WAYS TO HELP

AS THE PROVERB GOES, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The saying reflects the work of engineers who are focusing on the nearly four billion people who are part of what is known as the Base of the Pyramid (BoP)—those in developing countries earning less than $4 a day.

While sometimes engineers provide specific answers to address explicit needs, more often they build sustainable infrastructures that enable people to help themselves and improve their own lives.

“As challenging as it is to create and deploy engineering solutions in the BoP, examples of success abound,” declares Engineering Solutions for the Base of the Pyramid, a recent report commissioned by ASME. “From multinational corporations employing high-level research, to NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] deploying camels to deliver healthcare, to university programs saving the lives of premature babies with a cheap incubator, innovative solutions are being developed that have the potential to improve the lives of the world’s poor in significant ways.”

The report, available through the ASME members-only Web site, looks at five key areas and identifies examples where engineers have played important roles.

In healthcare, for instance, engineers have worked as essential members in teams developing medical instruments such as portable incubators that use no electricity or moving parts and portable electrocardiogram machines that weigh less than a laptop computer.

As many as 1.6 billion people on Earth lack access to electricity. “For those in the Base of the Pyramid, energy poverty is the biggest limiter to improving living conditions,” the report states. Off-grid sources, such as photovoltaics, hydropower, and wind turbines are supplying some communities, and engineers have developed solutions like turbine-less generators that provide LED lighting to homes.

Poor transportation links limit access to work, getting goods to and from markets, and obtaining basic healthcare. Engineering work in this area has resulted in equipping camels with solar-powered refrigeration systems to deliver medicine to remote areas in Kenya.

Even access to food and water is a  challenge at the Base of the Pyramid. Work to deliver clean water and food to rural areas is under way. Innovations include a technique to reprocess the protein from discarded milk, yogurt, and vegetables into a reprocessed protein powder that can be added to other foods.

Projects aimed at building housing and shelter for the one billion people living in squatter communities around the world include development of biodegradable housing, and single-unit structures that can be built in one day.

ASME’s role in addressing the Base of the Pyramid aligns with the society’s mission, vision, and strategic priorities. The report recommends actions ranging from developing local engineering talent in BoP areas, to building an open innovation platform identifying problem areas with NGOs and engineers who have solutions, to creating a BoP venture fund to address energy poverty.

ASME’s leadership is evaluating ways to make a long-term contribution in the global struggle to help those at the Base of the Pyramid. Individual engineers will play an important role in defining and implementing solutions, and so will ASME.

—John G. Falcioni, Editor-in-Chief
He can be reached by e-mail at falcionij@asme.org