MIT Solve

Solution Overview & Team Lead Details

Our Organization

ModulusTech

What is the name of your solution?

World's most affordable net-zero homes - ModulusTech

Provide a one-line summary of your solution.

Can net-zero homes be provided at scale to the low-income families? ModulusTech's intermesh system does just that in 10% of the time.

Film your elevator pitch.

What specific problem are you solving?

Globally, there is a housing shortage of 1.6 billion with the majority of the shortage falling in developing countries.

With rising demand for housing in Pakistan, the housing backlog has increased to 10M units, while the current prices make it impossible for a low-income family to ever own a house, as a result 40% of the urban population still lives in slums.

Climate change is another impediment in the housing crisis, with rising emissions and soaring temperatures, conventional houses have become inhabitable without expensive artificial cooling. It is identified that 40% of all global carbon emissions come from construction of housing. Hence, if we continue to build the same way, we risk pushing climate change beyond the tipping point.

What is your solution?

The Moonshot ?
ModulusTech's solution does 4 things;
- it makes housing affordable ($12/sqft),
- scalable (can be manufactured at scale),
- sustainable and 100% off-grid,
- quick to build (1 day assembly)
all at the same time, while providing proper standards of living.

A 2-bed house (900sqft) costs as low as $9,000, and is set up in as little as a day, has 90% lower embodied carbon than conventional homes, and works 100% off-grid.

How it Works?
These homes are factory built, are shipped flat-packed to the site of construction (where 11 units can be transported per truck - significantly reducing transport costs), next the homes are assembled manually like a jigsaw puzzle by 3-4 people, without the need for heavy equipment. This process takes a day. After which the homes may be furnished and finished as per the users needs in as little as a week.

The Innovation: Intermesh System
The product is innovative in terms of it’s unique flat-packed system and assembly methodology, that uses an optimized man-machine ratio to significantly reduce costs, as well as ensures an extremely quick build time. The houses are also net-zero energy with an extremely low carbon footprint.

Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?

We are making housing affordable and climate resilient for low-income communities.

Cities in Pakistan continue to face the problem of large-scale urbanization and a shortage of 10M+ housing units arising to the issue of illegal habitat/squatter settlements/slums. The current population of Pakistan is around 200 million people, which makes it the world’s sixth most populous country - out of which the bottom 40% lives in inadequate conditions.

Karachi is the largest city in Pakistan with a population base of 20 million. According to an estimate nearly 40% of the Karachi metropolitan consists of squatter settlements (Katchi Abadis). The city has 600-800 such squatter settlements with nearly 7-8 million people living in these habitats/slums, posing a major challenge to urban planners. The net urbanization in Karachi alone is about a quarter of a million people from interior of Sindh and Punjab province. The situation in other major metropolitans like Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Faisalabad are relatively better but not much different.

In slum conditions families are unable to find a comfortable home, continue to live in adverse conditions with leaking roofs, and congested spaces. For which they still end up paying $60-100 per month in rent.

ModulusTech's solution provides these families with new homes for as low as $60/month, with solar panels that provide them with off-grid energy supply throughout the year.

The significantly lower cost of construction, and quick build time, helps make housing affordable as well as provides better thermal comfort and standards of living. Hence, addressing the housing problem for a huge underserved market.

Moreover, the homes that ModulusTech builds are passively cooled and built in a way to have lower temperatures indoors on a hot sunny day. During peak summer months temperatures in Karachi soar up to 45 deg celsius, during which the homes are at least 10-15 degrees cooler inside. This eliminated the need for expensive air conditioning during the peak summer months and makes the homes climate smart.

How are you and your team well-positioned to deliver this solution?

The ModulusTech team consists of individuals with the domain knowledge, who are passionate about tackling the global shortage for housing and understand the needs of low-income communities.

With the majority of the team growing up in Karachi and witnessing the disparity in the city, we have seen first hand the conditions a majority of our population lives in.

The product team at ModulusTech also spent time in slum areas of the city and took user interviews to really understand their problems and see what conditions they live in. Our design methodology ensures collecting feedback from end users for the design and features of the homes.

Which dimension of the Challenge does your solution most closely address?

Enable mass production of inexpensive and low-carbon housing, including changes to design, materials, and construction methods.

Where our solution team is headquartered or located:

Karachi, Pakistan

Our solution's stage of development:

Growth

How many people does your solution currently serve?

350+ people use our solution on a daily basis.

Why are you applying to Solve?

The benefits ModulusTech aims to gain from MIT solve revolve around creating a solid partner network as well as to gain exposure for a problem that affects almost every country in the world.

We feel that the space we are working in shouldn't be competitive but rather collaborative. In order to achieve our goal of reducing the housing shortage gap significantly we have to engage and collaborate with other organisations and companies that are focusing on the same problem. With MIT solves expansive network, we at MoudlusTech have a lot to benefit from. More than just raising funds, we want to create awareness for the problem and find partners who want to move forward on this journey with us and learn from more mature companies who have already tackled the challenges we are facing. Winning this prestigous challenge would ensure that ModulusTech is seen as a reputable and credible company that partners would want to work with.

In which of the following areas do you most need partners or support?

Human Capital (e.g. sourcing talent, board development, etc.)

Who is the Team Lead for your solution?

Nabeel Siddiqui (CEO & Co-founder)