The research objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award is to create methods for designing extremely affordable products aimed at alleviating poverty in the developing world while simultaneously opening new foreign markets to US companies. Surprisingly, this approach of financially gaining from helping the poor to escape poverty is one of the most sustainable paths to poverty alleviation. Products designed using the methods created under this award foster self-sufficiency by increasing the earning power of those who are living in extreme poverty. These income-generating products are made affordable by their strategic modularity, which makes them progressively expandable, thus facilitating incremental investment by the impoverished. The research approach includes the creation of multidisciplinary decision-making models for extreme affordability, product expandability, and decision robustness. Deliverables include documented research results, and undergraduate and graduate teaching modules made available via the World Wide Web.
If successful, the research will result in the discovery and articulation of fundamental principles of sustainable design for the developing world. These principles, which enable affordable, low risk, products that increase the earning power of people living in extreme poverty, are the fundamental basis of the research and teaching modules resulting from this work. If successful, the research will positively affect many people's lives. For the impoverished, breakthroughs in affordability of income-generating products lead to increased income, which in turn lowers sickness, improves educational opportunities, improves local water supplies, and combats hunger. For US companies searching for new and suitable foreign markets, the proposed work provides needed design methods for creating viable products for those markets.
