| Update 8 August

As our GravityLight trial nears - the core purpose of our Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign - we wanted to share more details about how we plan to test and gather invaluable feedback on GravityLight.

The incredible generosity of GravityLight’s crowdfunders has enabled us to develop an even better design than our original prototype and has helped spread the word globally. As a result we have had a large number of people and organisations contacting us to see how they can be involved or help. Thank you!

A range of inspiring NGOs, charities, individuals, entrepreneurial networks and social enterprises across 26 different countries have kindly offered their time and resources to trial GravityLight across several weeks. They’ll be visiting the users at least twice – the first visit to gather information about who the trialists are, their current light sources as well as to talk them through how GravityLight works and how to set it up. On return visits several weeks later they’ll find out how the users got on with GravityLight and ask questions around the themes below.

Given there will be several different groups of people trialling GravityLight we also have specific questions for:
1) individuals/households
2) Schools & Hospitals
3) Refugee & IDP Camps
4) Local Entrepreneurs:

Who will be primary focus of trial:	Individual Households	Schools & Hospitals		Refugee & IDP Camps		Local entrepreneurs
Summary of Core Questions	What’s the user experience of GravityLight? Was it easy to use with no issues? How did people use GravityLight? What did they use it for? How often? How does GravityLight compare to their current light sources? Would it replace a kerosene light? Would people want to buy GravityLight? Would they recommend it to a friend?
Additional Questionnaire Topics	Focusing on impact of GravityLight on individuals and households. Such as money saved on kerosene and the different activities GravityLight enabled.	Seeing how appropriate a number of GravityLights are in larger buildings and being used by many people at once.	Understanding the different needs of people in a refugee & IDP camp. ie. does GravityLight need different features in these circumstances?		How easily do sales teams & shop owners think it will be to sell GravityLight? What questions are asked by customers? How does GravityLight compare with the other products they sell?
Examples of Trial Partners	Solar Energy Foundation Global BrightLight Foundation PeaceCorps volunteers	BIRD & BAHRD	Danish Refugee Council MercyCorp		ProximityDesign Options Senegal Living Goods

This trial will be invaluable for us to understand the scale of demand for GravityLight as well as whether any design tweaks or additional features are needed before we look to ramp up production in 2014. Equally important, we will get feedback from and make connections with local entrepreneurs who will be critical to future sales and distribution of GravityLight in both urban and rural settings.

In addition to these >1000 triallists we are also sending over 5000 lights to our brilliant crowdfunders, some of whom pledged in return for a GravityLight. We hope they will also feedback on how they are using their GravityLight, how well it performs in these situations and any suggestions for future features or accessories.

Over the course of the trials we look forward to sharing more information about GravityLight’s different trial facilitators as well as the insights, stories and photos they record from the different user groups.