IDDS 2010

I spent most of my July at the International Development Design Summit at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, CO, which was only two hours from Boulder. The conference focused on technology in the developing world and brought together people who had village-tested prototypes and were looking to go from prototype-to-product (P2P) or project-to-venture (P2V).

I had previously worked as a member of the organizing staff at this conference in 2008. Some time I should write a post about that as well, but that will have to wait for another day. One of the first things that I learned about IDDS was that it is a sort of "un-conference" since most conferences strive to produce academic papers, while IDDS believes that it is important to produce technologies. And to do that in a month is definitely a daunting task. In 2008, the focus was on design, and everyone was working in machine shops, whereas this year the focus was on disseminating technologies, so there was a bit of shop-work, but much more time spent on business plans.

How It Works

The conference brings together people from all sorts of backgrounds from around the world. This year there were only 57 people including the organizing staff and the conference was just under four weeks (in 2008 there were over 70 people and the conference was just over five weeks). The participants are assigned to teams and are assigned to work on a particular challenge arising in a community or region in the developing world. Examples include developing a thresher that removes the millet grains from the stalk (focusing on west Africa) or developing a solution to prevent the micro-hydro power systems in Central America from repeatedly breaking. The goal is to develop a technological solution that fits within the particular local constraints.

The schedule is pretty packed. There are lectures from faculty and guest speakers designed to develop everyone's skills so that they can effectively tackle their challenge. Then everyone splits into their teams to work on their projects and apply the lessons. Some of the activities put people into random groups, which means that over the course of the summit, participants have the opportunity to get to know everyone. And if that isn't enough, in the early morning, there's football (it's soccer, but mostly organized by Brits and Irish guys), in the evenings, there are cultural events and presentations, and on the weekends, there are outings and activities (some formally planned, some thrown together at the last minute).

My Team

I was working with a group called Running Water International in Nakuru, Kenya. I had the opportunity to visit the project back in March, and I was very excited to work with them. They produce bio-sand filters (BSFs) for water treatment, which operate similarly to many community water systems in places like the US, but in this case, the design has been scaled down to fit in a household and reach a price that is affordable to people earning under $3 per day.

The Kenyan who runs the program on the ground was unable to obtain a visa to come for the conference (definitely a good case for some immigration reform), but we had a strong team anyway. Two of his teammates in the US, who focus on the business side (and came out of CSU's Global Social & Sustainable Enterprise program) were running lead on our project. We also had a Zambian community health worker who brought invaluable wisdom to our team (and had a great sense of humor about everything). We had an Irish guy who had just finished his Ph.D and had a good background in water treatment systems (also a very crafty researcher, which proved pretty handy). We also had a Spaniard on our team with an engineering background (with plenty of water experience) who had traveled extensively and always seemed to have a few thoughts to contribute. And then, there was me, trying to help out wherever I could, but pulled away more often than I wanted for other work. I was definitely lucky to be part of such a strong team.

We spent a lot of time going back and forth about how centralized or decentralized the business model should be. We also dissected the technology to see if we could offer improvements. It was surprising how intense the debate was, since we were all looking at how to minimize environmental impact, and came to such different conclusions. But ultimately, as we debated, we made good progress toward improving the project and put together some strong proposals for moving forward. It was only unfortunate that our Kenyan teammate wasn't there, since we lacked his insights, and made it harder to ensure that the plans would be implemented.

Organizational Work

My role at the summit is titled "partinizer"--that is, participating organizer. So, while I'm working with a team, I'm still part of the organizing committee. When we originally were envisioning the role back in 2008 (there were issues then, since some teams had several organizers, while others had none, and there was minimal structure to the process), I was pushing for a big part of the role to consist of documentation, since I considered it a great tragedy that so much of the work was not recorded, which made it difficult to achieve further dissemination for several of the projects. However, seeing as this was a dissemination themed event, the role was much less about that. The partinizers helped to keep the faculty and mentors aware of how teams were progressing and to make resources available to the teams. Basically, they try to make sure that communication channels are working effectively.

