Menstrual Man: The Eccentric Visionary ( An Albers / TiE Event). Co-sponsored by the Bosanko Chair (Seattle University)

TiE Seattle in partnership with Seattle University is really pleased to bring to you social entrepreneur, Arunachalam Murugananthan.

The majority of men turn squeamish at the mention of a woman’s period. And then there’s social entrepreneur Arunachalam Murugananthan. In 1998, Muruganantham asked his wife why she hoarded dirty rags at home and was told she used them during her period because sanitary napkins (produced by large multinationals) cost too much. Muruganantham, a school dropout and self-taught inventor, decided to try his hand at building a simple machine to produce low cost, sterile sanitary pads. With limited resources at his disposal, he used unorthodox testing methods, including wearing pads himself, over a pig bladder filled with blood to simulate a menstrual period. It wasn’t long before his small community (including his wife) declared him a pervert and shunned him.

Muruganantham won in the end, coming up with a set of machines capable of producing sterile sanitary pads at a tenth of the cost of what was previously available. Instead of selling his idea to a company, he supplies his low-cost machines to rural communities where Indian women can produce their own pad-manufacturing businesses. In 2014, Time Magazine named Muruganantham one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

Murugantham is now hailed as a visionary in India (and his wife no longer thinks he is a pervert). The work of this unlikely crusader has not only had a major impact on girl’s health and education, it has changed the nature of public discourse around women’s health and menstruation, bringing attention to what has been a taboo subject for centuries. A major result of his widely available sanitary pads and machinery is that a large number of teenage girls are staying in the education system, rather than leaving school upon reaching puberty.

Muruganantham, a speaker with a distinct brand of charisma, will speak of the opportunity he saw, the barricades he removed, and the guts it required to make the change that he did. At its heart, though, Muruganantham’s message is disarmingly simple: empathy is the most revolutionary emotion.

Refreshments will be served before the event.