<\/p>\n
BRIAN KENNY: Welcome to Cold Call, the podcast where we dive deep into the groundbreaking ideas behind Harvard Business School case studies. Access to safe sanitation is something many of us take for granted. We flush, we wash our hands, and we move on. But for more than three billion people around the world, that basic routine is anything but routine. The consequences extend far beyond inconvenience into public health, gender, equity, urban infrastructure, environmental sustainability, and economic development. Today\u2019s case explores what happens when engineers attempt to reinvent one of the most entrenched pieces of infrastructure in modern society: the toilet. Not just to improve it incrementally, but to fundamentally redesign it so it works off grid, treats waste on site, uses minimal water, and can operate in places where sewer systems don\u2019t exist. But solving the technical problem is just the beginning. This is really a case about the delicate balance between social impact and financial viability.<\/p>\n
Today on Cold Call, we\u2019re joined by Professor Maria Roche and Dr. SHANNON YEE: to discuss, \u201cToilets for the Underserved: The SURT Commercialization Challenge.\u201d I\u2019m your host, Brian Kenny, and you\u2019re listening to Cold Call on the HBR Podcast Network. Maria Roche is a repeat guest here on Cold Call. Welcome back, Maria.<\/p>\n
MARIA ROCHE: Thank you for having me. So excited to be here again.<\/p>\n
BRIAN KENNY: It\u2019s great to have you. And Shannon Ye is the protagonist in today\u2019s episode<\/p>\n
and joining us from Georgia Tech. Welcome, Shannon.<\/p>\n
SHANNON YEE: Thank you. It\u2019s great to be here.<\/p>\n
BRIAN KENNY: Great to have you. I think obviously everybody uses toilets, so I think this will be pretty \u2026 A lot of people probably think they know what we\u2019re going to talk about, but they really don\u2019t. So this is a super interesting case. I found it really fascinating. And I think people will enjoy learning about the things that you\u2019re doing, Shannon, and the impact that that\u2019s having in the world. And from a business perspective, it\u2019s complicated. It gets really complicated really fast. So Maria, thanks for writing the case and for being here to talk about it with us.<\/p>\n
And I think I\u2019ll just start with you if we just dive in. I\u2019m curious as to why you found this a compelling topic for a case. And these are the cases that I love best where you scratch your head and go, \u201cHuh, how is that an HBS business case?\u201d And also wondering what your cold call is when you start the discussion.<\/p>\n
MARIA ROCHE: Of course. So before I dive in to the cold call and everything, I did want to give a special shout out to my coauthors on the case, Anne Marie and Alex, because over the last four years, they have, maybe pestering isn\u2019t the right word, but close to it, have been pestering me about this case and have been saying, \u201cThis is so amazing. We need to write a case about it.\u201d But they both talked to me individually about it. So it was really interesting. And then after waiting and waiting, I was like, \u201cOkay, now is the time to write this case because I launched a new course called Innovating at Scale<\/em>.\u201d And I finally found a home for the case.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Awesome.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: And so then we\u2019re like, \u201cOkay, it\u2019s go time. Let\u2019s write this case.\u201d And I have to say it was the fastest one I\u2019ve ever written. It took us a month.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Wow.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Of course, Shannon also works at super speed, this whole different kind of level of how Shannon works. So we got it done in a month and launched it in the fall in our new course. And the cold call question is: is SURT\u2019s failure to scale primarily a technology problem? And the reason I ask this question is because it really nicely splits the room because half the class usually gravitates towards, \u201cYes, manufacturing costs. We don\u2019t know if it\u2019s a proven technology yet.\u201d But then the other half realizes, which is really where I\u2019m trying to go with the case, is that a lot of it has to do with adoption and these barriers to adoption and issues that new technologies often face where they tend to get over-engineered almost and then no one actually needs them. And this builds really nicely also on frameworks used by NASA and the Department of Energy where they think about adoption readiness levels and technology readiness levels.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: So people listening right now, first of one thing, if you could maybe explain what SURT stands for, but also just highlight the sort of central theme of the case, because we\u2019ve talked about toilets, but we haven\u2019t given much more information than that.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Oh yeah, Absolutely. So SURT stands for Single User Reinvented Toilet and this toilet, and Shannon will talk to us all about the technology behind it.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yes, we expect him to.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: It\u2019s essentially a self-contained toilet that doesn\u2019t really need access to sewer systems. So think about it in a place where you are using septic tanks or you don\u2019t have access to a sewer system. You can use this toilet and you don\u2019t need water, you don\u2019t need anywhere to put the things that come out. And so this is the beauty of this technology and this toilet that.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: And until you understand more, you probably think that sounds really gross listeners and I don\u2019t blame you, but you\u2019re going to be amazed at the way that this has been engineered. So Shannon, let me turn to you and thanks again for joining us today. The case opens up with a quote, and I just want to read it quickly. \u201cThe technology was hard, but the business is going to be even harder.