the
outcomes of this extensive research are used as the starting
point of the concept development.
Adoptable proposition for the Chinese rural BoP
The Philips Bio stove is a highly efcient low emission biomass
stove electronically controlled with a smart user interface.
It is a replacement for the open re, built in rewood stove
(with chimney) and coal briquette stove. It enables the user
to cook meals without smoke in their kitchen or coming out
Philips Consumer Lifestyle August 8, 2007
Cooking in rural China
Isabella Hoi-Kee Wong
The product proposal of the Philips Bio stove is an integration of all the
improvement areas, increasing the likelyhood of the product to be adopted by
rural Chinese households. However, the implementation plan of this product
proposal is the other half of the successful adoption of the Philips Bio stove.
On page 102 another graduation project is presented on the Philips
woodstove, by Leonie Ideler. After her graduation project the woodstove
has been developed further, and Philips expects to launch the woodstove
in India in the rst half of 2009. Recently a commercial pilot was completed
in India, from which a great deal was learned, and this was a study to nd
out how the woodstove was applicable to rural china. Philips realizes that
a new market is about to be entered and that their approach to marketing
and distribution needs to be modied; Philips is currently optimizing their
business case and their go-to market strategy.
68
of the chimney, without electricity consumption and with
lower consumption of wood or other biomass fuels. The
user interface enables carefree cooking, because it informs
you when to add fuel. The product is surrounded by other
services to decrease the risk for the Chinese rural BoP to
purchase the Philips Bio stove, such as government funding,
alternative payments options, guarantee arrangements and
after sales service & support.
Research in India in rural China has shown differences
and similarities in usability problems, wishes and needs.
The stoves can provide a solution for many people in other
countries in South East Asia, as long as the differences
and similarities are properly addressed in product
functionalities.
Twelve woodstoves were used by a variety of rural inhabitants of
China living in two different provinces in China. The results were
used for the new concept.
The ashes from the Philips
Bio stove is removed by
lifting up the ash handle at
the back of the stove.
First the ame regulator is set to the
lowest level and then little pieces
of paper and little twigs are used to
ignite the re. Subsequently the ON
button is pressed, both pilot lights
start to blink. Fuel is added as desired
to increase the re.
The desired
heating
value is set
by turning
the ame
regulator.
The red pilot light is blinking
and a short beep sound occurs
to inform you to add/rell fuel.
The user decide to turn the
ame regulator to the highest
heating value, which is suitable
for stir frying.
Both pilot lights are on
continously; ready for
stir frying
69
Nowadays fuels such as wood are getting scarcer due
to depletion of natural resources such as deforestation.
Therefore the trend is to develop more sustainable
solutions, also in the cooking eld. The goal of Servals is
to manufacture products that contribute to better living
circumstances for the poor people in India. Their vision
is Bringing appropriate technology to the base of the
pyramid to enhance their quality of life. Their mission is to
develop a scaleable and sustainable business model using
native and rural technologies and manufacture socially
relevant and environment friendly systems. Servals wants to
create a sustainable business organization that contributes
to poverty alleviation in the areas of energy conservation
and water management.
Eliminate kerosene
The way people cook in the current situation contributes
to health problems and the green house effect. Servals has
been working on the development of a stove which only
needs plant oil to burn, yet kerosene was needed to support
the burning. Fire4India was hired to improve this burner and
eliminate the need of kerosene, as well as to design a stove
especially for the BoP target group. Servals wants to be
successful in the burner market as well as the stove market
and wants to achieve a higher penetration. An innovative
burner based on plant oil can create a strong position in
the market for Servals as there are only a small number of
direct competitors in a large and expanding market.
Urban vs Rural
Differences between urban and rural people in cooking
Servals Automation
ate
May, 2007
Fire4India
Executed by Veronie Croes, Bjrn-Evert van Eck Ras-
mussen, Swie Oei and Susan Oudshoorn.
A future user testing the prototype. The picture on the top shows
the pumping. On the bottom the working stove is shown with a pan.
70
patterns and the use of cooking stoves were discovered in
the user study, as well as differences in living circumstances,
the shops they visit etc. This indicates that these two groups
have to be serviced and reached in different ways. Although
the stove satises the needs of both rural and urban poor,
on the short term only the urban poor will be targeted, as
rural people cook on wood they collect themselves, which is
a lot cheaper than plant oil. Wood is not a competitive fuel
for urban people. Also, urban poor can be reached through
the distribution channels Servals is most familiar with.
The rural poor are still an important target group for the
plant oil stove, and should be targeted in a later stadium. By
rst targeting urban poor, a critical user quantity is created
that is necessary to:
- Increase the amount of plant oil manufacturers
- Prove the worth of stove to the rest of Indias poor
- Prove the worth of the plant oil as a fuel
The Wicket
Fire4India developed an innovative cooking stove which
burns on 100% crude plant oil and is able to burn on all
different kinds of plant oil. The stove, specially designed
for the Indian BoP market, creates more independence by
giving the possibility of extracting plant oil by the BoP people
themselves. The stove is designed in such a way that even
wrong usage can not lead to dangerous situations. The
pumping and poking movements are known to the users.
The handles to slide the caps up and down are positioned
in such a way that it is easy to make the rotating movement
with both hands. The ame plate is operated when the
handles of the sliding mechanism are in the lower (most
left) position. In this situation the handle of the ame plate
is freely accessible, without the obstruction of the sliding
handles.
Green prototype
The design of the stove has obvious similarities with the
existing kerosene wickstove. This makes the Wicket instantly
recognizable as a stove. It is important that the stove forms
a unity. Therefore the tank is placed below the burner
and follows the same cylindrical shape as the frame. To
make clear that the stove operates on a different fuel than
existing stoves, the stove has a distinguishing green color.
The handles are made in an eye-catching different color, so
it is instantly recognizable which parts can be touched. The
stove is mostly made out of recycled mild steel; a strong
and cheap material, largely available on the local market.
The team and the working prototype.
www.servalsgroup.blogspot.com
71
Multinational Corporations (MNCs) increasingly develop
new business models, products, and services to satisfy the
needs in new markets. From urban to rural areas, emerging
markets have extremely diverse groups of consumers with
different needs. In this project, the strategies of seven
multinational companies were analyzed in a case study
research. The companies included were Philips, VIA, Haier,
Motorola, Intel, Microsoft, and BenQ.
The objective of the project was to learn how MNCs
identify their roles and opportunities in emerging markets,
and how they develop new products and strategies for these
markets. Within the project, there was a particular focus
on how MNCs develop new products for people who earn
less than three dollars per day. This segment represents the
majority of the population in emerging markets.
Interviews with Managers
The data was gathered through interviews with MNC
managers who are inuential to the companys emerging
market strategies and innovation processes. Twelve
interviews with participants from seven MNCs were
conducted to collect knowledge and practical experiences.
Wihin each case, aspects of motivation, strategy, innovation
process, difference, difculty, challenge, etc were analyzed
and reported on. Some examples of the results for three
case studies are described in the boxes spread over these
pages.
The results reveal that similar motivations to enter the
BoP market can lead to various product strategies and
development processes. The motivation on corporate social
Knowledge Gaps in
Product Development
Yu-Kuan Chang
VIA: Bridging the Digital Divide
VIA seeks to develop a sustainable bridge over the digital divide of the
80% of the world population that do not have access to the internet.
Therewith, the company makes vast information, education and
commercial resources available and thus empowers many people in the
BoP. Their approach to emerging markets is based on four objectives:
New markets: beyond ownership to access;
New environments: beyond city comfort to rural remoteness;
New usage models: from one-to-one to one-to-many;
New products: from PCs to PHD appliances.
Yu-Kuan Chang took seven MNCs as case studies to gather their experience
and knowledge to learn for future product development for the BoP.

Delft University of Tech. Nov 27, 2006
72
responsibility is required to support the projects which aim
at the Base of Pyramid (BoP). These types of projects cannot
only be evaluated by short-term return on investment, but
need to be sustained by long-term visions on social return
on investment as well.
Challenges in Innovation for the BoP
The major challenges within innovation process include
the opportunity identication, front-end research, product
introduction and delivery. Most challenges arise because
of the unfamiliarity with the local context and the distinct
infrastructure in emerging markets. Although MNCs have
strong global resources and networks, a sustainable local
enterprise network is necessary for MNCs to interact with
local the communities. Non-Governmental Organizations
play a vital role in the process in which they intend to
approach consumers at the BoP.
This project aimed to gather the best practises of all the
MNCs. However, a general strategy for emerging markets
could not be identied. This knowledge can be shared for
learning and future activities in the BoP.
Intel: Breaking the Vicious Cycle
Intel identied a vicious circle in emerging markets. The cycle
of less access to technology leading to less productivity and
knowledge; this in turn leads to less personal and business
wealth. Intel believes that by investing in technology, this
cycle can be broken, and the emerging markets can be
opened up to sustainable growth.
Microsoft Research: Pay-As-You-Go Concepts
The exGo is a exible alternative to traditional PC nancing. It is a new concept
to make PCs affordable for medium to low income communities by providing nancing
options for buying a PC. By doing ethnographic research to understand the local context,
Microsoft research is able to develop ICT technology for the BoP. They believe this single
method can work in most emerging markets. Therefore they encourage their researchers
to work at BoP communities. The high level of uncertainty increases the importance of
several prototyping and user testing cycles before marketing the cheap PC.
The vicious cycle of lacking technology is broken by Intels
approach to invest in technology to increase wealth in the BoP.
73
Photo: Prabhu Kandachar
74
Market for
Holi Colours
India
75
D
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g
n

&

C
u
l
t
u
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Travelling is very common these days, at least for those who
can afford to. People are travelling all around the world,
looking for opportunities to make a fortune, escaping from
existing life, and looking for adventure. Travellers learn from
what is different and common, always comparing that what
they come across on their travels to what they know.
The students featured in this book have all travelled
to the country their project was focused on. The many
constraints (nance, resources, skills, legislation) students
face in BoP projects are challenging; students really feel
they are provoked to be more creative, enterprising and
focused. An aspect that motivates me to support these
students is that through BoP projects students will learn
more about themselves. They get the chance to develop an
open mind and they can position their own truths into other
perspectives. I believe that experience abroad teaches the
students to be more effective, respectful of other cultures,
and to better understand their own culture and values. As a
student said it is a life long experience.
One of the main differences encountered by students
in BoP projects is the difference in culture. The cultural
anthropologist Geert Hofstede
1
dened culture as the
system of shared beliefs, values, customs, behaviours and
artefacts that the members of a society use to cope with
their world and with one another (2005). The people that
we consider as the BoP live in cultures that differ greatly
from the cultures we live in. Our students have to put in
effort to understand the differences as well as what they
have in common with the people they design for.
Culture plays a role in the relationships between people
Design & culture in the
BoP Domain
Annemiek van Boeijen
Onion model of Geert Hofstede
1. Hofstede G. (2005), Cultures and organizations,
software of the mind. New York: McGraw-Hill
..local habits, shared by a group.
photo: Toon Fey
76
D
e
s
i
g
n

