Gustavo Gennuso
Pumping Life into
Marginalized Communities
ETV’s Technology Model
Discussion de cas sur les innovations:
Emprendimientos de Tecnologías para la Vida
Emprendimientos de Tecnologías para la Vida (ETV) is a social enterprise whose
development was based on the principles and activities of Fundación Gente Nueva
(FGN).1 Both ETV and FGN are headquartered in the city of Bariloche, located in
a mountainous area of Patagonia, in Argentina. ETV produces and sells appropri-
ate technologies throughout the country, specifically targeting underprivileged
communautés, primarily in rural and suburban areas. The organization’s work
strategy, described in this case, is based on networking with public and private
organizations to reach potential customers.
ETV is currently marketing a product called a rope pump, which allows peo-
ple to draw water from as deep as 50 meters and raise it up to 8 meters above
ground level. Highly efficient, the pump can replace other manual extraction sys-
thèmes. ETV also produces motor-driven versions of the rope pump, and spinning
wheels that local artisans use to spin wool.
ETV came into being to resolve a range of social issues, based on the under-
standing that most of the developments intended to improve the quality of life for
people in isolated or impoverished communities never reach those people. Ils
are left in the drawers of the technology experts, and at best win a prize for inno-
vation. ETV’s aim is to develop a sustainable system that will allow technologies to
reach those communities more easily.
This concept was one of the primary motivations for developing ETV,
although certainly not the only one. En fait, several factors converged to form the
project.
A nuclear engineer by training, Gustavo Gennuso is a social entrepreneur. He is the
Founder and Director of Fundación Gente Nueva (FGN) and of Emprendimientos de
Tecnologías para la Vida. Through FGN he has co-founded ten schools in poor com-
munities and initiated many social programs.
© 2010 Gustavo Gennuso
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Let me begin this story by describing the ETV concept more fully and identi-
fying four of the main reasons why appropriate technologies do not get to the peo-
ple who need them.
Designers of technologies are often located far from those who will benefit from
eux. Designers often fail to consider the culture of the users. Technologies are
designed primarily to achieve the best technical performance, and we tend to for-
get the relationship between person and product—or, more precisely, between cul-
ture and product. ETV seeks to change that dynamic. Par exemple, our spinning
wheels are made of wood, which honors the tradition in the region where the
wheels are made and used. Although a metal spinning wheel would be easier to
make and consequently cheaper, ETV still cannot gain wide acceptance for such a
changement.
People and groups are motivated to choose certain products. Knowing the inter-
ests and motivations of different cultural groups can help producers provide them
with the technologies that will benefit them the most. Some groups’ interest in
improving their own quality of life is mediated by production (agricultural or arti-
sanal, for example) and thus favors production-related technologies, cependant
much the producers may believe they need other technologies. These groups rea-
son that improving production will improve other aspects of their lives, et ça
therefore they need to start there. Some groups consider ETV’s rope pump an
improvement for the home, while others believe its primary benefit is for irriga-
tion. Because of such differences in reasoning, ETV needs to know how to interact
with the people it wants to reach in order to determine how to design its products.
Knowledge of the groups and their contexts determines design guidelines.
Although this is a fundamental concept in technological production, too often it is
not taken into account. Designers often lack information about the contexts of the
people for whom they design their products. Consider a community that has no
source of spare parts for the products its people buy. These people need products
that do not break easily or that can be repaired easily. Par exemple, FTV’s rope
pump stands on two wooden braces; based on our experience in the part of
Patagonia where we are located, these braces can easily be replaced by anyone who
has two pieces of wood appropriate for the purpose. But when we were installing
rope pumps in the La Puna region, we were surprised to discover that wooden
braces are rare because the only wood locals use is the wood of the prickly pear (un
type of cactus), which cannot be used for a brace. Because of this oversight, le
manufacturer had to travel hundreds of kilometers in search of braces. This taught
us that even if a product seems to be universal, every community will add its
unique characteristics. Par exemple, in certain areas in Africa, the structure around
the rope pump must be covered up because of a local rivalry that leads people to
cut the rope of their neighbor’s pump as an act of provocation.
