Technology Commercialization in Developing Countries
Dr. Marc J. Epstein is a Distinguished Research Professor of Management at Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University. He is also Visiting Professor and Hansjoerg Wyss Visiting Scholar in Social Enterprise at the Harvard Business School. He previously held positions at Stanford Business School, Harvard Business School and INSEAD (the European Institute of Business Administration). A specialist in corporate strategy, governance, and performance management, he is the author or coauthor of over 100 academic and professional papers and twelve books, including his latest, Making Sustainability Work: Best Practices in Managing and Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental, and Economic Impacts.
Course - In 2009, Dr. Epstein offered a course to twenty Rice MBA students that gave them the chance to apply their real world entrepreneurial skills on the ground in Rwanda. (Travel costs were paid for by the university). A compelling draw for the students was the opportunity to meet Rwandan entrepreneurs, to actually launch a new business in a developing country and to introduce innovative healthcare products that can save lives. According to Epstein, “It was a terrific learning opportunity, and it was unique”.
Products - The MBA students were divided into four teams and tasked with developing a viable business plan for a specific product in just four months. The products chosen by the students were prototype healthcare products developed by Rice undergraduate bioengineering students. The four products were a low-cost neonatal incubator, a diagnostic lab-in-a-backpack, a plastic dosing device for liquid medicines and a micronutrient powder for young children. The partnership between the Rice business and engineering students offered each group a unique opportunity to apply real world challenges and limitations to the process of commercializing innovative appropriate technology.
Plans - To formulate workable business plans, the MBA students had to answer many questions and overcome numerous obstacles. They had to source raw materials, find out where their product could be produced, how much it would cost to produce and distribute, how much customers were willing to pay, how customers would finance the purchase, take delivery and more. Even the simplest of these questions sometimes had very complicated answers.
Kigali Rwanda - There was no way to know how good each team’s ideas were until the students got to Rwanda. Once on the ground in Kigali, each team was provided a vehicle, an English-speaking Rwandan driver/translator and a cell phone. After an initial briefing, the students were on their own, working from dawn to dusk, gathering information from potential customers, producers, suppliers and distributors. In the evenings, the students and faulty gathered over dinner to debrief, to discuss what they had learned and to ask questions of guest speakers from government and business.
Results - The students’ progress in developing their businesses was truly amazing. The neonatal incubator student team located a Rwandan furniture maker to build the incubators, identified buyers for as many as 900 units and prepared a prototype for testing by the Rwandan certification agency.
For other students, the hard reality of the marketplace forced them to scrap much of their previous work and entire sections of their business plans had to be redesigned.
Wrap Up - After less than two weeks in Rwanda, the students returned to the US to finalize their business plans for the end of semester formal presentations and to relive their once-in-a-lifetime immersion into African entrepreneurship, small business and healthcare. Alumnus Jim Crownover, who chairs Rice’s Board of Trustees, said, “This was a life-changing experience for each one of the students — very different from what they can learn from a book and in the classroom”.
Bridge2Rwanda’s Center for Enterprise Solutions to Poverty facilitates similar projects for partnering universities. Research, product development, market research and entrepreneurship are best understood and applied through strategic partnerships
Rice MBA Program
Dr. Marc Epstein’s Rice University MBA Course:
Technology Commercialization in Developing Countries
Dr. Marc J. Epstein is a Distinguished Research Professor of Management at Jones Graduate School of Management, Rice University. He is also Visiting Professor and Hansjoerg Wyss Visiting Scholar in Social Enterprise at the Harvard Business School. He previously held positions at Stanford Business School, Harvard Business School and INSEAD (the European Institute of Business Administration). A specialist in corporate strategy, governance, and performance management, he is the author or coauthor of over 100 academic and professional papers and twelve books, including his latest, Making Sustainability Work: Best Practices in Managing and Measuring Corporate Social, Environmental, and Economic Impacts.
Course - In 2009, Dr. Epstein offered a course to twenty Rice MBA students that gave them the chance to apply their real world entrepreneurial skills on the ground in Rwanda. (Travel costs were paid for by the university). A compelling draw for the students was the opportunity to meet Rwandan entrepreneurs, to actually launch a new business in a developing country and to introduce innovative healthcare products that can save lives. According to Epstein, “It was a terrific learning opportunity, and it was unique”.
Products - The MBA students were divided into four teams and tasked with developing a viable business plan for a specific product in just four months. The products chosen by the students were prototype healthcare products developed by Rice undergraduate bioengineering students. The four products were a low-cost neonatal incubator, a diagnostic lab-in-a-backpack, a plastic dosing device for liquid medicines and a micronutrient powder for young children. The partnership between the Rice business and engineering students offered each group a unique opportunity to apply real world challenges and limitations to the process of commercializing innovative appropriate technology.
Plans - To formulate workable business plans, the MBA students had to answer many questions and overcome numerous obstacles. They had to source raw materials, find out where their product could be produced, how much it would cost to produce and distribute, how much customers were willing to pay, how customers would finance the purchase, take delivery and more. Even the simplest of these questions sometimes had very complicated answers.
Kigali Rwanda - There was no way to know how good each team’s ideas were until the students got to Rwanda. Once on the ground in Kigali, each team was provided a vehicle, an English-speaking Rwandan driver/translator and a cell phone. After an initial briefing, the students were on their own, working from dawn to dusk, gathering information from potential customers, producers, suppliers and distributors. In the evenings, the students and faulty gathered over dinner to debrief, to discuss what they had learned and to ask questions of guest speakers from government and business.
Results - The students’ progress in developing their businesses was truly amazing. The neonatal incubator student team located a Rwandan furniture maker to build the incubators, identified buyers for as many as 900 units and prepared a prototype for testing by the Rwandan certification agency.
For other students, the hard reality of the marketplace forced them to scrap much of their previous work and entire sections of their business plans had to be redesigned.
Wrap Up - After less than two weeks in Rwanda, the students returned to the US to finalize their business plans for the end of semester formal presentations and to relive their once-in-a-lifetime immersion into African entrepreneurship, small business and healthcare. Alumnus Jim Crownover, who chairs Rice’s Board of Trustees, said, “This was a life-changing experience for each one of the students — very different from what they can learn from a book and in the classroom”.
Bridge2Rwanda’s Center for Enterprise Solutions to Poverty facilitates similar projects for partnering universities. Research, product development, market research and entrepreneurship are best understood and applied through strategic partnerships