South SFV Today

Before sunrise on a cold winter morning, Stanford students gathered on campus to shadow groundskeepers as part of the Design for Extreme Affordability course. This elective course, offered by the Graduate School of Business and the d.school through the School of Engineering since 2003, teaches students to apply design methods to challenges related to poverty in collaboration with global communities.

The course enrolls up to 40 students from various majors and has led to solutions like medical devices for children in Mexico and hand washing stations for schools in India. Students begin their projects by addressing issues on campus through the Stanford Service Corps (SSC), an element added in 2010 that runs eight to ten projects annually.

Stuart Coulson, adjunct professor at the d.school and lecturer at GSB, explained: “We created the Stanford Service Corps with the idea that we could run a very fast version of our process with people where the stakes are a little lower.”

This year, SSC student teams tackled challenges such as battery-powered landscaping tools used by Stanford’s Land, Buildings, and Real Estate’s grounds crew. The students shadowed groundskeepers, gaining hands-on experience. Grounds Lead Eduardo Tavera Saldivar emphasized this approach: “Every job takes time to learn and every machine takes time to learn.”

Graduate student Anastasha Gunawan highlighted the importance of working closely with communities: “The emphasis is not designing for but designing with the community you now have a relationship with.” Amelie Or, an undergraduate design major, found this class eye-opening: “I think this is the most important class I’ve taken because it goes beyond the class.”

In their final presentation, students proposed collaborating with battery experts and suggested ongoing discussions about sustainability goals. Gunawan plans to use these skills in Costa Rica on projects promoting regenerative agriculture and tourism accessibility.

Coulson noted that empathy and immersion help students acknowledge what they don’t know: “That can be fairly ambiguous and disconcerting,” he said. Grounds Services Manager Mary Nolan praised SSC’s impact: “Students bring new perspectives and new enthusiasm,” she said.

While not all student ideas become implementable solutions, some have improved campus operations. For Nolan, developing communication skills is key: “We allow them to develop skills that hopefully will help them go on and do something really important somewhere else.”