- Everyone has a right to a safe home.
We have made so much progress in reducing extreme poverty
and to fighting some critical diseases,
but by all indicators, access to safe housing
is actually getting worse.
We're going backwards.
During things like earthquakes and hurricanes
most people died because their un-reinforced
masonry house collapsed on them.
We can't prevent natural disasters from happening,
but we can prevent houses and schools
and buildings from collapsing in these events.
We have this ambitious, audacious plan
to impact 10 million people in 10 years
across five cities or regions around the world.
My goal is that no one dies in an earthquake or a hurricane.
(muffled talking)
I'm Elizabeth Hausler, founder and CEO of Build Change.
I grew up in a small town outside of Chicago
and my dad owned a small business
in the construction industry.
He was, is, a brick layer.
Worked for 50 years building houses,
so guess what my sister and I did for our summer jobs?
I studied engineering, and while I was in grad school
there was an earthquake in Gujarat, India
that killed about 20,000 people.
Most people died because their house collapsed on them
and I thought sure, we must be able to solve this problem.
So, I thought it was an engineering problem
that I could help solve with my engineering skills
and construction skills.
As we continued to work and develop the program
I realized there was more to it.
The three main barriers to the adaption of safe housing
are technology, people, and money.
The industry has learned that distancing
the homeowner, just giving someone a house
without discussing with them does not work,
if we put the toilet inside,
homeowner wants a toilet outside,
I'm not gonna listen to what we
to have to say about structural safety.
We don't bring in new building technology,
we improve on what's already common,
locally available, culturally appropriate,
preferred by the homeowners.
And we make small changes to those existing
ways of building.
So, how do we do this?
Well, we use a combination of different technologies
like AI and VR.
We use AI to rapidly assess buildings
for retrofitting or for strengthening.
We can then automate the process where
we automatically produce a retrofit design,
the bill of quantity, the list of materials that we need,
the cost, and the building permit process.
VR is this fantastic tool for continuing
to enable the homeowners to be engaged.
Right since day one we've been pushing our industry
to enable the homeowners to drive the process.
They should make decisions about materials
and architecture, it's their home.
(light music)
The second barrier is people.
So we've gotta understand what's going to really
motivate a homeowner to make a change.
We have to try as hard as we can
to walk in someone else's shoes,
to understand their day to day life,
what's important to them.
So, we find oftentimes if we strengthen your home,
we can also bundle in a kitchen or toilet improvement
or fix the leaky roof.
Or, if we strengthen your ground floor,
we can add a second story.
That can be rented out or used for your extended family.
And it's this combination of a structural improvement
that is going to save lives with other improvements
to kitchens, toilets, roofs,
that motivates homeowners to create change.
(light music)
The cost benefit argument is clear.
We know that it would be better to invest money upfront
in prevention to strengthen buildings before the disaster.
People have to have access to enough financing
if they can't afford to build safely, then they won't,
so let's put the cash in their hands
with some strings attached.
Homeowners can't get the next installment
unless they build according to the guidelines,
minimum standards for earthquake safety.
Conditional cash grants are a very effective way
of providing financing as well as technical assistance
to a homeowner after a disaster.
It takes the first step toward enforcing
building standards in an environment
where building standard enforcement is not very common.
(light music)
So far, over 330,000 people are living and learning
in safer housing and schools because of our work.
That means over 60,000 buildings have been made safer.
People often ask me, "Can one person change the world?"
and the answer is yes,
but they need a lot of help from their friends.
We need a team, we need partnerships,
we need different points of view,
we need diversity, we need inclusion,
but together we can go far.
(light music)
- Thanks for watching this video.
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