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Two hundred million rural farmers in China desperate need affordable and flexible water storage. In response, our team is developing a water cistern combining the strengths of many existing water storage solutions. The design consists of an extremely large water bladder supported and protected by a hemispherical pit and a simple, folding, metal frame. Using specially developed two-ply plastic rather than concrete will reduce the cost of the cistern to half that of comparable cisterns; and placing it mostly underground will discourage the water from freezing in the dry winter months. With the assistance of our community partners, we will design, build, implement, and test a working model in Northwest China this summer. Our goal is to enable China's poorest with safe drinking water and a means of rising out of poverty. With preventable diseases killing over 2 million children per year in developing nations, it must be acknowledged that a crisis exists. This crisis exists due to the poor transportation options for vaccines (which must be kept at very specific temperatures from the time of manufacture to the point of administration). The CO2ler aims to bring vaccines to even the most remote villages by keeping the vaccines at the proper temperature for up to six days. This will not only make it possible to further distribute vaccines in developing nations, but will also improve the logistics of vaccine transport. Landmines are extraordinarily cruel weapons laid by both military and guerilla forces during war. Buried landmines remain active for over 50 years, lingering long after hostilities have ceased. Mines are indiscriminate in their destruction and maim and kill about 26,000 civilians each year, most of them women and children. The UN estimates up to 120 million landmines in over 70 countries worldwide, mostly clustered in the developing world. In addition to inflicting physical and psychological damage on civilians, landmines disrupt social services, threaten food security by reducing land available for farming and hinder the return and resettlement of refugees and displaced persons. To combat mine use, military forces employ high tech and expensive demining techniques. However, in most developing countries, humanitarian deminers operate on extremely limited budgets using low-tech instruments such as gardening tools. Most casualties that occur on the humanitarian demining field result from either the "use of wrong tools" or "misuse of right tools". To date, there is no established toolkit-of-choice that can be issued to each individual deminer, primarily because demining tools are locality-specific. Cost, size, weight, manufacturability, materials, usability, comfort are other concerns. We propose a low-tech low-cost toolkit made from indigenous materials containing tools that are "hard to misuse", emphasizing how simple low-tech changes can make a difference in safety. This work is an improvement over an existing kit designed by our current collaborators in Zimbabwe. The toolkit aims to encourage a global indigenous demining capability within all landmine infested countries. Download Proposal During the summer of 2002, Christen Gray was organized a community health initiative in Kira Sub-County, Uganda. During her two months there, she facilitated the formation of an initiative called the Kira Sub-County Community Health Organization (KISCHO). Kim L. Collins then worked as the volunteer coordinator for KISCHO for nine months in order to provide the full-time support needed to establish and organize itself and its activities. The goal of
the KISCHO project is to address health issues, like Malaria, TB,
and HIV/AIDS, by promoting community-driven sustainable development.
This can be achieved by equipping the community of Kira with the
necessary training, with initial funding and resource input, and
finally with absolute autonomy. This approach diverges from traditional
approaches to health development in its emphasis on community input
and control. Our team will work to achieve this through development of accountability systems, building of an institutional foundation, assistance in implementing a reliable income-generating project, and providing further resources through funding and materials. The Kinkajou projector is a low-cost LED microfilm projector. It fills a need for students who are faced with limited resources such as lack of AC electricity, high textbook costs, and poor access to educational materials. The idea of using microfilm projection as a low-cost library for developing countries was engendered, in the 2002 Design that Matters seminar, by the design team of David LoBosco, Saul Griffith and Timothy Prestero. In the fall 2002 term, a 2.009 team designed and built an alpha prototype of the Kinkajou projector. The Kinkajou projector is able to project microfilm images from a personal size to an image large enough to be viewed by a classroom. World Education
(WE), a non-governmental organization, is eager to implement the
projectors in their classrooms within the next year. The Kinkajou
projector has also been selected, out of over 200 applicants world-wide,
as one of ten finalists in the Saatchi & Saatchi Award for Innovation
in Communication. We will know by May 6th whether or not we will
win the Saatchi prize. Download Proposal Access to safe water remains an urgent human need in many countries. Tremendous human suffering is caused by diseases that are largely conquered when adequate water supply and sewerage systems are installed. The need for a simple, inexpensive and effective water treatment technology is great. This proposal is for funding for the development of a new household water filter that costs less than $1 USD ? the BioSand pitcher filter. Developed specifically for use by poor people in developing countries, this technology has much to offer as a purveyor of safe household drinking water. System strengths include simplicity, effectiveness, economic sustainability, social acceptability, and reliance on local resources. The author plans to work in collaboration with Bhikku Maitri, the head of the International Buddhist Society in Lumbini, Nepal (a Buddhist center and local health clinic), to implement a pitcher filter pilot project in the region.
