What Makes Prakti Different?
Cooks around the world love Prakti stoves. They are best-in-class for usability, thermal efficiency, pollutants emitted, affordability and fuel consumption. Our singular focus on deeply understanding our users' struggles and problems enables us to make excellent stoves.
As a result, we create products that have won critical acclaim from scientists; and, more importantly, love from our users.
Multi-disciplinary staff
Prakti boasts a young, energetic team of top professionals from around the world - high achievers who have chosen to dedicate their in-demand talents to global social impact rather than the many corporate opportunities available to them. Disciplines include:
Engineering & Design, with expertise in consumer product design, rapid prototyping, combustion technologies, and production efficiencies.
Social Sciences, with backgrounds in cultural anthropology, sociological field work, and experimental design.
Business Impact, with deep knowledge of global development strategy, bottom-of-the-pyramid economics, social impact marketing, and creating effective partnerships with multilateral agencies, NGOs, and other development and relief institutions.
This combination of skills in our team allows us to create stoves that are cutting edge in terms of indoor air quality (CO, CO2, PM 2.5), fuel usage, thermal efficiency, and the equally essential aesthetics, usability, affordability, and accessibility.
In-house engineering lab
We have a world-class research laboratory in Ohio that we use to collect data on the performance of our products. When we have new ideas from our engineers or users, we verify the new specs by manufacturing and testing efficiency and emissions at our Ohio lab.
In addition, we periodically collaborate with research universities to further develop our new technologies. Most recently, we researched the Prakti Air with Chiang Mai University.
Philosophy of refining designs via user feedback
At Prakti, we believe that the most effective way to design a best-in-class stove is the rapid iteration of designs. We focus on quickly generating prototypes and then testing these via feedback from users in the field. We collect feedback from actual cooks throughout every step of our design process. We are unafraid to get honest criticisms of our design, as we want users truly to love our stove. User feedback is treated with the same importance as lab testing at Prakti because we understand that if the cooks don't find a stove convenient, it won’t be adopted.
Too often do other stove designers use user research to confirm their design rather than a learning experience. While we have the technology and engineers to make high-performance stoves, something unique to Prakti is that we will always rely on the expertise of real cooks to make the best stove possible.
Consulting with other organizations
Prakti is also proud to partner with Engineers without Borders, Imperial College London, Ernst & Young, IIT Chennai, and others to provide training and internships for graduate students and young professionals.
In addition to producing the world's finest biomass cookstoves, Prakti has consulted with agencies such as the World Food Program in countries around the developing world.