\u201d And I believe that quote\u2019s attributed to you. And I\u2019m wondering if you can maybe tell our listeners why you found the commercial aspects of this to be even more daunting than the engineering challenges.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Most certainly. Yeah. The engineering challenges were hard, but when I looked to how this is going to take off, the business case, you have to figure out so many things about the market, about regulation, about how you can structure and sell a product at the price that people are willing to pay. When you look at toilets, you think of them as kind of a commodity, you could just buy them at low cost from your local hardware store. You don\u2019t think about the embedded infrastructure behind the toilet, everything that takes waste from your house to a centralized sewage treatment plant. And that has large business implications. It touches on the fabric of society with power struggles and city hall and everything like that. So I think the business side is going to be way more difficult than what it took to just invent a toilet that could treat waste on site.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. And we\u2019re dealing in many cases around the world where there are existing sewage systems, they are antiquated and we\u2019re seeing that surface in the news all the time. So this could be a very, very timely development.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Exactly. I think in the developed world, we\u2019re lucky. We still have a little bit more time and we\u2019re financially well off, but half the world doesn\u2019t have that same privilege. And so we really need to invent or reinvent the technology so it can become accessible to half the world.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: So the tagline we use is, \u201cHalf the world needs a toilet. The other half needs a better one.\u201d So we have some work ahead of us. And if you think about it, like the appliances in your house, your dishwasher, your washing machine, they clean things. So we might as well have an appliance in the bathroom that cleans your waste.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Makes perfect sense. Maria, let me come back to you. There\u2019s a lot of pieces in this case, a lot of sort of moving parts. One of the biggest ones was the Gates Foundation, which was a big supporter of the project. And I\u2019m wondering how you can talk about the complications when you\u2019re engaging with an organization like the Gates Foundation. They\u2019ve got requirements. They want to make sure that their investments are being used wisely. How does that affect the way Shannon and his team have to think about the commercialization aspect of this?<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: So on the one hand, the Gates Foundation made this possible. They provided the funds, they made the invention possible. So without it, probably it would have been really difficult to get this whole technology off the ground. Yeah. However, they also implemented some constraints around what kind of technology commercialization paths the team could take. And one of the things is exclusive licensing and having to deploy the technology in lower income developing countries. And this is tough because especially when you\u2019re dealing with technologies that are what I would call tough technologies or deep technologies, that take a lot of money to create in the first place and then have these huge adoption hurdles as well, you need a lot of scale. You need to build these multiple times so that you can get the price down to the price point that someone who may not have $400 lying around for a toilet is able to purchase this technology.<\/p>\n And so this kind of makes it difficult to go the optimal commercialization route because of these constraints. Again, without the Gates Foundation, we don\u2019t know if they would have had enough cash to even invent the toilet, but with them, these constraints kind of made it difficult to have the adoption down the line.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. So it\u2019s a little bit of a cart and horse thing too. You need the big numbers to get the adoption, but in order to get the big numbers, you need the market there, you need the addressable market.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: So in a way, a nice analogy of what happened is in a way the constraints or the requirements that the Gates Foundation had is like making a drug generic from day one. So you\u2019re not giving inventors the incentives to actually push the technology forward. It\u2019s like with drugs. If you don\u2019t have IP, you don\u2019t have monopoly, it\u2019s going to be really hard to make any money out of it. And if you don\u2019t have those incentives, you will have these lost technologies.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. We talk a lot about \u2026 The case rather talks a lot about the adoption challenges, Shannon. I wonder if you could maybe describe for our listeners, how is the SURT different from the traditional toilet that people are accustomed to using?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Yeah. So your traditional toilet doesn\u2019t really treat waste at all. You just kind of flush it and forget it. Your traditional toilet is reliant on a centralized treatment system that does all the magic. It treats the waste, it turns it into clean water. This reinvented toilet, we have to take all of that infrastructure, the miles and miles of pipes, the large biological digestors, and we have to figure out how to completely do it in a new way that can fit in your bathroom. So what we do is we rely on thermal-chemical and other thermal processes just to be able to do it all in your bathroom without relying on large biological treatment systems.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: How did you land on this as a problem you wanted to solve?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Oh, great question. So after completing tenure, we\u2019re always told we can go after some of those really challenging problems. And I said, \u201cGreat, I\u2019m going to go after working on toilets.