What Matters: Dare to be orthogonal

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Dare to be orthogonal

2 December 2011

The Takeaway

Orthogonal thinking, which draws on ideas from many spheres, can spur innovation and unexpected solutions. Water.org brought ideas from microfinance to bear on the problem of providing access to clean water in the developing world by offering small loans so individuals could invest in their own water solutions. Creating opportunities for people to encounter new ideas could help to solve other difficult problems.

At Water.org, we’re trying to apply the best thinking from the private sector, the public sector, the financial markets—wherever breakthrough ideas exist—to the problem of providing safe, sustainable water in developing counties. We call this style of thinking, in which we identify and tap forces that appear unrelated or irrelevant to help solve a problem in an unexpected way, orthogonal. It’s a process that injects fresh thinking into the sector and helps to lead us away from the traditional philanthropic model that has too often emphasized donor satisfaction over recipient needs.

And make no mistake, new approaches and ideas are badly needed. In the developed world, most of us are enjoying the outcomes of long forgotten innovations in engineering and municipal service provision. The monumental solutions to our water problems of yester-century are neither remembered nor celebrated. We simply take the availability of clean, accessible water for granted.

The contrast with the nearly one billion people on the planet who don’t have affordable access to clean water is stark. They walk miles, wait hours, and pay extortive prices to meet this fundamental need. There is no rest: every day someone, usually a woman or girl, has to secure water for her family and there is usually no way to predict from day to day how long it will take, how much it will cost, how clean it will be, or how dangerous the journey that must be undertaken to get it.

This harsh reality has inspired noble philanthropic efforts to help stop the real suffering. But even after decades of charity, subsidies, master plans, aid, and investments on the part of governments and outside non-governmental organizations, the system remains inefficient, and largely misses the goal of providing relief to those at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BOP). The intentions are good, but the relief is not trickling down. And the “system” that has calcified around the water crisis relies on outdated tools and thinking that are often more likely to keep people in poverty rather than lift them up. To the outside observer, it all seems insane.

Here’s where our orthogonal thinking has led us: while there will always be a need for pure charity to serve the needs of the ultra poor, millions more at the bottom of the pyramid represent a market waiting to be discovered. Well-designed products and services that address the specific needs of the BOP can make all the difference in their world and ours. With that insight, we took a page from the playbook of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the “father of microcredit” and a Nobel peace laureate who proved to the world that the poor are bankable. The result is WaterCredit, a model in which microfinance institutions (MFIs) provide microloans to individuals to finance their own water and sanitation solutions, be it a rain-water harvesting tank, a toilet, or a household connection to a water utility. WaterCredit alone has created 330,000 new water customers. It has a repayment rate of 97 percent, allowing the MFIs to redeploy financial resources and make it possible for even more people to gain access to clean drinking water and sanitation.

We think about the one billion people who are living and dying for water access a bit differently than a traditional philanthropy—we see them as customers with financial power, rights, responsibilities, and the energy to design their own futures. We measure success by the ongoing experience of the poorest people who have been able to join a modern water system, while paying a fair price. We encourage these new water customers to hold vendors and local governments accountable for the quality of the service they’ve purchased. Through the simple dignity of becoming a paying water customer, the poor are transformed into an economic and political force to be reckoned with.

We believe that many of the world’s problems could benefit from orthogonal thinking. But to draw on the best ideas in all spheres and to innovate, we need to find or create physical and virtual spaces in which people and ideas can interact—particularly people and ideas that might not otherwise find one another. A completely new design may not be necessary for every challenge or bottleneck, but the essence of social innovation is that we must continuously review new ideas, markets, and connections and consider our options. Just as the best venture capitalists are those who understand that to win big, you have to discover the untapped idea and take calculated risks, we’re committed to an endless curiosity that will help us to discover, pilot, and scale the next solution.

Comment [16]

Agree? Disagree? Let us know what you think. Please include your full name with your comment. Comments may be edited.

Gary and Matt,

When I was a child in India in the 1950s, there was a question that was continuously being asked by those in government, universities, private industry and public-sector organizations: “How do we feed all our people, when we add a Canada to India every year?” This question was stipulating two criteria – TIME and WIDESPREAD APPLICABILITY – for judging answers i.e. a satisfactory solution would produce enough food, literally, right away for everyone and would continue doing so forever. Answers were deemed unacceptable if food production would require continued attention.

The eventual solution, that I am also a beneficiary of, was the Green Revolution that satisfied both “time” and “widespread applicability” criteria and, within a decade, enabled India and many other developing nations become self-sufficient in food.

The Orthogonal Approach you emphasize appears to fail the criteria behind the Green Revolution, by not qualifying transplanted ideas on their ability to permanently supply water to millions, if not billions, quickly. This failure, of course, does NOT make the Orthogonal Approach wrong because the approach still can make a positive difference in the lives of thousands of lucky people.

The merits of the thinking behind the Green Revolution and the Orthogonal Approach, however, do pose a choice for development organizations: Should they perfect millions of one-of-a-kind water solutions OR should they work to find the handful of water solutions perfect for billions? It seems that water.org has chosen to go with the smaller impact and accepted the never-ending requirement of their largesse.

I, however, prefer the choice of impacting billions of lives. The keys to accomplish that are in recognizing that “the monumental solutions to our water problems of yester-century,” had their underpinnings in science and engineering, and that the true value of these monumental solutions (e.g. dams) was in their reach i.e. once perfected for one place, they could and were replicated all over the world to supply water to hundreds of millions. A twenty-first century example of such an undertaking could be the development of a way to tap the continuously replenished ocean of freshwater in the atmosphere.

