{"id":2194,"date":"2015-01-21T07:00:35","date_gmt":"2015-01-21T07:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/revoscience.com\/en\/?p=2194"},"modified":"2015-01-21T07:00:35","modified_gmt":"2015-01-21T07:00:35","slug":"mit-usaid-program-releases-pioneering-evaluation-of-solar-lanterns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/mit-usaid-program-releases-pioneering-evaluation-of-solar-lanterns\/","title":{"rendered":"MIT-USAID program releases pioneering evaluation of solar lanterns"},"content":{"rendered":"

First report of Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation offers new framework for assessment.<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\"images\"<\/a>CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —\u00a0When a person lives on less than $2 a day \u2014 as some 2.7 billion people around the world do \u2014 there isn\u2019t room for a product like a solar lantern or a water filter to fail.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a challenge development agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and consumers themselves face every day: With so many products on the market, how do you choose the right one?<\/span><\/p>\n

Now MIT researchers have released a report that could help answer that question through a new framework for technology evaluation. Their report \u2014 titled \u201cExperimentation in Product Evaluation: The Case of Solar Lanterns in Uganda, Africa\u201d \u2014 details the first experimental evaluations designed and implemented by the Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE), a U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)-supported program led by a multidisciplinary team of faculty, staff, and students.<\/span><\/p>\n

Building an evaluation framework<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

CITE\u2019s framework is based on the idea that evaluating a product from a technical perspective alone is not enough, according to CITE Director Bishwapriya Sanyal, the Ford International Professor in MIT\u2019s Department of Urban Studies and Planning.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThere are many products designed to improve the lives of poor people, but there are few in-depth evaluations of which ones work, and why,\u201d Sanyal says. \u201cCITE not only looks at suitability \u2014 how well does a product work? \u2014 but also at scalability \u2014 how well does it scale? \u2014 and sustainability \u2014 does a product have sticking power, given social, economic, and environmental context?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

CITE seeks to integrate each of these criteria \u2014 suitability, scalability, and sustainability \u2014 to develop a deep understanding of what makes products successful in emerging economies. The program\u2019s evaluations and framework are intended to better inform the development community\u2019s purchasing decisions.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cCITE\u2019s work is incredibly energizing for the development community,\u201d\u00a0said Ticora V. Jones, director of the USAID Higher Education Solutions Network.\u00a0\u201cThese evaluations won\u2019t live on a shelf. The results are actionable. It\u2019s an approach that could fundamentally transform the way we choose, source, and even design technologies for development work.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Evaluating solar lanterns in Uganda<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In summer 2013, a team of MIT faculty and students set off for western Uganda to conduct CITE\u2019s evaluation of solar lanterns. Researchers conducted hundreds of surveys with consumers, suppliers, manufacturers, and nonprofits to evaluate 11 locally available solar lantern models.<\/span><\/p>\n

To assess each product\u2019s suitability, researchers computed a ratings score from 0 to 100 based on how the product\u2019s attributes and features fared. \u201cAttributes\u201d included characteristics inherent to solar lanterns, such as brightness, run time, and time to charge. \u201cFeatures\u201d included less-central characteristics, such as a lantern\u2019s ability to charge a cellphone.<\/span><\/p>\n

The importance of cellphone charging was a surprising and noteworthy finding, Sanyal says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the things that stuck with me was that [consumers] were most concerned with whether or not the solar lantern charged their cellphone. It was a feature we never expected would be so important,\u201d Sanyal says. \u201cFor some, having connections may be more valuable than having light.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Learning from partnerships<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

CITE worked with USAID to select solar lanterns as the product family for its first evaluation. Sanyal says evaluating solar lanterns allowed CITE to learn from USAID\u2019s existing partnership with Solar Sister, a social enterprise that distributes solar lanterns in Uganda, a country where few people have access to light after dark.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

CITE researchers also worked closely with Jeffrey Asher, a former technical director at\u00a0Consumer Reports<\/em>, to learn from an existing product-evaluation model.<\/span><\/p>\n

Evaluating products in a laboratory at MIT or\u00a0Consumer Reports<\/em>\u00a0is much different than evaluating them in rural Uganda, but both are important, says Asher, who is a co-author of the CITE report.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cConsumer Reports<\/em>\u2019 greatest challenge has been evaluating products that are currently in the U.S. marketplace,\u201d Asher says. \u201cCITE has found that, in developing countries, we have to be even more nimble to keep up with an ever-changing market.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Putting CITE\u2019s results to work<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Over the next two years, CITE will hone its approach, using experimental evaluations of technologies like water filters, post-harvest storage solutions, and malaria rapid-diagnostic tests to design a replicable approach that development professionals can use in their day-to-day work, Sanyal says.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re aiming to make our evaluation process leaner, less expensive, and more nimble, while maintaining rigor. That\u2019s our challenge, looking forward,\u201d Sanyal says.<\/span><\/p>\n

CITE\u2019s research is funded by the USAID U.S. Global Development Lab. CITE is led by MIT\u2019s Department of Urban Studies and Planning and supported by MIT\u2019s D-Lab, Public Service Center, Sociotechnical Systems Research Center, and Center for Transportation and Logistics.<\/span><\/p>\n

In addition to Sanyal and Asher, co-authors on the CITE report include Daniel Frey, Derek Brine, Jennifer Green, Jonars Spielberg, Stephen Graves, and Olivier de Weck.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First report of Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation offers new framework for assessment. CAMBRIDGE, Mass. —\u00a0When a person lives on less than $2 a day \u2014 as some 2.7 billion people around the world do \u2014 there isn\u2019t room for a product like a solar lantern or a water filter to fail. It\u2019s a challenge […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":2042,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2194","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-techbiz"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images-150x90.png",150,90,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",95,29,false],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",293,90,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",96,29,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/images.png",150,46,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Amrita Tuladhar"]},"category_info":"Tech<\/a>","tag_info":"Tech","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}