Once you see Yangon, you have… absolutely not seen Myanmar. Yangon is a strange anomaly compared to the rest of the country. It’s fun to explore the city (I’ll soon post more about my escapades), but the real Myanmar experience lies beyond. On a daily basis, I actually get a lot closer to this reality than most expats do. Our design studio is located in the industrial district, surrounded by small towns and villages and oblivious to almost all western influence. The way our design team functions simultaneously in English and Burmese and the way we collaborate and tell stories as well as laugh and tease, despite significantly different life experiences, is something unique and remarkable. But even beyond this daily infusion of local culture, I had the chance to dive further.
Especially from an engineering perspective, knowing the user and their story is the only way to design successfully, at least I (and Proximity) think so. Thus, the design team regularly makes trips into the field, especially during the user research and prototype testing phases. Going out into the field means traveling into remote parts of the country to interview farmers, in-person, in their daily environment. It means leaving the comfort zone of the office to understand our customers as people. And it’s not just us going out into the field. At Proximity, everyone from our donor relations team to the social impact team regularly ventures out. And perhaps even more unusual, this effort goes in both directions. The hundreds of full-time proximity sales-reps make monthly trips into our Yangon office to debrief, learn, and strengthen their relationship with the rest of the company. This fluidity between our presence in Yangon and the rest of Myanmar is something that originally impressed me about Proximity and has continued to gain my respect.
Last Wednesday night, I went on my first trip into the field. We took an overnight bus to a town called Minbu, located North of Yangon in the dry zone of Myanmar. I traveled with two members of the design team, both Myanmar locals. One of them, Tayzar, learned remarkably good English just by working at Proximity, and he took on the task of translating. He was also my main companion during the trip, as he was the only person I could verbally communicate with. For the most part, I relied on a few small words, gestures, expressions, and constantly trying to absorb everything I could see.
We reached Minbu before sunrise on Thursday morning, much to the excitement of the hotel staff who woke up to check us in. In the morning, we met the sale representative for the region and our two other motorbike drivers. In Yangon, motorbikes are illegal; but outside the city, bikes are very popular and the only practical option for visiting villages and farms. So instead of renting a car, the norm is to rent motorbikes (and drivers if you need). With the three of us on the back of our respective motorbikes, we spent Thursday and Friday making trips, sometimes long ones, out to individual farmer’s fields and homes. After two days, we took another overnight bus back, eager to share our findings with the rest of the team.
Meeting farmers and doing user research made everything I’ve been thinking about, talking about, or learning about back at the workshop feel real and personal. About 10 months ago, a Proximity employee pushed for precision agriculture and had our sales reps sell a cheap, off-the-shelf soil moisture sensor for a pilot study. Moisture sensors are a way for farmers to determine when the roots of their plants need water, versus irrigating whenever the surface looks dry. By irrigating more efficiently, farmers save water, reduce fungus caused by over-watering, and ultimately increase their yield. In Minbu, we interviewed farmers who had bought these sensors and learned about their farming practices before and after the device. We spoke with people who loved it and said they only irrigate when the sensor tells them, and we met people who had given the sensor away because they hadn’t understood how to use it or what impact it would have. It was incredible to hear farmers say things that completely affirmed many of the ideas or assumptions we had developed through previous research. And it was really exciting when farmers mentioned problems, different uses for the sensor, or other tidbits that fired off all kinds of design questions in my head.
Before I wrap up, I mentioned earlier that we were in the dry zone of Myanmar, but we didn’t experience typical sweltering and arid climates. We arrived just after the rains had ended and before major harvests, which resulted in tremendously lush and beautiful landscapes to keep me enamored during all our riding. Sitting on the back of a bike and staring off into the beautiful landscapes gave me a lot of time to reflect on my life and my decision to come away for this year. I felt like pinching myself; I still can’t believe I’m out here, seeing the world in new and rewarding ways.
When I left college, I felt reasonably disenchanted with engineering. Sure, I’ve always loved solving puzzles and problems and probably always will. But the way most engineering opportunities focus purely on solving technical problems, even if these solutions had interesting social applications down the line, felt more disconnected from the ultimate impact than I wanted to be. So to now be in an engineering environment where every second of the design process is guided by questions like “how will this tool be empowering” and “how can we ensure the greatest impact,” I have a fresh look at engineering. To be clear, I’m not claiming to have suddenly figured out exactly how to weave engineering into my future, but to be in an engineering context that is motivated by my passions is a very satisfying feeling.
The top photo is of Tayzar and Tin Tun Aung riding ahead of me! The photos below are of the beautiful, lush scenery.
The two photos of farmers are people we spoke with. The one on the right is demonstrating how he uses the sensor.
The last photo is of an oil rig. Tayzar had the motorbikes pull over so he could look closely. He had never seen an oil rig in person and was fascinated!
