Non-Profit CA Firm Designs Practical Products for the Developing World

Four billion people worldwide do not have access to basic goods and services. Unfortunately, most of the solutions to the problems they face are ineffective and expensive. Non-profit technology incubator D-Rev is out to change that. Based in Palo Alto, California, D-Rev is on a mission to deliver affordable and quality products that can improve the lives of people subsisting on less than $4 a day.

The firm is currently led by CEO Krista Donaldson, a former American Association for the Advancement of Science Diplomacy Fellow at the US Department of State. She joined D-Rev in 2009, during which the firm already had plenty of ideas that were good but had yet to cross the “valley of death”. In other words, they were just that: ideas.

However, two of D-Rev's projects have now made it past the death valley to become actual products in developing countries. One of them is Brilliance, a world-class jaundice treatment for low-income areas. D-Rev estimates that every year, more than 6 million babies with severe jaundice are not getting the care they need. The condition is easy to treat, though. The problem lies in the fact that current treatment devices are not cheap to acquire and maintain, costing about $3,000 apiece, with CFL bulbs that require regular replacement. D-Rev's Brilliance, on the other hand, costs only about $400 and uses LED bulbs that last longer.

D-Rev has also developed the ReMotion JaipurKnee, a high-performance and affordable prosthetic leg. Currently used in two clinics in India, the JaipurKnee has a 165-degree range of motion, allowing the wearer to kneel and squat. Traditional single-axis prosthetics limit mobility as they just move back and forth like a door hinge. D-Rev is now looking to conduct a field test for the JaipurKnee, which was designed in collaboration with the Jaipur Foot Organization and Stanford University, before launching full production.