Arunachalam Muruganantham is a hero. I use that word in its full magnitude. Since I am now an expert on the matter, having read the entire article, I'll speculate on what motivates this man:
- Grit. Crazy amounts of grit. The article is full of good quotes, but my favorite is what he said after being abandoned by his mother:
"It was a problem for me," he says. "I had to cook my own food."
- Humility combined with hunger:
"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."
"Every time he comes to know something new, he wants to know everything about it," [his wife] says.
- Love of humanity, on some level at least:
"Anyone with an MBA would immediately accumulate the maximum money. But I did not want to. Why? Because from childhood I know no human being died because of poverty - everything happens because of ignorance."
As an aside, I LOVE the picture of his wife and daughter toward the end. This one photograph lends better context to the story than all the others combined. I know a single picture means nothing, but the look in his daughter's eyes makes me think she'll inherit something of her dad's baddassness.
And as another aside, bloody god-damn fucking hell, are the following bits really true?
There are still many taboos around menstruation in India. Women can't visit temples or public places, they're not allowed to cook or touch the water supply - essentially they are considered untouchable.
There are also myths and fears surrounding the use of sanitary pads - that women who use them will go blind, for example, or will never get married.
Such myths abound globally, especially in rural environments. Worse myths exist around tampons--that a woman who uses a tampon is no longer a virgin. The implications of this in more rural societies are staggering, as young women can lose marital prospects or even be killed.
What impressed me most about his work was the lengths he went to in order to understand the problems the women were facing. That "football uterus" made him an outcast and he was rejected, which is not wholly unlike how menstrual women were treated in his village. He really got the full "customer" experience.
His work will also greatly help those women who have severe menstrual bleeding problems, in which they bleed non-stop for weeks (or months or, sadly, years) at a time. Not only are they outcasts in their communities, but even children will pelt them with rocks. It's profoundly sad.
It might sound trite, but we hear about the man who built the Taj Mahal for his beloved wife. Look at how much he is revered! Now consider what this man has done out of love for his wife--he has far eclipsed even that magnificent structure.
Lest someone believe this is a belief held only in rural areas, let it be clear that ideas like this are incredibly common in not-so-rural places like in the US. It's usually accompanied by some equally ridiculous beliefs about what virginity is in the first place (protip: it's about having sex for the first time, not about whether the woman bleeds or how "tight" anything is), hard to find comprehensive and unbiased education, the total lack of knowledge of or misinformation concerning alternatives to pads and tampons (reusables, cups), and straight up shaming and misinformation about birth control usage. The big difference between the poorer and the richer is that honor killings, genital mutilation, and whatnot are far less common for the latter.
I love what this guy did for his wife and other women in the same situation, but there's no shortage of similar problems for women elsewhere and I wonder if there will be something revolutionary on that front too any time soon. I've been considering going to med school and see if I can eventually merge my interest in that and tech at the same time to do something here but that's a long term iffy goal, and surely there are already others interested in the same thing too.
I'm pretty lucky to have had reasonable and educated parents that were willing to tell me (or let me discover) all I wanted to know about these things when I was 10. But it feels like at least once a week if not daily I discover a teen or a preteen or even an adult woman asking basic questions on one of the women-focused communities I spend my time in. I wish I could help them. :(
Unfortunately yes, and it isn't just in India. Many religions (if the relevant magic texts are followed literally and/or followed by the more aggressive interpretations) consider menstruating women to be a curse upon the world to be shunned until they get their shit together and stop all that bleeding nonsense.
I've seen educated folks doing this as well, so, sadly yes. It is true. Most women follow it because their mothers/sisters have been doing it. Since it is so common, people tend to accept these superstitions more easily.
If as stated in this article in these regions during menstruation:
1) The woman uses dirt, sand, ash and rags which are never sterilized but just reused month after month.
2) 70% of all pregnancy related medical issues can be tied back to this lack of hygene
Then its not unreasonable to say that the women are unclean in this period and should not have contact with the village water supply... its actually good sense.
