Prakti Design Lab

Mission

Company Background: Prakti Design Lab is a registered India/USA company conceived in 2007 by an international team of engineers and designers to develop ecological products to serve the basic water, energy, and health needs of poor communities worldwide Basic Needs: We focus on the basic needs of the communities in which we live: Energy, Water, Sanitation, and Health. Our current solution is a portfolio of low-cost improved biomass cooking stoves (factory, cottage industry, on-site) for both household and institutional use. Under development are LED lanterns, and water purifiers and small scale wind power generation. “Praktical”: we love technology, we love innovation, but it not what drives us! We look for practical solution that have a high scale up potential … scale up is what drives us! An Appropriate’ Product Portfolio: There is no such thing as the ‘best design’ … only ‘appropriate design’ that takes in account local conditions (user preferences, manufacturing capabilities, distribution schemes). Our mission is to develop a portfolio of both locally and centrally built and maintainable products . Besides being attractive and affordable, they must be scale-able. Implementers choose which specific product design/manufacturing/distribution fit best their geographic area, their resources, their timeframe.

Organization Type Private Industry

Contact Information

Primary Contact
Dr. Mouhsine Serrar
mouhsine@praktidesign.com
Secondary Contact
Mr. Thomas Drouin
thomas@praktidesign.com
Address 55 Francois Martin street
Kuruchikuppam
Pondicherry,
605012
India
Website http://www.praktidesign.com
Phone +91 9442611317
Fax
Calling/Fax Instructions

Our Focus

Primary Initiatives, Target Populations, and Scope of Work:

Main Operations: India, USA. Consulting Experience: Burkina Faso, Morocco, Mauritania, Ghana, Ethiopia, India, Tajikistan, Kosovo.

Fuels/Technologies: Biomass
Solar
Wind
Other
LEDs, Water Purification, MicroWind
Sectors of Experience: Energy
Environment
Renewable Energy
Rural Development
Small Business
Water
Other
Engineering - Design, Manufacturing, Materials Selection, Testing
Countries of Operation: Benin
Burkina Faso
Ethiopia
Mauritania
India

Our Experience And Interest In The Four PCIA Central Focus Areas

Social/Cultural barriers to using traditional fuels and stoves:

Grassroots Design: Prakti’s design team practices a grassroots design where end-users are brought into the process. We integrate local cooks and crafts through interactive design workshops. This is not a feel good activity, it is the most efficient way to reach the optimal design. We also employ our vast field network resources to gain larger on-the-ground feedback.


Market development for improved cooking technologies:

the Other 90%: Unfortunately, the current state of engineering design is that nearly 100% of resource in R&D go into products intended for the richest 10% of the world. We aim to transform this situation by developing market-friendly products especially suited to meet the basic needs of the global population 'other 90%'.


Technology standardization for cooking, heating and ventilation:

Open Source: Free and open access to quality engineering design provides the basic framework from which Prakti Design Lab operates. We strive to offer our technology under open-source licenses and patent-free. We also offer affordable fee-based technology transfer and training to local entrepreneurs. Primarily, grants underwrite all the designs which are freely available in the public domain at our website – free to use, distribute, modify.


Indoor air pollution exposure and health monitoring:

Field Testing, Interactive Design Workshops, Stove Committees, User-Driven Design Cycle.

Relevant Publications or Studies

None noted

Our Contribution to the Partnership

We hope to contribute our collective 20+ years of experience in product/manufacturing design to the stove development community. We can assist projects around the world in developing suitable basic-needs technology by helping in product design, scale-up, field-testing, material selection, or by providing a suite of India-manufactured, low-cost, effective prototypes for use in Market Pilots and Market Scale-Up.