Developing a technology doesn’t mean it is ready to be distributed or marketed.
Innovators of appropriate technologies often feel that their prototype or initial
design will serve as the final product. But this is a mistaken assumption, as a new
design has a long way to go before it becomes a product ready for distribution. Il
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Pumping Life into Marginalized Communities
takes considerable effort to advance an idea from a prototype to a product ready
for distribution, complete with interchangeable parts, spare parts, the possibility of
compact packaging, etc..
THE DISTRIBUTION OF APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGIES
The key issue with appropriate technologies is distribution. ETV has identified
several distribution strategies emanating from wider concepts. Without invalidat-
ing any of them, ETV evaluated the characteristics of each of these concepts and
then determined its own strategy. Some of the strategies include:
Do it yourself. There are technologies whose simplicity encourages organiza-
tions or individuals to “distribute” them by actually teaching local people, groupes,
or communities to make them on their own. In ETV’s experience, cependant, few
people actually manufacture the products in question, and when they do they are
usually of very poor quality. Par exemple, these local people tend to be agricultur-
al producers, so that is what they know how to do; they are not pump manufactur-
ers. The poor quality of the products they produce results in people spreading a
negative image of the pumps by word of mouth.
Continuing with the rope-pump example, each person who makes one is in
fact making a prototype. Because they do not have the interchangeable parts, ils
use whatever materials they can find and may replace parts with bottle caps or
pieces of rubber, etc.. This creates the idea that the product can be made at very low
coût; even those who promote this type of distribution say so. But this is a fallacy:
this type of “distribution” has a very low impact in terms of the number of bene-
ficiaries and the quality of the product. En outre, other people are discouraged
from acquiring our pumps because they feel they are being ripped off when asked
to pay the price of items produced on a real production line.
Local production. Some people promote production in small community
workshops, an improved variant of the do-it-yourself model. Although this may
seem to be a good idea because it develops local production capacity, few of these
shops are really successful. The main problem is that people fail to consider that
demand will be limited to the area of production, thus these workshops will not be
financially sustainable. This approach does take into account the fact that people
need training, not only for production but also for sales and distribution. Cependant,
training is not enough. De plus, locally produced products don’t just sell them-
selves; they need to be marketed, which takes money.
Several other factors help explain why appropriate technology does not reach
people. They have to do with work philosophies that lead to errors or misinterpre-
tations, which in turn hinder the adequate distribution of appropriate technolo-
gies. Two of the most important factors are lack of knowledge and mistrust.
Lack of knowledge about what it means to produce and distribute a product.
Technology experts—and even some NGOs—often do not realize how vital cost
structure is to those taking on the production and distribution of an appropriate
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Opportunties for Employment, and Pride. Manuel had problems with addiction
a few years ago and even landed in prison briefly. Today he is the chief operator in
the manufacture of rope pumps. He is able to support his family, thanks to this work,
but in addition—and this is key—he is proud of his work. He feels that he has some-
thing to give to others, and he can see the fruits of his labor. At ETV we know that
it is workers like Manuel who make the difference.
technologie. They often fail to consider basic issues such as marketing, operational
structure, taxes, packaging, etc.—and then they underestimate their costs.
Par conséquent, the product is discredited because of its apparently high price while
its true cost remains unknown.
Those who criticize ETV for putting high prices on its products include peo-
ple at public institutions that have developed similar products. They think ETV’s
prices could be lower, but they forget that ETV must pay salaries; meanwhile, their
own salaries are paid by the state. They also ignore other costs that the state pays
for at public institutions, including the use of facilities and services.
Mistrust of those who sell technology in underprivileged communities. Ici, let
me provide an example. Many who buy rope pumps or spinning wheels are small
agricultural producers, so it is striking that some are suspicious about the idea of
“selling” technology to these people. Entre-temps, the consumers see it as simply
another part of their economic activity and they understand it well, perhaps even
better than those who advise them.
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Pumping Life into Marginalized Communities
The analysis described above has helped shape ETV, which has often learned
from the mistakes in these examples. As I said at the start, ETV is a social enter-
prise. Although this definition creates some ambiguity, as the category can include
organizations with various characteristics, the company can still make three
claims:
• The products and services ETV offers are directed at families in underprivi-
leged communities in an attempt to improve their quality of life.
