Technopreneur’s Quick Check Novelty (30%) – The idea is not obviously similar to

Most of the time, business ventures are rooted in the existing products or solutions.
passion, skills, and past experiences. Some may have
Novelty can be improved through the following:
just started as personal projects but later turned out
to also have the potentials to help many others and so • Unique features: Developing unique
consequently, market is created, and business venture features that are not offered by competitors can make
is born. This phenomenon is called “user a product stand out.
entrepreneurship”. Someone
• Quality: Offering a higher quality product
with passion, idea, or technology may reflect on the
than competitors can set a product apart.
following to identify good opportunities for business
ventures: • Cost: Developing a low-cost version of an
existing solution to attract users. Please note that this
• Knowledge: What was the focus of your
is not simply lowering the price of the same product
education or career?
or solution but innovating on the process or raw
• Capability: What are you most proficient at?
materials of the same product in order to achieve a
• Connections: Who do you know that has
lower development cost and consequently offering a
expertise in different industries? Do you know
lower selling price.
other entrepreneurs?
• Financial assets: Do you have access to • Positioning: Positioning the product in a
significant financial capital, or will you be unique way, such as targeting a specific niche market
relying on a meager savings account to start or emphasizing its eco-friendly or sustainable
out? attributes, can help differentiate it from others.
• Name recognition: What are you or your
partners well-known for? Skills in • Personalization: Offering a personalized
engineering? Understanding fiber optics? service or product can make a product stand out from
• Past work experience: In previous jobs you’ve others, as it is tailored to the specific needs of the
held, what inefficiencies or “pain points” customer.
existed? Be careful though, claiming that there is no one like
• Passion for a particular market: Does the idea you in the market and so you have nothing to
of improving healthcare excite you? How compare your solution with could possibly hurt your
about education? Energy? Transportation? reputation as it may appear that you have lackluster
• Commitment: Do you have the time and market research. Remember that a status quo is also a
effort to devote to this endeavor? Are you competition. Adoption – Willingness of the users to
ready to make a new venture your primary (or apply and pay the product or solution. This
only) focus? information should come from your actual end users
You may use the points above to perform a quick but you don’t need to interview them at this point.
check before you embark on the Technopreneurship Just discuss among your members and reflect on the
journey. It may not always fun and easy but it’s potential friction of adoption of your idea.
certainly going to be worth it. There are several factors that can increase the friction
of innovation adoption:
Is My Idea Worth Pursuing?
Now, let’s factor in the fact that you are a young • Complexity: Complex or unfamiliar
innovator, a student with unique perspectives, who technologies can be difficult for users to understand
are not constrained by legacy thinking, and are open and adopt.
to new and unconventional ideas. Below are the
criteria by which you can evaluate your idea and see if • Resistance to change: People may be
it’s worth pursuing. resistant to change and may not want to adopt new
technologies or processes.
Criterion – Weight (%)
Novelty – 30% • Fear of failure: Users may be afraid that the
Adoption – 15% new technology or process will not work as expected,
Viability – 15% leading to increased friction in adoption.
Capability – 30%
Development Cost – 10%
 • High costs: The high costs associated with 3 members within the team who have the skills to
acquiring, implementing, and training on new develop the core features of the idea. Example, if your
technologies can make it difficult for organizations to idea involves artificial intelligence, there must at least
adopt new innovations. 3 IT or Computer Science students in the team. If you
plan to develop a concrete additive for faster curing,
• Lack of support: Without proper support,
there must be at least 3 Civil Engineering students.
training, and resources, users may struggle to adopt
new innovations. Development Cost - Prototype is affordable for
student innovators to develop. Budget beyond 30
• Incompatibility: The innovation may not be
thousand pesos is already considered as less feasible
compatible with existing systems, processes or culture
unless a sponsor or industry partner is willing to
of the organization, making it hard to adopt.
shoulder the development cost.
• Negative perception: Negative perceptions
Where is marketability in the criteria if paying
of the innovation, such as misinformation, can lead to
increased friction in adoption.
customers is the single necessary and sufficient
condition for a business?
• Lack of incentives: Without proper
incentives, users may not see the value in adopting There is a lot of factors that could affect the
new innovations. marketability of an innovation or a new solution.
Some important ones are pricing, unique features, its
• Regulation: In some cases, innovations may effectiveness to solve a problem or add value, and the
not be able to be adopted due to regulatory target market satisfaction.
constraints.
The approach of this course prioritizes the
• Limited resources: Organizations with identification of a specific user segment with the
limited resources may struggle to adopt new following condition before the innovation is
innovations due to lack of funding or personnel. considered as marketable.
Technical Feasibility - The chance of the idea to get • Same product: The customers within the
implemented. Is the required technology available market all buy similar products. If you have to make
and accessible? slightly different products to appeal to the different
There are several factors that can affect the customers and end users in your market, it’s too
feasibility of an idea: broad of a market.

