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Engineering for Change

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Engineering for Change 2 Park Ave New York, NY, 11215 www.engineeringforchange.org Solutions Library 2.0 Introduction: The “base of the pyramid” (BoP) represents the approximate four billion people around the world that live on less than $4 a day often without access to the most basic lifeline infrastructure, such as safe drinking water, sufficient sanitation, reliable energy, effective housing and improved agriculture.1 The link between technology and the alleviation of suffering has been recognized by leading thinkers such as Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the United Nations Millennium Project who stated that “the single most important reason why prosperity spread, and why it continues to spread, is the transmission of technology and the ideas underlying them.”2 Complimentarily, over the past decade, alternative global development strategies focused on transitioning from direct aid to market-based approaches have been tested and proven to be effective in the transmission of technology. By allowing those at the BoP to be viewed as consumers/producers as opposed to recipients of aid, “intermediate technologies” as originally labeled by EF Schumacher, have catalyzed frugal innovation and empowered BoP communities by improving quality of life and building local capacity. Today, technology-based solutions which aim to be suitable for resource constrained settings run the gamut of technical complexity and can include both open source and market-based technologies. In practice, these solutions must strike a balance between utility, usability, desirability, affordability, viability and compatibility: Utility is the extent to which the product provides functionality that meets user needs. Usability is the extent to which the product can be used by users to achieve specified goals with effectiveness, efficiency, reliability and satisfaction in the context of use. Desirability is the extent to which ownership and use of the product leads to pleasure and satisfaction by the community. Affordability is the extent to which the perceived value of the product is greater than its perceived cost to the users, given their available income. Viability is the extent to which the product/service achieves success in the environment that it is being used. Compatibility is the extent to which the product works together with the environment and local conditions. To determine the efficacy of these solutions, robust measurement and evaluation frameworks are needed to assess the solution/product across a multitude of dimensions. As the product complexity increases, so does the need for engineering rigor, not only in developing the product, but also in assessing its performance and appropriateness. However, despite the acknowledged value of evaluation, no central, neutral platform exists where solutions developed by various organizations 1 ASME (2009). Engineering Solutions for the Base of the Pyramid, p. 13. Retrieved from https://www.engineeringforchange.org/static/content/Learning/ASME+Engineering+Solutions+for+the+BoP.pdf 2 Sachs, J. (2005) The End of Poverty: Economic Policies for Our Time. New York: Penguin Books, p. 41. 1 | P a g e 2 Park Ave New York, NY, 11215 www.engineeringforchange.org can be aggregated and analyzed across a multitude of dimensions. These information gaps have been recognized as hurdles in the global development space preventing transfer of best practices and lessons learned needed to avoid suboptimal products from being developed and ensure effective implementation of fit for service products. The scope of evaluation in this space, spans multiple technical disciplines, cultural aspects, socioeconomic conditions, markets and technologies. Although, it is critical to acknowledge the complexity of the objective, it is imperative that organizations strive to provide unbiased, technical information to improve how products and services are evaluated. Doing so is considered a valuable and unique contribution to the global development community. Call to Action: Engineering for Change (E4C) is a global community of organizations and individuals dedicated to promoting sustainable and accessible technology-based solutions for underserved communities worldwide. E4C is a recognized 501(c)-3 non-profit corporation representing a coalition of engineering societies that includes the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), the Institute for Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Engineers Without Borders (EWB-USA), the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), the World Federation of Engineering Organizations (WFEO), and many others. E4C’s mission is to enable the engineering for global development community to serve the underserved and do its work better. As a global network, supported by a multidisciplinary engineering community and positioned to deliver on a core competency as a neutral party convener, E4C launched the Appropriate Solutions Evaluation Program (ASEP). The ASEP aims to meet the need for an integrated and systematic approach to aggregate, monitor, evaluate, and disseminate information related to appropriate, technology-based solutions across a multitude of applications via a central portal – E4C’s Solutions Library 2.0 (SL2.0). The program supports the convening of a community of stakeholders, participatory design and development of a comprehensive, searchable knowledge repository of solutions, combined with a widely adopted evaluation platform with components for expert analysis, user feedback and ongoing news and updates. The resulting SL2.0 aims to serve as a decision aid tool for designers, manufacturers and implementers of products and catalyze the global development marketplace to produce higher quality, fit-for-service products that meet the immediate needs of underserved communities. 2 | P a g e 2 Park Ave New York, NY, 11215 www.engineeringforchange.org The development of SL2.0 is guided by the E4C ASEP Steering Committee comprised of eight (8) Subject Matter Experts representing key sectors and stakeholders in this field and follows the roadmap in the illustrated below. The E4C ASEP Steering Committee Lead is Heather Fleming, CEO of Catapult Design and is supported by ASME Staff Lead, Iana Aranda. For more information on the SL2.0 please contact Iana Aranda at [email protected] or +1.212.591.7149 3 | P a g e .
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