Type: For-Profit
PHASE: Design
CATEGORY: Economic Dev
LOCATION: Ahmedabad, India
Modular Roof
Asia

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Our product, Modular Roof, aims to provide better shelter over the heads of more than 200 million low income population in India, with superior properties and lower lifecycle costs.

Standings & Awards

1313 out of 1313 in Asia
268 out of 268 in Economic Dev
935 out of 935 in Design
555 out of 555 in For-Profit
4003 out of 4003 Overall

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VOTES

Modular Roof
Our product will make existing homes usable, happy and in the process improve economic condition of the family

Over last 5 to 10 years, more than 80% of families in rural India have built some sort of brick walls. However, in more than 80% of these cases (45 million houses), roofs remain poor. These are either thatched roofs or corrugated cement roofs. We want to replace these roofs by providing a better option to these families, thereby creating usable and comfortable living and working spaces.

Currently, thatched roof and corrugated cement roof require regular maintenance, get hot, have water leakage problem and cause health problems to the families.

We are filling a huge gap that exists between thatched and corrugated cement roof (costs $30 to $35 for 100 sq ft) AND concrete slab roof ($250 to $350 and higher for 100 sq ft).

Our roof will be: Modular: Roof-in-a-box that is assembled at site, Satisfy Heat resistance, Water leakage protection and Strength, Use sustainable materials and Offered at less than dollar a square foot.

We aim to create happy families with high quality and cost effective Roof, the most basic unit of shelter.

FIVE PROJECT QUESTIONS Required (60 - 90 minutes)

1. What is your innovation? 
Our Roof-in-a-Box is a design innovation. This modularity will enable us to achieve lower distribution costs and enable the families to reuse the roof as well as repair only the damaged parts, thus extracting longer life from the roof. Our choice of materials, another innovation in itself, will be sustainable and satisfy necessary properties like heat insulation, water leakage protection and strength. All this is superior to thatched roofs and corrugated cement roofs widely used at present.
2. Who gains the most? 
Low and mid income families in urban slums and rural areas in India will experience a significant improvement in their quality of life with our product. As the house becomes more usable during all parts of the day as well as all year round, we will see increased economic activity in the house, increased focus on kids and their education and health, decreased social tensions and overall a happier family.
3. Who pays? 
We have partnership with a local non-profit that provides us access to their member families for feedback and testing. On successful testing, they will purchase roofs for atleast 2 to 5 families. In return, we will provide skills and employment to the member families. We have a local entrepreneur who will host us in India, arrange for workshop facility and co-ordinate with the local non-profit. In return, we will engage him long-term with the project with small payment or equity.
4. What is your success? 
In first 12 months, we aim to test the roof with 15 families and train 5 "Community Entrepreneurs" in selling, installing and repairing our roof, thereby providing skills and employment to them. Three years from now, we aim to provide superior shelter to more than 2000 families through 40 Community Entrepreneurs and institutional channels. Five years from now, we aim to cover more than 8000 families, train more than 150 Community Entrepreneurs, thereby impacting close to 50,000 people.
5. How will you do it? 
During first 12 months or the testing phase, we will partner with a local non-profit. We will build relationship with the local community and identify our Community Entrepreneurs. Towards the end of this phase, we will have a system for identifying and training these entrepreneurs. Alongside, we will also build other partnerships mainly with micro-finance institutions: to get our roof financed for end users and private distributors: to use their network to reach out to more families.

Badges & Awards

Project Participant DSIC 2012
2012 DSIC Project Participant

Members

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Northwestern University
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Jennifer Foster