DripTECH Presentation

In the spring of 2008, three Stanford graduate students from the schools of business, engineering, and design joined forces in a course called Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability. The team traveled to Ethiopia to see where they could apply their talents to help, arriving in the middle of the worst drought Ethiopia had experienced in 20 years. The farmers they met had no means to grow crops with the scarce water resources available. The drip irrigation products that were locally available were too expensive for most farmers and seldom worked properly. These farmers needed better, less costly, more effective ways to use their meager water supplies efficiently. The team returned to the Stanford d.school and invented a new manufacturing technology that makes clean, consistent holes in super-low-cost plastic tubing. The resulting product works better and more reliably than the competition at 2-5x less cost. With this success, mechanical engineer Peter Frykman incorporated Driptech to manufacture and sell drip irrigation tubing for developing markets across the globe.

Speaker: Peter Frykman is the Founder and CEO of Driptech. He received his BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, where he focused on manufacturing and design. He is vitally concerned with the challenge of water scarcity, especially in developing countries. His professional interests include mechatronics, medical devices, and design for extreme affordability. He is an avid rower and two time national champion for Stanford.