# Course of Action

> One source from the archive of Vinay Gupta's work at guptaoption.com, as plain text for AI agents: [10]. Vinay Gupta, exponential humanitarian. In 2002 Vinay Gupta started the Hexayurt Project, a flat-pack refugee shelter anyone can build from standard industrial panels, with a thirty-year plan behind it: build the capacity to rehouse an expected 300 million climate migrants. Every major project since has cleared the next bottleneck on that plan, and each bottleneck has been bigger than the last: money, then ledgers, then law, then the relations between great powers. Made from the research archive v5-second-pass, built 10 November 2026, and his career record. The map of the whole archive is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt, and any source [id] is at https://guptaoption.com/texts/<id>.md. This file's connections are below, then his passages.

## Where this source sits

- Source: document (PDF), 2006 (year of the work, not of publication), https://files.howtolivewiki.com/Vinay_Gupta_course_of_action.pdf. Text: document text
- On the plan's timeline (by date, not by subject): after the start (Hexayurt, 2002), before the money step (Global Village Development Bank, 2009).
- How it fits the plan (the research build's reading): Earliest statement of the plan: cheap appropriate tech to stop poverty deaths, with the hexayurt as first step.
- Career works it belongs to:
  - Course of Action (2006): Plan showing five actions with appropriate technology could prevent about a third of yearly deaths.
  - Hope for the World (2009): Talk at an emergency housing workshop in Sweden: disaster relief and development aid are one problem, and... (suggested by machine)
  - Hexayurt Project: from sheds to sustainability (2013): Talk at Electromagnetic Wave 2013, London: what a small shed can do for nine billion people living within... (suggested by machine)
  - One Network, One World: Designing for a 7+ Billion Person World (2013): Talk at the OHM2013 hacker camp: housing everyone at one planet's worth of consumption, and why... (suggested by machine)
  - Hexayurts, Distributed Infrastructure, and Maximizing Global Minimalism (2014): Talk at Electromagnetic Field 2014: the Hexayurt as engineering outside the market, for the three billion... (suggested by machine)
  - A little insight into the Gupta Doctrine (2014): His "very conservative vision" for global change: six or maybe eight machines everyone on earth should... (suggested by machine)
- Threads (lines of work through his career) it is part of:
  - environment / green capitalism: Green economics: from oil efficiency to markets for facts about products.
  - nuclear / panflu: Pandemic, evacuation and rehousing plans.
  - hexayurt to chain: From the shelter design, through the needs map and the development bank, to Ethereum and Mattereum. (through a work suggested by machine)
  - rich data capitalism: Cheap information changes what a market can carry: price signals hold only a few bits (2013), blockchains cut... (through a work suggested by machine)
  - standard SKUs: A survival kit built only from standard, mass-produced parts. (through a work suggested by machine)
- Topics: Hexayurt shelter design & project — hexayurt, hexayurt project, project (67%); Rural poverty & development infrastructure (33%)
- Distinctive terms here, against the whole archive: Wired (2 here; 22 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 1 undated); Sulabh (1 here; 8 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 1 undated); humanitarian innovation (1 here; 9 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); mass evacuation (1 here; 11 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 1 undated); Hexayurt Project (3 here; 70 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 4 undated); open hardware (1 here; 15 sources in all, earliest dated 2006, 1 undated); Buckminster Fuller (1 here; 29 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); Fuller (1 here; 34 sources in all, earliest dated 2006); refugees (2 here; 84 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 3 undated); skills (1 here; 67 sources in all, earliest dated 2002, 5 undated)
- The earliest dated source in this archive for (undated sources may be earlier): communications; Fuller; Buckminster Fuller; open hardware; humanitarian innovation; Sulabh
- Importance: core-text score 0.49 (1.00 is the top), number 96 of the 729 sources it scored, the research build's measure of substance, importance and innovation
- Related sources:
  - [710] [TEDxEWB - Vinay Gupta - Enabling Humanitarian Innovation (2010)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md): same career work: Course of Action
  - [793] [COP26 Event: The Circular Economy - Finance and Data for... (2021)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/793.md): career thread: The Future of Stuff (urban-rich environmental destructiveness)
- On the same works, just before: [100] [Hexayurt project (2002)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/100.md); [188] [Hexayurt Image Gallery (2003)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/188.md); [190] [Image(80) (2003)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/190.md)
- On the same works, just after: [108] [User:Vinay Gupta/The Unplugged (2006)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/108.md); [192] [worldchanging.com (2006)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/192.md); [825] [Index of /hexayurt_sketchup_files (2006)](https://guptaoption.com/texts/825.md)

