131–140 of 153 posts
Not sure if someone noticed but the women workers are wearing the cloth-mask so as not to be identified in the photo. Interesting, weird and depressing that its embarrassing to be working building sanitary napkins.
Good story, but a strange guy. Also, he could probably do more good for his country by selling his product. He would actually disrupt the industry, instead of creating yet another charity project. The way to fight poverty isn't to give poor people poor solution. The way to think about it is that you need to level the playing field, so even Indians would laugh at making their own napkins. If you told a white American…
It is not an easy path, though. "Lack of awareness is the major reason, next to the apathy of NGO’s," [...] rural women are clueless as to how to use them, think twice about spending even the small amount of money to buy a packet, and sadly have a devil-may-care attitude about their health He must have assumed that everybody is as driven as he. I think he's learning the hard way that the problem with poverty isn't ne…
Letting people rot in misery increases human misery because those people multiply. I agree that throwing money at the problem is not a solution. But in the West, we have hordes of people who are trained to help others help themselves. Why aren't we throwing psychologists at the poor?
Inner city American ghettos are filled with single mother families that find it psychologically and culturally impossible to make use of the educational opportunities offered to them because before a human can learn intellectually, they need to learn basic emotional skills. They need to learn basic character and coping skills, which is what psychologists teach to those individuals whose parents failed to teach them.
Intervention in poverty should be tasked to the psychologists primarily. Educators make no inroads. Entrepreneurs rarely do either. You rightly pinpoint the issue as defeatism and other psychological disorders -- we have hordes of people who know how to fix this. Let's use them.
Brilliant example of the design thinking process in action. This man has certainly practiced the 'design thinking' process outlined by Tim Brown in "Change By Design" - a book about the process of innovation. The Design Thinking process involves lots of ethnographic research, and developing empathy for the user - the same tenets as user centered (UCD) or human centered design (HCD). In this case, the inventor develop…
Per my reading of the story, he basically pulled really bizarre moves until he finally did the sensible thing and white box reverse engineered a working model ...
Why not just buy bulk medical gauze and fold it up? That's got to be cheap as hell, and if it's good enough for bullet holes...
Why not just buy bulk medical gauze and fold it up? That's got to be cheap as hell, and if it's good enough for bullet holes...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Great analysis, missed a huge point though. A fraction of an industrial machine makes zero napkins. Your analysis is spot on, the problem can be solved more efficiently with a large scale production. The capital expenditure cost however is similar (43M vs 50M). You point out they huge disparity in labor costs $25M vs .09M but labor is 'free' in India (which is to say there is so much of it available that the price is…
> A fraction of an industrial machine makes zero napkins. Well, that assumes that this is the only individual in India that could be interested in the market segment. There are plenty of people in India for whom USD $500K is not a lot of money, particularly if a solid case can be made for the investment. He could have invested four years trying to raise money to buy a number of industrial grade machines rather than d…
And that person would be welcome to undercut him and provide better value. Before he came along, pads were too expensive. Now they're affordable. They also stimulate the local economy, both in terms of increased jobs and increased healthcare (very underrated). Regardless of the means, the end result is better.
And even if he did the industrial machine thing, you've missed the comment on transport issues - transportation is a big thing.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Are you sure about that? I think it's because they can't afford a proper medical mask, they are using a scarf or something similar [Especially keeping the story in mind that this machine is supposed to make napkins for poor women]. As you can see, one woman's back is facing the camera so she doesn't really need to wear a mask unless for cleanliness purpose.
I won't assume anything about the purpose of the mask, but if for cleanliness purpose they should also probably wear gloves.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are many wealthy Indians in India already - what India needs is a middle-class - i.e. people that have a roof over their head, with their basic needs taken care of and that are empowered to create their own wealth.
To the poster below me: he is selling $2500 machines. The people he sells the machines to sell the $.25 napkins but the machine can make 1000 napkins a day. One machine properly worked could turn a gross profit of $91,250/year. He has sold 600 machines so far so that is $1.5 million that the inventor has grossed. Maybe they aren't super rich but I am sure the napkin makers and the inventor are both doing better then…