&

C
u
l
t
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and new products in particular depends partly on the
culture where the people live in. Culture is manifested in
different layers. Hofstede distinguishes four layers:
Symbols Words, gestures, images, and objects
manifested in a specic group such as
consumer products, services, art, dialect
Heroes People - alive or dead, real or ction - that
have a specic meaning for a group of
people, such as Nelson Mandela for the
world, queen Beatrix for the Netherlands,
the chief of a village
Rituals Collective activities, not (just) to full a
technical function, but because of a social
interest for the group such as a wedding
ceremony, praying before dinner
Values A collective tendency to prefer a certain
course of events above another one,
expressed by qualications such as good-
bad, dirty-clean, ugly-beautiful.
Although products are part of the outer layer, the
symbols, they are directly related to the inner layers.
Therefore designers should understand all layers.
I would like to end my deliberations by emphasizing
that culture is only one of the many aspects of a BoP
design project. Culture stresses the differences between
groups of people, but there are also universal and
inherited principles that lead to global shared solutions,
and there are personal differences everywhere that
require individual solutions, wherever your location in
the economic pyramid.
and in the relationships between people and products. At the Faculty
of Industrial Design Engineering students are taught a holistic
design approach: they are taught to research and understand the
whole context before developing design solutions. Cultural theories
can help formulate relevant research questions. For instance, when
hierarchy in a society is stronger than the designer is used to, the
following questions might be relevant; Who will be the owner of
the product? What kind of status will the product provoke? What
will the that mean for the manifestation (functions, form, colours,
shape etc.) of the product?
So how can we nd the answers to these questions? Methods for
user and usage research need to take cultural aspects into account.
Designers should be aware that users might not feel comfortable
to give their personal opinion, especially when living in a culture
where community opinion is considered of more value than the
opinion of an individual. In these cases, a group brainstorm session
as commonly practised in Europe will not work as expected.
Design management is another aspect where culture plays a big
role. An example is found in the differences in power distances
between nations. In countries with relatively high power distance,
Western European students might feel limited in their freedom,
misunderstood and unsupported. They will have to explore these
new feelings and nd new ways of communication and learn to
adjust. That is possible only when the designer is open to and
understands both the differences and the common features in
communication.
For the manifestation of the new product, designers need to
understand how the intended users will give meaning to the
product, and how the new product will inuence their social
system. How groups of people give meaning to products in general
Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and
narrow-mindedness. Mark Twain
77
Photo: Stephen Boom
78
Boats
Cambodia
79
3D models of the reeling machine (left) and the re-reeling machine (right)
Second prototype of the reeling machine during user testing
PRADAN, an Indian NGO, attempts to reduce the vulnerability
of socio-economically disadvantaged communities. They
organize poor women into savings and credit groups,
and develop locally suitable sectoral activities to expand
economic opportunities in the hands of poor families.
One of their activities introduced in the villages of
Jharkhand and Bihar is the Tasar Silk reeling project. Being
a unique silk that grows in the wild, Tasar silk currently
lacks an own identity, as opposed to traditional cultivated
Mulberry silk. Also, traditional technology, inefcient
production processes and exploitation by traders and money
lenders have crippled the activity of Tasar silk production.
Reeling is done by using a reeling-cum-twisting machine
which produces coarse yarn and a re-reeling machine, which
takes care of re-reeling the yarn onto a standardized re-reel
drum. Mink aimed to develop a re-design of the existing
reeling-cum-twisting machines. Lack of quality control,
safety and proper ergonomics are the barriers.
Re-design of the Reeling Machine
The main problem of the existing machine is lack of quality
control. Thickness, twist and colour vary widely, which
makes it difcult to establish a good quality standard for
the produced yarn. Therefore, entrepreneurs struggle to
get a good price for their yarn. Also, the machine has a
lot of unprotected moving parts, which cause concerns for
the safety of the workers. The machine is driven by human
powered pedalling, is noisy and has a xed height, which all
cause ergonomics problems. The costs of the machine are
high in relation to its yarn production.
Together with PRADAN, Mink developed a number

Sharepeople (EYE), Pradan November 10, 2006
Reeling Machine for Silk
Yarn Producers
Annemarie Mink
80
of criteria for the re-design. First criterion is to maintain
a constant reeling speed, lessen physical problems and
enable a table-sized tool. Also, the machine should include
a quality control mechanism and independently driven
spindles should enable lines to continue in case one of the
four yarn lines breaks. The introduction of a motor and
quality control brings extra costs, which must be nullied by
an increased quality and/or output of yarn. Mink divided the
functions of the reeling machine into sub-problems using
a morphological map. The main functions of the machine
were: combining laments, insertion of twist, taking up
yarn, separate twisted and non-twisted yarn, spreading
yarns on take-up package, establishing transmission,
separate driving take-up package and integrate re-reeling.
Mink developed product concepts based on three different
techniques: non-integrated re-reeling, indirect integrated
re-reeling and direct integrated re-reeling. The concept
of indirect integrated re-reeling was chosen based on the
expected simple usage and production and because this
concept offers the possibility of producing a new type of yarn
that opens up new markets. The yarn is guided and easy to
control and reach in this concept. Prime advantage of the
concept is the estimated high yarn production rate. Mink
materialized the concept, which resulted in fully detailed
design and a prototype was built in a local workshop.
Safe, Efcient and User-Friendly
An important aspect of developing products for the BoP
market, is the necessity for affordability and return on
investment. Mink calculated the estimated cost of the
re-design and the future prot for the silk reelers. She
estimated that reelers can produce 1,9 times more yarn
than with the existing machines. Which means that reelers
will increase their prot from 56 Rupees to 104 rupees a
day. Both from user and yarn production process evaluation,
Mink concluded that the machines are safer, more energy
efcient, more time efcient, more user-friendly, have
higher yield and the yarn produced from the machine is of
a better quality.
Update
After graduation, Mink was hired by the Dutch development
organization ICCO to nish the project and produce a
second, smaller and cheaper prototype. A student from the
faculty of Mechanical Engineering was selected to help with
improving both the machines. Mr. Rahmouni did a great job
in helping to optimize both the machines and together they
went to India to build the second prototypes. The outcome
was two smaller, cheaper, even more energy-efcient and
good working machines, understandable for the reeler and
the manufacturer. Rahmouni will graduate soon on the
improvements of the re-design of the reeling machines.
The second generation prototypes are being adjusted to
perfection and then a test-series of thirty machines will run
in a newly established reeling centre. If this is all working
well, the machines will be taken in full production and
replace the currently used machines. Subsequently, the
machines will directly contribute to the improvement of the
womens working comfort and to their income. Improvement
of income contributes directly to their livelihoods.
www.icco.nl
www.pradan.net
www.sharepeople.nl
81
The LifeBox network involves information sharing
and distribution througout the network.
This current doctor set
does not include more
sophisticated tools. Next to
that, village doctors do not
have appropriate medical
knowledge, nor contact with
experts.
Every Chinese village has a village doctor. These are low
educated villagers that have received a basic medical
course, but function as a general practitioner. While they
know their patients well, they have very little contact
with more educated doctors, and no access to up-to-date
medical information resources.
This project aimed at developing a support tool to provide
the village doctors access to medical information, guide
them with medical decisions and link them to the national
medical network.
Barefoot Doctors
The Chinese healthcare system is built up of tiers: 3rd tier
(1000 beds, 2300 doctors), 2nd tier (650 beds, 600 doctors)
and 1st tier hospitals (50 beds, 100 doctors) and the rural
Community Healthcare Points (CHP). The CHPs are manned
by an average of two village doctors, or barefoot doctors.
In 2004, 95% of the Chinese villages had a village clinic,
counting up to an average of one doctor per thousand
rural inhabitants. However, they often have received only
basic medical training and have little contact with the urban
hospitals and up-to-date medical information. The main
problems De Groot focussed on are a lack of (quality) tools,
appropriate medical knowledge, counter-effective behavior
of rural population and the small budgets rural hospitals
receive. The goal of De Groots project is to improve the
quality of this village doctor by developing a support tool.
The company Impact in Breda developed a self-monitoring
system for diabetics in the Netherlands: the set-top box.
The company saw potential in developing this system for
Support Tool for the
Chinese Village Doctor
Marion de Groot

Impact Sept 21, 2006
82
diagnoses. The reasons to use the box are the availability
of a TV in almost every community healthcare point and
the familiarity of the doctors with using a remote control.
Lifeboxes are connected to (local) servers and hospitals via
the phone network. This enables the sharing and updating
of information throughout the network of medical facilities.
The software of the LifeBox has three sections: a patient
guide, supporting the doctor with diagnosing patients, an
education section providing course material from the higher
level hospitals or the district and an email box. The e-mail
box can contain messages from all the parties involved in
the network, keeping the doctor up-to-date.
the village doctors in China. The Lifebox, as the support
tool is called, provided the starting point for the product
development process. The design problem consisted out of
understanding the context of healthcare in Chinese villages
and developing a dedicated interaction and implementation
strategy.
Product Guidelines
During the development, De Groot focused on trust between
doctor, patient and product. She developed guidelines for
the product based on context research and interviews from
general practitioners.
Based on context research she formulated guidelines
such as the introduction of a new tool can be compared
to other tools the doctor uses. Since these are trusted, the
tool will be trusted as well and the doctor should be able to
operate independently of the product.
General practitioners were interviewed to gain insight
in how the village doctors could be supported with useful
information. These interviews resulted in a number of
guidelines for the product such as information should be
organized around symptoms of diseases, to enable under-
educated doctors to nd the right information quickly and
the product should end up with differential diagnosis and
indicate the probability of each possible diagnosis.
The LifeBox
The product supports access to medical information,
communication with educated doctors and inclusion in the
national healthcare network. The LifeBox can store patients
health history and help the doctor navigate through the
With the LifeBox village doctors have access to medical information,
contact with educated doctors and inclusion in the national
healthcare network.
83
Design of a Malaria
Diagnostics Device
Cathelijne Huis in t Veld
Rendering of the computer model made of the malaria diagnosis device.
Worldwide, up to 500 million clinical cases of malaria occur
every year, causing up to 2 million deaths. Amongst these
deaths are mainly young children. Currently, the gold
standard for diagnosis of malaria is microscopic research
(the best method available). This is a reliable method,
but trained microscopists are needed. Other methods that
are easier to perform are less reliable, cannot identify all
species, are more expensive or the tropical climates easily
inuence their reliability.
Researchers at Philips Research, Care & Health
applications develop techniques that can make the diagnosis
as reliable as microscopic research, independent of the
skills of the operator and climatic conditions and are either
portable or non-invasive. To develop a successful product,
more knowledge must be gained to better understand the
context of malaria diagnosis. Consequently, Cathelijne Huis
in t Veld aimed to develop a concept for a malaria diagnosis
device for the Indian context, in cooperation with Manipal
University. Next to the context research and design of a
concept, she also evaluated the BoP protocol of Stuart Hart
with respect to usage by students and Philips employees.
Alternative Medicins for Malaria
After the kick-off in the Netherlands, Huis in t Veld
continued her literature and context research in India. The
healthcare service in India can be divided in three levels
(see graduation project of Jon Rodriguez).
In India there are many more types of healthcare
than allopathic healthcare. Ayurvedic medicine as well
as homeopathic medicine plays an important role in the

Philips Research August 31, 2006
84
medical market in India. For malaria this means that
allopathic medicine comes across most initial cases. When
the disease is in the second or third stage and the patient
suffers from repetitive fever attacks, some people approach
ayurvedic or homeopathic medicine. Allopathic medicine
generally makes most use of electronic equipment for both
diagnostic as well as treatment purposes. Doctors rely a
great deal on electronic devices. In the case of ayurvedic
healthcare almost the same methods are being used for
diagnosis as allopathic medicine. It is mainly the treatment
that differs. Instead of generating large and concentrated
doses of the effective drug, the complete natural form is
being given to the patient. In this way the drugs are less
toxic but the healing process takes longer.
There are approximately 156 different species of
Plasmodium. Four are known to affect humans. Malaria
is treated in 5 phases. Since both allophatic and traditional
medicine have a common way of diagnosing malaria, the
project focussed on this part of the malaria care process.
Quick Malaria Diagnosis
During her stay in India, Huis in t Veld developed design
solutions. The malaria diagnosis device should work
according to the technique of the automated microscope.
Integration in malaria control programs is needed to reach
as many people as possible. This meant that the main users
are Auxiliary Nurse Midwifes (ANM) and mass screening
teams.
The main function of the device was to enable a
minimally instructed user in India to quickly state the
diagnosis of malaria, independent of any other facilities.
After the analysis Huis in t Veld proceeded with concept
development and optimization in the Netherlands. The
concept had to conform to criteria of technology (the
automated microscope), construction, safety, data
communication, comfort, aesthetics and costs. During the
development stage, potential users were involved to ensure
relevance and usability of the nal product. This resulted in
a portable device that can be transported and used by the
ANMs and in mass screening activities.
Five phases of malaria medical care.
www.philips.com
85
Personal Water Puri er
Roelie Bottema

