

Ask HN: Ideas for tech in developing countries? - csytan

Dear HN,<p>My lab is looking for ideas, particularly in relation to developing countries. What sort of problems have you seen that we might be able to solve through technology?<p>About us:
We are the Sustainable Engineering Lab at Columbia University (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sel.columbia.edu&#x2F;). We are a team of students, engineers, programmers and experts in renewable energy.<p>We&#x27;ve done work in Nigeria, Indonesia, Myanmar, India and a whole bunch of other places (http:&#x2F;&#x2F;sel.columbia.edu&#x2F;projects&#x2F;).
======
codegeek
"experts in renewable energy."

In a country like India, there is a huge problem to solve when it comes to
basic necessity like Electricity for everyone. Specially in smaller towns and
villages. Since you mentioned renewable energy, I am sure there is a huge
potential there.

The problem is that the electricity grids (or transformers) are just not
enough for everyone. So in many small towns/villages, they do something called
"load shedding" and power cuts are frequent even if there is electricity
available. Hardly there are areas where there are no transformers or grid but
most of the times, they are not functional or just badly managed.

Find a way to create enough energy AND then channel it efficiently as well.
You have a winner right there.

~~~
csytan
This is a huge problem that we're chipping away at.

I'm only starting to get involved in the energy group, but I know that we've
had a project focused on providing off-grid solar energy
([http://sharedsolar.org/](http://sharedsolar.org/)), as well as some software
to model the costs of grid rollout across countries such as Myanmar
([http://networkplanner.modilabs.org/](http://networkplanner.modilabs.org/)).
The idea is that this research would later be used to back funding proposals
from entities such as the World Bank.

~~~
palakchokshi
This is an idea that I've been thinking about for a while now. One of the
issues I couldn't figure out how to overcome was the need for more electricity
as people get a taste of how electricity can change their lives. Since
installation of the solar station is subsidized and the villagers are
essentially only paying for electricity they use, unless what is being paid is
more than the maintenance cost of the solar station there is no more money to
expand the capacity unless you get grants from World Bank or other entities.

How do you make this a completely self sustaining model where expansion is
built in to the model without charging the users more money than they can
afford? Can you charge the power users more money than the basic user? e.g. if
basic user is paying $10 to use X kilowatts and makes $15 in income from that
electricity, then the power user who uses 10X kilowatts can be charged $140
under the presumption that the power user uses that extra electricity to
generate an income > $150 for themselves. The profits can then be put back
into expanding the solar station capacity.

~~~
prabhasp
Hi, I'm also from SEL. In addition to some of our work (which is generally
about _shared_ solar), some interesting companies that are thinking about (and
providing their own solutions to) the financing question are
[http://www.selco-india.com/](http://www.selco-india.com/) and
[http://simpanetworks.com/](http://simpanetworks.com/) Not endorsing their
work necessarily, but worth a look at, for someone interested in this stuff.

------
leashless
1) A version of Wikipedia / Appropedia (Mediawikis in general) which can be
installed as an app (won't need further net access) on Firefox OS phones.

(2 gig on an SD card at point of manufacture vs. download costs.)

2) Sawyer filters: 170 litres a day, for a million litres of virus-purified
water, for $120. But those straw filters... those are industrial-generic,
aren't they? Cheaper ways? (see Safe Water Trust for an example)

3) Craigslist for refugee camps / crisis areas.

4) My own project, [http://hexayurt.com](http://hexayurt.com) can _always_ use
bright sparks!

Enjoy!

~~~
mberg
Checkout [http://www.kiwix.org/](http://www.kiwix.org/)

This started off as an offline wikipedia project at Geekcorps Mali and now has
been adopted as an official Wikimedia project.

