Offline Innovation

Tuesday
March 20
2018

We all love digital innovation – if you’re not amazed by the social impact and business opportunities that mobile tech is delivering around the world, you’re not paying attention. But we’ve noticed a tendency, on and off NextBillion, to make “innovation” synonymous with “the latest app” – and this leaves out an intriguing array of advances happening offline. From water pumps to cold chain storage, from new applications for 3D printing to feats of ingenious engineering – if you’ve come across cool innovations that aren’t based on tapping and swiping, let us know.

Guest Articles

Wednesday
November 21
2018

Dr. Rajat Chabba / Sheena Raikundalia

Inexpensive Impact: The Case for Frugal Innovations

Over 4 billion people around the world lack necessities like food, water, energy, health care and housing. This represents not only a major social challenge but a major market, as low-income consumers have an annual purchasing capacity of US $5 trillion. Rajat Chabba and Sheena Raikundalia at Intellecap explore how entrepreneurs are developing innovative, frugal products to meet these customers’ needs – and why an ecosystem approach is needed to help them scale their solutions.

Categories
Technology

Tags
business development, circular economy, innovation, startups, sustainable business
Guest Articles

Wednesday
November 14
2018

Eric Verploegen

Affordable, Scalable, Overlooked: Evaporative Cooling Can Fight Food Loss – Why isn’t the Development Sector Embracing It?

Food loss due to lack of effective storage is a global problem: In sub-Saharan Africa alone, approximately 23 percent of available food is lost or wasted. There’s increasing interest in an innovative yet old-school solution to the problem: evaporative cooling. But though the technology can be adopted with minimal training, low up-front costs and no electricity, it is not widely used. MIT D-Lab research engineer Eric Verploegen explores five ways to increase the effective production, dissemination and usage of this technology.

Categories
Agriculture, Energy, Technology

Tags
global development, innovation, off-grid energy
Guest Articles

Monday
October 29
2018

Mark Rabin

Running Out of Gas: Can This Innovative Solar and Battery Electric Generator Fight Energy Poverty – And Climate Change?

The electric generator market is predicted to grow to US $27 billion by 2023. But as the industry grows, so too will the need for fuel to power it – a major challenge in a world struggling to reduce carbon emissions and climate change. Portable Electric believes it has found a solution: a portable generator that can be powered by solar and wind to provide completely renewable, mobile energy – at three times the efficiency of traditional generators. The company's founder, Mark Rabin discusses the technology, and its uses in everything from micro-grids to disaster relief.

Categories
Energy, Technology

Tags
climate change, energy access, off-grid energy, renewable energy, sustainable business
Guest Articles

Thursday
October 25
2018

Vanesha Manuturi

Big Problem, Small Solution: Can Do-It-Yourself Processing Machines Help Combat Plastic Pollution?

From the viral video of a diver swimming in a sea of plastic, to National Geographic’s major focus on the topic this year, there’s growing public attention on the problem of plastic waste. So there was plenty of excitement when a Dutch engineer’s do-it-yourself plastic recycling machines started gaining traction around the world. Could the devices empower a global army of small entrepreneurs to turn plastic waste into revenue-generating products? The solution sounds appealing, but when Bali-based social enterprise Kopernik assessed its effectiveness, they came across one small problem.

Categories
Environment, Impact Assessment, Social Enterprise, Technology

Tags
impact measurement, recycling, social enterprise
Guest Articles

Wednesday
September 19
2018

Quang Truong

Refrigeration Off the Grid: An Innovative Solution to Food Spoilage for the Billions Without Electricity

Home refrigerators, essential appliances in much of the world, remain out of reach to over one billion people who, as social entrepreneur Quang Truong puts it, must plan their lives around eating rather than vice versa. Without access to reliable grid energy, families are not just inconvenienced – they’re also contributing to climate change as their rotting foods emit greenhouse gasses. In this post, part of our “Offline Innovation” series, Truong puts the spotlight on his Fenik Yuma cooler, which solves this dilemma through low-tech evaporative cooling.

Categories
Energy, Social Enterprise, Technology

Tags
food security, off-grid energy, social enterprise, supply chains
Guest Articles

Wednesday
July 25
2018

Taylor Quinn

Low Tech, High Impact: An Affordable, Hand-Powered Innovation Aims to Boost Food Production in Africa

For many global development players, high-tech innovations are the go-to solution for challenges in emerging markets. But according to Taylor Quinn of JUST, Inc., low-tech approaches can be even smarter. He discusses the promising potential of locally made and hand-powered machines in emerging economy value chains, and explores how JUST is using one such device to improve food security, increase access to quality nutrition and promote entrepreneurship in Liberia.

