Getting technology to the people in the places that need it most

Diffusion is the bottleneck, not invention

Most of the impact technology has had on poverty in the last 20 years came from things that were already cheap and proven. Solar panels, LEDs, mobile phones, and mobile money didn't need another breakthrough. They needed products, businesses, and financing that fit the places they were going.

That step, from proven to widely used, is where good technology most often stalls. It's less glamorous than invention, it rarely produces venture returns, and almost nobody owns it. I do.

A lower-risk bet for funders

Backing emerging technology means betting on whether it will work at all. Backing diffusion doesn't. The technology already works. The open question is whether it reaches people and keeps working once it gets there.

That's a risk I can help funders see, measure, and reduce. For impact investors and philanthropies, it means more of the capital they deploy ends up in things that are still running and still owned by the people using them a year and a half later.

What I do

Design for diffusion

I help companies separate the core technology, which can ride a falling cost curve, from the parts that should be built, sold, and repaired locally. Then I work through pricing, licensing, and partners so the product can reach lower-income markets instead of stalling in wealthy ones.

Verify what works

For funders, I do independent, field-based diligence on whether a technology works, gets used, and is still working at month 18. I'd rather be the person who tells a funder the truth than the one who tells them what they hoped to hear.

Connect technology, partners, and capital

I match proven technology with local builders, operators, and partners, and with the kind of money that fits each stage: grants to start, patient capital to cross the threshold, and commercial capital once a business can stand on its own.

What I don't do is invent for its own sake. I'm still the tech guy. I just work on what happens after the technology is ready.

Why I can do this

I've spent 30 years building technology for demanding markets: the da Vinci surgical robot at SRI International, the AutoPulse resuscitation system, wearables at IBM Research, and neural interfaces at Meta Reality Labs. I hold more than ten patents, a physics degree from MIT, and a product design degree from Stanford.

Today I mentor in MIT D-Lab's courses on design for developing communities, advise startups through The Engine and MassRobotics, and work with founders building and deploying technology in Africa and Latin America. That puts me in a rare spot: I know how products get designed for wealthy markets, and I'm learning in the field what it takes to get them everywhere else.