Certainly, these are crazy and superstitious, but given the realities of the times they come from, many of them were a net benefit to their rural society (or have minimal impact) - which is how they've survived to this day.
We have better knowledge now, and we should embrace it, but someone isn't necessarily stupid for following these rules.
Every religion has elaborate rules to oppress woman. FYI, the Hebrew Bible has all the same stuff. (So I read in The Year of Living Biblically.)
It's a question of "how literally does society obey those rules?" Will Americans who use the Bible to justify their bigotry against gay people ... also agree to lock up Sarah Palin for five days/month? Not so far.
Note that in earlier times getting water in certain region might mean traveling for miles and then bringing water home, which could be pretty heavy. Same is true for cooking, an Indian joint family could be very big (20/25 members). And cooking for the whole family in open fire is not an easy feat either. So most of household work in a big joint family could be extremely strenuous. Some of these traditions let the woman avoid strenuous work during the mensuration.
Though I am speculating here, some of the tradition indeed could be meant for the well being of the woman. It may not be very relevant in the modern world though.
Absolutely amazing.
We're hoping to change that. I really want this space to become something that men and women, alike, will talk about. Good UI and UX has been missing, and women definitely deserve better.
However, there is a bigger story hiding behind this personal triumph. It's clear that people living in impoverished areas are not in a position to buy sanitary products at market rates (being sold at a margin of 4000% or more). But for example many do have access to cheap raw materials. It makes a ton of sense to simply make that stuff locally for a fraction of the cost, and with that comes a much greater independence for those poor regions. Let's hope that in time this becomes a trend that expands to many industries.
On a more general note, one of the big reasons for the Industrial Revolution's switch to mass-production was that making goods in huge factories is more efficient, and ultimately cheaper, than producing them locally in small quantities. Economies of scale are powerful.
Wealth disparity is an interesting animal. The rich don't consume 1000's of times more resources than the poor despite having 1000's of times more 'money'. The wealth divide seems to function like an insidious form control wherein the uber-rich are able to deny local markets permission to do things for themselves.
Its great to see when guys like this realize its all just made of paper (literally and figuratively in this case) and they can actually just do it for themselves.
I also don't think it's as simple as cutting margins. Note how much of the issue is/was down to social taboos and people being embarrassed about even things like buying them from men in the local shops.
Eventually, sure - as it says in the article he does not see himself as competing with the big manufacturers, but as opening up new markets for them. But if they make inroads it will not not be a bad thing.
What this guy is achieving is more than bringing down the price.
The job he is creating for these women is providing incalculable benefit to themselves, their families, their children and is adding more to the society (which operates on a completely different value system than your own) that can not be calculated in 20 pause less per pad.
Also, you mentioned the scale of economy, but didn't see that he achieved this price reduction without mass scale production which in itself is a big achievement.
Without going in much details, I'd say the capitalist approach does not always benefit the society. I know everybody here is a superstar techie working on the next big social success to allow people do more fluff, other people in other worlds may have different priorities.
The big difference here is that there is women selling these in private to other women. No man behind a counter. When the women come together about this, it may end up not being such a taboo, and they get advise on how to actually do this. So the game changer here isn't the price, but the community and independence for the women evolving around this product.
http://www.mapsofindia.com/top-ten/india-crops/cotton.html
Even if this particular business model would "only" work in India it'd be a success.
I'm still in total awe, Mr. Muruganantham is a true hacker.
>* He weighed it in his hand and wondered why 10g (less than 0.5oz) of cotton, which at the time cost 10 paise (£0.001), should sell for 4 rupees (£0.04) - 40 times the price.*
This is the first estimation of the material cost. Then he learned that they use cellulose. And I don't know if it considers the cost of the surrounding cloth or the plastic wrap. Just assume this is accurate and pick a material cost of 0.10 rupees/pad.
> [...] and provides employment for 10 women. They can produce 200-250 pads a day [...]
