Blog Status

This blog is on hiatus. I will have a full account of the project in my portfolio by the end of March at which time I'll post a link here.

Week 1 of Class

Before the class started this week we completed a few tasks on our list.

We took a first pass at the label design for an appearance model (seen below before Spanish translation) we are sending down to Monica for user perception.

We are also getting ready to do some empirical tests to determine the current iteration's effectiveness and how much carbon is necessary.

This week was also project selection in the class, and we now have two new members, Grayson Chadwick (Biology) and Brian Ventura (Mech Eng). We have a lot of work to do to improve reliability and proper filtration processes and they're going to be a huge help.

Trip Report #6 : Interviews near Antigua : Wed 8/26

We interviewed two groups of women on Wednesday. Irma of Manos Preciosas introduced us and spent the whole day taking us to different sites and fed us lunch back at her shop too.

It was good to get a woman's perspective because the men from the factory spend most of their day at work and these women work at home. We ran the same survey by two groups of woman and these were the findings:

+ also prefer the chunkier prototype (not just a male desire for a bulky tough looking thing)
+ would want to change filter themselves (don't want a stranger coming to their home: safety)

We also sampled a blackwater river, Rio Guacalate, to see what the worst of the worst could be. We rigged up some nearby bamboo and a water bottle so I didn't have to go face first into the river bed.

Trip Report #5 : User Interviews, Guatemala City : Tues 8/25

We interviewed 7 workers at Monica's Dad's paint factory. They were all men, about 25 to 50 years old and they live in or around the city. We explained that we are working on a water filter for university and that we have some questions and that we want honest feedback even if they feel like they could be insulting our work (we got plenty of negative feedback, so this didn't appear to be an issue).

Our survey roughly went like this:

+ what do you use water for?
Generally, people rinse food, clean clothing & floors, water plants. Urban people drink bottled water. When it's unavailable they use chlorine or boil it. Rural people lean towards boiling it.

+ where does your community's water come from?
We were amazed that every person knew exactly where their water came from. I don't think average people in the U.S. have any idea or just a vague idea of a reservoir somewhere. These men were able to tell us exactly where the well or community tank was. They're more knowledgeable about their communities.

+ is your tap water safe to drink?
This led to a discussion of perception of water safety. Rural people tend to think the water is safer than urban people. Almost everyone rinses fruits and vegetables with it. Urban people tend to drink bottled water and boil tap water when bottled is unavailable.

+ do you drink bottled water? how much do you spend on it? (if that didn't come up already)
This turns out to be a big cost and our filter could be 75% cheaper. Emphasizing savings over purchasing bottled water is a likely marketing strategy.

+ what kinds of illnesses has your family had in the past year?
This didn't produce much valuable information.

+ medical costs?
People get social health care so medical costs are usually minimal. However, feedback on state health was that you wait a long time and they're so busy that they often misdiagnose. Some people prefer the community health stand. Emphasizing the savings in medical costs is not a good strategy.

+ show model and ask for feedback
Main takeaways: Needs a label with guarantee + instructions. Everyone prefers the chunkier model vs. the slimmer one because it looks more robust. Should be in packaging (cleanliness). Plastic preferred over metal.

+ what would you expect to pay for it?
If no answer, then we picked a number based on previous feedback and asked if they would pay that much

Additional questions we added after a few surveys:

+ What questions would you ask the salesman?
How to change the filter. Maintenance, reliability.

+ Would you want to change the filter yourself?
Yes, but would want to be shown the first time either in the store or at home. They don't want to pay someone to do something they can do.

+ Where would you expect to buy it?
Ferreteria (hardware store). They don't trust door-to-door salesmen which negates part of last year's project's marketing strategy. They would trust a d2d salesman only if they were already familiar with the product.

Photos from Julio's Children - Mon 8/24

While at Julio's in Chimaltenango, Monica, Sophie and I gave his kids our cameras and they ran around for a while and took some fantastic photos.

Their home is not in the best shape and they don't have anywhere near the opportunities that better-off people in Guatemala have, not to mention a middle class person in the U.S. However, to see their environment through their eyes is really great and the photos they took are, almost without exception, amazing.

See them here. They're left uncropped.

Trip Report #4 : TPS + Chimaltenango : Mon 8/24

We visited Julio at TPS again and went to his village in Chimaltenango.

Our learnings from the day:

Value is placed on work/opinions of U.S. companies/universities
Engineers without Borders visited the village a while ago and said the water was safe to drink. This was something we picked up from various conversations—that people are wary of foreign influence, but also respect and trust "western" technological development.

On the product side
Discussion about selling it as a kit, having a flexible attachment for smaller sinks, having a label/guarantee and also pricing.

Early adopters + Difficulties in determining if a product will catch on
Julio believed that people in his village would buy the filter if it was priced well. He seemed to be a possible social entrepreneur that is a key part of David Bornstein's principles—an early adopter to show people a product works so they will buy it and also someone involved in the business and distribution.
However, we had doubts because he is the only one in his village with a dry-composting latrine and wasn't able to convince his neighbors of its merits.
Then we were really disappointed to see his stove—the kind he builds and sells, was pouring black smoke all over his kitchen. To see this in the home of the man who runs an organization that exists to better the health of the community was shocking.

Post-Trip Report #2 : Aquisiché

This is the common view from Aquisiché, as you can see its really high up on the mountain! And it seems cows keep chasing us....



We were on our way to Arnulfo's house when we saw this SALVAVIDAS distribuitor, this is the way they take the 5 gallon container from house to house each month in areas like Parramos. In the city its usually a big blue truck that carries around 150 containers.