Vijay Govindarajan and Christian Sarkar first proposed The $300 House in the The Harvard Business Review. Severe limitations on choices keep the poor impoverished forever, trapped in poverty by lack of opportunity. Furthermore, Govindarajan suggests leaving 5 billion impoverished people out of the loop is a missed opportunity for corporations as equal talent, creativity, and enthusiasm is just as likely to be found in poor populations.
The $300 House project began with simple questions:
- How can organic, self-built slums be turned into livable housing?
- What might a house for the poor look like?
- How can world-class engineering and design capabilities be utilized to solve the problem?
- What reverse-innovation lessons might be learned by the participants in such a project?
- How could the poor afford to buy this house?
The project now has its winning designs and will move forward with prototypes and pilot projects before eventual implementation. The poor of India, Indonesia, and Haiti will be the first nations given the chance
"...to live safely and build an inclusive ecosystem of services around them which includes, clean water, sanitation, health services, family planning, education, and micro enterprise, maybe we can start reducing the disease of poverty. By helping create this ecosystem, we believe companies can make money while providing services needed by the poor at an affordable cost. The poor deserve a chance, a real chance, to make it out of poverty."You can check out the winning designs here.
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