Assuming a 20 days/month work, we get 500 pads/month/worker. The minimum salary is slightly bigger than ~100 rupees, let's say 0.02 rupees/pad
I don't know the details in India, but tax and retirement founds and security health may add a 50%, that is 0.01 rupees/pad.
> A manual machine costs around 75,000 Indian rupees (£723) - a semi-automated machine costs more.
To recover machine the cost in 5 years, with 60000 pads/year, the result is 0.25 rupees/pad.
> First, a machine similar to a kitchen grinder breaks down the hard cellulose into fluffy material, which is packed into rectangular cakes with another machine.
Well, I don't know the cost of cellulose. Just assume that it's a good approximation to consider the cost of an equivalent amount of cotton instead, as in the first paragraph. [ * ]
Another cost source is the gas to cook the cellulose and the electricity for the light in the building and the building maintenance cost and ... I don't know how to do a good estimation of them, so just forget them.
And don't forget to add taxes.
Then my optimistic cost is 0.38 ruppes/pad and they sell them for 2.5 rupees, so it's a x6.6 margin, instead of a x25 margin.
[ * ] If I'm free to invent numbers, I'd like to double the material cost from 0.1 to 0.2 rupees/pad to consider the changes in the material. Then the total estimation is 0.48 ruppes/pad and the margin reduced to x5.2.
I also liked his quote that no person dies of poverty, but from ignorance.
That's because it doesn't take into consideration the biggest cost into consideration - the cost of human capital. A larger manufacturer cannot cut down the costs drastically, as the human capital at bigger companies is much larger than a small scale business.
A lot of companies dealing with products like these spend insane money on advertising, marketing and other mechanisms to sell their product. I think Pepsi can sell their drink at 1/10th price if they dropped the ads, sponsorships, marketing etc.
And not to mention. People themselves perceive cheaper products as that of low quality.
That'll will never happen because these village women have never been their customers.
Some economies of scale are attainable with small numbers of (or single) craftsmen. If you can batch operations, one person can rotate though steps of a process over the course of a day, or of days.
Another factor in the Industrial Revolution was the addition of both energy and capital. Where early energy sources were often inconveniently located: mill towns were, literally, located on waterways or elsewhere free energy was possible, often quite distant (and over very poor roads) from major populations, which is to say, either labor or markets.
The revolutions of steam and electricity meant that the scale of operations of factories could be both scaled up and down: smaller-scale equipment means that a local shop can produce goods, though typically this means on a highly specialized basis.
Other factors tend to increase cost of goods: advertising, marketing, and competitive fencing via exclusive marketing arrangements, patent enforcement, and the like.
A study in 2011 said that 70% couldn't afford sanitary napkins [0]. Until 2011 or so, sanitary napkins attracted a 14% luxury tax [1]. They were now reduced to 1%, only after pressure from NGOs.
[0] http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/70-cant-afford-sani...
[1] http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/08/ove...
Edit: link http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/bartering-veget...
I wonder if 'letting go' of the supply chain - regardless of the repercussions - would allow these methods to evolve...
And having the gumption to fight years of laughter, isolation, mockery and ridicule to only chase what you believe in is a very different thing than just building a company. You are fighting forces that you would do anything to see you fail. And this is beyond the merit of your product.
I salute this guy for not just what he has achieved. Though the margins he achieved will be eventually matched by bigger companies.
In many ways this is like the first man climbing the Everest or first space agency going to the moon. Others have been there after the first attempt. But the people who do it first, face significant obstacles. And they inspire all of us.
Sounds exactly like a startup.
When you want to change the world, nobody understands you.
Then suddenly things start working, and everybody "just knew" what you were doing was important.
They say that you identify pioneers by the arrows in their back.
What a profound and inspiring worldview.
"Luckily I'm not educated," he tells students. "If you act like an illiterate man, your learning will never stop... Being uneducated, you have no fear of the future."