• ETV’s workers are mostly young people who are at risk socially, and the com-
pany aims to gradually build a participatory structure that includes them.
• ETV has committed the company’s earnings, after making necessary reinvest-
ments, to the Fundación Gente Nueva’s educational projects.
These ideas are embedded in ETV’s vision and mission, which can be summa-
rized as follows:
ETV’s mission is to develop, produce, and disseminate technologies that
will enhance the development of those living in underprivileged situa-
tions and provide access to the basic services that are indispensable to a
decent quality of life, and to do so by operating a company that is social-
ly, financially, and environmentally sustainable.
WHAT IS ETV DOING TO CARRY OUT ITS MISSION?
ETV set out to develop a product that would improve the quality of life for those
whom society has neglected and generally forgotten. A critical component was that
the product had to allow for the development of a sustainable business model. Le
resulting product was the rope pump. The pump can also be motorized, en utilisant
clean energy such as solar or wind. Estimates from census data indicate that
270,000 families in Argentina draw water by hand; 27,000 of these are located in
rural areas and the remainder in suburban areas.
ETV believed it was important to identify its target customers at an early stage
in order to work with them most effectively. Our most challenging target was the
rural sector, which was dispersed across the country and included geographical
areas that are difficult to access. ETV took on this challenge, which it saw as reflect-
ing both its mission and its principles, and because it offered an opportunity to
provide solutions to a neglected market.
Reaching these small rural communities and families imposed conditions on
ETV’s products, and on our production, marketing, sales, and distribution chan-
nels. I cannot overemphasize how essential it was to ETV’s decision-making to
know the characteristics of our potential customers in the greatest possible detail.
THE ROPE PUMP
As shown in Figure 1, the rope pump is a system for drawing water manually from
hand-drilled wells, reservoirs, streams, and all types of water sources. It can reach
a depth of 50 meters and can draw water 6 à 8 meters above ground level. C'est un
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Chiffre 1. The Rope Pump
very old technology, adapted in the 1960s for use in Central America. ETV modi-
fied it for production and marketing in Argentina according to strict guidelines:
relatively low cost, excellent quality, low maintenance. Rope pumps come in sever-
al types. The petiza (little one) pump has a water outlet 0.90 meters above ground
level. The jirafa (giraffe) pump has a water outlet 6 meters above ground level.
Both the petiza and the jirafa can be driven by a motor using either wind energy
or batteries connected to a solar panel.
In developing and producing the rope pumps, ETV had to meet six standards:
Good quality. ETV’s products had to be designed to last a long time and offer
excellent performance, and they had to provide quality-control systems. These
considerations were important not only to ensure that products would perform
well, but also because the company respects its customers, who all too often had
been sold poor-quality products because their main concern was low cost.
Low cost. Balancing low cost with good quality was a major challenge, but not
an impossible one. It involved seeking out suppliers and developing production
systems that could minimize the amounts of labor and wasted materials.
Ease of repair. Most of our customers do not have easy access to spare parts, nor
do they know how to operate complex repair tools. Therefore we designed the rope
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Pumping Life into Marginalized Communities
Doña Clementina’s New Pump. Doña Clementina lives in a place called Gualjaina
on the plains of Patagonia, in a precariously built house many kilometers away from
any other. She lives by raising sheep and a cow or two, and from the produce of her
small farm, où, at great sacrifice, she raised her five children. She had been draw-
ing water with a bucket and a rope for over 60 années. That’s why she looks so happy
now with her rope pump, which allows her to water the farm crops and have water
inside the house. She complains because the water tank has been exposed to the sun
so much that the water comes out warm, as she’s used to “really cold” water. Nous
showed her how she can have a direct water outlet without the water going through
the tank, and she tells us that relatives have come from far away to see what this rope
pump is all about.
pump so that it can be repaired with very few tools, and the spare parts that users
may eventually need are provided with the new pump.
