The Washington Times
  • Subscribe
  • Customer Services
  • RSS
  • Mobile Headlines
  • e-edition
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • REGISTER
  • LOG IN
  • E-MAIL ALERTS
  • WELCOME
  • Your Profile
  • Log Out

  • Front Page Image
  • Classifieds
  • Autos
  • Real Estate
  • Jobs
  • Special Sections
  • Times News Services
  • Home
  • News
  • Opinion
  • Sports
    • NFL
    • NBA/WNBA
    • MLB
    • NHL
    • Tennis
    • Golf
    • Motorsports
    • Soccer
    • NCAA
    • Olympics
    • Outdoors
    • Алекс Овечкин
  • Culture
    • Home & Living
    • Family & Kids
    • Fashion
    • Food
    • Travel
    • Health
    • Washington Visitors
    • Books
    • Military History
    • Life
    • Auto
    • TV Listings
    • Movie Listings
    • Death Notices
    • Entertainment
  • Themes
  • Communities
    • Donne Travels
    • Lives Common
    • National Pastime
    • Politics 101
    • Stories of Faith
    • Civil War
    • Middle - America
    • Chicago Blue State
    • Zadzooks
  • Marketplace
    • Autos
    • Jobs
    • Real Estate
    • Classifieds
    • Shopping
    • Dining Out
    • Education
    • TWT Store
  • Videos
    • Two Guys
    • Birnbaum on Washington
    • Liz Glover
    • Amanda Carpenter
    • Morning Briefing
    • Documentaries
  • Podcasts
    • About Headlines
    • Inside the Beltway
    • Inside the Story
Home > News > Technology

Low-tech aid for poor

Inventions that make life easier

By Vijaysree Venkatraman CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR | Wednesday, September 3, 2008

  • Bookmark and Share
  • Article
  • Comments ()
  • Print
  • [-][+] Font Size
  • E-Mail Alerts
  • Tell a Friend
  • Got a Question?
  • You Report
  • Click-2-Listen

For three weeks this summer, masons and mechanics, farmers and welders, scientists and a pastor threw themselves into creating low-tech solutions to big problems that persist across the globe. Converging at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, these 61 inventors from 20 countries divided into multilingual teams, each drafting and tinkering a device of the team's own making that may make life for the world's poor a little easier.

There was no grand prize to be won at this second annual International Development Design Summit (IDDS), but members sometimes skipped meals and stayed up late - sawing, hammering and welding - to perfect and build their designs.

Soon, their prototypes will be rebuilt and refined in the developing world by artisans using locally available materials, and ultimately they will be tested by consumers who live on less than $1 a day.

The 10 teams constructed a wide variety of devices - from an inexpensive incubator for low-birth-weight babies to a rope system that could help craftswomen in the Himalayas get their products to market. Here are three of the inventions that emerged from this year's IDDS:

Each summer, Americans fire up their charcoal grills for outdoor barbecues. In many developing countries, charcoal is an everyday fuel used with indoor kitchen stoves, but the smoke-flavored food carries a health risk. Charcoal is not clean-burning, and one IDDS team says the resultant indoor pollution has been linked to deaths on the same scale globally as those caused by malaria and tuberculosis.

One way to make charcoal produce fewer emissions is to pulverize charred agricultural waste - such as corncobs or crushed sugar cane - and pack it into denser briquettes. A $2 metal press already is available for forming charcoal, says Jessica Vechakul, an engineer from MIT. What is missing in the market is a device to crush the burned cobs into powder - so her IDDS team decided to build one.

Their prototype looks like an oversized mouse trap with a hand crank. The user spins the crank and feeds the blackened cobs through a hopper. The grinder drops the powder into a container, where it's mixed with other ingredients into a cookie-dough consistency for briquettes. The simple contraption can crush 6 pounds of cobs in 10 minutes.

Now people who make charcoal from corncobs stomp on bags of burned cobs or beat the sacks with heavy sticks. When they empty the bags, the worker is engulfed momentarily in a black cloud, inhaling the dust, Ms. Vechakul says. Also, after a few stomping sessions, the bags must be replaced - a recurring expense.

"It is one messy job," Ms. Vechakul says.

Bernard Kiwia, a bike mechanic from Tanzania, will take his team's design to his home country. There, his job will be to persuade rural communities to use the hand-cranked device instead of cutting down trees for fuel.

Continue reading 12Next

[Get Copyright Permissions] Click here for reprint permissions!
Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC

Bookmark and Share

Comments

Read Comments

Post your comment:

Please login or register to post a comment

Do you have another point of view, photos, audio, video or more information about a story?

  • CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
A team  at this summer's International Development Design Summit at the Mass- achusetts Institute of Technology works on learning games that can be used with television sets, common in Third World countries, instead of computers. The team members (from the left) are Miguel Chaves from Brazil, Derek Lomas from the United States, William McIver from Canada, the Rev. George Fuachie from Ghana, Jesse Austin Brenemen from the United States and Anuj Nanavati from India.
  • CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
A team at this summer's International Development Design Summit at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology works on learning games that can be used with television sets, common in Third World countries, instead of computers. The team members (from the left) are Miguel Chaves from Brazil, Derek Lomas from the United States, William McIver from Canada, the Rev. George Fuachie from Ghana, Jesse Austin Brenemen from the United States and Anuj Nanavati from India.

Click the photo to enlarge. « Previous | Next »

Advertisement

Top Stories

Most Read

  1. GOP hits Pelosi for mouse funds
  2. EXCLUSIVE: Career diplomats protest Obama appointments
  3. CIA chief urged to 'correct' record
  4. Obama agenda stalls on Capitol Hill
  5. EDITORIAL: Stonewalling on Walpin-gate

Most Shared

  1. EXCLUSIVE: Career diplomats protest Obama appointments
  2. GOP hits Pelosi for mouse funds
  3. PRUDEN: Ministry of Apology would cure all ills
  4. Obama agenda stalls on Capitol Hill
  5. YON: Girl with no future
  6. EDITORIAL: Killing Cap & Trade
  7. EDITORIAL: Passing unread laws
  8. Pelosi's mouse slated for $30M slice of cheese
  9. EDITORIAL: Sotomayor's secret files
  10. HOLMES: Deja vu on dictators, double standards

Most Commented

  1. Jeb Bush, GOP: Time to leave Reagan behind
  2. WH communications director leaving
  3. Freddie Mac acting CFO found dead
  4. Kerry aims to rescue newspapers
  5. Fidel Castro: Obama 'misinterpreted' words
  6. President Obama said those who approved harsh interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists may be subjected to criminal charges. Do you agree?
  7. President Obama said those who approved harsh interrogation techniques for suspected terrorists may be subjected to criminal charges. Do you agree?
  8. Gibbs: Pay no attention to what Rahm said
  9. Politics' Talking Heads Highlight Speaker Series
  10. Fleecing Mike Ditka

Poll

Do you think the G-8 is still effective in today's times?

Market Data

Advertising Links
TWT Store
  • e-edition
  • Print Edition
  • Weekly Washington Times
TWT Affiliates
  • Middle East Times
  • Golf
  • UPI
  • Arbor Ballroom
  • Washington Times Global
  • About TWT
  • Press Room
  • F.A.Q.
  • Work for TWT
  • Advertise
  • Sponsors
  • Contact Us
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map

All site contents © Copyright 2009 The Washington Times, LLC.