SEPG is an acronym for Science Education in Pakistan Group. The project’s aim is to provide access to scientific equipment and enable students in villages in Pakistan to perform experiments using a mobile science lab. In order for students to understand the basics and develop an intuitive understanding of the material experiments and visuals are of vital importance. No village in southern rural Punjab has access to scientific equipment. Rural Pakistan is plagued with poverty, a lack of infrastructure and discrimination between genders. Our solution for the lack of scientific equipment is to build a mobile science lab. Through a mobile science lab we hope to provide students with access to the equipment and through the physical resources and the classes our current aims involve:
Endotracheal tubes are used to delivery air to patients (over 200 million/yr.) in critical intensive care situations. The polymeric tube, with an inflatable cuff at the trachea protects the lungs from any foreign materials that may be aspirated into the trachea. The current tracheal tubes in use cause problems from irritation to severe morbidity to death because of intubation. The endotracheal tube design that will be used is meant to ameliorate the complications of the present inflatable cuffs inflated at the trachea by alleviating the high constant pressure and placing it with a low-pressure system. A design patented by Dr. Everard Cox, a retired surgeon who has agreed to let us work on the improvement of this tube, needs additional prototyping and testing. His design will bring the pressure on the trachea from 50mmHg to 5mmHg. Language preservation among Cree Native American tribes have become an increasing problem through the years. In order to meet needs, Nihiyawi! proposes two solutions: a talking toy and an educational software program. The toy will allow the user to record words or phrases associated with a child's environment. These audio files will then be triggered to play as the child moves via RFID tags. The software program will be based of existing educational technology and will be modified to accomodate cultural needs. Children will be posed a problem to solve and given "clues" to aid them. These "clues" will included embedded audio and visual files. In places like Haiti and certain West African countries, peanuts are a significant crop. Most peanut farmers shell their peanuts by hand, an inefficient and labor- intensive process. Our goal is to build a low-cost, easy to manufacture peanut sheller targeted at individuals and small cooperatives that will increase the productivity of the peanut farmers. Further, this peanut sheller should be manufacturable with materials that are readily available in the target communities. Our target throughput is approximately 50 kg per hour. http://www.thinkcycle.org/tc-space/tspace?tspace_id=41963
To design a prototype and process for getting clean, efficient energy void of harmful by-products from sunlight and bodies of water (can be non-moving) at a cheap and economically viable cost to third world country populations. Though the same technology would propose great benefits in energy production and consumption for markets outside of third world countries as well.The design would in effect act as a generator and thus would be perfect for many vital community establishments (ex. hospitals). Furthemore the device maintains ways of running despite the lack of one of it's resources. In addition, besides a generator the device will also have supplemental functions such as cooling and heating units, ( which run on no external electricity) perfect for community buildings, as well as homes where funds allow.
EcoEnergias for Colombia: an initiative to bring alternative energy sources to rural communities The initiative of EcoEnergias mission is to contribute to the provision of sustainable energy systems to disadvantaged people in the rural areas of Colombia through implementation and continuous professional research. This initiative (EcoEnergias - EE) will foster community and economic development by implementing small- scale and community-based renewable energy projects while protecting their human health and environment. The organization will start in Colombia by helping rural entrepreneurs, local NGOs, community centers and agro-businesses while improving their quality of life. Small-scale projects based on renewable energies are alternatives to address poverty and global warming challenges in developing countries while serving as an engine for economic and more sustainable practices for development. Yet, rural communities demand electricity for lighting, communications, productive applications (i.e. workshops), water supply, and refrigeration (i.e., vaccine-preservation). The provision and adoption of new energy systems will replace inefficient, unhealthy, and unsafe electricity sources such as those mentioned above while promoting alternatives for development. EcoEnergias will utilize micro-finance and project development services to infuse a culture of self-employment and empowerment to targeted communities; this means that it will help to build a model less dependant on subsidies, which have demonstrated to be unsuccessful and unsustainable, especially in project for provision of energy and rural electrification systems
Waterborne illness associated with unsafe drinking water and poor sanitation is still a major cause of death in the developing world (World Health Organization, 2002). These casualties could be avoided through improved water supply, water quality, hygiene education and sanitation. The MIT UV-Tube Project focuses on improving water quality for people in developing areas where other water treatment methods are not applied consistently because of their cost, inconvenience, complexity, or energy requirements.
Pending laboratory test results, field tests are planned for June 2003 in Borgne, Haiti where manufactured, off-the-shelf UV disinfection systems have been previously introduced. The new Borgne Environmental Technology Center / Idea Exchange focuses on inspiring community involvement and creativity in environmental problem solving. The field test of the ferro cement UV-Tube will be the initial project of the center. We hope to build at least three prototypes to replace the three solar powered manufactured UV systems in Borgne (which have had maintenance issues). We also plan to test the microbiological effectiveness of the UV-Tubes in the field and to collect user feedback on the design. Finally, if there is community interest in the technology, we hope to begin a discussion about how the ferro cement UV-Tube might be incorporated into the local culture.