\u201d And I can say my colleagues looked at me in skepticism and said, \u201cI\u2019m throwing away my academic career.\u201d<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Why did we give him tenure?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: That\u2019s right. Exactly. So I just kind of embraced it and said, \u201cLet\u2019s go with this.\u201d We got one life to live. I only got a few opportunities to make a difference in this world. Let\u2019s jump on into it. So yeah, that was kind of my rationale for getting into the program.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. Maria, I want to come back to you because the case highlights some of the enormous spillovers that we talk about, no pun intended, but certainly public health, water savings, worker safety. Why are those things difficult to capture in a traditional pricing model? These are all great benefits, but it\u2019s hard to articulate that in the pricing model.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Yeah. So the big issue here with spillovers is that the benefits accrue to those beyond the buyer. So the person buying the toilet doesn\u2019t even see all the benefits this has for disease prevention, general public health, et cetera. And so it\u2019s really hard to say how much that\u2019s even worth. So the public value, the social value is much higher than the private value. And the other thing is it\u2019s hard for people to see, well, now I have this toilet. You don\u2019t know what you\u2019re actually preventing either. So it\u2019s a bit tricky to see the outcomes or the benefits of this new technology right away. And especially if you\u2019re thinking about who\u2019s buying the toilets and versus who\u2019s usually hit by these diseases, the hundreds of thousands of babies that die of diarrhea every year, they\u2019re not making these purchasing choices. And so that makes it really, really tricky to price that in.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: How did you make the argument, Shannon, when you were trying to get people to buy into this vision of yours? What was the case that you made for it?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: A lot of the time we were recruiting engineers, some of those engineers, scientists, and designers-<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: But even then, how do you get them excited about it? How do you get people excited about this?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Yeah. It\u2019s pointing to a big problem. And it\u2019s showing similarities for that big problem on other engineering challenges. I think I\u2019m lucky in the sense that you find that personality type that just wants to dig into a technical challenge and we were able to craft it as a technical challenge for individuals there. So a lot of it is just motivating people and showing a path that they can contribute to.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: One of the things that you pointed out earlier was that the engineering piece was a big challenge. And I\u2019m wondering if there were points throughout the process where you thought to yourself, \u201cThis isn\u2019t going to work. We made a mistake here.\u201d And then maybe was there a moment where the light came on and you said, \u201cWait a second, this will work.\u201d<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Yeah. There were numerous moments where I was like, \u201cI don\u2019t know if there\u2019s a solution here.\u201d We actually kicked off the project with the series of workshops where we were de-risking different concepts through those workshops, making a prioritized list and down selecting. It was after the fourth workshop that we had a plan to actually say, \u201cHey, we may be able to put together a technology that works like this.\u201d That kicked off an 18-month development effort. And then after those 18 months, we had something that actually worked. So it just required going through the standard engineering practice and getting there. And then I think after we had that technology that actually worked, Bill Gates wrote an article and Gates\u2019 notes titled, \u201cI need to take a Yee like I need to take a pee.\u201d<\/p>\n And so for me, that was the moment where I\u2019m like, \u201cYep, the technology is solved. Now we have to figure out the testing demonstration and commercialization aspect,\u201d which took us the next three years of just really showing people that the technology does work and getting people inspired to take on that manufacturing and commercialization challenge.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: So that actually took longer than the development of the product itself?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Most certainly, yes.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Maria, I\u2019m sure a lot of the people that are listening, I believe we have a lot of business listeners, obviously, this is a management podcast. They\u2019re probably thinking the market for these toilets is huge, but they\u2019ve got to go to places that are really hard to build a clientele in. What would you say to somebody who\u2019s thinking about how do you prioritize whether or not to go into markets like this? Why should they take the chance?<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: So what I would say is think about timing too in when you go to that market. So you can go to the market at some point, but maybe not as the first market. And so in class when we teach this case, the one learning we get out at the end of the discussion is that what may be the better approach is actually partnering with high income customers such as our friends in Malibu who may have a lot of money, but have septic tanks and need a toilet that\u2019s self-contained or with the government, especially the military, that is a customer that needs a lot of quantity of this toilet. And so you can produce this over and over again and move down the learning curve so that you can get the cost down to the spot that will make it possible to even go into these lower income regions and geographies.