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Santa Clara University School of Engineering

Santa Clara University

Santa Clara University’s Frugal Innovation Lab develops

accessible, affordable, appropriate, and adaptable technologies, products, and solutions for emerging markets.

Santa Clara University’s SCU at the Forefront

Instruction

Engineering with a Mission—the motto of the School of Engineering—is brought to life through leadership in shaping the new paradigm of frugal innovation. In the heart of Silicon Valley, Santa Clara University is ideally situated at the nexus of technology, innovation, entrepreneurship, and social justice.

The Frugal Innovation Lab (FIL) integrates the goals of the School of Engineering with SCU’s Jesuit philosophy of educating students of conscience, competence, and compassion.

The Frugal Innovation Lab exemplifies Santa Clara University’s

Santa Clara is in a unique position to take advantage of interdisciplinary academic collaborations, Silicon Valley corporate partnerships, and lasting relationships with established social entrepreneurs to provide both academic and practical experience to students interested in pursuing FIL’s mission.

framework/infrastructure that considers the entire product cycle, from

academic mission by incorporating collaboration and coursework across engineering, business, public health, and environmental science disciplines. Beginning with the undergraduate core curriculum, frugal innovation is embedded within technical electives, senior design research projects, public health science classes, and graduate engineering courses including Engineering for the Developing World and Mobile Applications for Emerging Markets. Courses incorporate business planning and entrepreneurial skills to emphasize the need for a design manufacturing to distribution as well as scaling.

Sustainable Livelihoods: Empowering Rural Communities Within the Frugal Innovation Lab’s worldwide network of social entrepreneurs is Anudip, a social enterprise that provides market-aligned skills training in new economy

“Students today can expect and anticipate that in the decades ahead, they will witness even more dramatic advances as science and technological innovations and the social response to those innovations take us places we have never experienced.”

— Regis McKenna, Silicon Valley marketing

jobs and livelihoods to empower rural youth and women in India. Under the guidance of SCU faculty from computer engineering and communication departments, undergraduate student teams in FIL courses collaborated with Anudip’s field staff to design and test mobile applications, expand mobile technology platforms, and document the program’s social impact in an engaging, accurate,

guru, technology marketing consultant,

and meaningful way. Through these activities, Anudip

venture capitalist, advisor to entrepreneurs,

alumni are able to accelerate their education and, thus,

SCU Board of Trustees member

their employability.

Frugal Innovation Lab in Action Innovation The Frugal Innovation Lab is a collaborative space for students and faculty to work with industry partners and NGOs to research and implement new technologies for consumers in emerging markets. The lab environment, along with expert faculty guidance, facilitates the critical transition from theoretical learning to practical skill application.

FIL distinguishes itself from other international innovation programs by closely integrating the classroom curriculum and hands-on work with our network of alumni from SCU’s Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) program. Through these readymade partnerships, unique to Santa Clara, students come to understand the necessity of frugal innovation as they address the specific design constraints and engineering challenges faced by social entrepreneurs.

Health Management: Lab-on-a-Chip More than one billion people in the world are without access to drinkable water, and more than two million deaths each year are attributed to water-borne diseases.

To address these burgeoning numbers, a FIL team created a microfluidic sensor—a virtual lab-on-a-chip—which is both rugged and easy to use in the field, and integrates several complex laboratory functions onto a single chip.

The portable, fast, and accurate diagnostic device, fabricated by this interdisciplinary group of students, will be used in remote areas to detect the presence of pathogens in a tiny water sample without the need for expensive and bulky lab equipment.

The Global Social Benefit Incubator (GSBI) is the signature program of SCU’s Center for Science, Technology, and Society. The intensive program, which provides expert mentorship designed specifically for social enterprises, culminates with formal business plan presentations before an audience of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and venture capitalists.

Immersion It takes more than excelling at coursework and a desire to do good to bring affordable and convenient health care and technologies to people in remote areas. Through FIL, Santa Clara students have incredible opportunities to work with social

A Lab Within a Lab: Mobile Computing for Social Benefit The Mobile Lab is housed in FIL and spearheads SCU’s participation in the explosive field of mobile health.

This “lab within a lab” provides an environment for students to evaluate

entrepreneurs all over the world. While conducting

technology solutions used in the field,

fieldwork, students gain invaluable insights into the

and enables the development of a

resource constraints and cultural considerations

comprehensive set of mobile

relevant to a project by testing and implementing

applications for underserved

their designs in the field. Through these mutually

communities worldwide.

enriching programs, students witness, firsthand, challenges faced by marginalized communities and are thus better prepared to address their needs.

