People in different countries use different fuels and cook different meals. One stove does not fit all. This is why we use strong user-focused design methodologies and spend long hours in the field to develop regionally-adapted cookstoves. We listen and talk to the women who cook as they can tell us what they need in order to develop the most attractive and most useful stoves.
At the same time, Prakti Design brings in the improved cookstoves sphere high engineering and production standards. Advanced mechanical and materials engineering and innovations are needed to improve the fuel efficiency, decrease the emission of gases and particulates, and lengthen the durability of cookstoves while keeping the overall costs affordable for poor customers.
To ingrain improved cookstoves in communities' cultural habits, it must be possible to at least repair the stoves locally. Prakti Design goes further by promoting local assembly of its stoves. The production will be transferred from India to other countries once the stoves have a strong foothold in the local market.
As women represent the overwhelming majority of our users, they are also best placed to promote and sell the stoves. Encouraging women entrepreneurship for the promotion and sales of the stoves will create income-generating activities at the local scale while increasing market penetration of the product.