Amid bright green rubber and metal mechanisms, a prosthetic leg leaning on a table and muffled noises from the back room, Krista Donaldson M.S. ’98 Ph.D. ’04, CEO of D-Rev, a nonprofit that develops products to help the health and income of the impoverished on a global level, is busy at work.

 

For Donaldson, who will be a speaker at Stanford’s first-ever TEDx conference this Saturday, working at D-Rev is exactly what she wanted to do. Donaldson, who also currently serves as a lecturer and researcher at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (“the d.school”), knew from the start that she wanted to be involved in the intersection of technology and development.

 

“It’s funny — you usually hear about people making a big discovery about what they want to do, but, for me, I’ve always been interested in engineering for social good,” Donaldson said.

 

“It really started when I was at Vanderbilt and led an alternative spring break trip that got me thinking about how to involve public interest in engineering,” she added. Donaldson’s enthusiasm led her on a journey in design, both in the United States and abroad.

 

After becoming the first intern at KickStart International, an organization aimed at using product development and design to eradicate poverty, Donaldson spent four years working in Kenya. The lessons she learned in Kenya have influenced her philosophy on design and engineering for change.

 

“My time in Kenya made me take a more systematic approach to design, from the input to the output,” she said. “It made me see the critical questions, such as who is selling the product, who is going to be paying for it, how do we know that the product will be used correctly — if at all?

 

“For social innovation, you have to get at the core; you have to use product design and development with a renewed look at the social sector,” she added.

 

Through her innovative ideas and passion, Donaldson was awarded a fellowship with the American Association for the Advancement of Science to use her unique perspective on design and engineering in Iraq. Her time abroad also gave her insight to making a meaningful impact through design.

 

“It really is where rubber meets the road,” Donaldson said with a laugh. “The products need to be manufacturable.”

 

“You need to bear in mind that you are designing products in emerging markets and for populations that haven’t used that product,” she said.

 

Donaldson’s experiences have led to a change in D-Rev’s philosophy. Though D-Rev once had a strong emphasis on advocacy, it has changed to producing more physical products.

 

“Unlike just donating money or items, the key difference in development is designing products that have value,” she said.

 

D-Rev’s design process focuses on creating value from human needs. From using medical devices to address jaundice in infants to rubber knee joints for amputees, D-Rev’s approach is to constantly try to improve its products and the way they are integrated in the life of the user. For Donaldson, understanding for whom one is designing is critical. To gain this understanding, Donaldson goes straight to the source.

 

“When we went to India, we asked a young man about his thoughts on the knee joint, and he said that he didn’t like the clicking sound that the knee joints made since it made it hard for him to blend in,” Donaldson said. “We took what he said and designed a new version that doesn’t make any noise, and now the prosthetic leg blends in better.”

 

This philosophy on the intersection between engineering and international development is one that Donaldson is excited to share at Stanford’s TEDx conference.

 

“I am honored to be asked to speak at the conference,” Donaldson said. “I think it’s going to be a really good dialogue that is going to push us to think about the role of technology and ingenuity in society.”

 

Donaldson said she believes that engineering and design are powerful tools that can bring about social change and make a true impact.

 

“It’s really inspiring because everyday, everywhere you look, you see something that has been developed on some level by an engineer,” she said.

 

Using engineering and design in an affordable, effective way for social good is what Donaldson and D-Rev continue to explore.

 

“Enabling people to help themselves is what it’s really about,” Donaldson said.