Engineering & Society, The Economy
Engineering a Better World
MIT’s Amy Smith on appropriate engineering, Recorded February 2006 in Monterey, California. Food, water, medicine — in the developing world, these basic needs can be impossible to meet. Amy Smith and her students design smart, low cost tools to improve the life of the poorest in our world.
I remember traveling with my father as he worked on appropriate technology projects while I was growing up. Engineers can make huge difference to truly improve people’s lives. The video does a nice job of explaining how combining engineering know how with a passion for improving people’s lives have a huge impact. Amy Smith is a MacArthur Fellow (2004-2009)
Related: KickStart (article on Kickstart: Stanford Engineering to Social Innovation) - Segway Inventor working on bringing water and electricity to the world’s poor
July 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Kiva provides loans through partners (operating in the countries) to the entrepreneurs…
October 14th, 2007 at 9:11 am
[...] Shawn Frayne’s Windbelt Wins Popular Mechanics 2007 Breakthrough Award Frayne’s device consists of a flat, taut membrane that flutters within its housing as air passes through it. At each end of the membrane are magnets that oscillate between metal coils as the band flutters, effectively creating an electric charge. According to the 28-year-old Frayne, prototypes of the Windbelt have generated 40 milliwatts in 10-mph slivers of wind, making his device 10 to 30 times as efficient as the best microturbines. … Frayne, now based in Mountain View, Calif., gathered a variety of lessons while studying at MIT, especially under the tutelage of Amy Smith (a 2004 MacArthur fellow) in her “D-Lab” class. In this design lab, Frayne learned the politics of delivering technology to poor nations, as well as the technical aspects of mechanical engineering. [...]
April 3rd, 2008 at 6:25 pm
…ingenious technique that requires no external energy supply to preserve fruit, vegetables and other perishables in hot, arid climates. The pot-in-pot cooling system, a kind of “desert refrigerator”…
April 4th, 2008 at 11:20 am
You cannot look into the eyes of a child who is dying from a disease caused by drinking dirty water — something that rarely, if ever, happens in the United States — and not feel changed. You cannot stand before her parents without thinking, “I’m an engineer. There must be something I can do.”