How Can We Support a Market Aimed at Improving Health, Livelihoods, and the Environment?
Ready to get started on the newest IDEO.org project, Fellow Liz Ogbu breaks down the cookstoves project and the human-centered design approach that the team will be using to tackle the challenge.
How can we support a market aimed at improving health, livelihoods, and the environment? Well, an IDEO.org team comprising of myself, Robin Bigio, and Emily Friedberg are setting out to do just that. We are working on a pilot project with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC), a public-private initiative of the UN Foundation that seeks to advance the global market for clean cookstoves. A compelling technology, clean cookstoves have the potential to improve health through reducing exposure to smoke from traditional fires and stoves, livelihoods through increased savings from reduction of fuel use, and environment through the decrease in emissions.
Despite the significant improvements in cookstove technology in recent years, there has been too little attention paid to the habits, motivations, and aspirations of the cookstove’s target market that strongly influence adoption. Our team will focus in particular on bringing some clarity around user preferences and behaviors. Typical of our process at IDEO.org, we’ll be diving deep into this subject. In the next few weeks, we’ll be talking with experts across the cookstove ecosystem, mapping the journey of the product and the end users, conducting intensive field research, and prototyping concepts and strategies around this topic. From understanding cultural rituals around food preparation to examining the role of the cookstove in the home, we’ll be seeking insights and identifying opportunities that can provide the GACC and its partners with tangible direction to grow the cookstove market.
In particular, our team is excited to head to the field and really explore the challenges and opportunities of the cookstove in context. We’ll be heading to Tanzania, one of the focus countries of the GACC. We’ll be armed with a research plan and discussion guide, but also a willingness to deviate from those plans whenever a meaningful opportunity presents itself. It should be interesting. Stay tuned for future dispatches!
What is (or will be) the impact of your project?
An approach to cookstoves research that will pay attention to the habits, motivations, and aspirations of the cookstove’s target market, factors that have strongly influenced adoption (or lack of adoption) of this technology.
More Stories From This Project
To get up to speed quickly on the new IDEO.org cookstoves project, the team is interviewing a variety of industry experts, including stove designers, testers, funders, implementers and manufacturers. These expert interviews are a key component in the "hear" stage of human-centered design.
- Robin Bigio
- IDEO.org
- Story Location: San Francisco, CA
- Applauds 5
- Views 701
- Comments 2
On the ground conducting cookstoves research in Mwanza, the IDEO.org team has a day of in-context immersion, while also helping to cook a full Tanzanian meal.
- Emily Friedberg
- IDEO.org
- Story Location: Mwanza, Tanzania
- Applauds 5
- Views 568
- Comments 5
Prototyping in the field is always an interesting but challenging process. While conducting research in Tanzania, the IDEO.org cookstoves team proves that this process can yield some really helpful insights.
- Liz Ogbu
- California College of the Arts - Center for Art and Public Life
- Story Location: Mwanza, Tanzania
- Applauds 2
- Views 840
- Comments 6
The IDEO.org cookstoves team spends its last day in Mwanza, Tanzania camped out in the hotel restaurant synthesizing what they've learned so far and figuring out where it still needs to probe in order to fully understand Tanzanian cookstove users.
- Emily Friedberg
- IDEO.org
- Story Location: Mwanza, Tanzania
- Applauds 1
- Views 619
- Comments 0
With the IDEO.org" target="_blank">IDEO.org cookstoves team in Zanzibar, Tanzania, IDEO.org Co-Director Jocelyn Wyatt explains why the adoption of a new technology like the clean cookstove isn't always a straight path forward.
- Jocelyn Wyatt
- IDEO.org
- Story Location: Zanzibar, Zanzibar Urban/West, Tanzania
- Applauds 1
- Views 646
- Comments 4
After 3 long weeks of synthesis, concepting and presenting, the cookstoves project comes to an end - for now. IDEO.org Fellow Robin Bigio discusses five recomended "shifts" that the IDEO.org team identified for the clean cookstoves industry.
- Robin Bigio
- IDEO.org
- Story Location: San Francisco, CA
- Applauds 2
- Views 1565
- Comments 3
Related Stories
Income generating project implemented by Solace International which produces high quality fingerlings that are sold to local fish farmers offsetting the overfishing of Lake Malawi.