Ease of installation. Ideally, products designed for people in remote areas can
be installed by the users themselves. This requires providing handbooks geared
specifically to them. All ETV rope pumps are delivered with an appropriate user
handbook, which includes a telephone number that customers can call if any prob-
lems arise. De plus, to be sure that help is available in all the regions where the
product is sold, ETV trains local people—generally former customers—how to
install the pumps.
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Design that includes distribution. The product design must take into account
that it will be shipped hundreds or thousands of kilometers via various modes of
transportation. Donc, designing a product that can be packaged compactly is
as important as the packaging system itself.
Partnering with technology institutions. ETV believes it is important to partner
with institutions that can bring specialized knowledge to its products. It must also
persuade those partner institutions—generally government agencies—to devote
part of their activity to technological developments that fulfill people’s basic needs.
The design of ETV’s rope pump and spinning wheel, Par exemple, involved tech-
nology experts from Argentina’s technology institutes, which added great value to
the designs.
MARKETING, SALES, AND DISTRIBUTION CHANNELS
Determining a strategy for marketing, sales, and distribution requires knowledge
of our potential beneficiaries or customers, and the ability to infer general trends
that will guide our actions and thus let us take full advantage of our potential activ-
ities. ETV is trying to reach people who are dispersed across a large territory, in a
range of living conditions determined by where they live. ETV’s approach has been
to promote partnerships with public and private organizations. Most families or
small communities have a relationship with some type of organization. In the vast
area it aims to serve, ETV has encountered various types of NGOs, sales coopera-
tives, and public institutions; some are nationwide and others are regional or local
(see Table 1). Before starting, it’s important to be committed to the idea of these
channels as the means for disseminating products. The next two steps are being
responsible for sales, and being a distribution hub.
At ETV we have found that word of mouth is the most successful driver of dis-
semination, so we encourage our partners to use the marketing materials we have
prepared. Cependant, our primary focus is on getting our products operating in the
public places where our partners are located so that potential customers can see
them at work—for example, installing a rope pump in a school, community cen-
ter, or some other highly visible spot. Initially we sent our partners free samples for
this purpose, but we found that partner organizations were more likely to make a
firm commitment if they shared the costs. In most cases, someone from ETV is
present at the installation of the sample product to demonstrate how it is used,
which creates enthusiasm among those who are watching.
Aussi, the organizations that sponsor these demonstrations usually process the
purchases made by local families, so they become the sales channel for us.
Although ETV proposes that the organizations keep a percentage of the sales and
the organizations accept this arrangement, they also consider it a form of payment
just to know they are providing a service to their contact families. Often the organ-
izations that process the purchases also provide credit or otherwise subsidize their
beneficiaries. ETV has sought out other financing options through microcredit
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Pumping Life into Marginalized Communities
Tableau 1. Clients and the Channels to Reach Them
organizations working in the target areas; we put our partner organizations in
touch with the microcredit organizations in order to strengthen their position.
Distribution is the major obstacle to reaching people with appropriate tech-
nologies. Donc, ETV seeks to open two-way channels: to reach people with the
technologie, and to become “receivers” of their needs. ETV proposes to use as dis-
tribution hubs the same local organizations it uses for marketing and sales. Depuis
where it is located, ETV can reach Argentinean cities of over 10,000 inhabitants rel-
atively easily. But the logistics and costs of distribution become more complex for
the “final shipment”—from those cities to the final destinations in the field or in
small communities. Toujours, we commonly find that the local organizations have fluid
channels in operation for reaching customers. En fait, ETV has been able to add
new products since it activated this two-way distribution channel, including the
solar-driven rope pumps and the spinning wheel.
LEARNING
The strategy of developing partnerships with local organizations has turned out to
be very powerful for ETV: it would be impossible for us to duplicate the logistics
and marketing possibilities that each organization offers. Par exemple, ETV has
installed rope pumps in the province of Salta near a place called Embarcación,
which is home to native Wichie communities. These communities are in the mid-
dle of inaccessible forests some 2,400 kilometers from where the rope pump is pro-
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duced. ETV could not have reached them without its partner organization,
Fundapaz.