"I would like to call your attention to a super piece of technology, the sailing ship. The sailing ship going through the sea is unlike a bulldozer. The sea closes behind the ship. The ship does no damage to the sea. The sailing ship employs the wind which is swirling ceaselessly around the earth without depleting any of the energy of the universe..." - Buckminster Fuller, from his piece in Alvin Toffler's book The Futurists.
You think so? If all those "mosquitos" decided to stop pestering you, you'd probably revise your analysis.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashrath_Manjhi
One man's epic struggle against the landscape, to not let others suffer as he did.
And then, even after having practically everyone around him ostracize and abandon him, he doesn't go for the money, but remains humble and does the best he can to make the world a better place.
Hell there is odd separation in the states amongst some of the workers from that country. You can see it in the groupings, who has lunch together, those who walk apart or turn down a hall when meeting
are you suggesting that caste system is related to skin color?
Instead, as the article makes clear, many poor villages don't even have ready access to clean water. This one humble guy has done more good for more people in India than 1000 grandiose schemes such as OLPC. And he wants to expand to 106 countries. I wish him well.
Not that tired old argument again. Yes, it is true. But lots also do. And lots have cellular broadband, and tons of relatively poor people have access to smartphones. Not all of the third world is the same.
And looking at the OLPC site now, they're up to 2.4 million of the thing. Not quite the numbers they'd hoped for, perhaps, but still 2.4 million children in developing countries who now have access to computing.
There's room for projects trying to address more than one issue, for more than one group of people.
Also, does your quipper think that women aren't important? I always find it amusing when people wax philosophical about equality whilst retreating into sexist terminology to do so. Instead of 'poor men', 'the poor' or 'poor people' works to the same effect.
Similar problem was in communist Czechoslovakia. There was only one factory making hygiene products for entire country, but it burned down on second year of 5 year plan. Central planning committee could not be arsed to change the plan...
http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...
He is so full of energy and his straight talk will win your heart ... What a person ... cheers ..
I believe TED is a sandbox for a number of powerful people to work out their interpersonal arguments about whether tech is good for the world or not. As such you will hear all presentations subtly presented in this light without the participants (presenters nor audience members) being aware. It's essentially a gladiatorial arena funded by the well-to-do, cleverly disguised as another "gee whiz" tech conference.
As such, stories and material are distorted toward arguing the spectral ends of the conference creators.
This is why there are so many stories presented that "make tech look silly, bad or overextended." They're placements by forces within the internal TED conflict that are trying to diminish public opinion about the benefits of technological practice.
Make no mistake- these people are happy to see TED come off as foolish or ruinous, b/c it supports their contingent's goals. They have founded TED with the intention of presenting foolish ideas to tarnish the concept of technology as a practice.
So, the age old advice applies here - take everything with a grain of salt. When you hear a presentation, get what you can out of it, realize it's not the full picture and seek out the missing pieces. Do not rely on TED for a coherent or complete picture of anything. It's just an artifact of debating idealogues.
I'm very impressed by his dedication, perseverance and inspiring outlook on life.
And additionally, why it is never a good idea to underestimate someone because of a lack of formal education.
(His email address is public on his company's site [1])
Something to think about.
Love this quote!
You're right though, to the end consumer it's not that meaningful of a reduction, especially since it is an expense that is only incurred once a month.
Perhaps someone could check an online Indian Amazon equivalent, not that such a place would be available to rural women anyway, but it would give a lower baseline.
@pja you are hereby awarded 1 Fermi (see recent link on the topic of Fermi estimates).
The saving is significant because one can also buy shampoo in sachets that cost Rs.5, so the savings expand access to a range of basic hygiene products.
I'm also not clear to what extent the mass-produced pads were actually available. He seems to have started out in a populated area with several villages and a significant town nearby. In more rural areas, was there even someplace you realistically could buy them?
For a longer answer you may want to consider the personal and social hurdles he had to overcome and that not all gains are measured in money.
I was under the impression that as women join the workforce their fertility plummets. This seems incredibly counterproductive if the problem is a "greying population"?