So, as an organizer, I devoted a good bit of time to the evaluations committee. I am very interested in team dynamics, so I took the work very seriously. Of course, one of my main jobs was to keep the evaluations as short and infrequent as possible. I also made sure to read every single evaluation and try to synthesize the feedback for the organizing committee. One of my favorite parts of the summit is that they work to turn on a dime and improve wherever they can. I'm not exactly an impartial judge of this, but I feel as though we do a pretty good job of it.

There are plenty of other organizing tasks that we all take our part working on. Sometimes, there's late night shopping trips. Other times, it is helping people call Bangladesh or Ethiopia or Zambia or anywhere else. And I got to greet everyone as they arrived at the airport (19 hours was a pretty long day, but worth it). There were plenty of other small tasks, and then I had some work on organizing events.

One big event was the Unreasonable Institute-IDDS picnic. Everyone was traveling from Boulder to San Francisco, so they stopped by Ft. Collins on the way for a bit of mingling. It was only a three-hour event, but we tried to pack as much as we could into the time. There was soccer, frisbee and cricket; events related to each of the IDDS teams and networking. I ran around trying to introduce people who I thought would have things to talk about. Unfortunately, a few people from Unreasonable were pretty drained preparing for their trip to San Francisco (and wanted to brace themselves for the 25 hour bus ride), but most people seemed to have a good time and really got into the activities.

The People

I really like the people at IDDS every year. I feel the most like myself when I'm around them. The organizing team is a really phenomenal and hard-working group and really inspires me. The faculty always had some input and were incredibly generous with their time (and they're wonderful people). The organizers definitely subscribe to the "work hard, play hard" philosophy, which keeps us pretty busy over the month. The organizers come from all over the world and are mostly in their early to mid 20s, though the majority are still Americans.

The best part though is the participants. They come from all over the world and diverse backgrounds. There was a Brazilian who offers all sorts of art lessons in her spare time, a couple of Nepalis who were always extolling the virtues of bamboo, a Rwandan who was always around at 2 AM when most other people had gone to sleep and people from everywhere in between (oh, and my friend Jackie was there, and a few other people from my past). I tried to learn some of the languages there, so I picked up a couple words of Portuguese, Bengali, Nyanja (one of the main Zambian languages), some rather vulgar Hindi (one friend taught me some good insults, for those situations where you have to offend people), and I got to brush up on my French, Spanish and Kiswahili.

Having Fun

There were tons of impromptu dance parties, which was facilitated by one participant who had brought a portable solar-powered boombox. (We also used the boombox for some music at the early morning soccer and frisbee matches.) Some included salsa lessons, while others included all sorts of African or South Asian or Latin music, while others featured the best (or worst) of American music (such as the Funky Chicken) including a night at a Southwestern line dancing club where IDDS mostly took over the dance floor. Regardless of age, everyone came out on the dance floor and showed off their style.

There was an hour long hike around a nearby park, which was a logistical nightmare in terms of carpooling, but had some really gorgeous scenery. We also had a nice day hike around Rocky Mountain National Park, which was a bit easier, since we just rented out a whole bus. The bus ride was all about games and cultural exchanges. We took a chilly swim in one of the mountain lakes, which was measured at 51 degrees. Most people jumped out quickly, but one by one, about a quarter of the group swam across and sat on a rock to thaw out a bit. A few people might have gotten some mild hypothermia. But most people listed it as one of their favorite events during the summit.

Everyone got really excited about the World Cup final. We had a good balance of Spain fans and Netherlands fans (I was cheering for the Orange, which made it a sad day). We were pretty passionate on both sides, and I was a bit more sympathetic to the Dutch style of play (several of the fouls seemed like the Spaniards were going out of their way to get fouled). It doesn't even matter who wins, it's just nice to watch with friends who are excited about soccer.

