{"podcast":{"title":"Cold Call","slug":"cold-call-634317","podcast_index_feed_id":634317,"rss_url":"http://feeds.harvardbusiness.org/harvardbusiness/cold-call","website_url":"https://hbr.org/podcasts/cold-call","image_url":"https://hbr.org/resources/images/podcasts/1400-cold-call-lg.jpg","author":"HBR Presents / Brian Kenny (podcasts@hbr.org)","episode_count":287,"summary":"Cold Call distills Harvard Business School's legendary case studies into podcast form. Hosted by Brian Kenny, the podcast airs every two weeks and features Harvard Business School faculty discussing cases they've written and the lessons they impart.","last_synced_at":null,"page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-call-634317"},"episode":{"title":"The Challenges of Scaling a Technology for Social Good","slug":"the-challenges-of-scaling-a-technology-for-social-good","published_at":"2026-04-14T11:05:28+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-call-634317/the-challenges-of-scaling-a-technology-for-social-good","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-call-634317","url":"https://hbr.org/podcast/2026/04/the-challenges-of-scaling-a-technology-for-social-good","audio_url":"https://audio.hbr.org/cold-call/20260413150727-TheChallengesofScalingaTechnologyforSocialGood.mp3","summary":"In 2021, a breakthrough in sanitation technology – developed under the Gates Foundation’s “Reinvent the Toilet” challenge – stood ready for commercialization. The Single User Reinvented Toilet (SURT) offered an off-grid, self-contained system capable of processing waste, generating water, and reducing environmental impact. Turning this technical success into a viable product, however, meant confronting intertwined challenges around behavior change, infrastructure compatibility, financing models, and stakeholder incentives. Harvard Business School Assistant Professor Maria Roche and SURT engineer Dr. Shannon Yee join Brian Kenny to discuss the case “Toilets for the Underserved: The SURT Commercialization Challenge” and the central question of how to launch and then scale a technology particularly important for underserved markets, but not a lucrative short term investment opportunity.","meta_description":"In 2021, a breakthrough in sanitation technology – developed under the Gates Foundation’s “Reinvent the Toilet” challenge – stood ready for commercializat…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":1784,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/cold-call-634317/episodes/the-challenges-of-scaling-a-technology-for-social-good/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/cold-call-634317/the-challenges-of-scaling-a-technology-for-social-good.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}