Last week I attended Sustainable Innovation at the Base of the Pyramid conference in Helsinki on the ways in which innovation and business can help the billions of people who are living in poverty. The model is known as the the Base of the Pyramid (BOP) approach which relies on entrepreneurial activity to create value and ultimately well-being through product and service (co)creation and provision instead of the old development aid or charity models.

The stand out speaker for me was Simona Rocchi, Director of Sustainable Design at Philips who described the ethos and methods behind the design of the Chulha smokeless stove, co-created in India with local communities and NGOs. It was inspiring to see design (and in particular a similar approach to design that we practice at Digital Eskimo) given centre stage of a conference on sustainable solutions (design rarely rates a mention in my experience).

The award winning stove exemplifies the potential of co-designing in context with all stakeholders and also represents an innovative model of IP ownership (Philips is sharing it with the community) as well as the many benefits that can flow to corporations that participate in society in this way.

View Simona’s presentation.

When I talk of design i’m usually referring to more than just graphic design … more

… which is after all just one of the design disciplines. I’m referring to the broader design of systems; the processes involved, their functionality, how they interact with people and other systems and yes, how they look and feel. Another inspiring speaker showed what can be done when you get the business design just right.

Tim Vang, Co-founder and Development Director of MyC4 gave a passionate talk about his business, which links investors with African businesses via an e-bay like bidding system. Investors offer money at an interest rate and African businesses (who normally fall between the cracks of micro and macro financing options) then effectively buy from the investors who offer the best terms.

This is a for-profit business model; investors are not donating to charity and MyC4 take a small percentage fee. On the ground partners vet applicants in a similar way to a bank approving a loan request so as you can imagine there is a lot more to the design of this business than the website itself. At the time of publishing they had over 4 Million Euro invested by 8,003 people. Amazingly they had only 10 defaulted loans and were paying an average 12.8 % interest which is more than i get from my bank.

On another note one of the biggest issues raised at the conference (but certainly not solved!) was the competing demands of a massive population moving closer to our consumer-based lifestyles. Providing for the needs of the BOP could very well accelerate global warming and other environmental issues plunging us all into a worse state than we are already in. It’s a thorny one of course because the developed world has benefitted from this lifestyle and the lifestyle and well-being gains to be had already and it’s inequitable to suggest that others shouldn’t have their needs met through commerce.

This is one of the great challenges of our age as we work towards a sustainable world and one Digital Eskimo will play a role in in the coming years.