The energy in an alkaline cell costs less than 1 penny by grid prices. There are tons of batteries which end up in land fills every year. With this realisation, a distribution model based around leasing cartridges and selling the energy was envisioned and a vending machine for processing and conditioning rechargeable NiMH batteries was built. The idea is to have a machine that would take the batteries in, clean, and recharge them, and vend a recharged battery "instantly" at a much lower cost than a new physical battery. A network of such a physical infrastructure that supplies a service whilst digesting its own waste - a network of such battery vending machines negates the need for single use cells. the sales model is one of leasing the hardware cartridge, and paying for the energy. We would like to test the idea in a closed community such as MIT as a useful demonstration project. We describe it as an industrial ecosystem which takes care of its own waste. Young Historians Program (YHP) is a media history program for at-risk youth in junior high and high school. The program?s goal is to engage youth in critical- creative thinking about the history of their local communities. YHP trains youth simultaneously in the discipline of history and in a new medium of their choice. The program guides students through a research and media training process which results in each student?s production of a modest historical work in a new medium. A YHP course culminates in an exhibit of student work to which community leaders, scholars, parents, teachers and friends are invited. This ensures that the program provides not only access, but also resonance for young people who are often denied both. Since February 2002, we have been working with students in the Boston area and using Computer Clubhouses as our classrooms. Our flagship site is at the Baldwin School, a public elementary school in Cambridge. The IDEAS grant will help us to support our Cambridge site as well as our new sites in New Orleans and Seattle, both scheduled to open in June, 2003. Although we plan to open a YHP site in Tibet in collaboration with the United Nations Development Program and MIT- China in the summer of 2004 and are also working on a cross-cultural collaboration between the Baldwin School (Cambridge) and an Irish school, St. Kieran?s College (Kilkenny, Ireland), we hope to use the funds requested from the IDEAS Competition to develop a multimedia history curriculum for our American sites. Because our curriculum and lessons will be on the web, they will also be available for interested teachers at large to make use of. In this way, we hope to expand YHP?s methodology and approach well beyond our own sites. To date, our work has been funded by a single grant of $5,000 from the Race and Relations Committee, received in April 2002. In order to realize our goals for the continuation and expansion of the program, we would be very grateful to be considered for a grant from the IDEAS competition.
De Barrio a Playa is a workshop for young people living in marginal settlements in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. The program seeks to provide youth with a unique and formative educational experience. The workshop will begin with an outdoor retreat that will cultivate leadership and teambuilding skills. At the same time, participants will learn about environmental and health issues affecting their own community and will brainstorm ways to effectively address these problems. Upon returning home, they will tackle an aspect of the issues affecting their neighborhood by enacting a real community improvement project. De Barrio a Playa fills a gap in the educational opportunities available to children in the barrios, where school resources are stretched and extracurricular activities are scarce. The workshop is innovative in that it combines an educational outdoor experience with follow through on a real project back home. Participants will be encouraged to be imaginative and to make a positive impact – however small – in their community. The goals of this project are achievable: to give participants a valuable experience and to make them feel empowered to come together to address an issue facing their community. De Barrio a Playa will give youth the skills, knowledge, and confidence necessary to create change in their environment. This pilot project will also provide adult leaders from local institutions with a Workshop Toolkit to continue implementing the workshop in the future. Turkey suffered from two earthquakes in 1999 which killed up to 20,000 people and cost the country 10 per cent of its gross domestic product. Scientists say that Istanbul runs a 60-70 per cent risk of being struck by a major earthquake (> 7 magnitude) within the next 30 years. With a population well over 10 million, a direct hit could be catastrophic. Up to 30 per cent of Istanbul’s 900,000 buildings could collapse completely. It is going to be very difficult to impossible to organize any of the search/rescue and relief efforts in such a chaotic environment which will cause more human and material losses then expected Geographic Information System (GIS) can provide quick and accurate damage assessments after a disaster strikes by simplifying the damage assessment process, creating more accurate results, and developing detailed data for analyzing disaster impacts. Damage assessment units equipped with rugged personal digital assistants (PDAs) can start collecting digital damage data within minutes after a disaster and transfer it to the command center within hours, so that managers can view this data on large screens and organize the search, rescue and relief efforts in the most efficient way, helping save lives and bringing the city back to normal as early as possible. We are proposing to implement a pilot study in Yalova, Turkey, which is on the southern side of the Sea of Marmara and is sharing the same earthquake threat as Istanbul. |