The velocity of money effectively increases the availability of money. It isn't so much how many coins you have, but how often each one gets spent. If you buy from someone who hires and spends locally, that money is more likely to come back around to you faster than if you buy from someone who spends or saves it somewhere else. And that distance isn't just as the crow flies, but also psychological distance. Thus, as a software writer, I should prefer to buy from companies that spend a lot on software, even if they don't ever pay me directly. It makes more sense for me to shop at Amazon or Wal*Mart than somewhere that figures the sales excise with a desk calculator, and better for me to patronize such a business in my own town than one just like it 500 miles away.
So it's not an apples-to-apples comparison, exactly. But trying to adjust the numbers to gauge the true economic impact of this invention would take about 3 more economists than I currently keep in my back pocket.
Community wide DIY. So yes it makes sense.
And of course he's also creating jobs for women and helping rural communities be more self-sufficient. There's so much more happening here than just discount products.
And this story reminds of that earlier epoch. When you bring in real innovation (innovation that touches upon people's profoundest taboo's and fears) you either have civil rights, or you end up dead. And it does say something hopeful about India that this man knew his basic civil rights were going to protect him from accusations of witchcraft. Though, of course, this part suggests that India could still improve its protections quite a bit:
"Worse was to come. The villagers became convinced he was possessed by evil spirits, and were about to chain him upside down to a tree to be "healed" by the local soothsayer. He only narrowly avoided this treatment by agreeing to leave the village. It was a terrible price to pay. "My wife gone, my mum gone, ostracised by my village" he says. "I was left all alone in life.""
Sounds like he got a pretty solid biology lesson along the way.
Ha, awesome!
It makes me wonder, how many other people are out there who have the same passion for something, but haven't had any success? Only a select few will have success, most will fail. I think we should celebrate the people who took risks and failed too. But sadly you won't find articles written about them as it isn't a happy ending like this one.
I'm a woman and grew up using disposable menstrual products. I only started using reusable ones when I was thirty because I have endometriosis that causes heavy bleeding (so I have to use postpartum type pads) and it weighed on my mind to be throwing them out all the time. Now I feel terrible about all those years. I don't need to wash them in hot water because it's sunny where I live. But I hide the bucket that I soak them in and I hang them out when my husband is not at home so he doesn't have to see them. Thankfully, I don't have to be so secretive about our baby's nappies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SswMzUWOiJg
Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do. - Apple Inc. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_Different
Look's like the marketing folks at P&G were selling this stuff to the mostly affluent. Therefore, I am guessing they never bothered to sell the hygiene angle.
I would give this one to Muruganantham.
http://www.ted.com/talks/arunachalam_muruganantham_how_i_sta...
To me the long term challenge is the social problem of convincing people that menstrual cups are not gross and are not going to hurt them.
I totally respect this guy for finding an intermediate solution that helps his community though. I don't live in India so I have no idea what the specific cultural challenges are.
Crap, I don't think I've read anything that has hit me harder.
While I don't believe that big business is necessarily parasitic, I love this metaphor.
They are making an educational book in comic book format to dispel the massive amounts of myths around the topic.
Arunchalam's example is also a classic case of how Indian government has destroyed India's entrepreneurial zeal. When Arun introduced his cheap sanitary pad making machine, Indian government woke up and see an opportunity to gain votes of poor and goodwill of large companies.
Indian government came up with a scheme where poor women will get a "fixed" quota per month of sanitary pads paid for by tax payers.
--- Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MHFW) is set to embark upon an ambitious programme, reports The Hindu on 21st February 2010, to reach about 200 million women with 100 sanitary pads per person per annum with a budget of some INR 20 billion in next 3 to 6 months.
-- [Source: One of the email threads I was exchanging on this matter with a friend in government]
This is another Indian government scam where big companies like Johnson and Johnson etc. will provide these pads at taxpayers cost to the poor women while politicians will take their cut. Going by past experience even the pads wont reach the women.
