Taking the Students to School

The prototypes were built, the bus loaded, and the local boys' school contacted. They were quite gracious, really, interrupting their schedule and pulling 75 of their 400 students out of class so that we could do some field testing. We chose the school because two of my three teams in the 1-year program had developed product concepts directly aimed at kids: the water-transport systems and a series of toys/clothes/wearables designed to keep the mosquitos at bay.

The kids got really into this, jostling for position to try out all the concepts, and offering their own ideas for how to make them better. And my students walked away asking themselves, "Why didn't I think of that?" Lesson learned. The winners, by the way, were the Water Train, a kind of interlocking wagon concept that would allow six kids to do the work of 12 by working as a team, the Inflatable Elephant, a water-carrying poly-acrylic bag in the shape of a pachyderm with wheels on the feet and a pull cord in front, and the Bug Zapper, a squirt gun modified to use dissolving insect repellent tablets so you can douse and safeguard your siblings/friends/neighbors in one fun frenzy. The kids also wanted insect repellent exterior house paint, so if anyone at Sherwin Williams is reading this, call me.

And then there was the posing for pictures. And the speeches (the kids wanted to hear from the strange white dude from the other side of the planet, and my students were happy to translate). And the audience in the Principal's office. And the tea. And the class of 15-year-olds who practically dragged me back to their classroom to talk about America, where they all want to go.

After that, we drove down the lane to the village, a somewhat smaller collection of buildings than Kamkole, home to about 1200. This was for the third team, which was prototyping textile-based income solutions. Most of the women in the village harvest cotton for a living, but that provides only three to four month's work. They have access to sewing machines, but few know how to use them. They're looking for both instruction and distribution channels in the city (they don't know where to start) so they can earn a living the other eight months of the year. We approached them in the ramshackle gathering space they use to discuss the issues of the day.

I'm proud of my students. Feasible, novel solutions to real problems. And I wouldn't be surprised to see some of them set up ventures to make these ideas a reality.