The problem with
drinking 'dirty' water
is visualized. Also,
the actions for using
and maintaining the
products are explained
step by step.
Lifestraw Child is a smaller and slightly adapted version of the current
LifeStraw. The child can drink by sucking, squeezing or tumbling the bottle, or
a combination of these.
For 1.1 billion people, access to safe drinking water is
limited. Poor people suffer most, because they cannot
afford to buy drinking water. This results in more illnesses
and more pressure on women to transport the water. The
Danish company Vestergaard Frandsen (VF) has developed
LifeStraw, a product that puries surface water for personal
use with lters. People can carry the mobile LifeStraw
anywhere, which is complemented by another water
purifying product at home. For Ghana, LifeStraw could be
lifesaving since 38% of the people do not have access to
safe drinking water and the majority of the people live in
rural areas.
Roelie Bottema investigated several aspects of the
implementation of LifeStraw, focused on children under
the age of ve. Also, she developed instruction manuals
and posters. In this way health workers can instruct people
better and more complete about the use and other issues
concerning the LifeStraw.
Drinking
Her user research demonstrated that people are not used
to pay for their water or treat their drinking water. Water is
rare and often polluted and women have to walk far to get
the water, especially in the dry season. Even though people
are aware of that, they do not have a choice rather than
using this water.
Regarding LifeStraw, users did notice they need it:
everyone should have one and I do not have diarrhoea
any more. Also, the appearance appealed to them and they
associated status to the product user. When asked about
Vestergaard Fransen August 4, 2006
86
named LifeStraw Child, a exible bottle and a special
mouthpiece. The bottle has a one-way valve that lets air
in but not out. On the transparent bottle, a volume scale
was added to give feedback to the mothers and a writable
area included to personalize it or write the expiry date as
reminder. Using a smaller LifeStraw makes the product
easier to handle for children. In LifeStraw Child a valve is
added which prevents the water to ow out of LifeStraw
Child after sucking it up to a certain height. When pressure
is put on the valve, it does let air through, an aspect that
makes the product easier to clean by blowing.
Instructions to Health Workers
In addition to developing LifeStraw Child, Bottema created
instruction material for usage of both LifeStraw and
LifeStraw Child. She rst concluded from the user research
which elements should be included. Focus should be on
the relation of clean drinking water and health, what the
LifeStraw product line does, and how to use and maintain
the products. Expiration and personal use are also aspects
that should be stressed. She developed a manual for health
workers and
a large poster
for usage while
instructing people
what LifeStraw actually did, people mentioned It retracts
diseases from the water and it stops dirt. Participants often
talked of LifeStraw being a good product, but not everyone
could afford it ($2.50). Also, they were afraid that the
product would be stolen.
From this part of the research, Bottema recommended to
take care of disposal and replacement aspects. The existing
LifeStraw could be improved by enabling personalization
and giving feedback on the level of sucking power and
effect of cleaning.
Vulnerable Children
In her research, Bottema observed that children younger
than three years could not handle LifeStraw by themselves.
They do not understand how to suck the water. The child
does not understand why it does not get water in its mouth
immediately after sucking. Also, maneuvering the cup and
LifeStraw at the same time is complicated for them. Because
small children are most vulnerable for waterborne diseases
and LifeStraw is unsuitable, Bottema concluded that a child
version of the LifeStraw should be developed suitable for
the children.
Ideas were generated in brainstorm sessions, with
Vestergaard Frandsen employees in Ghana and also with
students at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering,
Delft. Bottema elaborated on the ideas and made
compromises on price, feasibility and other requirements.
Two concepts were developed based on working principles
and production of the existing LifeStraw.
The nal proposal consists of a slightly modied LifeStraw,
An instruction
manual for both
health workers
as users of the
LifeStraw was
designed.
www.vestergaard-frandsen.com
87
The strategy and business development for emerging markets
is growing; starting with the theory of Prahalad, while the
development of knowledge on product development for the
Base of the Pyramid is still lagging behind. Enterprises and
universities have difculties in developing products for the
emerging markets: a lack of structured or systematically
ordered information inhibits efcient and effective product
development, also referred to as Design4Billions in this
project. Design4Billions aims at a market of approximately
4 billion people who earn less than four dollars a day.
The goal of the project of Mijntje de Caluw was to
develop a knowledge framework for product development
for emerging markets. It should provide a knowledge source
for projects at the Faculty of Industrial Design Engineering.
Knowledge from experts was gathered on three topics:
knowledge, product development process and contextual
aspects. A fourth was added after the interviews: risk
factor.
Product development for the BoP is carried out by a
number of companies. Yet little public knowledge exists
on how to deal with design related problems for emerging
markets. Through a series of explorative interviews with
eight experts, De Caluw gathered knowledge and insights.
These were integrated in an online knowledge portal
(www.design4billions.com).
Designer Related Knowledge
Specic design related knowledge was subdivided in four
aspects: attitude, experience, information and skills. The
two main perspectives of designers were either an engaged,
Knowledge Framework:
Design4Billions
Mijntje de Caluw
Screenshot of the online knowledge framework on the stakeholders page.

Delft University of Tech. July 29, 2006
88
nancial, Governmental and Designer.
3 Designers4Billions and their main focus points are
mentioned and described in the categories: knowledge,
context, process and risk.
4 Collaboration is stressed as the means to achieve
successful product development in a BoP arena.
Additional features are provided in the form of tips &
tricks, a BoP library, an inspiration page including links to
interesting websites, and a list of denitions.
personal attitude towards the BoP, or an accidental
entering of this market segment. Individual experiences
are important to designers, and are related to the product
brand, the role of the participant and the project context.
For information gathering, multinational companies rely
on consumer research, while small and medium sized
enterprises use Non-Governmental Organizations and the
World Heath Organization to gain insight into their target
groups. For designers in the BoP, their social skills are most
valuable, an open mind, exibility and communication are
key factors.
The product development process relates to ve aspects:
strategy formulation, design requirements, product
development, market introduction and product in use. The
process bottlenecks are the design requirements and the
products in use.
Framework
The perspective of the designer was central while
structuring the knowledge for future use by designers. The
online knowledge database contains all the information that
is gathered during the research project. The framework
organizes knowledge on product development for the BoP
in four main chapters:
1 Global village, which contains general information
about the place Design4Billions takes in a global world
context.
2 The stakeholders of product development for the BoP
are mentioned and described: Business, Humanitarian,
Local enterprises, Knowledge, Technological, User, Micro
The Delft Innovation Model adjusted for emerging markets.
www.design4billions.com
89
Photo: Ferry
90
Girl Getting
Water in Favela
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
91
Bosch & Siemens July 7, 2006
In developing countries, indoor air pollution and deforestation
of land are the two main environmental and health problems
occurring due to the use of biomass fuel for household
energy. Bosch and Siemens Home Appliances Group (BSH)
and the University of Hohenheim have developed a plant oil
cooking stove. Plant oil is abundant in rural areas of many
developing countries, so this market is very promising for
implementing the stove. A pilot project with a non-prot
focus was executed in the Philippines.
Elselien Epema developed a business plan to implement
the plant oil stove in the Philippine market. She wrote a
business plan and created a nancial tool to demonstrate
the nancial feasibility of the stove implementation plan.
Product Service System
POTC
Product Service System
for Plant Oil Stove
Elselien Epema
The Product Service
System includes
distribution,
marketing and
after sales of the
plant oil stove and
supplements. All
partners should be
organized as shown
in the gure.
New Business
Do It Yourself Service
Existing Businesses
Vintage Scenario
Car Wash Scenario
In this scenario the PSS is a
system that takes care of ev-
erything. The POS user only
has to address the need
In this scenario the PSS turns
a current business into a com-
bination with the POS supply
and service
Familiar Scenario
Do It Yourself Scenario
In this scenario the PSS pro-
vides the tools and needs
through a new system, but
without helping the users ac-
tively
In this scenario the PSS turns
a current business into a com-
bination with the POS supply
and service
Several
scenarios for
implementation
of the plant
oil stove were
made. The
most promising
scenario was
the vintage
scenario, shown
in the lower left
quadrant.
92
Safety, Time and Convenience
Several households in the Philippines have been using
prototypes of the plant oil stove. After a year, research
concluded that the advantages of the stove for the users are
safety, time, convenience and the package-size fuel. Also the
uniqueness and use of new technology makes it interesting
for Philippines to use the stove. A plan to market the stove
successfully should focus on these points, according to
Epema. However, affordability is always the rst priority.
In her research, she focused on understanding the
target group needs and possibilities. The target group
is not aware of all predened benets such as improved
health and environmentally friendly. She also surveyed
potential business partners or competitors and the current
local market. Switching from wood and charcoal to plant
oil would raise initial costs for both restaurants and
households; however, switching from LPG to plant oil would
be more protable, because of reducing energy costs and
initial investment.
Epema also extracted important business model factors
from literature. For business partners it is important to
organize clear local communication, take care of the
relationships and look for partners close to the local people.
All products should be affordable to the target group,
promotion, location and opening hours adjusted to local
conditions. High quality after-sale service would improve
the use of the stove as well.
Product and Service
The system for the distribution and service centre of plant
oil stoves could be seen as a product service system. Both
products, including the stove and fuels, and service, such
as training and maintenance, should be delivered. To show
potential systems, Epema made several scenarios, each
consisting of goals and ideas for implementation.
The most promising scenario was the vintage scenario,
where a current business is modied into a combination of
stove supplier and service provider. By using an existing
business, the implementation would be easier and more
effective towards end users.
The chain included three parties: the plant oil technology
centre, distribution and service centres and a cooperative.
The centres are responsible for marketing the stoves and
service and are set up by local entrepreneurs. Each selling
point of the cooperative has a plant oil tank with a tap
system. Consumers bring their containers and ll these
with oil. No packaging is needed and the consumer can buy
exactly the amount he prefers.
Finance
Product prices needs to be adjusted to the users nancial
possibilities by subsidizing by BSH. Also, users can pay in
instalments. The nancial model predicts that entrepreneurs
can earn twice the minimum monthly income for a fulltime
employee.
The nancial model is translated into a nancial tool, to
visualize the inuence of decisions and the sensitivity of
variables. Also, the subsidy and selling prices are dened.
Epema recommended a lowering of material costs, local
production of the stove burner and an increased lifespan of
replaceable parts.
www.bsh-group.com
93
Tricycle for Disabled
Entrepreneurs
Integral Design Project - GhanaMoves
Executed by Rutger Bonsel, Sietse Cieraad, Stph-
anie Reintjens and Imke Schepers
Prototypes of the concept were developed to enable
user testing in the context of intended use.
The two concepts, hip-spot and high-spot, were developed in
cooperation with the local metal workshop Mak-D in Ghana.
The Movendi Foundation, a Dutch Non-Governmental
Organization (NGO), aimed at helping physically disabled
in emerging markets, has projects in Kakinada, India.
The NGO also has founded several workshops in mobility
equipment, which are owned by local people. A team of the
second year Master course Integral Design Project searched
for new product-market opportunities for one of the local
metal workshops in Ghana, called MAK-D.
MAK-D Metal Works is a small metal workshop in Madina-
Accra and has one owner and seven employees. They focus
on the production of fences, furniture, vendor carriers and
tricycles for disabled. Due to a lack of nancial support, the
company is not able to produce tricycles anymore. The aim
of this project was to support MAK-D in growing its business
in a sustainable manner. They approached the problem by
developing a new product that integrates the interests of
the company, the customers, the users of the product and
society.
Employing Disabled People
The team did market research in the medical sector, as well
as in several other sectors. They investigated the situation
of disabled children in Ghana, they visited rehabilitation
centres in Kumasi and Accra and interviewed local people
of Ghana.
From this explorative research they drew conclusions
that directed their process:
The situation of young disabled children in Ghana is

Movendi FDN and MAK-D July, 2006
94
donate the vendor carriers as an act of charity. In this
scenario, the disables people would become owner
of the vendor carrier and can become independent
entrepreneurs.
High-Spot Tricycle
Two concepts were developed in cooperation with MAK-D:
The Hip-spot and the High-spot. Both concepts were made
into prototypes using the means available in the workshop.
The prototypes were tested by end-users, after which the
team choose the high-spot concept.
The trade-tricycle High-Spot enables disabled people in
Ghana to involve in street-trade, the sector that provides
employment to the major part of the population of
Ghana. Before they were not able to do so, however more
organizations are stimulating participation of disabled. The
implementation of the product also had to attract attention
for all MAK-Ds activities and gave a boost to the overall
business of MAK-D.
The team developed a step-wise marketing plan for
successfully launching the High-Spot. The implementation
plan is divided into ve parts: the marketing strategy,
product strategy, price strategy and nancial issues, channel
management and communication strategy.
Furthermore, the team attracted the company Fanmilk
to be seriously interested in supporting the disabled to get
employment. Consequently, a pilot test was intiated with
three vendor carriers to sell their products. This pilot was
done in cooperation with the Ghana Society of Physically
Disabled and Hope for Life and was enthusiastically received
by the local stakeholders
quite good, due to efforts of Liliane Funds and Nsawam

