Carla Lopez files an update from Bihar state in India where her IDEO.org d.light team has just arrived and is conducting human-centered design hear research in both rural and urban communities. 

Our first stop was in Patna, capital of Bihar state in Northeast India. As our IDEO colleague Kyle Doerksen had told us, the city of Patna is pretty "gridded up" and solar panels are relatively common. During our visits around the city, my fellow Fellow Robin Bigio and I brought a couple of lights – one of which is a compact two-light system and the other is a crappy little rechargeable LED light that cost $4 and is sure to break in a few months. The latter is the most popular, we are told, because while everyone knows it’s crappy, $4 is all someone may have to spend on a light right now.

We decided to stretch our legs and stroll down to see the river one morning. By “stroll”, I mean dodge cars, motor rickshaws, bikes, and motorcycles on a busy thoroughfare. The din is deafening in Patna. By “see the river”, I mean allowing the population a chance to stare at the giant blond foreigner in their midst (Robin). We finally took refuge on the tranquil grounds of a very modern Buddhist temple.

Yesterday, we moved about two hours outside the bustle of Patna, so that we can work in the surrounding villages to learn more about their electricity usage. We found that, in general, the people we were speaking with had about 16 hours of grid power per day. We’ll have the opportunity to talk about cost when we conduct proper interviews later this week.

I met a shopkeeper yesterday who used a candle and a flashlight for light while his neighbors used kerosene lanterns and electricity. When our interpreter asked him about his use of candles, the shopkeeper told us that he can live quite well without electricity, thank-you-very-much. It seems having a young man from the metropolis of Delhi asking questions about lighting rubbed him the wrong way. And Tata had done a solar project in the area that soured him towards solar – according to him, their batteries had a three-year warranty but ran into trouble at six-months. We’ll need to ask more people about that.

For our research yesterday, Robin had to be left in the car because he can attract a crowd of 50 people in about two minutes, flat. I’m really excited to conduct an experiment to see whose rate of crowd attraction is greatest: Robin and his blond halo, or our third IDEO.org teammate arriving tomorrow with our prototypes. Joerg is German and 6'6". I'll report back after Joerg joins us. We’ll be back soon with more updates from Bihar state.