• Technical feasibility: The idea must be • Same sales process: The sales process to the
technically possible to implement, with all the end users will be the same, meaning interchangeable
required resources and technologies language, value proposition, sales channels, etc. If
your salespeople have to change tactics from one end
available.
user to the next, your market’s not targeted enough!
• Schedule feasibility: The idea must be able to
be implemented within the available time • Word of mouth: There is “word of mouth”
frame. between customers in the market, meaning they can
• Legal feasibility: The idea must be in serve as compelling and high-value references for
compliance with all relevant laws and each other in making purchases. For example, they
regulations. may belong to the same professional organizations or
• Environmental feasibility: The idea must not operate in the same region. If you find a potential
have a negative impact on the environment. market opportunity where the customers do not talk
• Social feasibility: The idea must be socially to each other—if they are separated by large
acceptable and should not negatively impact distances, for example— you’re going to have a hard
the society or communities. time building up sales across the full group of end
• Resource availability: The availability of users. Refine your segmentation.
resources, such as funding, personnel, and
materials, can affect the feasibility of an idea. To put it simply, avoid the pitfall of selling to
everyone. As a start-up venture, your resources are
Capability - The capability of the team to create and limited. To design and execute any products will take
deliver the product or solution. There must be at least time and resources. If you start production on one
product, and find there aren’t enough customers to market segmentation to determine if a customer
make your venture profitable, you almost certainly segment with significant size and funding is ready to
will not have the resources to keep making products use the technopreneur’s technology. The
until you find a profitable market. segmentation process will be discussed later in this
course.
You will know more about this in Market
Segmentation. Smartphones are an example of a product developed
due to a technology push, where existing touchscreen
Market Pull and Technology Push technology was used to improve the mobile phone
After a quick self-reflection on what you could pursue market.
as a potential business venture, it’s time to include Today, even the scientist in the lab is thinking early on
your customers and end-users in the picture. There about the application of the breakthrough he or she is
are two possible ways to kickstart a true innovation working on. Something that seems like a “technology
and connect to the potential end-users – market pull push” may have been inspired by a “market pull,” and
and technology push vice versa. The same will be done in this course.
Market pull is a scenario in which the market Existing technologies that a student may already have
demands a product (or service) type, or defines a will still undergo the process of customer validation to
problem, and producers respond by producing and achieve product-market fit. This way, customers will
delivering that product. There exists some group of have input as to how the product development or
people who are willing to pay money for the solution service offering would turn out.
to their “pain points”. In short, market pull product Activity Technology Market Pull
development is based on a perception of what Push
products or services the customer wants, with the Business Risky Safe
customer having a large say in the direction of Decisions
product development. The most important thing for Cost of Risk Moderate to Low to
the market pull is to be open to the ideation process High Moderate
and come up with ideas that the team thinks are Cost of R&D Moderate to Low to
worth pursuing. High Moderate
Return on Unknown, Assured
In this course, several ideation tools will be employed Investment Unsure
like the Venn diagram, How-Might-We statements, (ROI)
empathy map, and others to spot ideas worth Cost of Reshaping the Easy
pursuing as startup ventures. Marketing Market
Investment Moderate to Low to
An example of market pull is the development of High Moderate
cameras, which have become smaller, more Market Customer Customer
lightweight and higher performing as a result of Education educated by educated by
customer needs. Producer Customers
Managerial Vision Leadership
Technology push the scenario in which the producer,
Mindset
seeing an advantage to the consumer that the
Distinction between Technology Push and Market Pull
consumer does not see, creates a product type and
the demand for that product type. Regardless of whether you choose a market pull or
technology push, there is a lot you won’t know yet
The producer carefully learns and understands about this general problem: How urgent is the
customers’ problems. In short, technology push problem? How much will the customer pay for a
product development is based on the belief that the solution? How many people have this problem? What
supplier recognizes a market need even before the does the competitive landscape look like?
market does. It could be research outputs, hardware
breakthroughs, or inventions with significant For now, the goal is to come up with general ideas
intellectual property claims. In technology push, the where, if there is focus and sufficient time, the team
producer ultimately educates the customer. can produce a product that could be the basis of a
scalable business that everyone will be excited about.
Technopreneurs in this course may proceed directly to
If you have an existing invention, research, Example 2
prototype or any technology based projects, you may
use them in this course so you can maximize the
benefit of the validation process.