We have also distributed pumps to several communities in the northern high-
lands of the Argentine Puna, which borders Bolivia and is 3,500 meters above sea
level. We could reach these places only through the efforts of a women’s organiza-
tion called Warmis, which made the logistics and microcredit possible. In another
area of the Puna, the rope pumps arrived through the work of a public institution,
Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria. It mounted a rope pump on a
small truck and visited local communities to demonstrate it and stimulate sales.
Although this type of partnership has great potential, ETV did discover certain
issues in this strategy that made it more difficult to operate, and we feared it might
extend to other situations. Par exemple, the pump is directly linked to the issue of
eau. Although all of our partner or potential partner organizations recognize
that water issues are a priority for their beneficiaries, few are directly involved in
solving water problems; at most they deal with water-related issues such as agricul-
tural production. Par conséquent, they direct the bulk of their time and effort
toward their primary mission, while water and pumps run a distant second. As a
result, ETV is seeing a slowdown in the rate of sales and their distribution is below
expectations.
Faced with this reality, ETV has revised its strategy to help improve its market-
ing. Through our partnerships, we have gotten to know local communities and
their people, which has allowed us to develop microfranchises. In agreement with
our partner organizations, we selected people from the communities we serve to
distribute and sell ETV products in their area. We train these people and provide
them the materials they need. This approach allows us to reach more customers
and stimulate demand. Par exemple, families that were unfamiliar with ETV’s
products now request them from the partner organizations, which in turn help
customers with the credit or subsidies they need to buy them. ETV has put togeth-
er a catalog of products for these microfranchisees, which includes products from
a couple of companies similar to ETV that produce farm tools.
In order to continue and increase their activities, ETV and companies like it
need investors. No system of investors has yet been developed for social enterpris-
es with ETV’s characteristics. Although our company has been well received at
investment meetings, our proposals are rarely a match with the investors’ inten-
tion, which are strongly based on direct profitability, including selling a company
relatively quickly. Social enterprises like ETV can offer indirect profitability, mais
that requires creating a system of investors. Social enterprises like ETV may have
low direct profitability, but it is vital to consider indirect profitability: le
improved quality of life for the people being served. ETV and other social enter-
prises must find a way to calculate this indirect profitability so we can gradually
build up a system of investors who will see indirect profitability as a direct contri-
bution to society, one they would otherwise make through foundations or chari-
liens. This will enable them to make donations through their main area of interest,
investissement.
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Pumping Life into Marginalized Communities
Diversifying our products remains a major challenge for ETV. Pour y parvenir,
ETV must intensify our partnerships with institutions of technological develop-
ment, which will enable us to develop more quickly. En fait, the solutions to most
problems mentioned in this essay have been developed; the challenge for ETV is to
find those solutions and adapt them to our operation.
LOOKING TO THE FUTURE
ETV is still in its final stages as a start-up. About 300 families have benefited from
its products, et plus 20 public and private organizations are part of its network.
Now we need to see the structure we have built facilitate a commensurate level of
sales so we can achieve financial sustainability. ETV knows it needs to clarify the
concept of social enterprise and to find a common language with other similar
organizations so they can unite to promote a new sector, one that is moved by a
different logic and needs different types of responses.
At this point, one of ETV’s biggest challenges in expanding is to search for
investors so it can reach out and diversify its products. The search for investors is
an important activity for social enterprises. On the one hand it forces us to under-
stand a new way of thinking. On the other hand it is opening us up to an investor
market to which we are proposing a form of investment different from that of a
traditional firm. This forces us to find points in common and to develop new
investment concepts.
Beyond these considerations, the most gratifying thing about our work at ETV
is to look straight into the eyes of someone who, after three turns of the wheel, sees
water flowing through a pipe and into their home for the very first time. That look
is proof that our efforts are worthwhile.
1. Literally, Emprendimientos de Tecnologías para la Vida means “technology entrepreneurship for
life.” Its more subtle meaning in Spanish is “entrepreneurial activities that use technologies to
improve lives.” Its parent foundation, Fundación Gente Nueva, which means “new people foun-
dation,” is involved in education through its own schools and through community projects in
impoverished communities.
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