------
scobar
An idea of mine that I would like to work on in the future when I have the
time and resources is a "Swiss Army knife" style tool to provide some
essentials to a small group. The objective is to provide electricity,
rainwater collection, potable water, and food preparation/preservation using a
system whose parts are not valuable enough individually to be a target of
theft. Feel free to use any part of the idea you find interesting or useful.
It's an interconnected system, but I'll explain some features separately:

Wind Turbine Structure: Two vertical axis turbines whose blades are hollow
(containers) are connected to a circular belt. A tower structure holds the
belt in a position such that when the weight ratio of the top turbine vs. the
bottom passes a certain threshold, gravity will rotate the belt until the
heavier turbine rests at the bottom. The belt will turn a dynamo style
generator. While at the bottom, the turbine container will have a plug pressed
open and any water inside will drain wherever directed. So on dry and windy
days, the turbines will generate electricity. On rainy days, the dynamo will
generate electricity while the rainwater is harvested. A great way to store
the electricity without an expensive lead-battery is to charge personal
electronics or lighting systems (for use at night), and use the rest for
refrigeration and ice creation.

Solar Radiation Collection: A semi-spherical lens on top of the wind turbine
tower will direct solar radiation inside the hollow tower structure toward a
system of lenses and mirrors that focus and collimate light onto the heating
element of the Water Distillation structure. The focused ray will be contained
within an enclosed structure along its entire path to avoid injury. When the
solar radiation is not necessary for water distillation or food preparation,
it should be utilized to generate electricity. I don't know the best way to do
it without using PV cells or a heat engine with parts that may be too valuable
for thieves to resist.

Water Distillation/Food Preparation Structure: The water distillation process
will work similar to this image:
[http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/solaqua/stilldiag.gif](http://ep.yimg.com/ty/cdn/solaqua/stilldiag.gif)
However, the solar radiation will not enter from above. Instead the focused
ray from the wind turbine tower will heat a metal heating element positioned
underneath, but in contact with the dirty water container. The dirty water
container will be a u-shaped tower such that a rectangular metal box can be
inserted into the the center. At least three sides of the box will be in
direct contact with the dirty water container, and the bottom will be near the
heating element. The metal box will work like an oven to cook food when the
heating element brings the dirty water to boil. Because the structure does not
need solar radiation to enter from above, the top of the structure will be a
solar food dehydration chamber.

------
abracar
Infant mortality is definitely one. There's a team from Stanford who developed
a baby warmer for areas where electricity is an issue
[http://blog.ted.com/2010/07/09/fellows_friday_4/](http://blog.ted.com/2010/07/09/fellows_friday_4/)
[http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_chen_a_warm_embrace_that_saves...](http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_chen_a_warm_embrace_that_saves_lives/transcript)
Even if you go for a different problem, it's an interesting case to look into
method-wise - I read somewhere else about how they iterated based on feedback
from local community but I can't find it...

------
jareds
A cheap Bluetooth enabled Braille display would be a good option although
would only serve a small segment of the population in developing countries.
For more info see

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refreshable_braille_display)

All current models I have seen are over $1000, over $2000 for anything of a
decent size. Something that could use Bluetooth to connect to old iPhones, low
end Android devices, and windows computers running the open source screen
reader NVDA could be very useful in countries where government does not
subsidize the purchase of expensive assistive technology.

~~~
csytan
It's interesting that you mention that. Yesterday I was visiting the
neighboring teaching lab and a student was working on making a cheap braille
reader. They were using a series of parallel rods that can slide up and down.

Here's a (poor) rendition of how it works:
[http://mondrian.io/?p=NlAQ8x](http://mondrian.io/?p=NlAQ8x)

~~~
abracar
India would be a good place to test it: "Of the 37 million people across the
globe who are blind, over 15 million are from
India."([http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-has-
largest-b...](http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/India-has-largest-
blind-population/articleshow/2447603.cms))

------
subpixel
Much of Colombia is mountainous, and (in my experience) most towns in the
mountains are situated by high-volume rivers and streams.

I'm told that 50 years ago or so it was quite common for small towns to have
hydro-power, but then the government strung up wires from far away coal-
powered electricity plants, and that was the end of that.

Perhaps such towns could be incentivized to install/reinstall hydro power, and
achieve some degree of energy self-sufficiency. I have no idea whether the
incentive could reasonably be price-based, as coal seems cheap.