Venn Diagram
It’s time to put forth your ideas!

Ideation is the creative process of generating,

developing, and communicating new ideas, where an
idea is understood as a basic element of thought that
can be either visual, concrete, or abstract. To
effectively extract ideas, tools are employed to
facilitate the ideation process. Venn Diagram is one of
the widely used brainstorming tool.

A Venn Diagram is a chart that contains overlapping

circles used to compare and contrast topics in a logical
and organized manner. Overlapping region is typically Listed animals in the Venn Diagram above are
used to record similarities between concepts, while grouped according to four characteristics such as can
differences are listed in the outer regions. This swim, have fins, breath air and have legs. Jellyfish, for
diagram is a strategic way to represent complex example, only belongs to can swim attribute while sea
relationships and abstract ideas visually. turtles can swim, breath air and have legs but
don’t have fins. Through this, a visualization is
In ideation and brainstorming, Venn diagram can produced to effectively compare jellyfish and sea
define scope and improve focus on areas of interest turtles in terms of the 4 attributes.
by examining similarities, differences, and
dependencies from individual ideas. This does not Using Venn diagram to generate newer ideas, check
only make clear visualization of what to do but of the following examples.
what not to do as well. It is a popular visual tool being
Example 3
used by innovators in the industry.
Look at movies as an inspiration. The joke that there
Example 1 are no new ideas for movies anymore and they are
just remakes of previous ones, is to some degree true.
Think about Western genre of revenge stories and put
it in a Space setting. What movie would that be? –
This movie could be StarWars.

The diagram above shows the similarities and

differences of whales and fishes. The overlapping area
covers the common characteristic of these animals in
which both live in the ocean. The separate area on
the other hand shows their differences in terms of
reproducing - whales give birth while fishes lay eggs.
What happened here is there is an old Western Example 6
concept that was layered with a new concept like
Social media laid over Inspiration is known
space and suddenly there’s a new movie. It looks
as Pinterest.
entertaining and it is somewhat new but generally, it’s
the same format.

Example 4
Another example is the movie, Jaws. Put it on space
and get Alien. Here we take existing themes and
overlap them to come up with something new.

Example 7

Social Media laid over video or photo is popularly

known as Instagram.

Let’s take this metaphor to startups.

Example 5

If you overlap Social Media with Microblogging, you

get Twitter.

The resulting solutions or applications such as Twitter,

Pinterest, and Instagram are just the final outputs of
an iterative process of ideation and validation of the
overlayed concepts in the Venn diagram. Before these
final solutions were actualized, a careful analysis of
the pain points, requirements, needs, and
shortcomings are done.

Next, we’ll look for opportunities for innovation by

enumerating first the problem statements under the
overlapped regions as the starting point of the
ideation process.
Using Venn Diagram to Generate Opportunities solution development in the road ahead. Head on to
the next topic to know more about crafting a
Innovation opportunities may come in many forms good problem statement.
and one is the unaddressed problems and challenges
of certain user groups. There is service could be doing Problem Statement
great in one user segment but may fall short in others
simply because users have different needs and Remember that in market pull customer needs
requirements. Take mobile phones as an example. and pain points dictate on what kind of solution or
Even a single brand has several models categorized product a producer must create. These pain points
into entry, mid-range, and flagship levels. The can be identified through the aid of Venn
differences in hardware specifications, design, price, diagram that defines the scope of the brainstorming
and other factors between mobile phone models are process to generate problems arising from the
the results of careful analysis of customer pains, overlayed focus areas and other factors.
needs, and requirements. A problem statement can be seen as the starting point
Let’s use Venn Diagram to generate specific problems for coming up with a product vision. It creates a sense
and turn them into opportunities. of possibility and optimism that allows team members
to spark off ideas in the Ideation stage. Knowing how
We start with education as the focus area and then to craft a good problem statement will have a positive
overlay students as the target users. The overlapping impact on the entire innovation development process.
regions will contain the problems and pain points of
students with the current education quality. 3 important components of a problem statement

• The problem: The problem statement begins

with mentioning and explaining the current
state.
• Who it affects: Mention the people who are
affected by the problem.
• How it impacts: Explain the impacts of the
problem.

Good Problem Statements

• Not be a laundry list of unrelated problems.

