You are here: Home / Archives for design

Introducing the Mark V AidPod

17 September 2011 By Leave a Comment

Each time I do a significant modification to the AidPod design I feel a strange fondness for the out-going model and then immediately bond with the new one. I said this to Jane and she quipped “That’s how you’ll feel when you get your second wife.” :-)

AidPod Mark V

Anyway, here it is the AidPod Mark V. It’s the same as the Mark IV but about half its length. This means it will be cheaper to produce and will carry the items needed to treat just one episode of diarrhoea (not two). We will be able to get 10 of these into a crate.

Our research tells us that a key determinant of whether a child is given ORS is whether ORS is available in the home at the time the diarrhoea strikes. This led us to think that it would be a good idea to include sufficient items in the AidPod to treat two episodes of diarrhoea. However, more compelling evidence indicates that people living in poverty cannot afford to buy and store. In the slums of Nairobi, they don’t buy tubes of toothpaste, they buy a squirt of toothpaste on their toothbrush when they need it.

We think that having AidPods available in the nearby retail kiosk at an affordable price will be nearly as good as having it in the home. The trial will help us determine whether this is the case.

For a more in-depth discussion on why we are going for a smaller AidPod please see this previous blog post.

 

Filed Under: AidPod, Coca Cola Campaign, design Tagged With: ,

A mini AidPod anyone?

22 July 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mark IV AidPod with PedZinc packages

I had a great meeting yesterday with Chris Griffin at the PI Global offices in London talking about the packaging aspects of the trial. I was also able to loan him the various bottles and a crate, on loan to me from Zambian Breweries. These will obviously be crucial in defining the cross-section of the AidPod. We then went on to talk about the length of the AidPod.

A tension has been emerging with this aspect of the AidPod over the last few months. We had originally envisaged that the AidPod would be the full length of the width of the crate ie about 225mm long. This would be big enough to carry the components to treat at least two episodes of diarrhoea: four sachets of ORS, two courses of Zinc supplements and two 25g bars of soap. This thinking was based on research that showed that the biggest indicator of whether a child gets ORS is whether or not the mother, or care-giver, had ORS available in the home at the time of the attack.

However, this makes the ADK (Anti-Diarrhoea Kit) twice as expensive as it needs to be and goes against the guidelines laid down by the late, great C. K. Prahalad* and others who say that when creating products for consumers earning $1-2 dollars a day, price, a low price, is absolutely crucial. These markets are completely different from more developed markets. In developed markets the starting point when pricing a product is your costs, then you add your margin to arrive at the sale price. In poor markets you need to turn this model on its head. You start from the amount people are able/willing to pay (the price) and then work backwards and design the product with a low enough cost to meet the need and enable a profit margin to be made.

On balance, we have concluded (I think) that we need to take the latter approach and so the ADK will have to be as cheap as possible to produce which points to a mini, or half-length ADK. This has the added benefit that we can get 10, not 5, ADKs in each crate.

But what about the research that indicates that ideally you need ORS and Zinc in the home to maximise the likelihood of treatment? Well, what we are banking on is that having ADKs available in the local retail kiosk is nearly as good as having one in the home. The trial will indicate whether or not we are right.

What is helpful is that, coincidentally, the PedZinc component of the ADK comes in a box which is fully compatible with half-length, mini AidPod – see the image above.

* C.K. Prahalad Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits

Filed Under: AidPod, Coca Cola Campaign, design, Meetings, Zambian pilot Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Project Logic Version 6

24 March 2011 By 2 Comments

ColaLife Pilot Logic Model v6
Click on the above image to see the document full-size on Flickr

This is a post for the development specialists amongst you and to reassure everyone else that we are making progress and doing a really thorough job on the design of the pilot. This is the pilot on a single sheet. There is a logic to it. Read it from the bottom up and ask yourself if the activities described will produce the outputs we need and if the outputs will contribute the outcomes.

I’ve reported on the project logic before. This is about the sixth iteration of this. Jane has been leading on this work from the ColaLife end and we are grateful to the staff at UNICEF in Zambia for their guidance and to our research adviser, Rohit Ramchandani, for his input.

Onwards and upwards.

Filed Under: Coca Cola Campaign, design, Zambia Tagged With: , , , ,

Project logic – slow but steady progress

9 March 2011 By Leave a Comment

Project Logic

There has not been a lot we can announce on the progress towards the pilot over the last few weeks but we’ve been busy carefully discussing with partners in Zambia the roles they would undertake in a pilot of ColaLife and we expect to be able to announce the implementation partnership shortly. In addition to these discussions we have been working on the logic of the project with colleagues in UNICEF Zambia and our research adviser, Rohit Ramchandani who is studying for a Doctorate in Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Jane has been leading on this from ColaLife’s side.

