Towards technology with a global heart through compassionate engineering

This paper introduces the concept of “compassionate engineering,” a process adopted by our research group, TechBridgeWorld, for developing technology solutions that are relevant and accessible to people in underserved communities. The stages of compassionate engineering include establishing partnerships based in trust, assessing needs, participatory design, iterative innovation with frequent user tests, training developer teams, dissemination, and deployment. This paper describes each of these stages in detail along with lessons learned and recommendations. The process of compassionate engineering is further illustrated via the case study of TechBridgeWorld's Braille Tutor (BT) project. The BT project tackles literacy challenges for children in the developing world who are burdened by both poverty and blindness. Literacy plays a key role in empowering the blind, especially in the developing world. Over the past nine years the BT project has explored the challenges and abilities of blind children in developing communities, and developed technology innovations to empower these children and their educators.