I used to work in the 3rd world, and I can tell you that most people who have long-term experience in doing relief and development work in developing countries will tell you that the most sustainable way forward are locally targeted initiatives, with simple machines that step a local group forward, generally along the same lines that innovations happened in the developed world. For example, in Afghanistan, the best thing to happen to the infant mortality rate in several regions has not been the creation of a new, relatively modern hospital, but instead mid-wife training programs. (I'm sorry I don't have citations at hand, I was at some presentations in country when I heard this) Especially in places like rural India that have the potential to be conflict zones, this man inventing a cheap, simple machine and selling the machine instead of selling napkins, is an overall net win, it will make him money eventually and it will increase access to sanitary napkins.

Finally, check into the Howard G Buffet foundation for modern success stories on teaching farmers to use non-industrial techniques, and check out a UNDP project, I think in Loghar province in Afghanistan, where they spent time teaching farmers some American 1930s level farming techniques to increase crop yields three fold without machinery and in a fairly sustainable fashion. (Again, I don't have a citation because this came from talking to a project guy in country, I can't even remember who he was working for now)

Basically, what this inventor is the right way to create a sustainable, inexpensive way to increase the usage of sanitary napkins throughout India. Your way might make more money, but has problems if the goal is to increase women's health, which this man's goal clearly is.

*edited for clarity in a couple spots.

If you consider that his product is the napkin-making machine rather than the napkins themselves, he does.

> If he creates a better industry, he can keep the profits in India.

Profits are kept in india, instead of building his own giant he empowers others.

All in all, your comment seems to make little sense and to have stopped at the second paragraph in the article or something.

Maybe they aren't super rich but I am sure the napkin makers and the inventor are both doing better then they would otherwise and more importantly they are keeping the money in India.

Are you sure about that?

If every (menstruating) woman in your village purchases their sanitary napkins from you every month because you've got the one machine within 25 miles, you may have a compelling small business, especially when adjusted for cost of living and ease of labor.

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/the-haves-and-t...

Actually, forcing third world farmers to compete internationally on the global market is what bankrupts them and pushes them into financial slavery. They do just fine without industrialized machines otherwise.

Oh, you're scrounging for rags and ash to catch period blood? I have a machine here you can buy that will let you make napkins from tree bark. I'll even show you how to use it. That's not a subsidy, and it is very much improving the technology at their disposal in a very intentionally iterative way. This isn't a subsidy.

The same goes for teaching farmers sustainable practices. Much of the developing world's issues with hunger are due to poor land management, not a lack of technology. Buffer zones to prevent erosion and good irrigation need to be subsidized in the short term, but in the long term they're going to be self-sustaining.

In general, you're talking about this as if it's a straight giveaway. It's not. It's coming in and saying "you are having health issues/money issues/food issues because you are doing x, y, and z wrong. Here's how you can do it better." Some technology is definitely helpful. But western-style factory farming isn't the obvious solution for subsistence farmers, not by a long shot.

Yes. When the west was developing industrialization, for example, we heavily subsidized burgeoning industry (and still do).

He must have assumed that everybody is as driven as he. I think he's learning the hard way that the problem with poverty isn't necessarily high prices or profit. The biggest shortage is proactive people. You can choose to distribute the wealth, but having observed the general propensity for defeatism in people, I've gradually become an advocate of rather giving means (money, time, resources) to the handful that break from the mold and get things done.

In addition to allowing him to get more done, I also believe that turning in a profit would help him acquire enough notoriety to break down some of those cultural barriers.

Letting people rot in misery increases human misery because those people multiply. I agree that throwing money at the problem is not a solution. But in the West, we have hordes of people who are trained to help others help themselves. Why aren't we throwing psychologists at the poor?

Inner city American ghettos are filled with single mother families that find it psychologically and culturally impossible to make use of the educational opportunities offered to them because before a human can learn intellectually, they need to learn basic emotional skills. They need to learn basic character and coping skills, which is what psychologists teach to those individuals whose parents failed to teach them.

Intervention in poverty should be tasked to the psychologists primarily. Educators make no inroads. Entrepreneurs rarely do either. You rightly pinpoint the issue as defeatism and other psychological disorders -- we have hordes of people who know how to fix this. Let's use them.

http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_the_good_news_of_the_d...

Now, his idea is that lot of NGOs in various villages have to make this investment of 1200$ (which is a LOT of money for people living in villages), install the machine, make the napkins and then sell them.

What the OP and I suggest is that he should create/install machines in his own factory, optimize the process even further and then using economies of scale create cheap napkins which every women can afford. Having a central location to drive the prices lower is much easier than installing machines in a country as big as India. And I think he should be able to easily get Investment because his invention is featured at the national level. [And if he can't get Investment, I will start a kickstarter project and send him the money.]

The real problems are marketing(which the article says is a huge problem) and distribution(which from what i read about india, is a huge problem too).

The franchise model seems like a good way to solve those problems, and from what i read about this stuff it's pretty common as a way to solve marketing and distribution in india.

His plan is bad because he creates yet another cause to give money to. With a business, he gets the same outcome and doesn't need help. It's a win-win-win!

Of course, this defeats the stated purpose of encouraging usage by poor Indian women, but if the point is to make money...

Let's start from the scratch. The goal is this:

Create affordable sanitary napkins for women in India.

To achieve this goal, he worked hard to master the first step i.e. to be able to manufacture the napkins at low cost. Great.

Now there are two approaches:

1. Sell machines to different NGOs so that they can create their own napkins. As I mentioned it requires hefty investment of 1,200$. Also, I think it's easy to underestimate how much effort is required to reach different parts of India and selling the concept of these machines.

2. Create machines on his own (using outside investment if needed) and create cheap napkins afforded by economies of scale. He can use the money from the sales and extend it create a better process, better machine and drive prices even lower. He can now rely on an existing vast distributor network to spread these products all over India [I refer you to my shampoo sachet example in this comment: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3370219]. Heck, he can now even export it to other developing countries.

If the goal is to make napkins available to more women in India (and everywhere else), I think that 2nd approach is vastly superior than first. What do you think?

PS: If there is a viable market, I suspect some of those groups will start to grow and you may end up with the type of large company you want him to build.