Moving your Product from Lab to Factory

What are the options for manufacturing your product for emerging markets? How do you scale up from a handful of prototypes into hundreds of units, and then scale up to thousands while avoiding the “valley of death”? In this workshop, we’ll explore several case studies of hardware in emerging markets, and discuss the benefits and drawbacks of various options: manufacturing locally versus moving to Shenzhen, outsourcing versus building up your own production facility, navigating tradeoff decisions (cost, quality, speed, dependability, etc.), and other concerns. After we lay out the choices facing entrepreneurs, participants will chart their own manufacturing roadmaps with experienced mentors and discuss in teams.

Ralf Hotchkiss, Whirlwind Wheelchair International.

Session Speakers

Speakers

KIPP BRADFORD

Research Scientist, MIT Media Lab (more on Kipp here)

Kipp Bradford is a Research Scientist at the MIT Media Lab. His research focuses on reinventing heat. He also explores the innovation, manufacturing supply chains, and programming languages. He is a founder of start-ups in the fields of transportation, consumer products, HVAC, and medical devices, and holds numerous patents for his inventions. Some of his more interesting projects have turned into kippkitts.

Kipp is the author of Distributed Network Data (hardware hacking for Data Scientists, with Alasdair Allan) and contributed a chapter to Building Open Source Hardware. He is one of the cofounders of the Data Sensing Lab, an advisor to Highway1 (a leading hardware start-up accelerator), and founded the Innovation Institute, an NSF-funded project that teaches innovation to underserved youth in New York City. Kipp also co-founded Revolution By Design, a non-profit education and research organization dedicated to empowerment through technology. He founded and co-organizes the first ever community-run Maker Faire, what is now the Rhode Island Mini Maker Faire and founded the Washington, DC Mini Maker Faire, which is now the National Maker Faire. He serves on the board of The Nation Of Makers, which he helped the White House launch in 2016. He served on the technical advisory board of MAKE Magazine, is a Fellow at the College of Design, Engineering and Commerce at Philadelphia University, and served as an Adjunct Critic at the Rhode Island School of Design.

RALPH HOTCHKISS

Inventor, Lead Designer of Whirlwind Wheelchair International

Ralf Hotchkiss is an inventor and the lead designer of the Whirlwind Wheelchair International, a non-profit located in Berkeley. Its mission is "to make it possible for every person in the developing world who needs a wheelchair to obtain one that will lead to maximum personal independence and integration into society". Ralf taught a SFSU class, Engineering 620: Wheelchair Design and Construction, in which students built a complete wheelchair in a Third World appropriate shop. Ralf is a graduate of Oberlin College and a 1989 MacArthur Foundation Fellow.

MATT MCCAMBRIDGE

Instructor, MIT D-LAB

Matt McCambridge is excited to be teaching D-Lab: Mobility and D-Lab: Design after many years encountering the amazing work and people coming from D-Lab. In fall of 2016 he will also co-instruct the D-Lab course Design for Scale. A 1998 graduate of Stanford's Product Design program (a multidisciplinary program within the Mechanical Engineering department), Matt has designed and manufactured mobility technology for people with disabilities in the United States and in less resourced settings around the world. Matt has worked on teams creating sophisticated technologies (Dean Kamen's iBOT balancing wheelchair for Johnson and Johnson) and simple, robust ones (Whirlwind Wheelchair's RoughRider), and looks forward to working with students who are fired up to create excellent technology for people who live in challenging environments. In addition to teaching at D-Lab, Matt is working with the Comprehensive Initiative on Technology Evaluation (CITE) as a Research Engineer developing and carrying out innovative tests of wheelchairs in developing countries.

ELLA PEINOVICH

CEO, Soko

Ella Peinovich is CEO of Soko, which employs technology to provide equal access to opportunity for marginalized artisans. Ella's work in supply chain innovation has been celebrated for its novel approach and high social and economic impact by the World Bank, DEMO, Vodafone and USAID.A venture-backed social entrepreneur, Ella has over eight years of experience leading teams and projects working at the intersection of design, technology, and social entrepreneurship. Her work in fashion supply chain innovation has been celebrated for its novel approach and measurably high social and economic impact by the World Bank, DEMO, Vodafone and USAID. As CEO of Soko, Ella relocated to Kenya over five years ago. Ella leverages her knowledge of systems design and social entrepreneurship to develop and manage the company’s innovative supply chain solution and emerging markets business development. Ella is an Entrepreneur in Residence at INSEAD Business School, a Fellow of the social innovation network Ashoka, is a member of Forbes' Young Entrepreneurship Council, was awarded the TIAW 'World of Difference’ Award in 2013, and was recognized by the BidNetwork as the Female Social Entrepreneur of the year in 2012. Ella holds a masters degree from MIT in Architecture, System Design, and Human Interaction.

HARALD QUINTUS-BOSZ

Co-founder, Cooper Perkins; Instructor, MIT D-Lab

Harald spent six years instructing and organizing at the International Development Design Summit, before joining D-Lab as an instructor of the D-Lab: Design for Scale course. Harald’s 22 years of private-sector product design experience, in combination with design for the developing world experience deepens D-Lab's portfolio of class offerings. In addition to his responsibilities at D-Lab, he is the CTO of Cooper Perkins, a technology development consulting firm. After earning an SB degree from MIT and an SM in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, Harald worked at XRE, Matech, and IDEO before co-founding Cooper Perkins in 2002.

ANNA WALDMAN-BROWN

Master's candidate, MIT Technology Policy Program

Anna is a Masters student in MIT’s Technology Policy Program, and a research assistant at the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship– where she’s investigating the viability of local manufacturing and how entrepreneurs make manufacturing decisions. A co-founder of the Ghana-based Practical Education Network, Anna has also worked with Autodesk, the Fab Lab network, international policy-makers, and grassroots innovators across 50+ countries to foster creative problem-solving and sustainable development. She is a Fulbright fellow and holds Bachelors of Science in Physics and Writing And Humanistic Studies from MIT.