The image above is the latest draft of this logic (click on it to see it full size in Flickr). This is still a draft but this is how it works. To see the logic you should read the document from the bottom up and ask yourself:

  • Will these Activities produce these Outputs?
  • Will the Outputs produce the Immediate Outcomes?
  • Will these Immediate Outcomes contribute to the Intermediate Outcomes? and
  • Will the Intermediate Outcomes contribute to the Final Outcome (or Goal)?

Once we are happy with this top-level logic (and we think we are nearly there) we will work on the detail. We will then bundle the activities into workpackages and assign responsibilities to different partners. This is taking some time but we are making progress in the right direction.

If you have any comments on this logic please comment on this post on the blog.

Filed Under: Coca Cola Campaign, design, Zambia Tagged With: , , , ,

Results framework and next steps

3 February 2011 By Leave a Comment

UNICEF Results Framework Zambia January 2011 SB
The foundation for a pilot in Zambia

Above is the Results Framework which we developed with the help of UNICEF which I reported on earlier. We will use this the develop a Logical Framework for the pilot over the next couple of days and feed it back to potential partners for comments.

The next steps towards a pilot are as follows:

  1. Completion of the Logical Framework for the pilot
  2. Confirm pilot partners (Governance, Advisory and Implementation)
  3. Finalise legal/regulatory matters
  4. Draw up a detailed activity list for each partner for discussion and agreement
  5. Ask each partner to prepare a budget for their role in the pilot and indicate what funding/resources they could contribute (if anything) and what funding they would need from the pilot budget
  6. Sign off of the project plan by partners
  7. Put the project plan to funders

Comments?

Filed Under: Coca Cola Campaign, design, Zambia, Zambian pilot Tagged With: , ,

Zambia Diary | Day 9 , Visit 2 | UNICEF and logical frameworks

25 January 2011 By 1 Comment

We had another great session at UNICEF today trying to distil the ColaLife idea down to its essence so that we could build it back up into a fundable project.

We started off with an analysis of the issue and after a lot of discussion and rubbing out and re-writing ended up with this:

The ColaLife 'Issue Tree'
The ColaLife ‘Issue Tree’  (click to see the image full-size on Flickr)

This exercise clarified that there were two key outcomes that we are seeking from a ColaLife pilot:

  1. A change in the way a household responds to a case of diarrhoea in a young child and
  2. A market-driven mechanism for supplying to hard-to reach areas the commodities needed to treat a child with diarrhoea

From this exercise we went on to try and establish what outcomes, or results, we’d want to see from a ColaLife pilot and we came up with this. There are two key outcomes: the first relates to behaviour change in carers of young children and the other relates to the development on a market for ‘anti-diarrhoea’ products:

The ColaLife 'Results Framework'
The ColaLife ‘Results Framework’ (click to see the image full-size on Flickr)

We were really pleased with this because this will enable us to produce the logical framework which will be the basis of our bid for funding.

We’d love to hear what others think. Please comment.

Thanks to Jesper and Charlotte for their time this afternoon. Real progress.

Filed Under: Coca Cola Campaign, design, Zambia, Zambia Diary Jan 2011 Tagged With: ,

Zambia Diary | Day 8 , Visit 2 | KZF and project planning

24 January 2011 By Leave a Comment

IMG_1778
Outside Keepers Zambia Foundation. From left to right: Ruth Mitimingi; Jane Berry and John Msimuko

Today started early with an 8am meeting with Ruth and John at Keepers Zambia Foundation (KZF). Regular readers will know that KZF are the SODIS experts in Zambia but their promoters, who work at community level, support other aspects of sustainable livelihoods as well. The purpose of the meeting was to review the outcomes of Friday’s workshop from KZF’s perspectives. As always in these conversations you learn a lot. In Zambia, there has been a bit of tension between those that are perceived to promote SODIS as a route to clean water supply and those that promote the use of Chlorine tablets to sterlise the water. Aquatabs is a brand that was mentioned in the workshop. In the field, KZF promote the use of safe water, hygiene and sanitation (or WASH) and one tool they use is SODIS, so their target is on a clean water supply and not a single method of achieving this. KZF promote the use of chlorine tablets and the boiling of water as alternatives to SODIS in the rainy season.

So I think that we should do the same. We want the AidPod to carry WASH components and this may include a SODIS bag but might also include Aquatabs and would definitely include educational materials to do with hygiene, sanitation and clean water.

We also talked about micro-finance. KZF were the only stakeholder at the workshop who have experience in this area and they work through the Micro Bankers Trust. We think that we may need to give credit to the retailers as they may not have enough working capital (cash) to be able to afford to buy the initial AidPod Mother’s Kits. This is something we need to verify through fieldwork.