Orthopedic Centre.
The Ghanaian society is annoyed by disabled who are
begging on the street.
Only a small portion of the disabled is actually begging,
the major part of the disabled population is willing to
work but cannot nd employment.
The team also identied that there is severe competition
in the metalwork sector, especially in fences and furniture.
The sector is characterized by copy and imitation. And there
are no other producers of vendor carriers and tricycles in
Madina. From this the team concluded that:
MAK-D is the only producer of mechanical products with
wheels in its competitive environment.
The trade sector is a lively sector; a major part of the
Ghana economy is based on trading, where vendor
carriers are common.
From the external research a strategic product-market
opportunity was formulated for MAK-D: Design of equipment
that enables the disabled to participate in trade business.
Selling or Donating?
From a search for potential customers two possible scenarios
and target groups emerged. The rst scenario was to nd
companies that sell provisions and are willing to sell their
products trough disabled people using the MAK-D vendor
carrier. In this case, the disabled will act as vendors that sell
the companies goods, and are thus indirectly employed by
the company.
The second scenario was to search for other companies,
NGOs or service clubs, rotaries etc. These parties would
www.movendifoundation.org
95
Human Powered
Bamboo Splitting Tool
Willem Glasbergen
Compared to other natural
materials, bamboo has
a very high strength to
stiffness ratio.
Bamboo grows in many parts of the world. Many of these
areas have in common that a large part of the inhabitants
live in poverty. This project was part of the objectives of
INBAR, International Organization for Bamboo and Rattan,
which aims to develop rural livelihoods, environments and
businesses worldwide through bamboo and rattan. One of
the possible applications of bamboo is in the production
of matchsticks. INBAR developed a patented chemical
process for producing the burning heads, yet the sticks are
still produced manually and inefciently. Willem Glasbergen
aimed to develop a more efcient way to produce the sticks
from bamboo in the local context and with local means.
Bamboo Splitting
Glasbergen analysed the results of a previous project at the
faculty of Industrial Design Engineering, and performed a
number of tests to gain more insight into bamboo splitting.
Bamboo is a tall grass that belongs to the tribe called
Bambusae. Compared to other natural materials, bamboo
has a very high strength to stiffness ratio. This makes it
useful for a multitude of applications, from construction
of large buildings to incense sticks and especially suited
for matchsticks. Currently, the splitting of bamboo into
matchsticks is done by hand using a knife, called the dao
(see gure on the left). This process is labour intensive
and inefcient compared to the efciency of the patented
process of attaching the burning heads to the sticks.
The goal of the tool was to produce good quality
matchsticks, produce them more efciently, adjusted to the
local context and produced locally.

Inbar June 21, 2006
The Bamboo Splitter is very
efcient for local production of
matchsticks. First a slice tool is
used to produce long slices of
bamboo. After that, this manual
tool is used to produce sticks
from the long slices.
Strength/Mass per Volume
Stifness/Mass per Volume
Concrete Bamboo Wood Steel
96
The prototype of the human powered bamboo matchstick splitter
demonstrated the potential for local production. On the left the
feeder mechanisms are visible; on the right the rotation crank is
shown. The Bamboo Splitter is very efcient for local production
of matchsticks. First a slice tool is used to produce long slices of
bamboo. Next, people can use this manual tool to produce sticks
from the slices.
Using the Bamboo Splitting Tool for Matchsticks

1 Bamboo is inserted into a feeder. The feeder has a spring
that pushes the bamboo into the machine, and in front of
the rotating blade.
2 A crank rotates the tool. This direct human powered
rotation can also be replaced by bicycle power.
3 The slices are inserted into the machine, in a queue, which
is pushed towards the blade using gravitation as a force.
4 Sticks are produced with the same process as described in
step 3.
The focus was on the relation between the tool and the
user, the production and transportation of the tool and
the economics of producing such a tool on a larger scale.
Therefore, a second analysis phase was done in India
(Andhra Pradesh) to understand the local context of rural
India. The initial concept was redesigned and resulted in
three concepts. One of the concepts was chosen and a
prototype was built by a local workshop. The prototype was
also tested in India after which the results of the project
were documented in the Netherlands.
Agarbathi Production
The concept chosen is based on the principle of a blade
mounted on a large steel y-wheel. The wheel rotates in a
case and has two openings for feeding the bamboo material.
Both bamboo halves and slices can enter the machine at
the same time. The slices and matchsticks will be collected
inside the wheel. The production of sticks is done in several
steps, shown in the box on the right.
The process of building the machine in India resulted in
very useful information with regard to the local production
facilities. One of the most important conclusions of the
project is to use a machine for producing slices and a
smaller manual tool to produce sticks. This will enable the
production of low cost matchsticks and meanwhile will
generate additional employment opportunities. For example,
the agarbathi (incense sticks) production in India is similar
to the production of matchsticks and can be improved as
well.
www.inbar.int
97
The traditional use of rewood as energy source for cooking
is popular among poor Guatemalans. However, the open re
results in burns, eye problems and respiratory problems.
Helps International, a US Non-Prot Organization, developed
several wood combustion cooking stoves, resulting in a nal
concept with a chimney: the ONIL stove.
During the last ve years of implementation of the stove,
Helps evaluated the improved stoves. According to users
the main benet is saving rewood: 50-67% less than when
using open res. However, 28% of the users still use open
res for heating their homes and on special occasions.
Marike Bijtelaar traced the reasons for this and developed
features for the ONIL stove to improve the usage.
Using Open Fire
From user research, Bijtelaar formulated main reasons of
using the open re: it provides heat and drives off humidity.
The social aspects of family gatherings and cooking large
meals are also important. In some regions, people use
the re as a source of light. Other comments on the stove
were the relatively small working and cooking space and
continuous re maintenance required. In the second part
of the user research, she investigated the awareness of
the people concerning the health problems. She concluded
that the interviewed women are aware of the problems and
disadvantages of open res, but do not know an alternative
solution. Bijtelaar concluded that solutions to improve
the climate should be xed, not inuencing the cooking
activities, not produce any smoke, offer the possibility to
gather around and decrease the use of rewood as energy
Improving the Climate of
Cooking Areas
Marike Bijtelaar
Heating by radiation: The smoke gases are lead through a metal sheet
radiator with a large surface area. When no space heating is needed, the
normal chimney outlet is used.
In order to make the idea of the tabletop work,
the use of the current amount of radiation of
the ONIL stove had to be optimized.
The ONIL
Stove has an
insulated ceramic
combustion
chamber that
makes the re
burn hot enough
to consume the oil
vapour, and thus
uses all potential
wood energy.

Helps International June 16, 2006
98
made a prototype of the heater with a at back surface and
tested this on a small scale.
The second solution, a tabletop, can easily be placed around
the stove and creates a social meeting, working, sitting and
eating place close to the stove. When people gather close
to the stove, the relatively small amount of radiative heat
produced by the stove is optimally used. She designed two
concepts, with the distinction based on the construction
on the stove: stacking or clamping. Both concepts were
prototyped and tested with women of the target group.
The tests proved that the tabletop indeed invites people
to sit closer to the stove.
The chimney heater can
produce space heating
at the cooking area and
Guatemalan women
were able to control
the valve system that
produced heat. Also,
from the test results,
Bijtelaar recommended
further development
of both features, and
suggested material,
construction and shape
improvements.
source.
Less Energy Demand
Bijtelaar approached the problem with the Trias Energetica
approach, starting with diminishing the energy demand.
The second step is providing in the energy demand as much
as possible with sustainable energy sources. The third step
is using fossil fuels for the remaining energy demand.
She summarized important aspects in a scoring card and
analysed the energy demand for heating the cooking area.
The scoring card lead to practical solutions, but Bijtelaar
concluded that a demand for space heating remained, even
with applying the solutions.
After generating ideas, she categorized them and
selected two directions: optimally using the radiative heat
of the stove by gathering around it and using the heat of
the smoke in the chimney. Main arguments: they do not
require extra fuel, cooking performance is maintained and
the stove body elements do not need adjustment. Both
ideas were elaborated further, with detailing alternatives for
every sub solution.
Chimney Heater and Tabletop
The chimney heater can be placed on the stove instead of
the standard chimney. The heater uses the waste heat of
the chimney gases for space heating and can be switched
on and off by a valve system. The chimney pipe enters and
leaves the heater at the bottom and the top of the heater,
so the exhaust gases contact the complete surface of the
chimney heater. Users could operate the heater by a valve
placed inside the heater that controls the gas ow. Bijtelaar
With a prototype the
functioning of the chimney
heater to heat the cooking
area was tested.
www.helpsintl.org
99
Worldwide, 6000 children die every day due to water-related
diseases. The average distance women in Asia and Africa
have to walk for water is 6 kilometres. These two aspects
are examples of typical problems that occur within the Base
of the Pyramid (BoP). People at the BoP have to cope with
these problems daily, while safe, sufcient, affordable,
accessible and acceptable drinking water is a basic human
right. The goal of this project was to make a sustainable
design proposal for a safe drinking-water system that is
adoptable by the BoP in India, tting within the mission and
scope of the new sustainable business initiatives of Philips
Domestic Appliances.
The Water4life lter concept has been developed by
DSM. This multinational company develops amongst others
industrial chemicals and performance materials. They
developed the lter membrane for the Water4life concept.
This was incorporated into a product and tested in user
research to obtain user insights. The product proposition for
this project was based on the outcomes of this user research.
Furthermore, for a successful adoption of the product by the
target group, a well worked out implementation strategy
was developed.
Water Filtering
Potential users in India evaluated the Water4life concept.
The research was carried out in cooperation with three
Non-Governmental Organizations during twelve weeks
in Pune and Madurai (villages and slums) in India with
twenty participants. The research consisted of four parts:
observation of current situation, usability tests, follow-
Safe Drinking Water
Maria Nguyen
The add-on concept for existing water vessels was
developed to t on any water vessel available.