- Nathaniel York
- Story Location: Mangochi, Southern Region, Malawi
- Applauds 1
- Views 770
- Comments 0
The immersion phase allowed me to meet new people and gain important insights about the village. This phase of the design process is pivotal to creating a successful prototype.Story details
- Trevor Kinoshita
- Story Location: Coast, Kenya
- Applauds 0
- Views 647
- Comments 0
A cooperative formed by farmers from 6 villages around Rumuruti forest has embarked on saving the Rumuruti Forest and brining the community out of poverty.
- Will Ruddick
- Green World Campaign
- Story Location: Rumuruti, Rift Valley, Kenya
- Applauds 0
- Views 688
- Comments 0
dddddd
- Macheru Karuku
- SEANET INTERNATIONAL
- Story Location: Nanyuki, Rift Valley, Kenya
- Applauds 0
- Views 688
- Comments 0
Adapting agroforestry and organic methods to improve crop yields.
- Takang Pamela Manyo
- Dynamic Action Group (NGO)
- Story Location: Mamfe, Southwest, Cameroon
- Applauds 1
- Views 823
- Comments 0
The KCC Future project is an ongoing project of the Kigamboni Community Centre (KCC). Designed to provide KCC with its very own permanent and versatile space, KCC Future is the opportunity to develop the KCC model into a complete financially viable self-autonomous community space.
- Simon Flamand
- Eco7 International Development Agency
- Story Location: Dar es Salaam, Tanzanie
- Applauds 0
- Views 540
- Comments 1
Back to Basics...
Using HCD we intend increasing the impact of the surrounding Communities. The Communities are informal settlements that have formed over the years. There is no formal structure, no tribal leader or king/queen and so dialogue and engagement is very very complex. We plan to ensure that project is financially viable, sustainable, scaleable and replicable. We are very excited to be using the HCD toolkit for this project.
- Harvey Keown
- Africa Foundation for Sustainable Development
- Story Location: Magaliesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- Applauds 0
- Views 417
- Comments 0
Back to Basics...
Using HCD we intend increasing the impact of the surrounding Communities. The Communities are informal settlements that have formed over the years. There is no formal structure, no tribal leader or king/queen and so dialogue and engagement is very very complex. We plan to ensure that project is financially viable, sustainable, scaleable and replicable. We are very excited to be using the HCD toolkit for this project.
- Harvey Keown
- Africa Foundation for Sustainable Development
- Story Location: Gauteng, South Africa
- Applauds 0
- Views 318
- Comments 0
Back to Basics...
Using HCD we intend increasing the impact of the surrounding Communities. The Communities are informal settlements that have formed over the years. There is no formal structure, no tribal leader or king/queen and so dialogue and engagement is very very complex. We plan to ensure that project is financially viable, sustainable, scaleable and replicable. We are very excited to be using the HCD toolkit for this project.
- Harvey Keown
- Africa Foundation for Sustainable Development
- Story Location: Magaliesburg, Gauteng, South Africa
- Applauds 0
- Views 402
- Comments 0
Villages are paying for water improvements through community irrigation, instead of cash, and it's working.
- Adam Abramson
- Ben Gurion University of the Negev
- Story Location: Livingstone, Southern, Zambia
- Applauds 1
- Views 549
- Comments 2
Discuss this Story
Tweet
This is a great topic to explore. It was my experience in Kenya that the charcoal for these stoves and the stoves themselves were always more expensive then just finding brush wood and burning it. PLUS they liked the smoke coming off of the traditional fires because it was said to preserve corn reserves that were kept above the cooking area. They valued this method so much that they would cook in a smoky hut (where maize was kept) every night. Needless to say, they all had respiratory problems. Tough case to crack, but it goes further then just adopting a new technology.
I agree with you Paul much as smoke has healthy hazards to the people, our rural folks use it as a preservative. Therefore in order to have a better buy-in folks need to be given alternative preservation methods besides smoke. however in the event that smoke is not used for preservation, this innovation is great as it saves money in the fuel consumption and of course the health aspects.
It is great to know that , Liz Ogbu, Robin Bigio, and Emily Friedberg you all are working on a pilot project with the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves (GACC). I am a researcher and designer of good stoves, including the TLUD gasifier stoves. http://goodstove.com I have been facilitating stoves in parts of India. I am ready to join your team in sharing my experiences. Some of my stoves are the lost cost, efficient and highly adoptable.
Regarding myself: http://saibhaskar.com
Interesting! I came from Taiwan and live in San Francisco. I have several friends came from different country and each of them have different cooking tools and process. I also lived with a tribe before, so I am really interesting in what you will discover in Tanzania. Looking forward your update!