when you’re designing for the kind of developing world you think that the – you’d think
that there might be lots of differences between kind of how you go about it.
We find it’s not.
We use the same methodology, the same kind of point of view about how we look for innovation,
where do we look for leads and where do we look for kind of non-obvious things that comes
up.
The thing that’s really interesting, however, is that the – people haven’t – don’t
have the trust.
I go in as a university professor and engineer in to most places and there’s a lot of trust
because they can – their life experience is that when you meet with the kind of experts
good things happen.
That’s – there’s no, there’s no – you don’t have any credentials in that world
as much I believe.
So it’s, in some ways, it’s better to design because it’s a meritocracy.
when we’re developing for the developing world we’re – there’s always cost, right?
I mean that – we know cost is there but reliability raises its head in such an extreme
way because I think the experience has been in a lot of places that, where we go to design,
is that somebody brought something in but is not maintaining it.
So the whole notion of reliability is really interesting because not only does it have
to actually be reliable it has to look like it’s gonna be reliable, it has to smell
like it’s gonna be reliable and you know, and so it’s taking our game to a whole different
level with respect to reliability.
Which is good when we’re designing things back in this part of the world.
Right and when you’re developing, especially for – when you’re creating things for
developing countries you have to be extra careful not to rely on your own assumptions.
You have to be extra careful to be cognizant of the mindset and the worldview and the belief
system of the people you’re creating things for.
If you take that Embrace Infant Warmer developed here at Stanford for developing countries
in one of the prototypes they had there was a LCD thermometer because they wanted them
to heat this infant warmer to body temperature, 36 degrees centigrade, is that the right number?
98.6.
Anyhow and they showed their prototype and thank god they did.
They showed their prototype to these villagers in India and asked them for feedback and really
listened.
They weren’t selling they were listening.
One of the young moms said, well here in our village we have a lot of respect, by which
she possibly meant fear, for western medicine.
So if my, the doctor, tells to give my baby two drops of something I might just give them
one drop just to be safe.
So if you tell me I want to heat this pad to 36 degrees I might heat it to maybe 30
or 31 just to be safe.
In doing so this mom, who wants nothing but the best for her child, she’s putting her
young babies life at risk.
So you can sit back with your high profile university degree and think of this mom as
stupid.
She is uneducated, she’s not stupid, she’s trying to do the best she can.
You could write a better instruction manual but if you’re – if you have empathy and
if you want your product to succeed, especially in this case you want it to save lives, you
got to meet them halfway.
So what Jane Channan, the members of the Embrace team is they changed it.
There’s not a number anymore I think there’s a check mark because you can’t second guess
a check mark, it either is on or it’s not on.
So only by understanding that belief system in a culture very different from one’s own,
can you develop the right product, the right technology for that environment.