Additionally, the sun is almost always shining in the Colombian Andes, and
I've never seen a solar panel.

~~~
mamcx
(I'm from Colombia).

Not only have potential for solar panel, but also wind turbines (in the north,
mainly).

One problem? The electricity is cheap.

------
mitul_45
Better public transport. I have kind of an idea in my head, that might be
useful to you.

How technology can help?

\- Most of people who do not have their own drive, rely on public transport
which is 'generally' overcrowded to reach to their destination.

\- Now there are people who have vehicle (mostly car) for going to office
(downtown like area) which has space for other 3-4 guys?

\- I always see those empty seats and people on the other side of road waiting
for a bus/train (which might be going to same place as that car).

\- So if we can provide some way of communication between these two, wouldn't
that be awesome? As they do travel on approximate same time (like morning
9-10) to same places.

\- I do think people having vehicle don't have any problem giving ride to
others who are sharing same or nearby offices. If they don't have to stop at
too many places and wait.

How can we implement this? (just a suggestion)

\- We can divide the whole city in some kind of hexagonal area <cellular
towers?>, and then a simple mobile app can connect people travelling to same
'hexagon' maybe?

\- Each hexagon should cover only 'walkable' area. So if I drop someone
anywhere in that hexagon, his/her destination is at max 8-10 mins walk from
there. Otherwise he/she might have to use other ways of transport which is not
convenient.

I think it might change the way people travel in big cities.

It would be true People Powered Public Transport then! :)

Let me know your views on this.

~~~
bglazer
This is kind of the idea behind shared taxis, which are sometimes called
colectivos or jitneys or a hundred other names. They have a semi-fixed route
and will drop you near where you want to be. They don't leave their stop until
they have enough people to fill the taxi. I think they're usually
independently operated. They're already quite popular in some countries, South
America and Africa mostly. I used them in Chile and it was a really nice
system, fitting the niche between taxis and buses quite well. However, you had
to know the name of the neighborhood you wanted to go to, and there was no
automation.

I honestly think they could be useful in the US for commuting purposes.
Everyone going to the same office park from the same neighborhood could
charter a shared taxi and relax instead of drive. Cost would have to be low.
I'd use it. Hell, I even had idle thoughts about trying to create it. However,
I have neither the capital nor the expertise to make this happen.

Edit: also see Demand Responsive Transit (DRT). It's the western name for
this, and it's been tried before for various uses. Getting disabled people to
the doctor is a common use in the US. Various European cities have tried this
for getting people to train stations. In my opinion, it's never been marketed
the right way. Also, the big bus/taxi companies that have tried DRT didn't
have the vision or will to make it happen. Nor do the municipal governments
that have tried.

~~~
mitul_45
Great! Thanks.

------
benologist
Road fatality rates! Here in Costa Rica about 500 people per year are killed
(pop. 4 - 5 mil, and that's not even high for developing countries) and the
majority of it stems from a cultural and complete disregard for road rules
which is pretty common in all of these countries down here. In _bad_ countries
the rates are significantly worse.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-
re...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_traffic-
related_death_rate)

------
zekenie
Internet speed and unreliability make it tricky for webapps to do much good.
Distributed web servers that work on local area networks and sync data
asynchronously with something like AWS could be HUGE. I've been working on a
side project that uses this model. Stick a raspberry pi in an office or
clinic. Have users hit that server. Page loads instantly. Resin.io & Docker
could make it easier to deploy code to these servers. I'd be happy to chat
about this or other ideas more. Very important and neglected area!

~~~
sdenton4
I absolutely agree with this. Having spent time working in Kenya, frameworks
for locally hosted apps which refresh their data during rare spates of
internet connectivity would be helpful for a wide range of applications....
Along with easy out-of-the-box servers for LANs.

------
bnp
A mechanical turk vending machine. A walk up terminal that allows the user to
complete mechanical turk type tasks to earn a small sum that is paid out in
cash immediately.

~~~
jmwohl
I like the idea a lot. It's like a digital service version of the reverse
vending machines for recycling bottles and cans.

------
pldpld
Former SEL team member here, SEL also produces a lot of open source code, for
background and inspiration checkout their github projects,
[https://github.com/SEL-columbia](https://github.com/SEL-columbia)

------
mstevens
I have a meta-proposal. Random westerners are a terrible source of ideas - you
should talk to people from developing countries and if possible go there. The
local knowledge will be 100x more useful than anything we can come up with.

