PECASE: Design Strategies to Benefit from the Profit-by-Poverty-Alleviation Paradox

该学院早期职业发展（CAREER）奖的研究目标是创造设计极其实惠的产品的方法，旨在减轻发展中国家的贫困，同时为美国公司打开新的国外市场。令人惊讶的是，这种从帮助穷人摆脱贫困中获得经济收益的方法是最可持续的扶贫途径之一。使用该奖项下创建的方法设计的产品通过增加生活在极端贫困中的人的收入能力来促进自给自足。这些创收产品的战略模块性使其价格低廉，使其逐步扩大，从而促进穷人的增量投资。研究方法包括创建多学科决策模型，以实现极端的可负担性，产品可扩展性和决策鲁棒性。这些成果包括有文件记载的研究成果，以及通过万维网提供的本科生和研究生教学模块，如果成功，研究将导致为发展中国家发现和阐明可持续设计的基本原则。这些原则使人们能够获得负担得起的、低风险的产品，增加生活在赤贫中的人的收入能力，是这项工作产生的研究和教学模块的根本基础。如果成功，这项研究将对许多人的生活产生积极影响。对于贫困者来说，创收产品价格的突破可以增加收入，从而减少疾病，改善教育机会，改善当地供水，消除饥饿。对于寻找新的和合适的国外市场的美国公司，拟议的工作提供了必要的设计方法，为这些市场创造可行的产品。

The research objective of this Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award is to create methods for designing extremely affordable products aimed at alleviating poverty in the developing world while simultaneously opening new foreign markets to US companies. Surprisingly, this approach of financially gaining from helping the poor to escape poverty is one of the most sustainable paths to poverty alleviation. Products designed using the methods created under this award foster self-sufficiency by increasing the earning power of those who are living in extreme poverty. These income-generating products are made affordable by their strategic modularity, which makes them progressively expandable, thus facilitating incremental investment by the impoverished. The research approach includes the creation of multidisciplinary decision-making models for extreme affordability, product expandability, and decision robustness. Deliverables include documented research results, and undergraduate and graduate teaching modules made available via the World Wide Web.If successful, the research will result in the discovery and articulation of fundamental principles of sustainable design for the developing world. These principles, which enable affordable, low risk, products that increase the earning power of people living in extreme poverty, are the fundamental basis of the research and teaching modules resulting from this work. If successful, the research will positively affect many people's lives. For the impoverished, breakthroughs in affordability of income-generating products lead to increased income, which in turn lowers sickness, improves educational opportunities, improves local water supplies, and combats hunger. For US companies searching for new and suitable foreign markets, the proposed work provides needed design methods for creating viable products for those markets.