USA: Innovative solutions for fulfilling basic needs in the developing world are displayed in an exhibition in New York City

Record ID: 230940

  • Title: USA: Innovative solutions for fulfilling basic needs in the developing world are displayed in an exhibition in New York City
  • Date: 3rd May 2007
  • Summary: VARIOUS OF THE LAPTOP DESIGNED AS PART OF THE ONE LAPTOP PER CHILD PROJECT (SOUNDBITE) (English) CYNTHIA E. SMITH, CURATOR OF "DESIGN FOR THE OTHER 90%" EXHIBITION, SAYING: "The concept was a hundred dollar laptop, the reality is it might cost more initially, but as you go into more and more production, there's going to be some cost savings realized by the scaling up of the project."
  • Embargoed: 18th May 2007 13:00
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  • Location: Usa
  • Country: USA
  • Topics: Science / Technology
  • Reuters ID: LVA7A1INDLMI3BEO2IJXC0HNER1T
  • Story Text: According to the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York, five billion people across the globe, that is 90 percent of the world's total population of 6.5 billion, often lack the means to purchase even the most basic goods. So, it is for this often overlooked percentage of the world's population that the museum has organized an unusual exhibition that focuses on presenting myriad design solutions fashioned specifically for fulfilling the needs of the developing world.
    Titled "Design for the Other 90%", the exhibition is spread across a portion of the National Design Museum's garden, and includes both simple and somewhat grand solutions for the poor and marginalized around the world.
    The display on Tuesday (May 1st) included a "Q Drum", a durable container designed to roll easily and transport seventy-five liters of clean and potable water. According to the inventors, rolling the water in a cylindrical container, rather than lifting and carrying it, eases the burden of lugging water over large distances. Then there was the Solar Dish Kitchen, made of recycled aluminum and using natural light to power it, that was first designed specifically for Mexico, but is now being tested in India too. The device can heat food for up to twenty persons.
    The curator of the exhibition, Cynthia E. Smith, explained what the core motivation for having this exhibition.
    "The exhibition really is a challenge, its a call to action to the design world to come up with solutions. The design professionals are very creative people, this is really to look at problems and come up with really inventive solutions, whether that means working such as the one laptop per child, with governments, to have governments, or if it's the LifeStraw where you work with international aid agencies to distribute the personal purification tool," said Smith.
    The LifeStraw example that Smith refers to is a mobile personal water purification tool.
    Also on display were MoneyMaker Pumps, which families can use to irrigate fruits and vegetables during the dry season, allowing greater crop yields year-round. One of the pumps, the Super Money Maker Pump is priced at about $95. John Kihia, the country director for the Kenyan operations of the organization Kickstart, which designed these pumps, said that the pumps have the ability to change people's lives because their ability to provide irrigationfor small sized farms spread across sub-Saharan Africa.
    Amidst the light weight huts and development posters spread across the garden, were also two bicycles designed to carry heavier loads carried by people in developing countries. One is the Big Boda Load-Carrying Bicycle, which can carry hundreds of pounds of cargo or two additional passengers at a substantially lower cost than other forms of human-powered utility vehicles. Then there was the Worldbike Prototype bicycle which had been modified slightly from its developed world avatar, so that it could carry a weightier load.
    Paul Freedman, who is part of the Worldbike organization that designs these bicycles, said, "In the developing world, people tend to inherit the designs that were originally intended for American recreational customers, so when it comes to bikes, they are getting bikes that look a little bit like knock off mountain bikes that are designed to look really racy, but they're not really designed for the way that people need to use bikes in poor countries, which is to use them to carry things. They carry families, they carry children, they carry steel, bread, water, empty water jugs, full water jugs, they carry fuel, they carry wheat, hay, whatever. They are using the bikes the way we use pick-up trucks, so basically Worldbike, our mission is to design bikes for the way people use bikes in poor countries, which is to carry things."
    The other object in the exhibition that attracted a great deal of interest was Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child project, an inexpensive, universal laptop computer to be used as an educational tool for children. The laptop had earlier been priced at 100 dollars, but is now reported to be going up in price, to approximately upto 175 dollars.
    When Smith was asked whether the increase in price would adversely effect the ability of poor people to buy these computers, the curator said that she didn't think so, and that the project would still be able to achieve its goal of making computers more accessible for children in the developing world.
    "The concept was a hundred dollar laptop, the reality is it might cost more initially, but as you go into more and more production, there's going to be some cost savings realized by the scaling up of the project," said Smith who is hopeful that the price of the laptop will go down eventually.
    Finally, another exhibit that scored marks for sheer creativity was a wireless connection device mounted on a motorcycle. The Internet Village Motoman project is designed for rural areas which might have computers but not good internet connectivity. Motorbikes with internet connectivity devices could circulate in such areas, and provide the villagers access to the internet for at least one window in a day, where they could send email memessagesr look up facts on the Internet.
    "Design for the Other 90%" will open on May 4 and continue till September 24, 2007, and its lead sponsor is The Lemelson Foundation, which focuses on inventions to improve quality of life. The Foundation has also directly supported several of the organizations which are participating in the exhibition, including KickStart and WorldBike. After its run at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, the exhibition will travel for the next two years to other museums nationwide.
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