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Because we know that certainly a highly educated population has a strong interest in sustainability and climate change and all the things that go along with that. So that\u2019s an addressable market for this. One of the interesting aspects in the case was the potential military partnerships, certainly less price sensitive, clearly defined needs, but a very, very different use case. Shannon, I\u2019m wondering how you think about balancing the near term revenue opportunities as you were rolling this out with the long-term social impact, because it feels like you got into this with the idea of social impact being a really important part.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Yeah, most certainly. So social impact, I think, was the primary motivator. When we were looking at what could we do to hand this off, we did consider military applications. And since then, there have been a number of calls for, I guess, improved latrines for different military options. None of them have really panned out, but it\u2019s something we really looked into and said, \u201cOkay, maybe there\u2019s a good partnership there,\u201d but nothing really came of it.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: It seems like a no-brainer, but I guess sometimes these things that look like they\u2019re going to be super promising just don\u2019t pan out. And I would imagine, we\u2019ve done Cold Call episodes before about selling into the Department of Defense, which is as big as a small country. So it\u2019s a very difficult prospect of doing that. So you also considered launching independently in a South African township, and I\u2019m wondering if you think about that, what were the advantages of being sort of embedded in a community first and sort of starting there and learning from that?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Most certainly. Yeah. We were considering both South Africa and India as target launch areas and the big thing is you could really rely on local manufacturing. So the concept was could companies come together, form a consortia where we would license the technology from the university and those companies could work with each other in B2B relationships in order to create a thriving ecosystem. Unfortunately, that didn\u2019t pan out either, but the route that did work was licensing to large global manufacturers and then inspiring them to take it forward and start transforming their own industry.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. Maria, as you think about that from a strategy standpoint, what are some of the trade-offs of partnering with a single large manufacturer that way?<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: So partnering with a single large manufacturer can have huge advantages, but going back to what I mentioned earlier, the constraints that the Gates Foundation imposed are going to make it really tricky because given that the licensing deals that they could get are non-exclusive, this means that competitors could also license the technology at the same time, which really, really reduces the incentives of anyone to invest into creating the infrastructure for this technology. Because for one, there\u2019s no IP moat. So you can\u2019t really protect yourself.<\/p>\n The other thing is also, there\u2019s still the demand uncertainty. So this goes beyond the competition that these large manufacturers will inherit when they start working on this. So it\u2019s not like it resolves much of the problem. And the other thing these large manufacturers, if they do licensing, and besides the competitive aspect, is that many of these companies, think about Bosch or Whirlpool, this isn\u2019t the kind of product they usually bring to market, so there\u2019s a kind of a mismatch there, and that will also risk mission drift from the perspective of what Shannon\u2019s trying to achieve, but also what these large manufacturers tend to try to achieve. So there\u2019s not really a match there as well, so that can get tricky.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Does that ring true to you, Shannon? Did you encounter any of that tension as you were talking with manufacturers?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Yes, that very much rings true. That\u2019s exactly the struggle that we had. Fortunately, about the same time, all in 2024, we had three groups that came forward and they decided to license. So it did kind of strike that competition mode a little bit. I think some of that is still existing, but when I look at the world and 3.5 billion people, that\u2019s a pretty large market. So even if you get a portion of that, that\u2019s a good place to begin. But I think what Maria also mentioned is it kind of talks to a company\u2019s mission drift. The company has to be really well aligned. It has to go all the way up to the CEO and the C-suite executives for it to be really close to their hearts for it to actually work. And I think we actually have that with our first licensee, which was LIXIL.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: So the CEO I know has been talking about it whenever he addresses the entire company. So it\u2019s very much aligned with what the mission for this company is. So I think that\u2019s why they were the first to step up and license.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: So they see it maybe as a brand enhancer, sort of a purpose driven way of thinking about business, which is a way to get maybe their employees and their customers excited.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Exactly.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Maria, the case does draw the analogy to people adopting refrigeration, which obviously happened a long time ago, even before me. And I\u2019m wondering if you can talk about sort of the analogy here and how alike or different this is than adopting refrigeration technology.