One of the most popular annual events is the pot-luck dinner, where we all cook foods to represent our cultures. It was nice to cook, since I hadn't really done so in ages. I worked with Jackie and Becca (Becca is another MIT student who I met in Tanzania when I visited in December 2009) to make North American-East African fusion cuisine. (a.k.a. chapati burritos!) We had a lot of fun cooking together and made a ton of food. When we arrived, we saw amazing foods from every corner of the world. And in spite of the rule that we don't touch the food until everyone has finished cooking and is present, we all snuck a bit of the mango lassi (there was a certain country that was a bit late to the party, and they had enjoyed plenty of refreshments, so we didn't feel guilty). The event was a glorious party (at one point, I was teaching a Haitian how to make S'mores as she helped me practice my French). And of course, after eating, the event turned into a giant dance party.

Even the organizer meetings are fun. Somehow the conversation tends to wander and the non-sequiturs are amusing. It was always hard to find time for them, but people always looke forward to them.

Struggles

The staff at CSU were very accommodating considering the craziness of some of our requests. However, most of us are used to how things run at MIT, so we were shocked by aspects such as the fact that the labs were locked in the evenings and the dining hall closed at 6:30 PM until 7 AM (a lot of the people at IDDS are night-owls, so this took some adjusting), which led to several of us just missing lots of meals. Also, we didn't realize until we arrived that it was a dry campus, so some people were a bit cranky about that. I was also dismayed by how well they watered the sidewalks at CSU--inevitably, their sprinkler systems seemed to be missing the grass. We also had to learn a decent bit of the campus in order to avoid getting lost between the dorm, dining hall, classroom, lab and workspaces. Everything was nice on campus, but it was also at times inconvenient (not to say that it's poorly organized for a four-year university, just noting that it was difficult for a 3.5 week conference). Also, the other groups on campus were overwhelming at times (not to say that we didn't bring our on brand of campus).

I also felt the burden of how expensive things are in the states. I missed how cheap it was to go out with friends in Tanzania and Kenya, and tried to save my money as best I could. Fortunately, most of the people there are on a shoestring budget anyway, so I had plenty of company, but in some ways, I couldn't help feeling like I was missing a big part of the experience.

However, the biggest challenge, by far, was the workload. I was trying to keep up with everything at Unreasonable Institute (I made the 1.5 hour drive back to Boulder once so that Amy Smith could give a presentation there, which was pretty popular with everyone at Unreasonable), and bugging all the other fellows for updates. I even flew out to San Francisco for a pitch-fest (the trip that they were all on the bus for during the picnic), which wound up being incredibly hectic, and unfortunately, the event did not really lead to any worthwhile connections (though it was nice to see some college friends and see California for the first time, even if it was for less than 24 hours). On top of that, I was still doing some work for GCS, which meant that I was only half-listening to some of the presentations as I tried to sort through all my emails and support Jodie. And I didn't want to let down my team or the organizing committee (in 2008, whenever they devised tasks at meetings, people's eyes would drift to me, waiting for me to volunteer--I couldn't keep that reputation this time around). So when it came time to figure out what to give up, the victim was usually sleep.

As the summit went on, the sleep deficit and caffeine dependence started to wear on me. I had to leave some sessions early because I knew I couldn't keep my eyes open. (The advantage to being that tired is that you can nap just about anywhere, no matter how uncomfortable.) And I could feel my brain running slowly on account of it. I knew that it was unhealthy, but I also knew that lots of people were counting on me, and I didn't want to let anyone down.

Thanks for reading this far

I have so many stories from July that I would love to tell, however, I think that this is plenty to digest. It really is a remarkable event and one of my favorite parts of the year. I'm already looking forward to IDDS 2011--I can't believe that it will be the 5th IDDS. I know that it has evolved considerably to reach its current stage and I'm really excited about the path that it will take moving forward.