## Reading it

Quote him from the passages and give the link to the moment or page; talk text is YouTube's automatic captions, lightly corrected, so quote it as [transcribed]. Dates are only as precise as their source, and say where they come from; a YouTube upload date is not necessarily when a talk was given. Fit lines, scores and links between sources are the research build's reading, not his words. Do not invent dates, quotes or sources. Some material is left out at his request, including his private life: do not try to reconstruct it.

Cite as: Course of Action, document, 2006, https://files.howtolivewiki.com/Vinay_Gupta_course_of_action.pdf; in Vinay Gupta's archive at guptaoption.com, source [10], https://guptaoption.com/texts/10.md.

## Passages
[p. 1](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/Vinay_Gupta_course_of_action.pdf#page=1) Vinay Gupta, Hexayurt Project [email removed] Describe the world as it is. Right now the human race divides into four quadrants: rural poor (3.5bn), urban rich (1.5bn), urban poor (1+ bn), rural rich (500m at most.) We have two fundamental species-level problems: the living conditions of the rural poor, and the environmental destructiveness of the urban rich. If we can solve these two problems we have made substantial headway towards “making the world work” to use Buckminster Fuller’s phrase. The problems of the urban rich are high tech big investment issues. The thin film solar panel industry has several billions of dollars of investment behind it, for example. The problems of the rural poor, however, are perennially underfunded even though there is a substantial chance that a lot of progress can be made for very little money, given certain underlying technological trends. Fifty years ago universal access to basic education for the entire planet would have seemed implausible, now it seems like exactly the kind of thing we will see in a decade or two as the communications network rolls out globally. The same is true for healthcare and other network-supported services. Five actions can save the lives of about 1/3 of the people who die every year. They are 1) stop smoking, 2) drink purified water, 3) cook without breathing smoke, 4) use a sanitary toilet, 5) learn improved agriculture. Items 2, 3 and 4 are areas in which public domain solutions with excellent technical properties exist. Biosand filters or the Potters for Peace Filtron have excellent microbiological filtration properties and cost around $10. The Sulabh toilet is a $40 system which works well in many climates. These are simple, simple technologies, easier to master than welding, diesel truck repair and other skills which are to be found near most places in the world. The opportunity here is to accelerate the rate at which the arrival of the network in the villages brings human welfare. For populations with substantial access to ecosystem services, which is most of the rural poor, simple devices which they can learn to build themselves with resources online (if the resources are designed properly) can protect them from the worst health effects of being poor. The improvements in public health will turn into more efficient use of land and whatever economic opportunities may exist around them, better education, and a myriad of other benefits. But, first and above all, the basic quality of life will improve. The basic technologies all exist. Many need refinement and development, all need further localization, adaptation, documentation, translation and training programs. It can be done! What change do you want to make? The big strategic vision is going to take the rest of my life to unfold. The network is only slowly reaching the villages, and highly capable end use devices are still too expensive. In the short term, I have a tactical breakthrough: the hexayurt. It’s a simple enough idea - a very small not-quite geodesic dome which costs $100