A discovery effort should have one problem
Problems: statement, and the problem statement should
be focused on one problem. Of course, a
1. low education quality for primary students single problem could cause further problems,
which causes high failure and dropout rates and those related problems can be added to
2. hard to track and measure the health and your problem statement. But listing many
psychological well-being of students resulting unrelated problems is a sign that you’re
in poor academic performance tackling too much.
• Not contain a solution. Leave solutions out of
3. young adults are unprepared for vocational your problem statement. At the beginning of
training programs resulting in longer training discovery, there are too many unknowns, so
time the best solution is not obvious. At the end of
your discovery, you’ll be in a good position to
4. better help for special needs/disabled
confidently put forward solution ideas that
students
address the problem and take into account
5. lack of gender diversity in STEM education what you’ve learned.
• Be brief. Problem statements are effective
The generated problems will be turned into
when they’re concise. If you can condense
opportunities and become the basis of a potential
your problem statement down to a few
business venture. Thus, framing the problem
sentences, others will quickly understand
statements at this point is critical as this will
what you focus on and why, and what’s out of
determine the direction of the entire product or
 scope. Spend some time to draft and redraft • This does not specify what causes the increase in
the problem statement with your team. customer inquiries.

Bad Problem Statements • Problem statement must be customer-

centered. Instead of framing the problem statement
Problem Statement 1: Product offerings are
for customer support, state it to empathize with
unattractive to users.
customers or end-users.
• This jumps to a conclusion that enough efforts
Better Version for Problem Statement 3: Newly
are done on the end of the concerned team
registered users [who] often call the customer
that handles customer education. This is very
support [impact] because they’re unsure about the
dangerous as this will already lead to possible
application process [problem].
product modification when in fact the problem
is with the customer education or product Problem Statement 4: Users find the return process
promotion. difficult.

Better Version: Users in trial subscription [who] are • This lacks the impact of the problem.
not aware of the full product offerings [problem]
Better Version for Problem Statement 4: Users [who]
resulting to low product adoption [impact].
find the return process difficult [problem] which
Problem Statement 2: There are too many forms that results to low customer satisfaction [impact].
the customers have to choose and they also
The next topic will turn problem statements into
complained about the difficult rechecking of
opportunities through How-Might-We Statements.
submission mistakes.

• This does not state the impact of the problem. Using “How Might We” Questions to
• This contains two separate problems: many Ideate on the Right Problems
forms that cause confusion, and difficult
rechecking of submission mistakes. Now let’s convert the problem statements into
opportunities.
Better Version: This needs to be broken down into 2
separate problem statements: Constructing how-might-we questions generates
creative solutions while keeping teams focused on the
Problem Statement 2.a: First time users [who] are right problems to solve.
often unsure about which form to complete when
they file their taxes [problem]. This adds customer 5 Tips on Writing Good HMW
inquiries and results in longer time to accomplish the 1. Start with the Problems (or Insights) You’ve
form [impact]. Uncovered
Problem Statement 2.b discusses the other problem Some teams generate HMWs that are not specific
statement further. to what they’ve learned. For example, How might
Problem Statement 2.b: Users complained about the we improve the user experience of the product? is
difficult rechecking of submission mistakes. not specific to what you might have uncovered in
your discovery research. This question can result
• It is not clear what part of the submission in ideas that don’t address the root problems and
process users have difficulties with. the insights you uncovered.
• This statement sounds like merely restating
what has been known about the issue without Problem - Users in trial subscription aren't aware
the intention of solving it. This lacks empathy. of the full product offerings resulting in low
product adoption.
Better Version for Problem Statement 2.b: Mobile
users [who] often spend a long time correcting their HMW - How might we increase awareness of the
submission mistakes [problem] resulting in the full product offerings fortrial users to increase
cancellation of the application process[impact]. product adoption?

