Energy experts now confidently predict that by 2040, solar and wind will drive no less than 60% of global power; natural gas will replace the lion’s share of the burning of coal, and the market for electric cars will soar. Nassim Taleb, on the other hand, questions the ability of experts to predict just about… Read More »
The Last 500 Feet
November 26, 2013 by · 5 Comments
Developing practical and profitable new ways to cross the last 500 feet to the remote rural places where poor families now live and work is the first step towards creating vibrant new markets that serve poor customers. Fortunately, it’s not that difficult to transport 100 kitchen drip kits from Kathmandu to Pokhara on the roof… Read More »
End Poverty or Bust
October 21, 2013 by · 2 Comments
Creating a Runway for Profitable New Multinational Businesses to Transform Poverty By Paul Polak Five years ago, Steve Bachar and I decided to create a venture capital fund that would only invest in companies capable of achieving three goals: Transforming the livelihoods of at least 100 million customers living on $2 a day or less;… Read More »
The SunWater Project – Advanced Solar Technology for Poor Farmers
May 20, 2013 by · 15 Comments
In my last article, you heard about SunWater, a project to build a radically affordable solar water pump for $2-a-day farmers that will transform small plot agriculture, create new water markets, and significantly increase incomes that will raise bottom-of-the-pyramid families out of poverty. Our target customers are small-plot farmers in India and Africa. These farmers… Read More »
From Concept to Market: How to Design for Impact
October 16, 2011 by · Leave a Comment
Responding to Martin Herrndorf’s (@Herrndorf) blog post titled All That Glitters is Good on NextBillion.net “How do we commercialize university and do-it-yourself projects for the Other 90%? Too much sits in research.” Paul Polak’s video response is below: “The Appropriate Technology movement failed because it was peopled by technocrats rather than hard-headed entrepreneurs, and technologies were designed to… Read More »
Death of Appropriate Technology II : How to Design for the Market
September 17, 2010 by · 9 Comments
by Paul Polak The single biggest reason that the appropriate technology movement died and most technologies for developing countries never reach scale is that nobody seems to know how to design for the market. Over the past 30 years, I’ve looked at hundreds of technologies for developing countries. Some provided elegant solutions for challenging technical… Read More »
The Death of Appropriate Technology I : If you can’t sell it don’t do it
September 10, 2010 by · 19 Comments
by Paul Polak The appropriate technology movement died peacefully in its sleep ten years ago. Launched in 1973 by Fritz Schumacher and his lovely book, Small is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered in 1973, it inspired politicians as different as Pat Brown in California and Jawarhal Nehru in India, thousands of middle-aged dreamers like… Read More »
Design for the Other 90% and Wild Blueberries
August 27, 2010 by · 5 Comments
by Paul Polak Many people see design as creating new mechanical tools – better widgets for controlling space, flight, or grinding corn. For me, design is creative problem solving. Designing new mechanical tools is often a critical first step, but far from sufficient for creative problem solving. On our quest to help poor smallholders improve… Read More »
If you don't understand the problem you've set out to solve from your customers' perspective; if your product or service won't dramatically increase their income; and if you can't sell 100 million of [your products], don't bother. - Paul Polak 