Categories
Social Enterprise, Technology

Tags
food security, global development, nutrition, social enterprise
Guest Articles

Thursday
June 21
2018

Paul Scott

Up to 2.5 Billion People Need Glasses: Can This Hardware Innovation Deliver?

Roughly 25 percent of the global population needs glasses, but lacks access. The problem isn't cost: Affordable glasses are readily available in emerging markets. What's lacking are trained eye care specialists. The social startup PlenOptika is tackling that issue with a device called the QuickSee: a binocular-sized autorefractor that non-specialists can use to scan a patient’s eyes and produce an eyeglass prescription within seconds. Paul Scott, director of engineering for ASME, discusses the innovation, and the challenges and rewards of running a social hardware startup.

Categories
Health Care, Social Enterprise, Technology

Tags
partnerships, social enterprise
Guest Articles

Thursday
June 7
2018

Arun Venkatesan

Hardware Innovation is … Hard: How These Entrepreneurs Overcame the Challenges

Compared with the creators of app-based products, hardware-focused innovators face a much more difficult and expensive journey, says Villgro CTO Arun Venkatesan. The resources and time required to perfect hardware iterations are larger, the lack of a mature ecosystem is a problem, and the buyer is often distinctly different from the user or beneficiary. Venkatesan profiles four hardware innovators in agriculture and health care, discussing how they worked through these obstacles.

Categories
Agriculture, Health Care, Investing, Social Enterprise, Technology

Tags
Base of the Pyramid, impact investing, innovation, social enterprise
Thursday
April 26
2018

Helen Davies

For Solar Irrigation to Grow, the Pump Needs to be Innovative – So Does the Warranty

Helen Davies at Futurepump writes that the startup has developed a cost-effective, solar-based pump to irrigate crops that is simple to use and maintain, and designed specifically with small rural farms in mind. The firm has already sold 4,000 units and is distributing in 11 African and Asian countries. But beyond the technology, an equally important innovation is the company's five-year warranty on the product, which Davies says is an industry first. She makes the case that solar device makers operating in low-income markets need to stand behind their products with warrantees and service, if customers are going to trust the technology and the manufacturers.

Categories
Agriculture, Energy, Technology

Tags
business development, innovation, smallholder farmers, solar
Friday
April 20
2018

Andrea Charters

Portable, Reliable and Safe: Billions Need Anaesthesia – Partnerships Can Deliver It

When global crises rivet the world’s attention to a conflict or a disaster-struck region, people take notice and respond. But they tend to ignore the fact that 5 billion of the 7 billion people in the world lack access to basic surgery – and the safe anesthesia care necessary to facilitate it. Andrea Charters of Diamedica talks about the life-saving work doctors are able to perform using the company’s portable anesthesia machine – and the potential to cure the everyday disaster of inequality in global health care.

Categories
Health Care, Technology

Tags
Base of the Pyramid, healthcare technology, infectious diseases, partnerships, public health
Thursday
January 11
2018

Paula Rodriguez

Rethinking Food Security By Re-inventing the Cold Storage Chain

In developing countries, 40 percent of food losses occur after harvest and early on in the supply chain, leading to more than 250 million tons of food waste annually — mostly because of inadequate refrigeration and unreliable and expensive energy supply. Paula Rodriguez at InspiraFarms discusses the problem – and the company's innovative solution.

Categories
Agriculture, Technology

Tags
Base of the Pyramid, food security, off-grid energy

NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

NextBillion Series.

Offline Innovation

Inexpensive Impact: The Case for Frugal Innovations

Affordable, Scalable, Overlooked: Evaporative Cooling Can Fight Food Loss – Why isn’t the Development Sector Embracing It?

Running Out of Gas: Can This Innovative Solar and Battery Electric Generator Fight Energy Poverty – And Climate Change?

Big Problem, Small Solution: Can Do-It-Yourself Processing Machines Help Combat Plastic Pollution?

Refrigeration Off the Grid: An Innovative Solution to Food Spoilage for the Billions Without Electricity

Low Tech, High Impact: An Affordable, Hand-Powered Innovation Aims to Boost Food Production in Africa

Up to 2.5 Billion People Need Glasses: Can This Hardware Innovation Deliver?

Hardware Innovation is … Hard: How These Entrepreneurs Overcame the Challenges

For Solar Irrigation to Grow, the Pump Needs to be Innovative – So Does the Warranty

Portable, Reliable and Safe: Billions Need Anaesthesia – Partnerships Can Deliver It

Rethinking Food Security By Re-inventing the Cold Storage Chain

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