Recent work is re-conceptualizing global poverty as an attractive growth opportunity for firms that can simultaneously alleviate the problem of poverty. The so-called ‘Base of the economic Pyramid (BoP)’, exists of 4 billion people that live on an income of less than $3 a day. Tapping into these overlooked markets will require companies and designers to reconfigure their business and product innovation models.

The challenge is the creation of accessible and affordable product and service solutions to fit the local economical and socio-cultural preferences, without expanding the current of environmental resources. This paper will discuss the experiences of DUT and international companies in this new field of product and service design. A preliminary framework for Designing for the BoP will be proposed as well as the challenges on the short term will be discussed