Volume 18, No. 3, October 2008
Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Program at Manipal University
[The article has been compiled on the basis of inputs provided by Manjunatha Maiya - Philips BOP Office, Manipal.]
Over the past three years, Manipal University (MU), Karnataka, India and Philips having been working together to acquire a greater understanding of the challenges and opportunities in addressing the needs of the “Emerging Consumer” or the “Base of the Pyramid”. Their ambition is to create an ecosystem built around “Open Innovation” that will ultimately meet the aspirations of the emerging consumers. A Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Chair was therefore setup at MU two and a half years back to promote idea generation, concept development, research, community development, rural linkages and student exchange programs.
The
partnership between Manipal University and Philips started with mere
funding of projects at MU but has now matured to include ideation,
market data collection and prototyping of ideas into proof of concepts.
Philips brought to the table the industry perspective on
commercialization of ideas, concepts on IP generation, infrastructure
and access to the best talent within the company. In turn MU brought the
diversity of disciplines that is unique to them. Experts from the fields
of technology, management, life sciences and healthcare were brought
together to brainstorm on ideas and solutions for the emerging
consumers. This experience was shared with other like minded parties
from the academia, industry, NGOs and government organizations. This has
resulted in other organizations such as M. S. Swaminathan Research
Foundation (MSSRF), kTwo Technology Solutions, Intel, Electrocare
Systems and Perfint Health Care Solutions joining this program.
Participation of these organizations makes the program a sustainable
model for the university to build a knowledge network for the benefit of
community.
Implementation of the BoP innovation typically involves three steps:
1. Idea Generation
The underlying objective of the BoP innovation is “development of cost effective solutions and services for the emerging consumer segment”. Over a period of time, the BoP team has developed a platform which helps idea generation, and submission, evaluation and short listing of the ideas. It has also built a cross disciplinary team consisting of students and staff from various disciplines such as health science, engineering and management. So far more than 220 ideas in the areas of healthcare, lifestyle, education, energy, nutrition, community development etc. have been generated under this program.
2. Proof of Concept
Development of “proof of concept” projects involves knowledge integration through “multi–disciplinary customer centric innovation” by student interns sponsored by industry. The tasks center around concept enrichment based on user needs analysis, design, technology development and patent. Nearly 20+ concepts have been developed through multi-disciplinary teams comprising medical, technology and management students. Some of the proof of concept projects that have been implemented are: the rural health data collection and management solution (see the box on e–RMCWH below); a foot pressure monitor to help stroke-affected patients; a bone mineral density scanner for early detection of osteoporosis; a device for relieving deep muscle pains; and a portable water purity tester.
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e-RMCWH e-RMCWH
is the electronic version of the Rural Maternity and Child Welfare
Home (RMCWH), which is primarily responsible for providing healthcare
and medical facilities to expecting mothers and children below five
years of age. The RMCWH is the largest private integrated healthcare
delivery network in the state of Karnataka. RMCWH centers cover 11
villages and a population of more than fifty thousand rural citizens.
Each RMCWH has two ANMs (Auxiliary Nurse Midwife) – the center ANM
and the field ANM. The center ANM maintains data on pregnant women and
children below 5 years, and general medical details of other patients.
This information is collected by the field ANM through visits to the
households catered to by the center. The
e-RMCWH application has been designed and developed to be used by
field and center ANMs. It has been deployed and field tested in six
out of the seven RMCWH centers under the KMC healthcare system. The
benefits of this application are that: it makes routine data entry
easier by eliminating the need for duplication of work, thereby
reducing wastage of time and other resources; and provides an
efficient way to maintain, manage and search medical details of
patients and rural families. A data mining tool called the “Dynamic
Query Tool” is used by doctors, interns and NGOs to extract relevant
information from the e-RMCWH database. This information helps to
analyze trends in the general health of the population, to evaluate
the effectiveness of health services, and to choose or devise
appropriate health-insurance policies for the rural citizens. |
3. Market Analysis and BoP Knowledge Development
This activity helps to develop an understanding of the pulse of BoP community and providing solutions at the grassroots level. It involves carrying out user research study for designing solutions for the BoP, market analysis to understand the felt needs at the grass root level, modeling of processes for local development of the products, and development of the BoP knowledge base. Activities that have been undertaken include more than eight studies to identify market trends, six user research studies for designing products for BoP consumers, IT-enabling of the Manipal rural healthcare delivery model, publishing a book on the BoP integrated approach, and launching of a knowledge portal on BoP.