For example, FIL students joined

Solar Home System: Green Energy for Uganda A team of undergraduate senior electrical engineering students collaborated with students from the Nsamizi Solar Technology Lab in Uganda to promote the building, dissemination, and maintenance of solar technologies in East Africa. Over the course of several immersion trips, the FIL and Nsamizi team created a Solar Home System that powers a single-family home using only readily available local resources. Their designs are now being manufactured, installed, and maintained by solar technicians in Uganda who have been trained through the support network that the FIL team created in the field.

This collaboration fights energy poverty, fosters socially minded entrepreneurs, generates increased access to education and fair trade, and bridges gender gaps by providing vocational training to women who have traditionally been excluded from entrepreneurial activities.

forces with social enterprise salaUno to improve means for detecting cataracts in patients living in remote areas of Mexico, eliminating the need to travel long distances to an urban clinic for diagnosis by an eye doctor. The FIL team developed a plan to pair an existing $2 smartphone add-on that scans the eye and maps cataract locations with their own mobile app and cloud-based storage system. Data from the scan is merged with patient information for review by surgeons in salaUno’s vision centers—saving significant time and money for patients and for the eye care innovator.

Frugal Innovation for Emerging Markets Frugal innovation is a process of problem solving­—and a game-changing strategy—that addresses the need for products and services in emerging, underdeveloped countries. Features of frugal innovation include ruggedization, simplification, sparing use of low-cost raw materials, an emphasis on earth-friendly practices, and a philosophy that favors “doing more with less” in creating compassionate, user-centric design.

Emerging markets—consumers who are quickly moving out of poverty in nations such as China, Africa, India, and Brazil— are expected to account for 70 percent of the world’s economic growth over the next few years. Today’s emerging economies comprise 50 percent of the market for Fortune 500s.

Frugal innovation is strongly tied to social justice, but it’s not just about students doing good. It is a holistic approach that is at the intersection of altruism with the bottom line. As these technologies find their way to the mature markets of the West, they will fundamentally reshape the global economy.

“For the United States to remain competitive, we must provide products and services to the growing masses, and we have to innovate to the needs of the billions of potential consumers at the bottom or middle of the income pyramid.”

The Frugal Innovation Lab: Technology to Benefit Society

— Radha Basu, director, Frugal Innovation Lab

With the vibrancy of emerging-market growth, the School of Engineering’s Frugal Innovation Lab (FIL) meets this new paradigm head-on by offering undergraduate and graduate courses, hosting student and faculty research projects, and partnering with field-based social enterprises in emerging markets. Impactful work is being done in simple yet powerful ways. Projects range from designs and prototypes to implemented and utilized products and services. Students learn within the lab as well as interact with field-based social entrepreneurs and global partners to solve real-world problems.

Through the Frugal Innovation Lab’s primary technology focus areas—mobile devices, cloud platforms, and 3D printing—solutions are pioneered to address human needs in three main areas: Global Health health care provision, information, and management, and alert systems for disaster relief, especially with mobile devices

Clean Water analysis, filtration, purification, verification, distribution, management, and training

Renewable Energy alternative forms of energy generation, distribution and storage, especially to communities without access to an electrical grid

How you can become involved: Students Take an undergraduate or graduate course through the Frugal Innovation Lab that offers hands-on industry experience and knowledge n Attend workshops and seminars hosted by FIL, with emphasis on topics such as mobile app development n Join your professor on a cutting-edge research project n Work with social entrepreneurs n Tailor your senior design project to work with enterprises that use technology to benefit society n

Faculty Apply for a course release to teach a technical elective or an area-specific class in the Frugal Innovation Lab n Co-teach a class n Join us as a guest lecturer n Invite students to work on a research project n

Supporters

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Sponsor a senior design project Host a workshop Mentor our teams Fund a student competition Ask us about the numerous opportunities for individuals and organizations to support our program

FIL Partners Partnerships with academic institutions, industry leaders, and NGO networks provide expertise to our projects and help to expand Santa Clara University’s contribution to the innovation ecosystem.

FIL continually seeks ways to leverage its expertise to maximize social impact through the following partnering opportunities: n Incubating entrepreneurial projects with industry mentors n Hosting corporate workshops for the developing world n Consulting with corporate partners, nonprofits, and foundations

For more information:

408-554-2334 FIL@scu.edu www.scu.edu/engineering/frugal

The Jesuit University in Silicon Valley

FPO

SCU OMC-8165A 9/2013 1000

Frugal Innovation Lab School of Engineering Santa Clara University 500 El Camino Real Santa Clara, CA 95053