Philips Domestic Appliances April 28, 2006
The redesign of the Water4Life concept included improvements on the closing
of the lid, the ease of cleaning and the installation and maintenance of the
lter. Details of the proposed solutions are shown at the right.
100
difculties with closing the lid and do not understand the
order of the actions they have to perform. Tests with the
plastic prototype indicated that users do not understand
how to use the valve and spill much water.
After the introduction of the improved concept, Nguyen
held group discussions with local users. They resulted in
comments about the taste, smell and clearness of the water.
They also indicated a preference for stainless steel. She also
found that the pumping action needed too much effort from
the users and the maximum volume of the concept was too
small. An affordable price was determined on around 500
INR (10).
up observation, and group evaluation discussions. The
objectives were aimed at: usability insights regarding the
Water4life prototype, gathering data about the performance
of the Water4life concept under local conditions and
collecting user feedback.
Nguyen used the user research results to generate
criteria for the product development phase. The concept
development resulted in two product proposals. The rst
is an improved version of the existing Water4life water
purier. The second product proposal is based on the
observation of the multitude of water vessels existing in
the Indian households, and is developed as an add-on to
these vessels.
Entrepreneurial Women
The main goal of the implementation strategy was to
create awareness regarding water and health issues.
Other important factors are the distribution route and the
availability of after sales services. Some of the guidelines
included use of low-cost promotion tools and training in
product use. The key to entering the Indian BoP community
is the entrepreneurial woman responsible for promotion,
sales and after-sales service. Women are chosen for this job
because they are known and trusted by the community.
The research in the current situation shows a strong
preference for metal kitchenware, time-consuming water
practices and very little awareness regarding health &
water. The usability test showed that users forget to use
lter caps and do not press sides of the caps. The user
test with the metal prototype showed that people have
A schematic representation of the strategy shows the various
stakeholders and their relations.
www.philips.com
101
Photo: Linda Schnieders
102
Girls in Favelas
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
103
All aspects for
implementing
the Philips
Powerstove
are covered in
the four routes
of awareness,
promotion,
production and
nance. Every
route has its
specic tools
to reach its
goal. Goal of
the awareness
routes is to
communicate
the negative
long term health
effects of smoke.
By using the Philips wood stove indoor air pollution could substantially
decrease, therefore related health problems could decrease as well.
At the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) in India, cooking is one
of the most time-consuming activities during the day.
People at the BoP usually cook with solid fuels on simple,
inefcient stoves that ll their houses with smoke. Philips
has developed a woodstove which decreases the amount
of health-damaging pollutants in solid fuel emissions. Ideler
developed this idea towards a product proposal and an
implementation strategy to increase the adoption chance
of this product by the rural BoP in India. Also, she dened
guidelines for conducting user research and designing
products for the BoP.
Analysing the Philips stove, it was found that fast cooking
and less fuel consumption are achieved by the products high
efciency. A fan blowing heated air through the re and the
low mass are the main reasons for this high combustion-
and heat transfer efciency. From previous projects and
encountered barriers she formulated requirements for the
product and implementation plan.
Stove Saves Money and Time
To gain more insight into the current way of cooking and
the interaction with the Philips prototype, she conducted
user research in India. Twenty-four households tested the
prototype for at least eight cooking sessions (four days).
Although the response was very positive, it was concluded
that some aspects of the product could still be improved.
She also used consumer insights in the promotion strategy:
the smokeless stove does not darken the walls and ceiling
and eyes will not tear or get irritated. Also, less fuel
consumption results in saving money.
The problems encountered in the user research were divided
Philips Consumer Li festyl e April 4, 2006
Adoptable Woodstove
Leonie Ideler
consumer
satisfaction
and problems
Anganwadi centres
State government
Philips
promotion
awareness
teaching
> convince men
funding
consumer
insights
Community
> convince women
PROMOTION ROUTE AWARENESS ROUTE
training
NGO
104
attention to the Philips woodstove and its benets. Both the
production and nancial routes include local partnerships to
simplify purchasing a Philips woodstove.
Tools to reach the goals are for example instalments,
product demonstrations and leaets, wall paintings and
posters. One of the most important tools in each route
is working with partnerships. By explaining the four Ps,
namely product, price, place (distribution) and promotion,
Ideler illustrated possible routes to plan the implementation
in rural India.
Update
After Idelers graduation project the woodstove has been
developed further. Philips expects to launch the woodstove
in India in the rst half of 2009. Recently a commercial pilot
was completed in India, from which a great deal was learned.
Unfortunately there were some delays in the project due to
a technical lifetime issue. This has recently been solved
and local production is currently being prepared for. Philips
realizes that a new market is about to be entered and that
their approach to marketing and distribution needs to be
modifyied; Philips is currently optimizing their business
case and their go-to market strategy. As the initial focus
is on successfully launching the product in India, plans for
introduction in other countries have not been dened yet.
into categories concerning safety, preparation of Indian
bread and comfort of use. In solving these subproblems,
the focus was more on the urgent issues, leaving the more
complex and less urgent for later on in the development
process. Great attention was paid to user comfort, for
example by improving the user interface of the stove.
Implementation of the Powerstove
There are no successfully adopted products on the market to
ll the gap between the traditional cook stove and the clean
and efcient LPG stove, which is too expensive for the target
group. Also, fuel availability is very unreliable, especially in
rural areas. The implementation strategy should be well-
designed to create a successful and sustainable business
around the new Philips Powerstove. The theory of Prahalad
was a dopted, by paying extra attention to distribution to
reach the target group.
Potential stakeholders located in India were identied to
help get information, products and services to the majority
of the target group. The most effective way for reaching the
target group is by using Anganwadi centres, who provide
service at the doorsteps of the community by trained health
personnel and can be seen as the Indian governments
doorway into a village for its welfare programmes.
Covering all aspects of implementation, four routes were
dened; awareness, promotion, production and nancial
routes include the various stakeholders involved and their
actions needed to get the Powerstove to the consumer. The
awareness route should focus on the negative effects of
smoke caused by a traditional stove. Promotion should pay
The visual feedback and interface was also improved.
www.philips.com
105
Water supply in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, is in
critical condition, especially for the poor. Even though
approximately 90% of the population living in the citys 752
slums (a.k.a. favelas) manage to be connected to the main
water distribution infrastructure, the situation is far from
sustainable. An alarming 10% of those living in the slum
lack access to an improved source of water.
The water supplier uses a purication process including
tons of chemicals and produces waste that is thrown back
in the river afterwards. The pumps that distribute the water
through the city use enormous amounts of energy. Constant
leakage and illegal connections consume about 50% of
the clean water. The water supply company Cedae, looses
prot because they are not able to install water meters and
consumers are not always able to pay.
P.I.P.A. System Provides Safe Water
The P.I.P.A. System is an alternative for providing safe water.
It converts rainwater into drinking water without using extra
energy or chemicals. The system is fully independent from
other sources or expensive infrastructure and untrained
users can operate it.
The design is user-oriented and ts into the daily life of
people seamlessly. Local culture, in particular the common
kite playing of children, inspired the form. The collection
surface can be rolled up, so people can still use the rooftop
for normal activities. Also, the frame structure provides the
opportunities for the addition of other products, such as
security fences and clothes dryers.
The operation is based on free and clean water from the
Rapid granular lter Porous ceramic lter
Water Supply in
Slums:P.I.P.A. System
Fernando Del Caro Secomandi
System operation includes multi-stage ltration, storage and distribution.
Uphill
water
source
Hybrid system
Floor level installation
Setup of the P.I.P.A. system has many options, so each user can choose
the most appropiate and effcient way of gathering rainwater.
Local users and other
stakeholders are
mapped, including
both proponents and
opponents. Del Caro
Secomandi noticed that
most of the favelas
are controlled by
drug dealers or other
armed militias, which
inuences the parties
willing to be part of the
system.

Delft University of Tech. April, 2006
106
a country to economic growth, improve current physical
and immaterial infrastructure, and innovation at the Base
of the Pyramid can be protable and transferable to other
countries.
It was concluded that PSS research should to a greater
extent focus on the opportunities that are present in the
developing countries context, rather than trying to directly
transfer literature knowledge.
sky. Total costs are kept to a minimum by simple construction,
inexpensive technology and material use, small installation
costs and it rarely needs maintenance. It can be partially
or even entirely produced within the community, utilizing
local labour and technologies, as well as readily available
materials.
The stakeholders of the system were mapped, both
proponents and opponents. It was noticed that most
of the favelas are controlled by drug dealers or other
armed militias. Violence is a major issue to consider when
developing products or services for use in favelas.
He assessed alternative business models on
environmental, socio-cultural and economic criteria. After
a SWOT analysis he concluded a mixed-model of two
proposals would be best. A local cooperative is formed
with investments of Favela-Bairro, a major government
program running with money from the Inter-American
Development Bank, including the community association
and a Non-Governmental Organization. After installing all
P.I.P.A. systems, the cooperative will provide maintenance
and additional accessories and services.
Literature Conclusions
After analyzing the literature available on PSS and the
design, a number of relevant issues dealing with the
relationship between PSS and developing countries context
were presented. These issues were categorized under
drivers, benets or opportunities. The opportunities that
were found were: scanning the PSS context, anticipation
of unsustainable technology application in the search of
The collection surface can be rolled up to use the rooftop in
another functionality. Additions to the structural frame are possible
to enhance this, such as fences and clothes dryers.
107
Sustainable business helps provide better healthcare
solutions for the worlds poorest people. Creating products
requires understanding of the context and the people.
Philips had done research into this subject and has
gathered a large amount of data through both professional
and student projects. However, this data did not t the
specic designers informational needs during the product
development process. Jon Rodriguez aimed to develop a
design toolbox that provides insight into the healthcare
context in rural India.
First the boundaries of the project were explored.
The tool should be used at the beginning of product
development to identify opportunities. Also, it should build
on existing knowledge within Philips. Target audiences are
design students and professionals as well as managers
and technical developers. To visualize the different users,
Rodriguez created personas, resulting in usage scenarios
of the toolbox.
From a rst exploratory workshop, it was concluded that
professional designers as well as students need experiential
information to design for an unfamiliar context. Secondly,
getting insight in a context is a process, in which one
receives experiential information and interacts with other
people. The workshop gave hints to some interesting ideas
to develop.
The content and characteristics of the tools are visualized
in a pyramid (see gure on the left). All personas use
the descriptive parts, such as the introductory overview.
Experiential information should trigger idea generation. The
professional designer would use information in a workshop.
Contextualizing Products
Jon Rodriguez
The developed tools combine both descriptive and experimental
information which have been identitied as fundamental for
getting insight into contexts that designers are not familiar with.

Philips Design February 2, 2006
Three different personas have been developed for the test of the toolbox, one
patient and two healthcare providers. The scenarios explain the interaction
between the personas and put some of the problems in their context.
%VERYDAYLIFEANDACTIVITIES
|nolra ls a |lelo Healtb Worker ano olvloes ber tasks between tbe |lelo vlslts to tbe vlllages ano tbe work
at tbe centre.
|n tbe |lelo, sbe bas to reglster ano malntaln maternlty recoro o| pregnant women, marrleo women ano
cblloren. Sbe glves aovlce ln |amlly plannlng ano creates awareness campalgns on tbe toplc . Sbe also glves vacclna-
tlons ano conoucts tbe oellverles o| cblloren. Sbe olagnoses ano glves treatment |or mlnor olseases (|ever, palns
ano vomltlng) aovlseo by tbe Communlty Healtb worker wbo ls at every vlllage ano belps ber olrectlng to tbe
people ln neeo. Wben tbe olseases are not cureo sbe re|ers to tbe ooctors or bospltals.
|n tbe centre sbe collects ano stores all tbe oata gatbereo. Sbe belps ano asslsts tbe ooctor ln antl-natal
care. Sbe also conoucts urlne tests ano gets blooo samples |rom patlents.
|nolra, 40 ls |emale Healtb Worker o| Kaup |or 10 years. Kaup ls a vlllage ln Uoupl olstrlct o|
tbe state Karnattaka.
"ACKGROUND
|nolra bas a busbano ano two sons, Sampatb (15) ano Santosb (24). Her busbano works on a coconut |lelo.
|nolra bersel| bas lost 1 son wblcb was speclal motlvatlon |or ber to start tbe cballenglng work |or Healtb Worker.
8ut becomlng a Healtb Worker basn't been an easy job. |nolra bao to learn reaolng ano countlng ln oroer to
start tbe tralnlng tbat took ber 2 years ln wblcb sbe bao to |ollow tbe speclal manual |or |emale bealtb workers.
|nolra also bao to work baro to galn acceptance as a Healtb Worker ln ber communlty. Sbe comes |rom a poor |amlly
ano ber work meant worklng wltb women |rom all classes ano castes. Tbls was a ol||lcult proposltlon ln tbe etreme
|euoal ano patrlarcbal soclal system tbat |nolra works ln. Over tlme tbe quallty o| ber work bas won ber acceptance ano
sbe bas emergeo as a leaoer amongst tbe women ln tbe vlllage.
'0ne hos to keep |eorn|ng ond not woste t|me
7h|s work hos g|ven me o ||je oj d|gn|t,. l jee|
l om do|ng Cod's work on eorth. Whot con 5e
more reword|ng thon sov|ng 5o5|es?
Her o5 cons|sts jor o moor port oj conversot|ons 5oth on heo|th-
core ond soc|o| re|oted top|cs
108
participants received the booklet with more information and
the login for the website.
At the rst day of the workshop, each participant took one
persona, read the scenario corresponding to the persona
and was asked to role-play this persona. After developing
scenarios themselves, the second day they created solutions
and mock-ups to play this scenario. The students showed
their solutions to the health problem in an informance or
informative performance to a multidisciplinary audience:
experts from Philips design, Philips research and Philips
Medical Systems.
The main contributions were that the experience
workshop gave insight into Indian rural healthcare; it could
be used to prepare designers to work in the context and
helped focusing on the relevant topics. In short the role-
play made the (lack) of knowledge participants had about
the context explicit. The bodystorming created an embodied
and common understanding of the ideas and concepts
that were generated. The presentation of the ideas to the
audience of experts allowed for communicating the ideas
and concepts in their context.
It was concluded that putting designers in the shoes of
the people they are designing for does increase the insight
in peoples needs and engagement and understanding of
the context.
Students, who eveluated this model, even wanted to
experience the complexities of the Indian rural healthcare
situation by going to India.
Tools
The nal toolbox consists of several tools. The summary tool
was an introductory presentation to Indian rural healthcare.
Facts and gures are shown about India, and photographs
of medical environments and service users provide insight
in a global overview. A booklet was made to structure more
profound information on the context. More background
of this information was presented at a secured website,
including papers on the topics.
To experience the context, several tools were developed.
Three video personas were developed; a patient, a nurse
and a doctor. Then these the problems were put in their
context by creating scenarios for several diseases, seen
from the different points of view of the personas.
Finally, perhaps the most important tool was developed,
based on learning gained about how to use role-play in
design. A combination of the tools mentioned before was
used and was combined with role-play in order to increase
the engagement with the context and a role-play guidebook
was written. Red health issue cards and green solution cards
help designers to generate ideas and encourage creativity.
Workshop with Students
Rodriguez tested the toolbox in a two-day workshop, with
a group of tool users: students. The test followed the same
order as the toolbox sequence, starting with an introduction
with the summary tool a week in advance. Afterwards the
www.philips.com
109
Micronance has proven to be able to stimulate economical
and social development in developing countries around
the world. The young African organization KIVA started an
initiative in early 2005 to enable individual people all over
world to lend money to entrepreneurs in the developing
world. For example African entrepreneurs post their business
plans on the KIVA site to attract capital for micro loans from
people all over the (developed) world. Through the use of
ICT KIVA is delivering new opportunities to access capital
for micro loans by partnering with existing Micro Finance
Institutions (MFI). KIVA has thus created a channel through
which those MFIs can market their borrowers stories via
the Internet to access inexpensive capital from individual
lenders.
Borrowers Information Online
Microsoft Research began the digital inclusion programme
to try to develop solutions to overcome the barriers that
face the developing world in gaining access to the resources
that are necessary for sectors like education, agriculture,
nance, governance and health. The Microsoft Digital
Inclusion Initiative (DII) programme supports projects that
try to overcome the digital divide between developed and
developing world and that investigate the role of ICT in this
context. The problem KIVA addresses ts the goal of DII.
The KIVA concept had problems getting the borrowers
stories online. Remarkably, interest and capital owing
from online lenders was not the limiting factor; instead
the bottleneck was the ability of the partners to post the
borrowers information on the web. The users, or borrowers,
In all stages, local people helped and cooperated in understanding the
problem and the design of solutions. This people-driven approach results in a
context sensitive understanding of the problem. The solution is again tested
in the actual context of the intended use.
Testing the MiMoSo in the eld. After taking a photograph with a mobile
phone it is uploaded to the KIVA website.