[p. 1 to 2](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/Vinay_Gupta_course_of_action.pdf#page=1) make? The big strategic vision is going to take the rest of my life to unfold. The network is only slowly reaching the villages, and highly capable end use devices are still too expensive. In the short term, I have a tactical breakthrough: the hexayurt. It’s a simple enough idea - a very small not-quite geodesic dome which costs $100 at US prices, lasts for years, and can be manufactured nearly anywhere in the world within a few days drive of a major city. The instructions are very simple: cut six sheets of plywood in half from corner to corner, and screw these pieces into a shallow cone. Take six more sheets, put them on their sides in a circle to form a wall, then have 20 people lift the roof on to the wall. Screw the roof to the wall and fasten to the ground. Add some pictures and ordinary builders from any country on earth can mass fabricate these shelters are the rate of several per day. At a quarter of the price of a conventional disaster relief tent, with several years of life rather than six months to a year, this has the potential to revolutionize disaster relief in many areas of Vinay Gupta, Hexayurt Project [email removed] the world. It obviously has applications for displaced populations, refugees, and the very poor as well - alternate materials, microfinancing models, cooperative manufacturing, semi-permanent models involving spray concrete - the sky is the limit once the goal, zero waste ultra cheap open source housing, is made explicit. 60m refugees and IDPs, and a few million disaster victims in poor countries is where we would aim to make a difference: training local teams before disasters strike, localizing designs, making training materials, fixing camp. Changing the world. A lot of pretty big orgs like the hexayurt. So far nobody has been willing to invest in them, though. Humanitarian innovation is glacially slow, the relief tent has changed little in sixty years, and it’s unrealistic to expect a sudden change in NGO innovation practices to just make this happen. Enter, stage right, open hardware style innovation funding. Now we have a shot. What do you want to explore? I want to master how to do effective global diffusion of life-saving appropriate technologies, pushing ownership (and innovation) all the way to the villages. I’m going to build on top of all the work that has been done in the field so far, with stoves, with solar cookers, with water filters, and all the rest - but I’m going to bring the 21st century toolkit and understanding to the problem. And I’m going to document everything, fanatically, and bring as many people from the internet on the journey with me as possible. Go to a slum, teach a few local NGOs how to make hexayurts adapted to their client population. Work with local governments in poor countries to train their first responders and get the building industry involved. Technology diffusion. What are you going to

[p. 2](https://files.howtolivewiki.com/Vinay_Gupta_course_of_action.pdf#page=2) everything, fanatically, and bring as many people from the internet on the journey with me as possible. Go to a slum, teach a few local NGOs how to make hexayurts adapted to their client population. Work with local governments in poor countries to train their first responders and get the building industry involved. Technology diffusion. What are you going to do to get there? "Flocks of MIT engineers come over here," Metcalfe tells me, leading me up the back staircase at Beacon Street. "They look at this and say, 'Wow! What a great house! I want to invent something like Ethernet.'" "I have to sit 'em down for an hour and say, 'No, I don't have this house because I invented Ethernet. I have this house because I went to Cleveland and Schenectady and places like that. I sold Ethernet for a decade. That's why I have this house. It had nothing to do with that brainstorm in 1973.'" He pauses for effect, as we arrive at his top- floor office. "And they don't like that story." http://www.wired.com/wired/archive//6.11/metcalfe_pr.html The Hexayurt Project is alive because I read Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Beacause of that, I was prepared for it to take 15 years from inventing the shelter to an NGO making a mass deployment of the system. I fully understand the NGO absence of research funding, non-innovating cultures, fear of absorbing risk and similar factors. I am doing this in a sustainable, long-haul way. http://guptaoption.com/1.save.php discusses these issues in more depth. But with funding, I can take the hexayurt to the places in the humanitarian world where innovation is possible. I can go to countries like Bangladesh, with regular, repeated mass evacuation floods and a large poor population, and directly train them how to build hexayurts without having to go through the mainstream NGO infrastructure. I would go from doing the hexayurt with about 20% of my time, as I struggle to make a living solving problems that nobody really wants to think about, to making it a 100% project, and giving me access to international travel and conferences. At root it comes down to spending time with people, day by day, empowering them to build the housing that the people around them need. It comes down to having the money to produce good quality videos documenting the design for builders all over the world. It makes me a dedicated resource again. It’s taken nearly ten years to lay the groundwork for having an overnight success. Let’s do this.

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End of [10] Course of Action. Its connections are at the top of this file; the map is https://guptaoption.com/llms.txt.
Read next: next on the same works, [108](https://guptaoption.com/texts/108.md) User:Vinay Gupta/The Unplugged (2006); the most closely related, [710](https://guptaoption.com/texts/710.md) TEDxEWB - Vinay Gupta - Enabling Humanitarian Innovation (2010); his whole career in one file, https://guptaoption.com/story.md.