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Absolutely. I\u2019ll start with how they\u2019re alike. So what\u2019s nice here is that the fridge and the SURT have a aimed price that is similar, which shows us that it\u2019s possible to have also in these low income countries that they will be able to purchase an item like this. So they were able to buy a fridge. It should be feasible to also purchase a toilet. So that\u2019s where they\u2019re similar, and they\u2019ve also gone down learning curves. It started up with really high manufacturing costs. And in the case, we also talk about how the fridge has managed to get down the cost down through learning. Where they\u2019re different though, and this goes back to what I mentioned earlier, is that how do you perceive the benefit? So a fridge, you see that it keeps your food cold, your drinks cold, it\u2019s instant, it\u2019s right there. A toilet, okay, maybe it\u2019s a nicer experience to go to the bathroom, but other than that, do you see the benefits? No, not really. And so it\u2019s really hard to kind of convince people to change their habits of how they go to the bathroom, that this actually makes a difference if you don\u2019t see the instant benefit of it.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. So Shannon, what do they have to do differently? Does the technology require you to do things differently, not to get too up close and personal, but I\u2019m just wondering, what\u2019s the experience like for the user?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: So we said at the onset of one of our engineering requirements that we cannot expect behavioral change. So the user needs to use the toilet the exact same way that they would use the toilet. I think we have them push a button to flush it instead of pulling a lever, but essentially nothing else needs to change for the user\u2019s operation. However, it\u2019s a technology and technologies require maintenance. You\u2019re going to have to change some filters from time to time. That could be done, not necessarily by the homeowner or the individual user, that could be done by a service company. You could also imagine situations where people may get curious and want to be able to change it themselves. So there has to be that kind of interaction with the technology, but we set off with the engineering requirement that the users wouldn\u2019t change their behavior.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Okay. Okay.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: But I will add that for some places, this toilet is a completely new device. If you\u2019re going into countries or places where it\u2019s usually an outhouse, there\u2019s no flush toilet or the other option of just going in the field, this is a big behavioral change, which is the places where the Gates Foundation was trying to go first.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Okay. Okay. And so is there an educational effort that goes along with that? Do they send people to help you learn how to use the technology?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: I think there would have to be. I remember hearing about certain other projects where they were looking at trying to address open defecation and they would provide people with a toilet, an outhouse, a ventilated pit latrine. And yeah, there were times where people didn\u2019t know what to do. You have to even instruct small children on how to use the toilet the first few times. So there is definitely going to have to be an educational component, but I think it\u2019s also very culturally based.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. Yeah. The other complicating factor here, Maria, is municipalities. Municipalities run on infrastructure that\u2019s centralized. It gets really complicated for them and probably financially a concern for them if all of a sudden people have these self-cleaning toilets that don\u2019t need to be tied into the system. How do you think about that?<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: This is where it gets really tricky.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Because on the one hand, we talked about this before, that the private benefit is probably lower than the social benefit. So who should step in is usually the government or the municipalities, but they have very different motivations because how do they make money? They typically make money from water supply, sanitation, sewage systems. So you are essentially competing with the actor that\u2019s supposed to support you in implementing this. So it gets really, really tricky. And there\u2019s a lot of money on the line, right? So, and it becomes political really quickly because a lot of jobs actually are created around sanitation. Now these may be taken away, maybe they\u2019re substituted with new ones. That could happen. And upgrading these sewer systems also costs a lot of money. They can cost up to, I think Boston, the numbers are about 100 billion just to upgrade the sewage system. Again, that creates a lot of jobs. That\u2019s a lot of money going through a city. And if you suddenly don\u2019t have that anymore, that\u2019s a problem. And so that makes it really, really tricky from that standpoint.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Shannon, have you engaged in any conversations with any municipalities about this? I\u2019m just wondering how those unfold.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Yes, exactly. So how Maria described it is exactly true. The nice thing is this isn\u2019t going to happen all of a sudden. If anything, it\u2019ll be a gradual process. Many municipalities are facing constraints where the city itself wants and needs to grow, but they\u2019re constrained by their current sanitation systems. So this provides an opportunity for some of those municipalities that they can adopt something that doesn\u2019t require them to put in the infrastructure, but it does have all of these knock on effects as Maria mentioned. So it\u2019s one of those that I think you could see a gradual transition. In the case for Boston and $100 billion, that\u2019s a lot. Many cities can\u2019t afford that.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Boston can\u2019t afford that.