Microsoft & KIVA & DUT Sept 14, 2006
Online Micro nance:
into(context)
Cale Thompson
110
values and behaviours within the system. During this two-
month period Thompson identied bottlenecks regarding
both the system and available technologies. Concepts and
prototypes were generated to solve the bottleneck problems
in the third phase. The prototypes were tested in the eld
and evaluated qualitatively by users and quantitatively
against the existing micro-lending system.
Miracle Mobile Solution
The project ended up with the development of the Miracle
Mobile Solution (MiMoSo). This is a piece of software that
allows Multi Media Service (MMS) messages to be sent from
a mobile phone to an individual KIVA email address. Via the
email address, the text and image are parsed and uploaded
to the KIVA website where they can be seen by lenders.
Ultimately, the MiMoSo was tested in its intended context
in Africa and has been implemented by KIVA. The project
demonstrated the strength of a people-centred approach
through the successful context-t solution that was
developed. It also showed that the cell phone is a legitimate
technology platform to facilitate web-based activities.
must have access to the Internet and become familiar
with web navigation and content management. However
many environmental factors can limit their ability to do so
easily. The goal of this multidisciplinary project led by Cale
Thompson was to do research on appropriate technology
interaction forms for MFI working in Uganda, Kenya and
Tanzania.
into(context)
The main goal of the project into(context) was to do
research and improve the interface between the technology
and the MFIs. The project consisted of ve main stages
including research preparation, context research, concept
generation, prototype testing and dissemination.
Driven by a people-centred design approach, the project
started with asking questions in Africa rather than arriving
with an answer. This approach reected the fact that the
technology should eventually t the people and not the
other way around.
The research started with benchmarking existing
practices for facilitating micronance through technology. A
stakeholder mapping of the context of micronance system
provided a clear picture of individual stakeholder goals,
Entrepreneurs can
upload their business
plans to the KIVA
website via their
mobile phones.
Lenders can access
the KIVA website and
provide microloans to
the entrepeneurs.
www.KIVA.org
111
Philips Medical Systems (PMS), a large manufacturer of
medical diagnostic and treatment equipment, is currently
involved in creating business opportunities to serve the
rural healthcare market of India. The healthcare market
of rural India has many contrasting aspects compared to
the western healthcare market. This concerns the type of
patients, diseases, healthcare infrastructure and healthcare
approaches. Jonathan Stranders focused on the widespread
market of tobacco users in rural India, because of the high
prevalence of one of the most common cancers in India,
oral cancer, is enhanced by tobacco use.
To develop solutions that successfully meet the healthcare
needs of the rural population, product designers must
rst get a good insight in the market to really understand
the rural patient in relation to the involved stakeholders.
However, thorough market research is time-consuming and
expensive. Moreover, gathered information and experience
are often lost because of its nature. Information like this is
hard to communicate and transfer to other designers and
succeeding projects. Stranders has developed a supporting
software tool to create insight during the market analysis
phase in product development.
Web-Based Database
The Market Insight Tool (MarkIT) meets the designers
information needs on three aspects. Using a persona-
scenario approach designers can empathize with the target
group. To benchmark this information, the scenarios are
enriched with experts who give their opinion on various
issues. Also, the tool includes a glossary to give background
Creating Market Insight
for Designers
Jonathan Stranders
A tool can help to bridge the gap from an undetermined and vague Western
mindset of the rural healthcare context in India towards a more specied,
unambiguous and dened awareness.
Especially the Indian youth increasingly uses tobacco. Tobacco industry
nowadays aggressively markets (ltered) cigarettes instead of smokeless
tobacco products (chewing tobacco and spit tobacco).

Philips Medical Systems Dec 23, 2005
112
zoom into the market situation on micro-level: individual
persons. That helps both strategic and practical designers
to get more insight in the needs, but strategic designers
demand more statistics next to personas. Designers
evaluated the tool during other stages of the development
process as a useful support and source of inspiration.
Because of the visual orientation of designers, Stranders
concluded that the prototyped tool had too much text
instead of pictures and movies. Hence the content of the nal
version should have a better balance between textual and
visual information. Also, the tool should be validated using
real experts. The MarkIT tool does succeed in structuring
the information on the market and enhances the individual
insight of designers in the specic situation.
information on unclear topics and words.
The tool is web-based in order to be accessed by Philips
designers all over the world. The database structure enables
other employees, such as market researchers, to insert new
information effectively. In this way, the tool functions as an
interactive communication platform.
Insight in Market Context
The tool was prototyped and tested with a group of
product designers. Stranders asked what they thought of
the web-based database structure and the contents. The
tests showed that MarkIT succeeds in communicating the
healthcare market to product designers in a structured way
and that it saves time during the rst phases of a product
development project. Using personas helped designers to
MarkIT meets
the designers
information needs
by making use of
the persona-scenario
approach in order
to empathize with a
rural person.
www.philips.com
113
Photo: Jaap Daalhuizen
114
Man at Home
Chongming Island,
China
115
Oral cancer is a major health problem in the rural areas
of India, 50 to 70% of the cancer cases are oral cancer.
Early detection in the pre-malignant state of oral cancer
can prevent surgical intervention. Philips aimed, via a
partnership with Manipal University of higher education in
India, to develop a portable device for early detection of
oral cancer. The product is meant for use in the rural areas
by local medical staff and in local facilities. Furthermore,
the detection should be done using the Light Inducing
Fluorescence (LIF) technique. The project ts the Philips
social responsibility programme.
Oral Cancer Detection
Oral cancer has a long process of developing from a pre-
cancerous, non-malignant state into lethal oral cancer.
Early detection and a corresponding change in life-style of
the patients can eliminate the risk factors that cause the
cancer. This should prevent the necessity to remove the
lesions surgically in a later stage. Factors that complicate
the detection and treatment of cancer are stigma on cancer
and low awareness of the disease.
The social factor of developing a cancer detection device
is an important aspect of the design problem. Chewing
tobacco is a mayor cause of oral cancer and a popular
product in India. The oral hygiene of people in rural India
is also low, and limited medical facilities and staff are
available. These social aspects have been major factors that
determined the design of the detection device.
Light Induced Fluorescence
When oral tissue is exposed to high-energy light, it emits
Device for Early Oral
Cancer Detection
Suzanne Hendrikse
In rural India, limited medical facilities and staff are available. Chewing
tobacco is a popular practise, but it is also a major cause of oral cancer.
In addition to low oral hygiene in addition, oral cancer occurs often.
The demonstration model of the oral cancer detection
device showed advantages such as three colour
diagnosis, simple interface and precise handling.

Philips Medical Systems Nov 11, 2005
116
a diffuse, low energy light. The resulting spectrum can be
analysed and gives insight into the health of the tissue.
This method is called Light Induced Fluerescence (LIF)
technique. By using LIF, oral cancer can be detected even
before it becomes visible to the eye. The advantages of
LIF detection are its speed, the fact that one can avoid
unnecessary biopsies and a painless procedure.
The development of the device started with understanding
the problem of early cancer detection in the context of rural
India. A multidisciplinary approach was used to understand
the problem from eight different perspectives. This resulted
in a list of design guidelines that was context sensitive.
Insights from for example physicists, patients, dentists,
etc lead to the rich basis on which the product was further
developed. Sub problems were solved individually and
integrated into a demonstration model. This was optimized
and developed into a nal product design.
Early Cancer Detection Device
The design phase started with designing and making a
demonstration model to show relevant strong points: three
colour diagnosis, simple interface and precise handling.
The limitations that surfaced from feedback were low
safety of the probe, low portability, unfriendly appearance
and unsatisfactory housing compartments. The nal
design featured improved functionality on the portability,
measurement, interface and manufacturability.
The implementation of the product asks for an active
approach of early cancer detection, which the current staff
does not yet have. Hendrikse recommends transferring
medical staff from urban areas to rural areas on the short
term. On the long term, community health workers should
be trained to detect cancer at an early stage and handle the
detection device.
www.philips.com
117
About 90% of the Cambodian households have no access
to a secure and reliable electricity infrastructure for lighting.
They mostly (55%) use car batteries as electricity storage
to power television and lighting. Providing these people with
safe and reliable electric lighting is a small, but important
step to overcome their impoverished situation. Kamworks,
a start-up solar company considered Cambodias problems
and solar resources as an opportunity for local production of
solar lighting products. The lights should t to the purchase
power of rural households. The company started a project
in cooperation with Ecofys, in which Boom researched the
market and designed the solar lighting product.
Translating Needs
Prior to the product development phase of the project,
eld research was conducted in Cambodia; visiting and
researchgin people in rural areas. Both qualitative and
quantitative aspects of the lighting needs of the target group
were reserached. A translator translated the questions
and answers for the research, but sometimes informed
the respondents too much, or when they talked for half
an hour, he simply translated it with a short yes. Boom
showed people pictures of available lighting solutions and
confronted them with a solar lantern. This survey resulted in
understanding the requirements that a new solar powered
product should fulll.
They mentioned the product should be affordable and of
high quality. The plastic look of the lantern was associated
with modern, high quality and status (instead of for example
bamboo). Generally, people thought that solar energy was
Solar Lighting
Stephen Boom
Angkor Light can be placed on a table or hung from the ceiling.

