SIEMENS

Can you hear the heartbeat of an unborn child in a village that has no electricity? Can a family light a room even if the cost of diesel fuel for a lamp becomes unaffordable? Or filter its water to ensure that it is free of arsenic? Is it possible to develop cameras so sophisticated and inexpensive that even small companies in developing countries can afford to automate quality control? Or to develop medical diagnostic equipment that almost any hospital can afford? Absolutely.
These, and dozens of other solutions that broadly fit Siemens' "simple, maintenance-friendly, affordable, reliable, and timely-to-market" (SMART) definition, are now in the company's innovation pipeline. They range from an image processing module for an X-ray system that will be 75% cheaper than its predecessor (see article "Traditional Chinese Medicine Meets Western Technology") to solar-powered "energy hubs" for charging lanterns and cell phones in Kenya (see article "Inexhaustible Light for Lake Victoria"), and from software developed in China that can analyze an entire city's traffic status (see article "Innovations Tailored to China's Needs") to a turbine designed specifically for the combustion of gas produced by a Brazilian sugarcane biomass facility (see article "Sweet Savings").
What's more, by providing technologies that help developing economies and low-income people around the world to bootstrap themselves into a more productive future, Siemens is tapping what groundbreaking author C. K. Prahalad called 'The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid.' "Every major company is developing strategies for satisfying the needs of those at the bottom of the pyramid," says Dr. B. Bowonder, Dean of the Tata Management Training Center in Pune, India and a world-renowned expert on technology and innovation management. "These people are not to be dismissed because they are poor. On the contrary, our research shows that between now and 2025, the annual purchasing power of the 650 million poorest people in India will triple to over one trillion dollars."
Lanterns that Change Lives. "It is a tragic situation that in this day and age people are living literally in darkness," says Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri (see article "Reflecting on the Simple Things"), Chairman of the U.N. intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Director-General of The Energy and Resources Institute in New Delhi. "In view of this, my institute has launched a program called Lighting a Billion Lives in which Siemens is involved through its Osram subsidiary. Here, we are addressing the problem of the 1.6 billion people around the world who have no access to grid electricity." The program, he explains, has developed a solar lantern and solar-powered village charging station where people can drop off their lamps for charging during the day and rent them for a few pennies per night. "The lanterns offer enormous benefits because they allow people to work or study after dark, thus contributing to the economic welfare of their villages," says Pachauri.
Not only is light coming to many of the world's off-grid villages. Power is on the way as well. Engineers at Siemens Corporate Technology's (CT) Renewable Energy Innovation Center in Bangalore, India are developing what amounts to a portable power plant. Already operating so efficiently that it meets U.S. emission requirements, the plant needs about 35 kg of coconut shells per hour to generate enough electricity for a typical Indian village of 50 to 100 families. "Our partial oxidation combustion process produces a hydrogen and carbon monoxide gas that is fed into a reciprocating internal combustion engine that generates 25 to 300 kW of electricity," explains Peeush Kumar, who is responsible for energy systems development at CT India. "What is unique about our solution is that, thanks to new electrostatic precipitator technology now being developed in Munich, it will require very little cooling water. What's more, it produces carbon ash that can be converted into activated charcoal for local water purification and can even become a significant source of revenue if sold externally."

A Corkscrew that Purifies Waste Water. If there's one thing that is even more essential than light and power, it is clean, safe water. Here too, Siemens is developing solutions that will transform the lives of people rich and poor. In Singapore, for instance, where the company established its global headquarters for water technology R&D in 2007 and is a key player in the city state's "Water Hub," a center dedicated to developing affordable water treatment solutions (see Pictures of the Future, Fall 2008, Interview Rhett Butler: http://www.siemens.com/innovation/en/publikationen/publications_pof/pof_fall_2008/rohstoffe/inter_butler.htm), Siemens Water Technologies (WT) is working with CT to develop new materials that can selectively adsorb (bind) dangerous contaminants such as arsenic. Arsenic occurs naturally in toxic concentrations in wide areas of northern India, eastern Bangladesh and the southwestern United States. "In view of the danger of arsenic poisoning in many parts of the world, we have developed and tested an arsenic adsorbing particle as well as a filtration system that can capture it," says Richard Woodling, PhD, who is in charge of technology development at WT's global R&D center in Singapore. "The system can be downsized to the needs of an individual farmer and can process 1000 liters for less than half a cent," he says. Once captured, the arsenic can be precipitated from the filter and bound to cement, thus permanently removing it from the environment. The technology will be tested in the U.S. in early 2009.
Meanwhile, back in Bangalore, CT researchers are developing a sewage treatment system that can already remove 95% of organic substances and up to 99% of nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphates from effluent without any outside power source. "Most sewage treatment facilities have very high energy requirements because they rely on powerful aerators to support the bacteria that metabolize organic matter," explains Senior Research Engineer Dr. Anal Chavan. "But with our unique system, specially-adapted microorganisms produce the oxygen themselves."
Shaped something like a corkscrew, the treatment system can be powered by the force of effluent as it cascades downward, thus turning the corkscrew and exposing the water to its surface area, which is colonized with bacteria. "What's more," adds Dr. Zubin Varghese, department head for smart innovations at CT India, "the same technology — but with different organisms — can be adapted to treating water contaminated with chemical or petroleum wastes." CT India is now working with Siemens Water Technologies to identify a village for a pilot facility. "This is a perfect example of a SMART technology," says Varghese. "It can be scaled up to any desired size, trucked into a village, and can, with only minimal additional treatment — possibly based on the activated charcoal from our coconut gasification system — turn sewage water into potable water."

