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Hi, I'm Liz Kisenwether and I'm here with Khanjan Mehta.
He's the Director of the Humanitarian Engineering and
Social Entrepreneurship program at Penn State, where it's called the HESE program.
And Khanjan's joining this module because he believes that when you're working with
communities to bring in entrepreneurial ventures.
There's empathy, equity, and ecosystem that you need to address.
So Khanjan, tell us more.
>> Sure.
So when you're working in places with different cultural contexts,
it's absolutely essential to be able to step into the shoes of the people for
whom you're trying to design products and services.
And understand what their lives look like, understand their contexts, understand
the kind of choices they make on a daily basis and how they make those choices.
And that's what empathy is all about, right?
Being able to step into somebody's shoes and see life from their perspective.
And as you start working with them together and
you start identifying other people that you need to work with to realize change,
to move to this brave new world.
You need to ensure that everybody has skin in the game and everybody has equity.
So you need equity from and between all the stakeholders.
And finally it takes a village.
So you want all these people to come together and
understand what others are doing and
build this ecosystem, where you are really leveraging the network effect.
Leveraging what everybody brings together to the table.
>> Well I know when we talked bout the projects you've been working on,
the HESE projects, one of the things you told me is that you considered it an honor
to work with people in these resource constrained environments.
So tell us about one of the projects you're really involved in.
>> Sure. So yes, it's an honor working with people,
because people in resource constrained settings are extremely innovative.
They have to innovate to survive.
>> And one of our ventures is around low cost greenhouses.
Greenhouses sell for about $2,500 in East Africa.
And our greenhouses can be put together by two people in two days,
from materials less than $400.
And we have companies in Kenya, Cameroon, Mozambique, and Sierra Leone,
that manufacture and sell these greenhouses to ag entrepreneurs in urban
areas, and mother support groups, and cooperatives.
Essentially women in rural areas.
And the typical return on investment is about two crop cycles, about six months.
>> So quick return on investment is key for success?
>> Absolutely.
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>> So when we talk about sustainable solutions, it means four things to us.
We want our solutions to technologically appropriate, environmentally benign,
culturally acceptable, and economically sustainable.
And all four aspects are just as important.
So, life is short.
There are umpteen problems around the world.
The question is never what the problem is.
The question is always, what is the problem for which we can design and
deliver sustainable solutions?
And so you pick your problems in context of working very carefully.
And then work towards something that's going to take root and
have a larger social impact over time.
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This course is about making change happen.
And we would love to have our students take this class and
actually take the leadership on a big change initiative.
So what do you think drives change?
>> I think aspiration is what drives change.
>> You need to have a vision, but there are a lot of people who don't necessarily
have that vision, because they haven't had that kind of education.
There's this dream gap, especially in low resource settings.
But everybody aspires to the next level up, and that's what drives change.
And it's that intrinsic motivation for a better life or
something that's greater than where people are.
And that's what motivates people to work with others.
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And inspire change and work towards change.
>> And that's what the HESE projects do, they enable that change to happen.
>> Right, exactly. So actually one of our working hypotheses,
and this is probably on the record, is that almost every par chasing decision
on a non-essential product is driven by aspiration.
So people are not buying our green houses because it improves their livelihoods.
Yeah, that's a good thing, but it's primarily driven by aspiration,
to have this cool thing that sort of being your backyard.
And people are going to be like, wow look what this person has.
So it's all about aspiration.
>> Interesting.
Okay.
Great.
Well thanks Khanjan, appreciate your time.
And we have a link provided at the website,
that goes to the Tenex PSU topic Khanjan gave earlier this year.
It's wonderful.
It's inspiring and we hope you watch it.
So thanks.
Dr. Kathryn W. JablokowProfessor
Dr. Darrell VelegolDistinguished Professor of Chemical Engineering
Dr. Jack V. MatsonProfessor Emeritus
Elizabeth KisenwetherAssistant Professor
John BellantiDr.
Dr. Armend Tahirsylaj