Ecofys / Kamworks October 28, 2005
The lighting resembled the
form of the Angkor Wat,
which is a traditional temple
Cambodians are proud of.
118
Angkor Light
The nal design was a vacuum-formed quality lantern
called Angkor Light. The design appealed to Cambodia's
national symbol, the temples of Angkor, which Cambodians
are very proud of. Vacuum forming is an appropriate
technology for a start-up company like Kamworks. It
combined the advantages of low investments and simple
processes. The technology was applicable for relatively low
production volumes (up to 10,000 per year). The moulds
could be produced locally and were cheap in comparison
with injection moulding. The Angkor Light used replaceable
quality electrical components. The product would t to an
international standard (PV-GAP) to encourage quality
solar products for the global market.
Boom nally built a second prototype, which would be
used for a more profound market evaluation of the product
in Cambodia.
Awarded
The World Bank 2006 Development Marketplace awarded
Kamworks with $174,000 for developing an innovative
distribution model. The model aims at training young
Cambodians to become micro-entrepreneurs in a
project called Rural electrication through solar micro-
entrepreneurship in
Cambodia. It is also
starting up assembly of
its own solar products,
to start with the Angkor
Light.
expensive and would not provide enough energy during
the rainy season. Apparently, creation of awareness of the
advantages of solar energy would be an important sales
issue.
Boom also investigated the local distribution and
production possibilities for solar lanterns. A questionnaire
about solar lanterns among retailers concluded that more
than half of them were interested in selling solar lanterns,
with a maximum price of $50 and a prot of 10%. The
product should be easy to understand, because the retailers
did not want to be responsible for the consequences for
malfunctioning. Quality and availability of spare parts was
an important issue for them.
Vacuum Forming and Reector Combined
Field research resulted in three product-market combinations
(PMC) of affordable lighting for rural people. The rst was
extending the lifetime of car batteries, the next combination
was a solar powered headlight. The third PMC, a mobile
solar lantern, has been selected for further elaboration.
In a technical analysis Boom selected the light source,
battery type and solar cells. Next, he generated several
product sketches. Boom detailed a combination of two
solution clusters, vacuum forming and using a reector.
Several concepts were generated using the reector in
different ways. He chose a lamp with a separate reector
that could be placed on top of the lamp and built a
prototype. Fifteen potential end-users living in the rural
areas of Cambodia evaluated the product's functionality,
robustness and appearance as positive.
www.ecofys.com
www.kamworks.com
119
Philips has been operating worldwide for many years,
yet they have mainly targeted at the top segment of the
markets. Philips is now entering the largest segment of the
market in India, the Base of the Pyramid (BoP), and needs
suited approaches and business models to reach the people
that live from an income beneath the poverty line. The
theory of Prahalad provides a business model to deal with
the circumstances in the BoP, yet very little is known about
actual product development for the BoP.
In this graduation project guidelines were developed
for product development for the BoP in India, based on a
case study on U-Specs. U-Specs is a concept for affordable
spectacles that can be adjusted to compensate for refractive
error by the user.
Cultural Context
Product development for the BoP involves designers (and
a company) that develop products for a different cultural
context. In this project participatory techniques were used
to do consumer research and understand the needs of the
people in the BoP, to understand how users would adopt
the U-Specs and to check the scenario that described the
implementation of the product in the Indian BoP context.
Users were involved to give insight into, for example, how
the problems concerning sight impairment were interpreted.
This showed that instead of being viewed as a health
problem, sight impairment is seen by the consumers as a
well-being problem.
First a difference between the needs of the consumers
and the ones of the government and Non-Governmental
Participatory research resulted in useful local knowledge to develop solutions.
The analysis was started with the denition of search elds, after
which the u-specs were analyzed. An idea generation and scenario
development phase followed. Finally guidelines were dened for
future product development for the Indian BoP.

Philips Domesti c Appl i ances October 21, 2005
Adoptability of the
U-Specs
Roseliek van de Velden
120
Organizations (NGOs) was detected. The NGOs and
government see a problem in uncorrected refractive
errors that are causing sight impairment. They see that it
is hampering education, causing rehabilitation costs, and
causes a loss of productivity. The consumers however usually
do not recognize sight impairment and its consequences as
a problem. They rather ignore that there is a problem at
all.
The barriers that existed in the India BoP were linked to
the competences of Philips to nd opportunities for product
development.
Guidelines
The case study resulted in a list of guidelines for product
development for the BoP in India. The guidelines were
categorized in four groups, namely general guidelines,
guidelines to optimize the process, remote product
development guidelines and adoptability guidelines. These
guidelines are described at the right.
Barriers were
linked to core
competences
of Philips DAP
to ensure a
successful
product
development
process.
NGO
General guidelines
Partnering with NGOs and governmental bodies necessary;
In the BoP an open mind is a prerequisite for success;
Transparency; communicate intentions of stakeholders;
Organization should facilitate shared decision making;
Volunteers could enable experimental BoP projects;
Consumers have different priorities than NGOs and
Government
Process
Find the barriers of a problem before trying to solve it;
Map Barriers to Core Competences;
Use local experts knowledge for interpretation of data.
Remote product development guidelines
Gain input from different locations to make the product
suitable for a broad target group;
Increase respondent feedback: propose multiple options;
Increase feedback on conicts with proposed scenarios by
forming groups of similar stakeholders in user research;
Provide sufcient input to prevent biases;
Detailed content needed for input design workshop.
Adoptability guidelines
Accessibility, empowerment and reliability are the most
important aspects for adoptability by the BoP market;
The adoptability is best considered in both product design
and scenario;
Use the guidelines on implementing aspects of adoptability:
accessibility, compatibility, reparability, empowerment,
affordability, desirability, reliability, usability and comfort.
www.philips.com
www.u-specs.org
121
NPSP Composites BV produces composites based on natural
and conventional bres. The company intends to promote
usage of natural materials like ax- and jute-reinforced
composites. They have developed an innovative production
method that could be used in combination with natural
bres. The labour intensive manufacturing process made
production in low wage countries sound protable. The
company chose for India for expanding their production
process for three reasons. First, India is rich in natural
bres. Second, India has low wages for labour. Third, NPSP
wanted to provide for some of the profound needs of the
very poor, such as housing. In this project the possibilities
of manufacturing bre-composite products in India were
explored.
Rising Costs in Building Sector
After an internal analysis of NPSP, an overview of the
strengths and weaknesses of the company was created.
Local potential business partners could increase their own
production capacity and benet from the knowledge transfer
of NPSP. In this way, NPSP could give the composite sector
the opportunity to specialize. The most promising partners
for a joint venture with NPSP were the companies Festel
Doors and Water Tanks, and Technocraft.
From an external analysis, Boekhoven concluded that
specic knowledge on composites is not commonly available.
Also, the building sector is dealing with rising costs of
conventional materials such as wood, cement, concrete and
steel, because of its increasing scarcity.
Using the formulated strengths and weaknesses with
Mould
Coir bre mat
Polyurethane
foam
Wooden
frame
Coir bre mat
Mould
Woven bre coir mats are
placed in a metal mould,
covered by polyurethane
foam and another mat.
The mould is closed and
the polyester resin sucked
inside.
After an hour the product
can be discharged.
Boekhoven based her nal
design on the 'thick' concept,
that replaced conventional
materials like wood and
reinforced carbon-carbon (RCC).
Coir bre Wood
Polyurethane
foam
Details