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: That\u2019s right. I know like New York City, for example, I think it\u2019s $110 billion for New York City and there\u2019s only a million toilets in Lower Manhattan. So that comes out at a cost of about $10,000 a toilet. And if it only costs about $3,000 for us to build one of these reinvented toilets, it\u2019s cost-competitive even in that market. So it\u2019s something to think about going, huh, maybe there are other solutions where when sanitation infrastructure fails, which it will, pipes do rust, but there\u2019s new technology that people could adopt. So business models are going to have to adapt. City municipalities are going to have to adapt. And I\u2019m just excited to see how that case unfolds.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. Well, that actually, we\u2019re getting close to the end of our time and I\u2019ve really enjoyed this conversation. I\u2019ve only got a couple of questions left, one for each of you actually. And actually that\u2019s a great segue, Shannon, into what I wanted to talk about with you, which is many, many years ago I worked at a consulting firm and one of the practices that they had was power generation. And they talked about the future being distributed power. We\u2019re going to do distributed power generation. We\u2019re going to set up these small power compounds everywhere and there\u2019ll be one on your block and it will power your grid. And that was going back probably 20 years and that still hasn\u2019t unfolded. One of the things that you\u2019ve talked about in the case is this idea of distributed sanitation. And is that something that you can see coming into shape in a decade or so? And what would that look like and what needs to happen for it to materialize?<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE:: That\u2019s right. In the next decade, probably not. But within the next 20, 30 years, yeah, I could see that actually being a likelihood. Things I could say are not the same in every part of the world. There are places, for example, Pakistan that has really adopted a lot of solar and distributed electricity generation. I think you could see that in other countries as well. Maybe not so much in the countries that have a really established centralized system. That will take a longer decadal transition if necessary to go through that. But I think there are places in the world that could adopt and leapfrog to a distributed sanitation system versus the high cost centralized systems.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. And as you just pointed out, the infrastructure is not going to last forever and we\u2019re already seeing evidence of that popping up in cities across the United States. So maybe that\u2019ll force the issue a little bit.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: That\u2019s right.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Yeah. A B case in 10 years, Maria, what do you think?<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: We\u2019ll see. Maybe even sooner.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Maybe even sooner. So Maria, let me turn to you. I\u2019ll give you the last word here. I actually saw this as a really hopeful case and actually talking to Shannon only gets me more excited about the possibilities of it because you can hear his enthusiasm. But I\u2019m also wondering what the case sort of teaches us ultimately about the challenge of introducing breakthrough technologies to underserved populations, which is where they\u2019re needed most. And how our listeners should think about leading change at this intersection between innovation and impact, which we know is going to be really important to solving a lot of these problems.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Absolutely. So I see this case as having really four core lessons. One is what I talked about at the beginning as well, and Shannon kind of pushed on is invention only goes so far. And innovation is only really innovation with adoption of these inventions. And so often folks focus on having these ideas and coming up with these technologies without actually thinking about how to get this to where it\u2019s needed. So that\u2019s the one thing. The second one is who you partner with fundamentally drives what you can actually achieve and how you can achieve it. And so philanthropy in this case with the Gates Foundation is an amazing partner, but you need to know what kind of trade-offs you will be facing when you pick that partner. The third one is that tough technology often requires a bit of a reversal of logic that we typically think about when we have new technologies and innovations where we think make a great product that people will come. In this case, it\u2019s more like you need to find the customer first and then make that product so that you can finally get to where you want to get at some point. So it\u2019s kind of reversing the logic. And then the final point is that in these situations, in this context, innovation and bringing these inventions to the market is as much orchestration of the market than actually the technology part. You have to figure out the ecosystem. It\u2019s managing all these different stakeholders and municipalities, the users, the governments. It takes so much more than just the technology to get this off the ground.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: As we often hear here at Harvard Business School, it\u2019s all about the people at the end of the day. The technology can\u2019t do it alone.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Exactly.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: Shannon, Maria, thank you for joining me on Cold Call.<\/p>\n MARIA ROCHE: Thanks for having us.<\/p>\n SHANNON YEE: Thank you very much.<\/p>\n BRIAN KENNY: If you enjoy Cold Call, you might like our other podcasts: Climate Rising<\/a>, Coaching Real Leaders<\/a>, IdeaCast<\/a>, Managing the Future of Work<\/a>, Skydeck<\/a>et Think Big, Buy Small.<\/a> Find them wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n