Those who might be aware of India's economic history, it is full of such scams. Indian government often ran government sponsored health campaigns claiming things like
- "Wash your hands with soap after and before having food and going to toilet else it will will cause diseases."
- "Use iodized salt in food else your children will be born retarded".
- "Use toothbrush and toothpaste"
The reality is, even in rural areas the level of hygiene is way better. People used handmade soaps and herbal alternatives for soap. (Even I used them in my childhood). During my childhood oral hygiene involved brushing teeth with 5 different types of leaves, gargling with hot water mixed with a mixture of 15 different kind of powders which were comprised of different kind of tree skins, herbs and roots. My father still knows the formula and I used it successfully when I developed a gum related infection.
And you know what? Indians used plenty of sea salt in their food. We ate salted fish, Salted Pickles and what not.
Today it so happens that all these small scale industries are already dead. Not because they failed to innovate or compete on price. (In reality some companies like Vico succeeded with these traditional products) They failed because government actively tried to kill them in the name of public welfare.
Today I am buying a Colegate toothpaste which claims to contain "sea salt". The TV ad of this toothpaste shows a grandpa showing his grandson that his teeth are stronger at 80 purely because he used sea salt to brush his teeth in past. There are other companies out there which are selling toothpastes claiming to contain the exact same herbs that we used in past (Miswaak, Babool etc.)
When I visit Target and Wallmart I often see shelves full of crudely packaged soaps titled "Handmade Soap" selling at 3x the price of normal soap.
I feel sad for Arunachalam and many other people I know who are mad just like him because rest of us Indian citizens have failed to make a political choice which would have heralded these men as heroes.
Unsolicited Advice to Americans: I see American government taking same direction as that of Indian government in past and present. Pushing private interests of few in the name of poor. Buying votes by redistribution of wealth while wrecking incentives to be innovative. I might be wrong. But there is no cost to being cautious.
> "Use iodized salt in food else your children will be born retarded".
"In India, the entire population is prone to IDD due to deficiency of iodine in the soil of the subcontinent and consequently the food derived from it. To combat the risk of IDD, salt is fortified with iodine. However, an estimated 350 million people do not consume adequately iodized salt and, therefore, are at risk for IDD. Of the 325 districts surveyed in India so far, 263 are IDD-endemic."[1]
> People used handmade soaps and herbal alternatives for soap.
Handmade soaps are fine. The ads never said you should only use big-brand soaps. Just because it's called "herbal alternative", it does not mean that it is effective. Each family or each region has its own "herbal alternative". Are you saying that they are all as effective as soap?
> 5 different types of leaves, gargling with hot water mixed with a mixture of 15 different kind of powders
I have visited villages for various reasons. Most people I came across used one of three methods: neem twigs, salt, charcoal ash. Neem has some antimicrobial properties, but those who cleaned with salt were ruining their teeth. I doubt that ash benefited their oral hygiene. I dare say these villagers are better off with modern products.
> The reality is, even in rural areas the level of hygiene is way better.
Better than what? If you're comparing villages to urban slums, sure. Are you forgetting that in villages, most people crap out in the open? And don't using soap afterwards? And did you read this article about women not using sanitary pads?
"Iodine, an element essential for human health, is present only in small amounts in sea salt,[1]" (cribbed from Wikipedia)
Be like a butterfly, taking some nectar but not damaging the flower. Not not like the mosquito, a parasite.
An article on sanitary napkins, and no immature rag jokes? Is this really HN?
:)
I suspect the answer is the same in both cases: lack of clean water and effective sterilization methods. If you wash your rags in dirty water and do not expose them to the sterilizing UV rays of direct sunlight, you're giving yourself infections. The machine uses a UV light to sterlize, and does not require a reliable water supply.
When every village in India has access to ample amounts of clean-from-the-tap water, they may choose to revisit their current solution.
Hygiene
Much of the point of having any money at all is so I can avoid doing things I hate doing. Are things really so different for you?
