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PRECONFERENCE cancelled
Learning from and Designing Innovative Solutions for the Base of the Pyramid or Subsistence Marketplaces:
An Immersive and Interactive Workshop
By
Madhu Viswanathan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Full-day workshop on learning from and designing innovative product solutions for subsistence marketplaces or the base of the pyramid. Hands-on, interactive program for innovation practitioners.
Registration - Separate Registration From Main Conference Required
NATURE OF THE WORKSHOP
Our workshop will be immersive and interactive, moving toward deep understanding of subsistence marketplaces as well as envisioning solutions. To develop understanding of subsistence marketplaces, we will use exercises to enable participants to view the world from the eyes of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs, facilitate bottom-up understanding generated by participants, and provide insights from extensive research. To envision solutions for subsistence marketplaces, we will use small group assignments and summarize insights from our project based and research based experiences.
DETAILS
9:00 am - 3:30 pm, UIC, Chicago, July 9
Pre-workshop
- Assignment to read abridged interviews of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs
- Analysis of videos
- Understanding product needs and innovation opportunities for subsistence marketplaces
Part 1 - Understanding Subsistence Marketplaces
Overview and Introduction
- Overview of Workshop and Introductions of participants
- Assignment to groups based on registration information
- Discussion of preassigned interviews of subsistence consumers and entrepreneurs
- Discussion of why subsistence marketplaces are important
Break
Virtual Immersion
- Multimedia-based Virtual Immersion Exercise with individual reflection as basis for product development
- Small group discussion of larger context, and narrower needs and usage situations
- Small group presentations
- Discussion
Lunch
Part 2 - Designing Solutions for Subsistence Marketplaces
Emersion
Insights from Subsistence Marketplaces
Break
Designing Solutions for Subsistence Marketplaces
- Small group discussion – Envisioning solutions
- Small group presentations
- Product and Business Model Innovations for Subsistence Marketplaces
- From Innovative Solutions to Large-Scale Impact? A Case-study of the Marketplace Literacy Project
Profile of Madhu Viswanathan
Madhu Viswanathan is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where he has been on the faculty since 1990. He earned a B. Tech in Mechanical Engineering (Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, India, 1985), and a PhD in Marketing (University of Minnesota, 1990). His research programs are in two areas; measurement and research methodology, and literacy, poverty, and subsistence marketplace behaviors. He has authored books in both areas: Measurement Error and Research Design (Sage, 2005), and Enabling Consumer and Entrepreneurial Literacy in Subsistence Marketplaces (Springer, 2008, in alliance with UNESCO).
His research on subsistence marketplaces takes a micro-level approach to gain bottom-up understanding of life circumstances and buyer, seller, and marketplace behaviors. This approach should be distinguished from macro-level economic approaches, and mid-level business strategy approaches such as base of the pyramid (BOP) research This perspective aims to enable subsistence marketplaces to move toward being ecologically, economically, and socially sustainable marketplaces. He directs the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative (www.business.illinois.edu/subsistence) and has created unique synergies between research, teaching, and social initiatives. All three arenas involve engagement of large and small businesses and social enterprises, as well as a diverse set of students and faculty across different disciplines. He has organized conferences in the area of subsistence marketplaces bringing together researchers and practitioners and edited publications of nascent research in this area.
He teaches courses on research methods and on subsistence and sustainability. A yearlong, one-of-a-kind inter-disciplinary graduate-level course with students from engineering, business and other areas focuses on sustainable product and market development for subsistence marketplaces and involves an international immersion experience. Other teaching initiatives include a module for all (approximately 600) incoming undergraduate business majors on developing sustainable businesses for subsistence marketplaces, and graduate and undergraduate level courses on sustainable business enterprises. These teaching innovations aim to challenge students to appreciate diverse perspectives across the globe and imagine circumstances beyond one’s immediate experience, while working toward a better world.
He founded and directs the Marketplace Literacy Project (www.marketplaceliteracy.org), a non-profit organization. After many years of offering and customizing a unique marketplace literacy program in India, it is currently being scaled through large organizations, with plans to expand to other countries and contexts. Previous work in research and practice has focused on market access and financial resources (e.g., microlending); two important elements that enable impoverished individuals to participate in the marketplace. This educational program focuses on a third important element that has not been emphasized in research and practice - marketplace literacy. His team has also developed materials for nutritional education programs currently being used in the state of Illinois. He received the Social Entrepreneurship Award from the University of Illinois and Champaign County Economic Development and the International Humanitarian Award from the Cities of Champaign and Urbana in 2008. He received the Bharat Gaurav (India Pride) Award from the India International Friendship Society in Delhi, India, in 2010, given to people of Indian origin around the world for outstanding leadership in their fields. He will received the College of Business Alumni Association Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching in 2010.
