Digital Soil Testing Kit - Grameen Intel Social Business Limited
This project was a collaboration between Technology for Social Impact (formerly Grameen Intel Social Business Ltd) and the Intel Corporation from 2015-2017.
My role: I was the lead researcher and prototype designer. The final form was designed based on my research and testing feedback by Joseph Designs in India.
The Soil Master
This is a project with Technology for Social Impact (formerly known as Grameen Intel Social Business Ltd - joint venture between the Intel Corporation and Grameen Bank). This project has been piloted in Bangladesh, Cambodia, India and Nepal.
The challenge
800 million people
Almost 800 million people go hungry every day due to lack of food and low crop yields.
This is an image of a riverside paddy field that I took in a northern village on Bangladesh. The farmers here are very hardworking but season after season, their crop yields drop. It’s hard to keep up with the demands of the market and it’s hard to be optimistic when issues like excess fertilizer, pesticides and wrong seeds result in terrible crop yields.
It’s disheartening because of the money and morale lost from people who are already marginalized economically.
Goal
Conducting soil tests to understand soil nutrition values (Nitrogen, Phosphorous, Potassium, pH) on a crop field can help ascertain the amount and type of fertilizer, pesticide and seed that is needed. This can increase crop yields. Current soil testing methods are tedious and require complex tools.
Old system - 4 hours
Local entrepreneurs in villages represent farmers by conducting soil tests for them and giving them farming recommendations using a software. The old system is tedious and takes all day.
To simplify the process
The goal of the project was reduce the time and complexity needed to conduct soil tests (which would previously take 3-4 hours or more) and combine that with a pre-existing app which can give farmers high quality farming recommendations.
Rapid prototyping
I worked with engineers to create quick and dirty prototypes with cardboard at first, and then with 3D printing. This was important to research and test the object with actual users.
Field testing
6 villages
The prototypes were shown to 25 entrepreneurs in 6 different villages in Bangladesh and they provided valuable feedback on the concept and form.
Insights
Insights
Field testing from the prototypes helped determine that people enjoyed using the kit due to its portability and speed but also preferred that it be angled for easy viewing since the testing is usually done on a table.
final form
New system: 20 minutes
The angled screen allows for users to be hands-free as they work on doing the chemistry portion of the soil test.
Overall time required for entire process: 20 minutes
This form has been patented by Intel (US D839,108S), with my name listed as one of the 5 inventors