Innovation & Design  Paul Polak: Global Poverty Fighter  Paul
Polak's strategy involves helping the world's poor earn more by
seeing them "as customers rather than charity recipients"  Most
of us look at the 1 billion men, women, and children in the
world who live on less than a dollar a day and see poor people.
Paul Polak sees market failure. He sees 1 billion potential
entrepreneurs who would rather earn money than accept handouts,
if given the opportunity. And if companies would develop the
products these people needed, he sees 1 billion potential
customers as well.  This might sound a bit starry-eyed, except
that Polak's innovative approach has already helped 17 million
people escape poverty. His strategy is to develop tools that
even the world's poorest can afford (often using microcredit)
and that will help them earn more money. Say, a $25 drip
irrigation system that would allow a subsistence farmer to grow
higher-value crops that he could then sell.  It may seem obvious
that poor people are poor becaus