A Stethoscope that Recognizes Hearts. Light, energy, clean water — the technological building blocks for affordably offering these indispensables to hundreds of millions of the world's poorest people are now taking shape. But there's more. In India, where almost 85 % of the population has no access to medical care, the government is about to more than double its healthcare budget to almost 2 % ($20 billion) of GDP. And technologies designed to improve basic healthcare services are in the pipeline. For instance, with a view to ensuring a safe delivery for the 30 million babies born each year in India, 30 % of whom — about 27,000 per day — are at risk, Siemens is developing a Fetal Heart Rate Monitor (FHRM) that vastly simplifies the diagnosis — and potentially accelerates the treatment — of problem pregnancies. "This will be an exciting product because there is nothing else like it on the market," comments D. Ragavan, head of Siemens' Healthcare Sector for India, which grew by 25% in 2008.
Something like a digital stethoscope, the monitor — now a functional prototype — is outfitted with sophisticated electronics and algorithms developed by CT India that result in an inexpensive device capable of distinguishing the sound of the fetal heart from the sound of the mother's heart.
Combined with a waist belt, a wireless module, an acoustic sensor and an accelerometer-based muscle-contraction sensor that is now under development, the device will offer the potential of continuous monitoring in maternity wards. "As a contraction comes to an end, the fetal heart rate needs to return to normal," explains Senior Research Engineer Archana Kalyansundar, who is responsible for Siemens rural healthcare technologies for India. "If it fails to do so, that is a sign of trouble. And that's when the device will trigger an alarm to call a doctor to the mother's bedside."

Power Lines that Cut Carbon Emissions. Whether its consumers, manufacturers, or the public and private organizations that build and manage infrastructures, demand is growing throughout the developing world for solutions that are robust and provide long-term operational savings. And across this entire spectrum, Siemens is providing solutions that meet these needs. "There is tremendous demand for systems that can improve energy efficiency," says V. V. Paranjape, who heads Siemens' Industry Sector for India. He points out, for instance, that his organization, which employs nearly 3,500 people, is supplying the complete electrical systems for the new trains ordered by Mumbai's public transit network. "Thanks to our regenerative breaking technology and the efficiency of our motors and control system, trains not only use as little power as possible, but can run closer to each other, thereby maximizing passenger-carrying capacity," he says.
Similarly, in the electrical distribution sector, Siemens technology has made it possible to increase the transmission capacity of existing power lines by up to 25 %, thus cutting transmission losses and associated CO₂ emissions. "Thanks to R&D in control systems and the intelligent devices that continuously monitor power lines, we now hold a 100 % share of the Indian market for so-called flexible alternating current transmission systems," says Ajay Kumar Dixit, Vice President for Siemens' Energy Sector for South Asia and Head of Product Innovation for India.
From basic services to major infrastructures, demand for improved quality and reduced prices will continue to grow. But how can even greater efficiencies be realized? One possibility is called 'The City of the Future,' a scenario generator developed by Siemens and Singapore University. "This is the first solution anywhere in which Siemens is interactively showcasing its answers for cities," says Klaus Heidinger, Senior Vice President for City Management at Siemens IT Solutions and Services in Singapore. "The system lets users see how services such as transportation and energy generation are linked. It's a great way of understanding complexity — and it could be the next step in discovering the synergies that can further improve services while cutting costs."