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Problem Genome Project—N+A Labs at Dartmouth

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C06

Making the technology free wouldn't solve these problems. The real barriers are invisible: no electricity, no trained technicians, no supply chain, and designers who never visited the deployment context.

Designed for a World That Doesn’t Exist Here

Low-Resource Context Deployment Failures

22 problems across 13 domains · v3: 11 → v4: 17 → v5: 21 → v6: 22

Shared Structural DNA

constrainteconomic

failure modeignored-context

breakthroughcost-reduction

These ~21 problems have evolved beyond 'tech designed for rich contexts fails in poor contexts.' With labor/informal-sector additions — heat stress in agricultural workers, artisanal mining mercury exposure, substandard medicine field detection — the pattern now includes formal systems that can't account for informal economies. Distinguished from C3 by context: if you made the technology free, C3 problems would be solved but C6 problems would not. The barrier is infrastructure, institutional support, and understanding the user's actual constraints.

Member Problems

water-electrochemical-arsenic-removal

Arsenic Removed in the Lab, Not in the Village

Electrochemical Arsenic Removal Works in the Lab but Cannot Scale to Serve 140 Million Affected People

economic / infrastructure

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

water-field-pathogen-detection

Too Slow to Catch the Pathogen Before Outbreak

Field-Deployable Detection of Waterborne Pathogens Remains Too Slow and Complex for Low-Resource Settings

technical / economic

Lab-to-Field Sensor Deployment Gap

food-safety-vaccine-freeze-detection

The Vaccine Froze and Nobody Noticed

Detecting Unintentional Freezing in Vaccine Shipments

economic / behavioral

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

energy-building-retrofit-digital-gap

The Building Has No Twin

Most Buildings That Need Retrofits Have No Digital Models to Optimize Them

economic / data

Data-Constrained Predictive Models Failing at Extremes

agriculture-smallholder-cold-chain-access

Harvested, Then Lost

Smallholder Farmers in Developing Countries Lose 15% of Income to Preventable Food Spoilage

infrastructure / economic

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

infrastructure-water-ot-security-gap

The Water Plant Runs on Software from the Nineties

Water Utilities Run Decades-Old Control Systems That Cannot Be Secured Against Modern Cyber Threats

economic / infrastructure

Critical Infrastructure OT/Cyber-Physical Security Gap

health-cervical-cancer-screening-access-equity

Invisible to the System

90% of Women in Low-Income Countries Have Never Been Screened for Cervical Cancer Because Screening Was Designed Around the Clinician, Not the Woman

behavioral / equity

Wrong-Stakeholder Design Failures Across Equity ContextsBehavioral-Infrastructure Context Failure

health-oxygen-concentrator-low-resource-failure

Oxygen Machines That Drown in Humidity

Oxygen Concentrators Designed for Air-Conditioned Homes Fail Within Months in the Tropical Clinics Where Children Are Dying

infrastructure / economic

Behavioral-Infrastructure Context Failure

agriculture-soil-moisture-precision-irrigation

Every Field Varies, Every Sensor Averages

Affordable Distributed Soil Moisture Sensing Still Cannot Match the Spatial Variability of Real Fields

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

construction-shm-existing-building-stock-gap

Monitoring Built for New Buildings, Not Old Ones

Structural Health Monitoring Cannot Scale to Existing Building Stock

technical / infrastructure

energy-floating-offshore-wind-structural-mass

Deep Water Wind, Deeper Costs

Floating Offshore Wind Turbines Are Too Massive and Expensive for Deep-Water Deployment

technical / economic

energy-fugitive-methane-point-source-conversion

Too Thin to Catch, Too Potent to Ignore

Dispersed Low-Concentration Methane Emissions from Oil, Gas, and Coal Cannot Be Economically Captured

technical / economic

energy-grid-transformer-supply-chain-crisis

A Two-Year Wait for Every Transformer

The World Needs to Double Its Electricity Grid but Can't Get the Transformers and Cables Fast Enough

manufacturing / economic

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

energy-tidal-hydrokinetic-turbine-economics

Predictable Power, Prohibitive Price

Tidal and Riverine Hydrokinetic Turbines Are Too Expensive for Deployment Despite Reliable Resource

technical / economic

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

health-duodenoscope-reprocessing-infection

Sterilized and Still Infectious

Reusable Duodenoscopes Cannot Be Reliably Sterilized, Causing Drug-Resistant Infections with 40-50% Mortality

technical / economic

health-paediatric-cancer-formulation-lmic-gap

Adult Pills for Children's Cancer

Children With Cancer in Low-Income Countries Die at 3x the Rate of High-Income Countries Partly Because Chemotherapy Drugs Lack Child-Friendly Formulations

economic / manufacturing

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

health-rsv-prevention-lmic-access-gap

Protection Invented, Not Delivered

RSV Prevention Now Exists but 97% of the Children Who Die from It Live in Countries That Cannot Access It

economic / infrastructure

Proven Technology Blocked by Unviable Economics

labor-heat-stress-informal-agricultural-workers

Heat Kills Farmworkers Nobody Monitors

2.4 Billion Workers Face Excessive Heat but Affordable Heat Stress Monitoring Was Designed for Formal Workplaces That Informal Agricultural Workers Don't Have

economic / infrastructure

Behavioral-Infrastructure Context Failure

labor-artisanal-mining-safety-mercury-exposure

Tunnels Without Light

40–50 Million Artisanal Miners Face Injury Rates 6–7x Higher Than Industrial Mines Because Safety Equipment Was Designed for Operations That Have Electricity, Ventilation, and Engineers

economic / infrastructure

health-substandard-medicine-field-detection

One in Ten Pills Is a Lie

No Affordable Field Test Distinguishes Substandard Medicines at Point of Dispensing

technical / economic

Lab-to-Field Sensor Deployment GapBehavioral-Infrastructure Context Failure

agriculture-brazil-tropical-fruit-postharvest-loss

Rots Before It Reaches the Road

Brazil Loses 35% of Its Fruit and Vegetable Production Between the Field and the First Consolidation Point — and Proven Solutions Don't Reach Smallholders

infrastructure / economic

agriculture-grain-postharvest-storage-adoption-gap

Sealed Bags That Stay on the Shelf

Hermetic Grain Storage Virtually Eliminates Post-Harvest Losses in Trials but Reaches Fewer Than 12% of Sub-Saharan African Smallholders

economic / behavioral

Domain Spread

agriculture(5)construction(1)digital(1)energy(6)environment(2)food-safety(4)health(11)humanitarian(4)infrastructure(3)labor(2)manufacturing(2)ocean(2)water(4)