NPSP Composieten BV
November 18, 2005
Natural Fibres in Doors
and Windows
Joan Boekhoven
122
in a choice for the thick concept, which was elaborated
further.
Low Costs and Weight
The nal design proposal could meet all criteria. Its purchase
costs would be 28% lower than its wooden alternative. It
was found that highly decorated and arched designs would
appeal to Indians. Moreover, the environmental sound
material is maintenance free; it is corrosion resistant, no
painting or pesticides are needed and it will not swell like
wood does.
It would be manufactured using the vacuum assisted-
resin transfer moulding process in which NPSP is specialized
(see gure on the left page). A prototype (scale of 4 on 1)
was manufactured to show details and possible decoration.
To conclude the project, a marketing strategy for the nal
product was developed. This included xtensive discussions
on the four aspects of the marketing mix: product, price,
place and promotion.
the found opportunities and threats, three product-
market combinations were formulated. The rst included
developing a product to lower the rural housing costs. Also,
in the eld of hygiene, a product to improve more peoples
bathing and sanitary conditions could be developed.
Another product would provide easier access to water. For
all three combinations, the design problems were identied
and product ideas were generated. After selection, by using
nine weighted criteria, it was decided to elaborate within
the house & construction eld.
Thick Window and Door Frames
The goal was to consider procedures of building houses in
urban as well as in rural areas. The costs of a basic house
were calculated and the elements that might be replaced by
natural bre reinforced composite products were identied.
These were window frames and shutters, doorframes and
shutters, sometimes even entire roofs. Based on a number
of reasons, it was decided to develop windows and doors,
but mainly since these parts contribute most to the total
costs of a house (23% of the total costs). However, the
prices of existing alternatives could hardly be met, so to
have a product with an edge over the competition, an arch
or decoration was added.
There were two design concepts, the major difference
laid in the thickness of the frames.. Within the thick
concept conventional materials like wood and RCC could
be replaced; the thin concept replaced materials like steel
and coir. Evaluating the advantages and disadvantages on
production, costs and appearance of both concepts resulted
The fringes were created
with clay and some
creativity. Alongside the
door shutter its clay
details can be seen. It
was chosen to decorate
this door with Lord
Ganesh who is supposed
to bring luck and
prosperity.
www.npsp.nl
123
Intermech Engineering Ltd 2004
In Tanzania the cassava starch winning is still done the traditional way.
Small scale cassava
starch processing
Dirk Smallenbroek
All over the world the demand for starch is rapidly growing.
Traditional starch sources (potato) in the western world have
reached their limits in growing capacity. At this moment
in Tanzania all starch is being imported, although the
agricultural industry supplies sufcient amounts of starch
containing crops and is capable of increasing production.
Cassava, a tropical tuber, is one of these starch containing
crops. Now the main part of the cassava production is used
for human consumption. The cassava is processed. Grated,
dried and milled to our, which is the base for various
meals.
Intermech is a Tanzanian company designing and
manufacturing cassava graters, at this moment used for local
small scale processing of cassava for human consumption.
This grater is also suited for the rst step of the winning
of starch from cassava. For the next steps of this process
a machine line was to be designed, tting on to the grater
qua philosophy and capacity, manufactured by Intermech
and capable of supplying high quality cassava starch for the
Tanzanian industry.
Promoting Cassava
For Tanzania it is now important to take the step towards
producing big scale amounts of cassava, in order to provide
starch to the world market. This can be achieved by promoting
the planting of cassava amongst the small farmers all over
Tanzania. The goal is that with the development of this
machine and giving the people an opportunity to increase
the value of their harvested cassava, we can contribute to
the scale up of the amount of cassava grown in Tanzania.
The possibility for local farmers to process their harvested
124
For Tanzania it is now important to take the step of
growing cassava on a larger scale so it can become an
important supplier of starch to the world market. With this
project a small step is set towards a more sustainable and
better economic developed future for Tanzanian cassava
farmers.
crops into agricultural products which are better to store and
to transport will result in a decrease in post harvest losses.
Additionally, the processing of cassava offers the farmers an
opportunity to add value to their harvested crops, creating
the possibility of investing in their own farming company.
This way the rst step to further mechanize the cultivation
and irrigation of the land and thus increasing the efciency.
This will be resulting in the important growth of the national
agriculture output. Furthermore, this way of processing
offers a change of cooperation between local farmers and
local industry, reducing the distance in supply chain and
stimulating the local agriculture.
Local demands and needs
Within this project it has been demonstrated that a small
group of people can give the start to tackle a large national
problem (how to promote cassava, so the agricultural
production and security of the national food demand is
increased) when the problem is approached from the
bottom up. It has also shown that small production
companies in less developed countries do not necessary
need to copy the designs of existing machines of (inter)
national competition. With the implementation of the basics
of the design process these companies can come up with
unique innovative products that are designed to full the
specic (local) needs. Since these products and machines
are designed and manufactured in Tanzania, they meet the
local circumstances (for example no running water) and
demanded scale much better. Besides this, the repair and
maintenance of the machines can be executed locally.
The University team & the Intermech team with the prototype.
www.intermech.biz
125
Photo: Jaap Daalhuizen
126
Toilet in a Rural
Village
Chongming Island,
China
127
J.C. Diehl
After browsing through all these Base of the Pyramid
(BoP) graduation and IDP projects, one can state that a
huge challenge for the design world lies ahead. Large as
well as medium sized enterprises are becoming more and
more interested in exploring the BoP to alleviate poverty
and other sustainability problems as well as to exploit new
consumer markets. The Base of the Pyramid is becoming
both a strategic focus for long-term growth and critical for
promoting social equity in line of the global companies
sustainable policies. However, these markets remain
poorly understood and success stories are far and few in-
between.
For a company or designer to be successful in these
emerging and developing markets, it takes a lot more than
just making minor modications to existing products. They
will have to develop new business and product innovation
practices, capable of establishing a mutual value creation
process between themselves and local stakeholders, as well
as to have a deep understanding of these new contexts,
and the issues and the opportunities related to the targeted
areas (Simanis and Hart 2006).
Eco-Efciency and Socio-Cultural Preferences
The challenge lies in the creation of accessible and
affordable solutions to t the local economical and socio-
cultural preferences, without expanding the current use
of environmental resources (Rocchi 2006). The target
here is not only the poverty of the people in the BoP, but
also the context in which they live, which tends to lack
traditional utilities, such as electricity, water, and gas (i.e.
in rural Africa less than 2% of the population is connected
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The rst learning experiences
of Design for the BoP
Table 1: Summary of the identied differences in the Product Innovation
Process (Chang 2006).
Process
Ethnographic research, NGO partnerships,
local university collaboration, study local life,
live with the poor, listening deeply
Motivation on CSR, new business model creation,
local and NGO partnerships, Greenfield opportu-
nities, influences from government policy
Differences in the Product Innovation Process
NGO Partnerships (training, distribution,
collect feedback), new channels, new busi-
ness models, local ecosystem setup
Strategy
Formulation
Product
Development
Product
Launch
Design Brief
Formulation
NGO partnerships, local university
collaboration (on pilot testing)
128
important is the willingness to listen deeply to the local
people and local stakeholders, and understand what they
need, not what product innovators think they need.
For example the demand for renewable electricity based
light is a derived demand: no one wants electricial light
in itself but rather for the services it can provide (ESMAP
2000). The biggest unmet need is not for better illumination
but for safety from re, savings, and greater independence.
There should be added value in the products, which can be
recognized by consumers at the BoP. Second, markets in
developing countries are not well developed, so it is necessary
to develop basic channels and business models and value
chains in order to bring the products to the customers. The
observed differences in the product innovation process are
summarized in Table 1.
Consequently, a basic starting point for successful product
innovation for the BoP is to understand peoples needs
and to interact with the material, economical and socio-
cultural world. Therefore, both researchers and designers
should engage with the cultures directly. A unique set of
design and business tools and practices adapted from social
anthropology, ethnography and Participatory Rural Appraisal
(PRA) is being developed, applied and evaluated (Hart
2004; Diehl and Kuipers 2008; Simanis and Hart 2008) for
designers and entrepreneurs.
Design Tools
At the moment, various design tools (such as personas,
cultural probes, scenarios and user proles in context-of-
use) are available to capture insights related users needs,
to the electricity grid). In addition ICT and transportation
infrastructures are also often very weak. The outcomes
of the Intocontext project demonstrate that sometimes
alternative solutions (mobile phone instead of internet via
PC) are available but not used (see page 108). Most BoP
communities are fragile ecologically, so new products and
services need to be very eco-efcient (Sethia 2005). In that
perspective the Kamworks projects (see page 38, 40, 56
and 116, on replacing kerosene lights solar powered lights)
and the Philips Woodstove project (see page 102, on a
dramatic increase of efciency and avoidance of negative
health impacts) are convincing examples what Designing
for the BoP can mean.
Critical Phases in Designing Products
From our experiences, we have learned that most
companies active in the BoP state the front end research
(Design Brief Formulation) and Product Delivery (Product
Launch) as the two most critical phases in developing
products for the BoP market (See table on the right) (Chang
2006). First, its critical to adapt products so that the t the
context and resources of the target group. Most challenges
derive from the unfamiliarity with the local context and the
distinct infrastructure in emerging markets. Although some
companies do have strong global resources and networks,
a sustainable local enterprise network is necessary for them
to interact with the local community. Non-Governmental
Organizations (NGOs) play in this context a vital role in
the innovation process of several companies, especially
when they intend to approach consumers at the BoP. Most
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129
aspirations and behaviour in their original contexts (Leonard
and Rayport 1997; Sanders 2000; Rodrguez, Diehl et al.
2006). These new context and participatory techniques can
introduce the end-user into the design process by co-design
and get deeper information than the common focus groups
or observational research methods (Sanders 2000; Gaver,
Boucher et al. 2005).
However most of them only have been applied in the
Developed Markets. Currently we, at Delft University of
Technology, are testing and evaluating these kind of context
tools in emerging and developing markets in practice
(Rodriguez, Diehl et al. 2006; Rodrigues, Thompson et al.
2007). In that perspective we can say that there is still a lot
to learn with regard to which design tools and approaches
t the best in the context of designing new product (service)
solutions for the BoP.......
We are looking forward to go through this learning
process together with you!
Chang, Y.-K. (2006). Innovation for the Next Billions:
Case Study of 7 Multinationals that Develop Products for
Emerging Markets. Industrial Design Engineering. Delft,
Delft University of Technology. MSc.
Diehl, J. C. and H. Kuipers (2008). Design for the Base of
the Pyramid: Student Field Projects ub Cambodia. DesignED,
Hong Kong.
ESMAP (2000). Energy Services for the Worlds Poor.
130
Washington, WorldBank.
Gaver, W., A. Boucher, et al. (2005). Cultural probes and
the values of uncertainty. Interaction 11(5): 53-56.
Hart, S. (2004). Base of the Pyramid Protocol, Cornell
University.
Leonard, D. and J. Rayport (1997). Sparking innovation
through empathic design. Harvard Business Review 75(6):
102-113.
Rocchi, S. (2006). Unlocking new markets. P. Design.
Eindhoven, Philips Design.
Rodrigues, J., C. Thompson, et al. (2007). Multistakeholder
approach for people centered solutions: Welcome to East
Africa. Include 2007: Designing with People. Royal College
of Art, London.
Rodriguez, J., J. C. Diehl, et al. (2006). Design toolbox
for contextualizing users in emerging markets. IEA2006,
Maastricht, Elsevier.
Rodrguez, J., J. C. Diehl, et al. (2006). Gaining insight
into unfamiliar contexts: A design toolbox as input for using
role-play techniques. Interacting with computers 18 (5):
956-976.
Sanders, E. B. (2000). Generative tools for codesigning:
Collaborative Design. London, Springer Verlag.
Sethia, N. (2005). At the Bottom of the Pyramid:
Responsible Design for Responsible Business. Design
Management Review 16(Summer 2005).
Simanis, E. and S. Hart (2006). Expanding Possibilities at
the Base of the Pyramid. Innovations 1(1): 43-51.
Simanis, E. and S. Hart (2008). BoP Protocol: Towards
Next Generation BoP Strategy.
131
We would like to say thanks, for these interesting projects,
inspired & inspiring students and enthusiastic colleagues.
Without the help and effort of all these people, this book
would not have been as it is now.
Thanks to Ana Maria Alvarez, Loucas Papantoniou, Stephanie
Wirth and Doortje van de Wouw, Elly Doek, Merijn Janssen,
Regine van Limmeren, Charl Smit, Stefan Versluis, Veronie
Croes, Bjrn-Evert van Eck Rasmussen, Swie Oei, Susan
Oudshoorn, Rutger Bonsel, Sietse Cieraad, Stphanie,
Reintjens and Imke Schepers, Aparna Bhasker, Inge
van de Wouw, Ambika Samabasivan, Lieke Pijpers, Sierk
Hennes, Kirsten Rijke, Tom van Diessen, Linda Schnieders,
Judith Goor, Jan Willem Findlater, Alexander van der Kleij,
Miriam Reitenbach, Koos Munneke, Bernard Hulshof, Rutger
Bonsel, Hoi-Kee Wong, Yu-Kuan Chang, Annemarie Mink,
Marion de Groot, Cathelijne Huis in t Veld, Roelie Bottema,
Mijntje de Caluw, Elselien Epema, Willem Glasbergen,
Marike Bijtelaar, Maria Nguyen, Leonie Ideler, Fernando Del
Caro Secomandi, Jon Rodriguez, Cale Thompson, Jonathan
Stranders, Suzanne Hendrikse, Stephen Boom, Roseliek van
der Velden, Joan Boekhovenand H.S. Smallenbroek.
We also would like to thank the following academic staff,
who supported students in their projects: Petra Badke-
Schaub, Annemiek van Boeijen, Casper Boks, Han Brezet,
Jan Buijs, Henri Christiaans, Katrijn Coninx, Marcel Crul,
Richard Goossens, Erik Jan Hultink, Remco van der Lugt,
Heimrich Kanis, D. Keskin, Henk Kuipers, Johan Molenbroek,
Kaj Morel, Sylvia Mooij, Ingo Oldenkamp, Joost Prins, Jan
Schoormans, S. Silvester, Dirk Snelders and K.S.S. Talke.
Thanks everyone! And we hope you will all keep working
towards achieving those millenium development goals, we
will certainly keep doing our best!
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A
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Prabhu Kandachar
Currently Professor of Industrial Design
Engineering (IDE) and Chairman of the
Department of Design Engineering, he
received a B.E. degree in Mechanical
Engineering at the Mysore University
and his M.E. and Ph.D. in Mechanical
Engineering at the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India.
After a stint of 5 years at the Materials Science and Technology
department at Delft, he worked at Fokker for 15 years, in
various technical & management positions. His teaching and
research interests at IDE are focused on materializing design
ideas, addressing manufacturing technology related to product
design and materials; technology and materials selection in
design; and more. He is currently directing research work
on development of products & services for healthcare in
developing countries and is involved in research on ethical
aspects of product development for the BoP. He has given
several keynote lectures on this topic and has about 100
publications on his work.
Jan Carel Diehl
After nishing his study in Industrial
Design Engineering he worked
several years as a consultant in
ecodesign. In his present position he
is assistant professor for the Design
for Sustainability (DfS) program at the Faculty of Industrial
Design Engineering at the Delft University of Technology in
The Netherlands. Within the DfS program he is managing
the international projects on sustainable product innovation
especially in emerging markets. The main focus of his
research is the know-how transfer and implementation
of sustainable product innovation into an international
context. He is has been working with companies and
universities in about 40 countries world-wide. Next to his
position at the TU Delft he is consultant for UNIDO and
UNEP and invited lecturer at universities in amongst others
Portugal, Colombia, Turkey, Japan and Austria. He is co-
author of the UNEP Design for Sustainability manual for
Developing Economies (D4S DE).
Ilona de Jongh
Born on Curaao, a tiny island in the Caribbean, she received her Masters degree in Integrated Product
Design - specialized in design for health care - at the faculty of IDE in 2008. She believes that design
and design-thinking can cause social change, can improve life and can help towards a sustainable living
for everybody on this planet, and is working with several organizations and companies all over the
world to prove this. She currently runs the solution development rm Sprout Design, is chapter head of
Project H Design New York, and works with Delft University of Technology on several projects in Design
for Emerging Markets.
The Base of the Pyrami d strategy i s to serve the underserved.
Both sci enti sts and entrepreneurs are expl ori ng thi s strategy,
economi cal l y and soci al l y moti vated. The key to success i s
focusi ng on the needs of peopl e i n thei r own envi ronment.
The strength and uni queness of Industri al Desi gn Engi neeri ng
l i es i n i ts human centred approach to desi gn.
Thi s book descri bes projects concerni ng products and servi ces
for the Base of the Pyrami d. Thi s i s the thi rd publ i cati on i n
the seri es of graduati on and other Masters program projects
at the Facul ty of Industri al Desi gn Engi neeri ng, speci fi cal l y
ai med at product, servi ce and system desi gn for the Base of
the Pyrami d.
Facul ty of Industri al Desi gn Engi neeri ng
Landbergstraat 15
2628 CE Del ft, The Netherl ands
www.i o.tudel ft.nl /bop
BoP-IO@tudel ft.nl
+31 (0) 15 278 3034
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Designing for

The prototype in use. The lights visualize the charging.

The water station, designed for local entrepeneurs.

Participants of the focus group, held to gather user insights.

quite good, due to efforts of Liliane Funds and Nsawam

Using the Bamboo Splitting Tool for Matchsticks

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