Coursera Subsistence Marketplace Course 

The foundation for this course lies with unique synergies between pioneering research, teaching, and social initiatives through the Subsistence Marketplaces Initiative. Unique to this approach is a bottom-up understanding of the intersection of poverty and the marketplace.

Course Objectives

• To develop an understanding of marketplace activity in the radically different context of subsistence where much of humanity resides and survives.
• To design solutions that can be implemented by individuals, businesses, and social enterprises through economically, ecologically, and socially sustainable products for subsistence marketplaces
• To develop an understanding of a radically different context a number of individual assignments include analyzing interviews of individuals living in poverty, completing an online poverty simulation, analyzing videos, and completing image-based immersion exercises.
• To envision the role of businesses and social enterprises in such contexts assignments include developing a solution that addresses the needs of individuals and communities living at or near subsistence anywhere around the world.

Module I: Understanding Subsistence Marketplaces

• Week 1: Introduction to Subsistence Marketplaces; Thinking in Subsistence Marketplaces
• Week 2: Feeling and Coping in Subsistence Marketplaces; Subsistence Consumers and Entrepreneurs
• Week 3: Exchanges and Relationships in Subsistence Marketplaces; Needs, Products, Relationships, and Markets in Subsistence Marketplaces
• Week 4: Gaining Marketplace Insights in Subsistence Marketplaces; Local Environments in Subsistence Marketplaces.

Module II: Designing Solutions for Subsistence Marketplaces

• Week 5: Identifying and Understanding Need, Drivers, and Context Elements; Generating Ideas and Designing Solutions.
• Week 6: Evaluating Solutions and Designing Ecosystems; Designing, Communicating, and Delivering the Value Proposition.
• Week 7: Designing Elements of the Enterprise Plan—Case Study of Sun Oven. Designing Elements of the Enterprise Plan—Case Study of Marketplace Literacy Project.
• Week 8: Summary of Course. Poster Session and Reflections.

Coursera Transformation Award Winner 

Since its launch on Coursera in 2014, Understanding Subsistence Marketplaces has had profound transformational effects on learners and communities around the world. Forty percent of the course’s enrollments are by learners in emerging economies, and many of these learners have applied lessons from the course to create positive change on a local, regional, and even national scale.

Professor Viswanathan’s course and his work in subsistence marketplaces have inspired thousands of individuals to create sustainable jobs and enhance the welfare of people and communities in poverty-stricken areas of the world. He has been recognized for his efforts by numerous awards, and his model has been adopted by the United Nations Relief Center in working with refugees.