Paul Polak is president of International Development Enterprises (IDE), a nonprofit, poverty alleviation organization he founded in 1981. IDE pioneered the development and marketing of affordable technologies within developing countries. The Technology Museum of Innovation named IDE-International a Laureate for its development of "Easy Drip" a truly affordable micro-irrigation system for the rural farmers in developing countries. In 2004, Paul was awarded Ernst & Young's "2004 Entrepreneur of the Year" award in the category of social responsibility. As a result of technologies like "Easy Drip" and facilitated market entrance, IDE families have increased their net annual income by more than $200 million annually. Recently Polak was honored by Scientific American as one of the Top 50 innovators in 2003 for his work pioneering poverty alleviation worldwide. In 2007, Polak founded D-Rev, an organization created to design affordable technology for dollar-a day customers and developing markets where they can be sold profitably and sustainable at a fair market price. Paul Polak received his MD from the University of Western Ontario and practiced psychiatry for 23 years.
The revolution in design I'm trying to foment... it's based on what I call the ruthless pursuit of affordability because that is the most dramatic difference. When you earn a dollar a day, and you have a thousand places that are important to spend that d...(Full transcript available to logged in subscribers.).
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