We spent the rest of the day working on a new structure for the pilot. This was the ‘Aunt Sally’ we started the workshop with on Friday.

Proposed ColaLife pilot structure version 3
View more presentations from ColaLife.

This is a 2-stage structure: a set-up phase followed by a pilot phase. However, the consensus from the workshop was that we should have a 3-stage structure: a set-up phase of two parts followed by a pilot phase. This is how far we got rearranging things (see below). Click on the image to see it full size on Flickr. The first, pre pilot, phase has two parts. The first is a set-up phase which would establish the baseline and create the resources we need for the pilot. The second part is a mini-pilot which would test all the systems before moving into the pilot. For this we might choose to work with one wholesaler and the retailers he/she serves.

IMG_1780

Tomorrow we are off to UNICEF again to work on a logical framework for the project.

Here is today’s podcast:

Sign-up to the podcast using iTunes
 Subscribe to the podcast using RSS


Filed Under: Coca Cola Campaign, design, Zambia, Zambia Diary Jan 2011 Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

More on SODIS (Solar Disinfection [of water]) – another innovation?

6 October 2010 By 3 Comments

PET AidPod on roof
The concept: PET AidPods on a tin roof

SODIS Pictograms
Image source: Wikipedia

We’ve had a great response to the idea that the ColaLife AidPods might be made of PET (Polyethylene terephthalate) and used to disinfect the water mothers need to make up oral rehydration solution. Dr Kevin G McGuigan, Coordinator EU SODISWATER Project, Dublin University, who has been working for 18 years on SODIS-related projects said:

It was a pleasure talking to you [Jane] this morning. I’ve looked at the information that you have forwarded and think that your ColaLife container would be suitable for solar disinfection of water for drinking or ORS purposes. You would have to redesign the lid to make it water tight but apart from that it looks like an appropriate solution to a global problem.

Dr Wayne Heaselgrave, of Leicester University, a microbiologist working with Dr McGuigan on the same SODISWATER project has as also offered to test the efficacy of PET AidPods (when we have them). Leicester – just down the road from ColaLife HQ, has an African Sun Simulator. He said:

I agree that there could also be potential for this product to be subsequently used for SODIS if the design can be altered so that the product is made from PET and is watertight. In the future if you were to come up with a prototype then we could look at working together to evaluate the antimicrobial efficacy of the product in the laboratory using simulated sunlight prior to its introduction into field situations.

Obviously a single 500ml AidPod is not going to solve a family’s need for clean water. But it will add value to the New Mother’s Kit – and be a mechanism for getting the SODIS method more widely known. We have been struggling for a while now on the secondary uses the AidPod packaging might have and I think we have now found one. We’re feeling ready for a design competition. Would anybody be interested in this?

SODIS is now backed by WHO and used in parts of at least 33 countries. Below is a video on SODIS from the Keeper Zambia Foundation.

This is a CNN video report. The most amazing bit is towards the end (2m:40s in) when the scientist shows the results of testing for E. coli. The first Petri dish with water from a a standing source (big puddle) had levels of E. coli TNC (too numerous to count). The second, from the communal tank was infected to some extent while the SODIS water was completely clear.

There are more videos on SODIS here.

Filed Under: AidPod, Coca Cola Campaign, design, Ideas, Zambia Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Still photos of the Mark III AidPod

20 June 2009 By 1 Comment

AidPod Mark III model 017

Here are some still photos of the Mark III AidPod as a Flickr set or as a slide show below:

Update:

Video explanation of the Mark III AidPod design

Filed Under: AidPod, Coca Cola Campaign, design

Introducing the Mark III ColaLife AidPod

17 June 2009 By 8 Comments

This short video describes the features of our third version of the ColaLife AidPod.

The key features are:

  1. It has the same cross-section as the Mark II aidpod
  2. It is a two-part design: the lid and the container sections (first sketched here)
  3. The lid fits over a collar which is the same length as the inside of the lid so that longitudinal crushing will not occur
  4. The length of the ‘closed’ AidPod, with the lid in place, is the same as the internal dimensions of a Coca-Cola crate so the AidPod cannot burst open when in transit in the crate
  5. The shoulders of the AidPod which run along its length mean the aidpod clips below the lip of the crated bottles. This helps prevent the AidPod from popping out of the crate and also gives the AidPod longitudinal strength
  6. Aid Pods could be of two different lengths to either fit the crates width-wise or length-wise: shorter AidPods would be stronger and up to five could be carried per crate. The length-wise AidPod is long enough to carry a LifeStraw and up to three could be inserted per crate

Onwards and upwards. :-)

Update:

Still images of the Mark III AidPod

Filed Under: AidPod, Coca Cola Campaign, design, LifeStraw, Videos Tagged With: , , ,
« Older Posts