It seems simple enough: D-Rev creates products that respond to problems and improve the livelihoods. As a non-profit technology incubator, D-Rev targets people who live on less than $4 per day, and through social innovation hopes to improve their income and health indicators. According to D-Rev's website, a large amount of the solutions currently available to the 4 billion people who lack access to basic services and goods are expensive, ineffective and inappropriate. By using for-profit market mechanisms and working with local partners on-the-ground, D-Rev's goal is to have financially self-sustaining product development operations by the year 2017.
"D-Rev’s approach is to identify opportunities to improve the lives of a million-plus people a day, design products to meet the need, deliver the products, and quantify the possible global impact these products could have throughout the world," GOOD wrote about the social enterprise. D-Rev is involved in all facets of the design process, which allows it to preempt problems as well as gauge the positive impact accordingly.
Past and current locations of projects include India, Haiti, Nepal, Ecuador, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Botswana, Bangladesh and Iraq. D-Rev's projects cover the following innovations: knee joints for amputees in the Majority World; solar energy for rural households; malaria and tuberculosis detection in rural clinics; jaundice treatment for new-borns; and affordable milk pasteurization in East Africa.
"D-Rev is revolutionary in that we do more than design the product; we undertake extensive due diligence -- analyzing customer need, market demand, local infrastructure, supply chains for optimal delivery and scaling in parallel with early rapid prototyping and testing," D-Rev explains. The Design Revolution is here and it's out to solve real problems -- and like D-Rev's tagline illuminates, it's Design for the Other 90%.
Contact Information:
D-Rev Website
631 Emerson Street
Palo Alto, California
94301
United States
Telephone: +1-(650)-485-2090
D-Rev on Facebook
D-Rev on Twitter
Majority World Tech Incubators
D-Rev Designs Solution-Driven Products for Low-Income Customers
Trend Themes
1. Social Innovation for Low-income Customers - Opportunity for disruptive innovation in creating affordable and effective products for people living on less than $4 per day.
2. Market Mechanisms for Product Development - Opportunity for disruptive innovation in using for-profit market mechanisms to create financially self-sustaining product development operations.
3. Designing Solutions for Basic Services and Goods - Opportunity for disruptive innovation in designing affordable and appropriate solutions to address the lack of access to basic services and goods for 4 billion people.
Industry Implications
1. Technology Incubators - Opportunity for disruptive innovation in technology incubators focused on social innovation for low-income customers.
2. Healthcare and Medical Devices - Opportunity for disruptive innovation in healthcare and medical devices for low-income populations in Majority World countries.
3. Renewable Energy and Rural Household Solutions - Opportunity for disruptive innovation in renewable energy and rural household solutions for addressing energy needs in rural areas.