Human history is full of such examples, in every field of human endeavor, where a huge transformation in the wellbeing and lifestyle of billions was accomplished through creations with underpinnings in science and engineering. Facebook, cell phones, global positioning systems, penicillin, the Haber-Bosch process are just a few such examples. Transformations involving business models, empowering people and creation of markets do have value, if you value temporary and humble achievements that do, indeed, make life awesomely better for a few lucky people for a while.

Posted 21 December 2011, 15:56 by Ajay Bhatla
I am involved with Engineers without Borders Professional Chapter and I have traveled to a few places in developing countries to work in providing clean, safe water for people in man-communities: Honduras, Guatemala and Ecuador.
Having said that, personally I think, developed countries can help to solve water problems in developing countries by creating a massive educational campaigns around the world teaching and showing techniques to save water with customized/ or targeted instructions based on their own cultural needs in their communities in these countries.
For instance, I am from Ecuador and I am in Cuenca, the third largest cities in this country and I am collaborating on an initial draft of integrating a watershed management plan for prevent water scarcity in this city, in a sense to look for possible scenarios that can help foresee how safe is water infrastructure in Cuenca?
This city draws water from lakes in the upper lands, and their municipality’s water providers on dry seasons, drag channels/weirs on these lakes to get more water for their water treatment plants. Unfortunately, once it rain back, they forgot to seal back or refill these channels – poor management- and some of their holding volumes capacities in these lakes have been lowered to a less holding capacity.
Now, these dead volumes of these lakes have less volume capacity. If in this city there will be ever a two month dry season, the city can collapse; based on what a chief engineer who is in charge of this entire watershed for this city has told local entities in this city.

They have a pilot study where they are proposing on building an infrastructure around the lakes to raise their dead volume capacity, and reuse the storage volume in future dry seasons in the city. Unfortunately this initiative has put local environmentalist with the cry on the sky and this proposal has been modified and chances are it might not pass.
My main point is that if we educate people on their own communities on water issues and have them understand why is important sometimes to build structures to hold water, such as in this case, THEN, they can talk direct to environmentalist or local agencies and instead of creating issues to delay project everyone can really benefit from projects that means a good benefit for everyone.
Contact me by email if I can be of more help on your initiative.

Regards,

Carlos Zhingre

Posted 19 December 2011, 06:53 by Carlos Zhingre
Superbly illuimanting data here, thanks!

Posted 15 December 2011, 13:37 by Dahrann
At last, someone comes up with the “right” awsner!

Posted 15 December 2011, 04:06 by Caiden
Great thinking! Having worked in Ethiopia and Kenya I have seen first hand the need for clean water. In Kenya we (KoinsforKenya.org) helped construct a dam to hold water in the river bed. While I was there we met John and Verlyn, founders of WHOlives.org. They have designed a well drill that is manually run by four to six people. These drills can be manufactured for about $1400 and transported in the back of a pickup. As these manual drills catch on wells can be drilled in many areas that couldn’t afford a regular well drilling rig to come in. It is very exciting to be involved with teaching people how to get themselves out of poverty.

Posted 9 December 2011, 18:56 by Lonny Ward
We are already working in this sphere since the last 4 years. Have completed various studies in different parts of India with problems in safe drinking water and implemented solutions in parts of Uttar Pradesh with the help of IIT Delhi and Engineering School of Lyon. Can be contacted at chandrabimb@gmail.com or on payal.dey@gmail.com

Posted 7 December 2011, 02:06 by Chandrabimb Foundation
It is a very good idea to link the suffers with the solution. But is is a huge task to make them come together and work in the harmony for the goal. The idea of water credit will be great but again the same thing will come into the picture. Who will be the authority to decide and take the final decision? But no worry. All the good things have to go through the difficult path. Some body has to toil today for the better fruits of tomorrow. So keep it up. I work for the water problems in my area. I can make myself available if you find something in which I can contribute.

Posted 6 December 2011, 21:56 by mukund dharashivkar
Quote: It’s a process that injects fresh thinking into the sector and helps to lead us away from the traditional philanthropic model that has too often emphasized donor satisfaction over recipient needs.

I couldn´t agree more.

Great iniciative. Thanks.

Posted 6 December 2011, 15:27 by M aria Teresa Alvarez
Gary and Matt:
Efforts such as these restore my faith in humanity and give me hope. Yes, you are correct in the centrality of water. Water is a key factor in every single one of the United Nations Millenium Goals, something we hear very little about in these days of global economic instability.

I will be checking out your organization and website and seeing if there is a way I can be of service.

Thank you again.

Posted 6 December 2011, 10:05 by Janet McSwain, PE
Gary & Matt,

Wonderful to learn about the efforts taken to help millions of people get one of the basic necessities (water) that is going to become more and more scarce in the future.

I understand the concept of replicating the MFI model for self-sustaining model for providing water – but somehow it goes against the grain of thinking that water should come on the tap (hence should be free). Paying for water is taken for granted which was not the case in the past but is it going to be so in the future. That is reality.

My suggestion for organizations like water.org to map areas of the world which can sustain themselves through rain, water bodies etc and those that will need investment from governmental as well as NGOs to provide water. Efficient handling of water can make it last longer. I have seen many examples in India like ‘Siruthuli’ (http://www.siruthuli.com/), Anna Hazare’s water harvesting efforts in villages of Maharashtra that are bearing fruit.

Posted 6 December 2011, 03:51 by Subramaniam

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