~~~
collyw
Its would be kind of like rich politicians from privileged background deciding
how the rest of the unwashed masses should live their lives. Oh, wait...

~~~
collyw
Guessing the down voters don't live in the UK.

------
determinant
A big problem is keeping people in school instead of letting them go work to
support their families. Can technology solve this? Maybe. Perhaps when an ed-
tech company wants to test the effectiveness of their product, maybe they
could pay students in developing countries to test their products instead of
dropping out of school. This might be cheaper than doing similar research in
developed countries.

Education research could happen in developing nations instead of developed
countries. If the alternative is no education or jobs that are dangerous, this
approach might make a lot of sense.

~~~
qu1mby
I wonder if the most efficient way to do this is to simply subsidize the
child's earnings for the family on the promise that the child will be sent to
school.

------
phantom_oracle
Perhaps something to do with food? My fellow African brothers seem to lack
that, even though a ton of crops the Europeans (and other parts of the world)
eat are grown here.

Food and water is where I would start. You give the people that and one of
humanities biggest problems is solved (of course, not "giving it" in that
sense, as that would be the same as any other charity just giving stuff away
with no sustainability in mind).

------
g8oz
Pay as you go solar. Payment done through mobile SMS banking networks like
mPesa. Each unit has a SIM card to receive commands.

Considering solar panel costs are < $500 kW and Chinese lithium iron phosphate
batteries are < $400/kWh, a financially sustainable business model is entirely
possible.

Mobile operators are the ideal vendors but lack imagination. That's where you
come in.

~~~
csytan
We're doing that with the Shared Solar project
([http://sharedsolar.org/](http://sharedsolar.org/)). Some parts of the
project were spun off into a for-profit business by former lab members.
Interestingly, although SMS payments were built into the system, no one used
them as it was easier to just walk down the street and buy credits with cash.

~~~
g8oz
Wow! Is this only on a community level or do you have household units as well?

------
remkoning
Check out [http://extreme.stanford.edu/](http://extreme.stanford.edu/) for
some amazing examples developed at Stanford. I really like the story behind a
recent YC graduate, Noora Health
([http://www.noorahealth.org/](http://www.noorahealth.org/)).

~~~
csytan
This is a great collection of projects. Thanks!

------
secfirstmd
Hi Columbia!

We are building a free opensource app to manage the security of people mostly
present or operating in the developing world. It's called Umbrella. Would
would love to speak some more with you guys and see how we might cooperate
with you. Check us out at www.secfirst.org and reach out!

All the best, -SF

------
z3phyr
A little-bit off topic: The hard problem in developing countries is getting
the idea implemented in a feasible and simple way.

Advances in logistics, transportation and information flow which can be used
by the local population in the most simplistic way without compromising on
equality

------
burning
We at Digital Green need an SMS based data collection tool as well as mobile
solutions for low cost devices. Any tech which is user friendly and seemlessly
work in online and offline would be awesome to have too. Please contact
sreenivasula@digitalgreen.org for further communication

~~~
lazylizard
i don't see any link on your pages to them, so just saying.. i wonder if kobo
toolkit, open data kit, and related projects are of any use to you..

~~~
burning
We tried using open data kit but because of lack of expertise we could not
roll out the product.

------
tsarzen
a low bandwidth version of a video learning website (such as kahn academy)
would be very valuable. a poor education system is a big problem in most
developing countries. unfortunately this problem is difficult to address with
an education alternative (eg. kahn acdmy) due to lack of quality internet
infrustructure.

------
Datsundere
free wireless craigslist like system for local people rpi computers for
everyone

------
jalayir
Is it possible to build a cheap, distributable kit to test the quality of a
newly-laid road? Let me elaborate: in rural economies, the quality of roads
has a direct impact on prosperity. Within India, richer states almost always
have very good rural roads - helps get produce to market on time, people to
hospitals, etc. Unfortunately, road construction is often a corrupt business,
and contractors lay poor-quality roads and skim government funds. If we can
empower rural communities to effectively do a quality check on the roads laid
in their area, it would really help them. They could then file applications
under the Right to Information Act to understand why the road was not
constructed to mandated quality requirements.

