Selling to the other 90 percent: TEDx speakers call on entrepreneurs and corporations to embrace emerging economies.

• Author: Cote, Mike
• Position: COTE'S colorado

Wal-Mart has stopped at nothing to drive down the cost of the merchandise it sells. Paul Polak would argue even that model is not enough for long-term success in the global market.

While millions of people shop at Wal-Mart every day, billions will never set foot in the store. These are people for whom electricity, adequate shelter and clean water are anomalies.

Mega-corporations like Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Microsoft don't know how to operate in emerging economies, Polak told 1,500 people gathered at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House in April for the inaugural TEDx-MileHigh gathering.

"I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to foment that revolution," said the 77-year-old founder of International Development Enterprises, a Colorado nonprofit that aims to address poverty. Among the innovations Polak has championed: a $25 foot-operated "treadle" pump designed to irrigate small plots of land and drip-irrigation systems that costs as little as $3.

Corporations don't see the potential for profit in emerging markets and don't know how to design radically affordable products, Polak said. Businesses that want to succeed in countries where people live on less than $2 a day need to embrace high-volume, low-margin products and find ways to run profitable "last mile" supply chains, the key to bringing products to people where they live.

One of Polak's latest ventures, the for-profit Wind-horse International, sells treated drinking water in India. Video footage he played for the audience depicted villagers filling jugs from a small community storage tank and workers on bicycles delivering 1-liter plastic containers of water to homes.

Three billion people are bypassed by current markets/ meeting their needs will require a revolution in business practices, Polak said. "The revolution will create millions of new jobs. It will help move a billion people out of poverty."

The speakers and musicians appearing at the one-day conference, billed as "inspired citizenship," offered diverse perspectives on addressing global problems. But Polak easily could have been paired as a tag team with Bernard Amadei, a professor of civil engineering at the University of Colorado and founding president of Engineers Without Borders-USA.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Indeed, a document Amadei prepared for the Mortenson Center in Engineering for Developing Communities at CU prominently...