Custom Solutions for Developing Contexts

You’ve got to admire the ingenuity of people in developing countries. Last summer, while leading a group of college students through rural China to study the growing phenomenon known as ‘social entrepreneurship’, we saw many ingenious solutions to local problems. One clever example of a “new” application used by rural peasants for boiling hot water is depicted below.

Satellite-enhanced solar kettle

In Rwanda, there are also daily reminders that products created in the Western countries can take on an entirely new meaning when placed in such a context.

New luggage... traditional carrying technique

Such images are a good reminder to us at Karisimbi Partners: we should not expect our experiences and understanding to translate here… at least not directly in the manner we may otherwise assume. In the high-tech U.S. corporations where we’ve worked in the past (e.g. Microsoft, AT&T Wireless) we learned that technology changes much faster than human behavior. Such lessons are only magnified in the context of a developing country where the same modern technologies face traditional behaviors that are significantly less modernized than they are in the West. Cynthia Smith has highlighted this challenge in her book “Design for the Other 90%”, stating that the items many of us take for granted are out of reach for the vast majority and the contexts they live in.

In a developing economy like Rwanda, it seems bringing the best of Western business perspectives will be the easy bit… the real challenge is adapting them to the context in the most meaningful fashion for those we aim to serve.

Onward & Upward,

-Carter