Design for the Other 90%

I have always a fond interest in design - how people are drawn and attracted by unique designs and how design creates satisfaction and inspiration of life. But the "design" I or we grew up understanding is the design for the developed, for a culture with disposable income, for desires rather than needs. In fact, 90% of the designers in the world design for only 10% of the population.


A growing movement has taken over the design world about designing with socially responsibility, relevance, and transformation to the lives of those in need. The movement is supported by a lot of high profile projects around the world including Amy Smith of the D-Lab Designs from MIT, Paul Polak of IDE on design thinking, Design for Majority which helped more than 5 billion in poverty, Engineers Without Borders, Architecture for Humanity, and Bryan Bell from Design Corps which train young designers in social issues.


Whether it's the top-down approach suggested by Jeffrey Sachs of the UN Millennium Project that the developed countries are obligated to invest in the social needs of the developing, or the bottom-up local involvement, the revolution of getting more involved and closer to the fundamentals and basic functional needs of design for the majority of the world is here and now. Coincidently, an article from the Economist of The World in 2012 edition also talks about "frugal science" which prompts thinking about redirecting super-precision expensive science to more grounded and affordable research that solves "pressing problems" and is applicable and relevant for the other 90% the world instead.


The book Design for the Other 90% by Cynthia Smith showcases innovative solutions to solve problems of the poor and the needed. These designs aim at low cost, open source, utilizing available resources and tools that they can be easily extended, replicated, and even sold by the users. Notable ones include Nawsa Mad in India, an affordable miniature on-farm solution to trap monsoon rainwater and store it for drier season. Farmers in India are able to buy such drip systems for $3 and expand it as their farm size grows, increasing a family's earning by 10-folds in one example. Another well-known project, OLPC (One Laptop Per Child) or $100 laptop, is a socially responsible design for expanding access for technology on an unprecedented scale. One project I was specially drawn by is the Fuel from the Fields. With an initial investment of $10, a farmer can set up a sugar cane charcoal-making venture and begin earning profits in less than a week. The social impact on alleviating poverty and illiteracy of these innovative solutions are immediate and rewarding.

As I think of schools of business around the world, they are like the high design or superlative science for the 10%. The rest of the world hardly has access to these training and knowledge. How to make higher business education readily available to the less fortunate population? How to turn these knowledge around quicker to create entrepreneurs and self-businesses? How to fundamentally bring change to the poverty state of a country like Kenya where 46% of its population is under poverty? SAI is a such project spun from UBC to try to tackle this dilemma. For the past 6 years, led by Nancy Langton, professor of Organizational Behaviour and Human Resource at UBC, the team brings passionate and high calibre students to Nairobi to educate and train the slums to be independent entrepreneurs. There are no powerpoints, projectors, nor excel spreadsheets. There are only papers and pencils, and completely capable yet business-illiterate young minds who want to start and sustain a business just as much as the Dragon's Den contestants. The SAI project is trying to provide support and grow that empowerment by making resource, opportunity, and training available to those who don't have access to. It's applying education at grass-root to simply grow one entrepreneur at a time, and improve poverty one independent business at a time.