Problem Statement 3: Customer support is

experiencing a sudden increase in user inquiries.
 2. Avoid Suggesting a Solution in Your HMW whether your HMW question focuses on the desired
Question outcome. In the example below, the first HMW
question loses sight of what we really want to
It can be easy to limit your thinking and embed
achieve.
solutions in your HMW questions. But doing so
restricts the pool of possibilities, and fewer ideas Problem - Newly registered users often call
are generated. In the example below, the first customer support because they’re unsure about
HMW suggests a particular type of solution, the application process.
whereas the second is agnostic about any
HMW (poor) - How might we stop newly
particular solution.
registered users from calling us?
Problem - First-time users are often unsure about
HMW (good) - How might we make new users
which form to complete when they file their
feel confident they have all the information they
taxes. This adds customer inquiries and results in
need?
a long time to accomplish the form.
While it’s true that we want to cut costs for
HMW (poor) - How might we tell users which
unnecessary contact, the high cost is a symptom of
form to complete to file their taxes in order to
the root problem (users are unsure about the
reduce inquiries and time to complete the form?
application process, and therefore call us). We really
HMW (good) - How might we make users feel want to solve the problem of why users are calling us,
confident they are filing their taxes correctly and which the second HMW question addresses. The
quickly? desired outcome of our design efforts should be
increased user confidence in the application process.
The problem with the first HMW question is that only
solutions related to communication will be generated.
Another problem with the first HMW question is that
With the second HMW, further possibilities could be
it can result in a solution like making the contact
generated such as filing taxes automatically for users
number on the website harder to find, rather than
or removing multiple forms and only having one form
creative solutions that increase user confidence.
that presents users with tailored questions based on
the user’s responses. 5. Phrase your HMW Questions Positively

3. Keep Your HMWs Broad In a similar vein to point 4, stating your HMW
questions positively can generate more ideas and
When writing HMW questions, ask yourself if you
encourage creativity.
could rewrite them in a broader way? The broader the
HMW, the more ideas can be generated. If you find yourself using negative verbs like ‘reduce,’
‘remove,’ and ‘prevent,’ ask yourself if you can frame
Problem - Mobile users often spend a long time
things more positively by using positive action verbs,
correcting their submission mistakes.
like ‘increase,’ ‘create,’ ‘enhance,’ ‘promote’ and so
HMW (good) - How might we make it quick and on.
easy for mobile users to check their work for
Problem - Users find the return process difficult
mistakes?
which results to low customer satisfaction.
HMW (better) - How might we support mobile
HMW (poor) - How might we make the return
users to efficiently draft submissions that they’re
process less difficult to increase customer
happy with?
satisfaction?
Although we want HMWs to be broad, make sure not
HMW (good) - How might we make the return
to go too broad that you lose sight of the problem
process quick and intuitive to increase customer
you’re trying to solve. For example, How might we
satisfaction?
redesign the submission-drafting process? would be
too broad.

4. Focus Your HMWs on the Desired Outcome

To avoid solving symptoms of the problems rather

than the root problems themselves, ask yourself
 Positive Words for HMW Statements Create an analogy from need or context -
HMW make bookmarking or saving
interesting parts of podcasts like a game?
Play against the challenge - HMW make
searching for interesting parts of a podcast
something people want to do?
Change the status quo - HMW make the
search experience inside a podcast more
delightful?
Break POV into pieces - HMW make
More HMW Examples searching entertaining? HMW make it
HMW statements may be difficult to come up possible for people to bookmark on-the-go?
with sometimes, and you might find it challenging HMW reduce time spent searching for
for yourself and others. Just break the bigger interesting parts of a podcast episode?
problem down and then start writing HMW in Problem Statement 2/Point of View (POV) :
front of every aspect of the problem. Harried mother of three, rushing through the
airport only to wait hours at the gate, needs to
It is okay to write some that are too narrow or entertain her playful children because “annoying
too broad since you can assess them after. Just little brats” only irritate already frustrated fellow
write! passengers.

5. Phrase Your HMW Questions Positively Amp up the good - HMW use the kids’ energy to
entertain fellow passenger?
Problem Statement 1: People who like to listen to Remove the bad - HMW separate the kids from
podcasts need to be able to easily bookmark or fellow passengers?
save interesting parts of podcasts while
commuting because having to find these points Explore the opposite - HMW make the wait the
afterward is time-consuming and difficult. most exciting part of the trip?

Amp up the good - HMW make an entire Question an assumption - HMW entirely remove
podcast interesting for users? the wait time at the airport?

Remove the bad - HMW present interesting Go after adjectives - HMW make the rush
parts of podcasts to users? refreshing instead of harrying?

Explore the opposite - HMW make finding ID unexpected resources - HMW leverage free
interesting parts of podcasts the most exciting time of fellow passengers to share the load?
part of listening to podcasts? Create an analogy from need or context - HMW
Question an assumption - HMW make make the airport like a spa? Like a playground?
podcasts more tactile or voice-assisted? Play against the challenge - HMW make the
Go after adjectives - HMW make airport a place that kids want to go?
bookmarking or saving easy instead of Change the status quo - HMW make playful,
difficult? loud kids less annoying?
ID unexpected resources - HMW use other Break POV into pieces - HMW entertain kids?
apps to make searching within podcasts HMW slow a mom down? HMW mollify delayed
easier? passengers?
Remember that this technique is only for expertise. A common mistake in this layer
generating as many HWM statements as possible is using a specific tool or solution which
especially when stuck. All generated HWM could be used to solve a pain point. For
statements still need to be assessed based on the example, instead of using an android
mentioned characteristics of good HMW application, one may use emerging
statements stated above. What we are after for technologies. This way, one will have
are those HMW statements which are worth enough room to generate pain points and
pursuing – those which have potential to become ideas related to emerging technologies
a business venture. and not be restricted to what android
solutions could only address.
Stitching Venn, Problem Statement and
HMW Together Let’s use the following as the layers of the Venn
diagram:
Here’s an example on how to use Venn
diagram, problem statement, and How-Might-We Focus Area: Clean Water and Sanitation (SDG 6).
statements together to generate an idea. You may click here to know more about SDG.
End-user/Beneficiary: Households
Step 1: Venn Diagram
Knowledge/Capability: Renewable Energy
After defining the scope of our ideation process
by specifying the layers of the Venn diagram, a
problem must be identified which is under SDG 6
that affects common households and can be
solved through renewable energy solutions.

To have a better focus on our ideation process,

we will use a 3-layer Venn diagram. These layers
will have the following scopes:
One great way to manage internal operations is
to identify key members for the following roles
• Focus area – research agenda, ideation Step 2: Problem Statement
theme, or department’s priority area. This
will be provided by the mentor. Problem Statement: According to United Nations
• End-user/Beneficiary – target end user, a (UN), 3 in 10 people lack access to safely
group of users who could benefit from the managed drinking water services making them
product or solution. You need to conduct vulnerable to health risks such as cholera,
your research on the possible group of diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A, typhoid, polio,
users who could benefit from the resulting and other diseases.
innovation.
• Knowledge/Capability – innovator’s H-M-W statements can now be generated based
educational background or field of on the identified pain point or problem.
Remember to generate H-M-W statements as • Refer to existing solutions,
many as you can as they still need to undergo products, and/or research as
your own ranking and evaluation as to what inspiration/reference but be sure to
HMW statement could lead you to a potential incorporate your own innovations(s).
start-up venture.
• Specify the technology to be
Step 3: How-Might-We Statement used.
How-Might-We Statement: HMW ensure access 5.Specify the technology to be used.
to safe, affordable, clean water using renewable
How-Might-We Statement: HMW ensure access
energy to promote healthy households?
to safe, affordable, clean water using renewable
After choosing a H-M-W statement, you may now energy to promote healthy households?
proceed to generate ideas. Brainstorm within
Sample Elevator Pitch
your team, consult with Subject Matter Experts
(SMEs), or talk to potential beneficiaries to According to United Nations (UN), 3 in 10 people
generate as many ideas as you can. You will lack access to safely managed drinking water
surely end up with a number of potential services making them vulnerable to health risks
solutions after this process. However, you need such as cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, hepatitis A,
to pick and prioritize only one potential solution typhoid, polio and other diseases. With this, I
and perform secondary research to determine if would like to ensure that there is access to
the solution is worth pursuing as a startup potable water for every household. The solution
venture. will ensure safe, affordable, and clean drinking
water using a device that harvests water vapor
from the air, combining the absorption materials
Prepare an elevator pitch to briefly present your
with low-grade heat to produce water. The
ideas to potential partners or stakeholders.
device can satisfy the water needs of a small
family group and produces up to 50 liters per day
Step 4: Elevator Pitch using solar energy.
An elevator pitch, elevator speech, or elevator This innovation was inspired by various research
statement is a short description of an idea, in water production from the atmosphere,
product, or company that explains the concept in renewable energy, and artificial intelligence and
a way such that any listener can understand it in anchored on Sustainable Development Goal
a short period of time. This description typically (SDG) 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation.
explains who the thing is for, what it does, why it
is needed, and how it will get done.
Elevator Pitch References
Use elevator pitch to encapsulate important
elements of your ideas briefly. Below are the 1. https://www.knowledge-
elements of an elevator pitch. share.eu/en/patent/water-production-from-air-
with-solar-energy
1. Focus area (from Venn)
2. https://www.seia.org/initiatives/about-solar-
2. What is the problem?
energy
3. Who are the target beneficiaries?
3. https://www.nesfircroft.com/
4. What is the action plan?
• How do you address the problem?
• Enumerate the benefits of the
solution/action plan.