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Past Projects 05 06 winners

Past Projects 04 05 winners

2003 - 2004 Winners

2003-2004 projects

2002 - 2003 Winners

2002 - 2003 Projects

2001 - 2002 Winners

2001 - 2002 Projects

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Past IDEAS projects:  2003 - 2004 Projects


AirNet
Bicilavadora
CHART Case Tracking Software
D-Lab Micro Hydro
Freedom Walk
InvenTeams Zambia
MANTRA
Mozambique Environmental Sanitation Initiative
O-Team
Parabolic Power II
Pathway Project
Robopsy
Solar Water Disinfection Device



AirNet

Many developing countries still do not have adequate internet and phone infrastructure. Hospitals, doctors, independent health workers, schools, administration, and various facilities need phone and internet service in order to operate.

The availability of phone service could save thousands of lives because doctors would be able to make emergency calls for assistance in surgery, transport of patients, order urgent medications, etc. Currently the few doctors and health workers who have satellite phones are forced to spend money that was allocated for urgently needed equipment and medications on expensive satellite phone service instead.

Internet access in developing countries would facilitate education in schools and families.Access to phone service would help families stay in touch, even across villages. We propose an inexpensive, environmentally friendly, easily deployable, expandable, and robust long-term solution that provides the necessary phone and internet infrastructure: WiFi community networks comprised of wind or solar powered cells.

Air_Net@mit.edu

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Bicilavadora

In the developing world, washing laundry is a difficult,
time-consuming task that falls solely on women. Mothers and daughters
typically spend 8 hours each week scrubbing each piece of their
family's clothing and wringing out the harsh washing solution by hand.

Powered washing machines exist, but they are impractical in rural
regions because running water and electric are expensive or
unavailable. Several groups already tried to build machines for these
regions but they have been unsuccessful. Their machines were either
expensive to build and repair because they require imported parts or
they do not wash effectively.

Our invention is the emph{Bicilavadora}, a low cost, pedal-powered
washing machine that is designed around readily available parts. Its
innovation is its simple design and its use of inexpensive plastic
barrels and bicycle components. The Bicilavadora is reliable, easy to
operate and uses no electricity. The parts are available locally, so
Bicilavadoras can be manufactured and repaired in the community
without depending on imported goods.

Our community partner is MayaPedal, a non-governmental organization in
Chimaltenango, Guatemala, that currently builds and sells
pedal-powered machines in their community. People in Chimaltenango
have already asked MayaPedal to develop a washing machine, so the
demand is clear. MayaPedal is eager to work with us to develop the
Bicilavadora and their community has already proven that they will
accept novel pedal-powered technology. After the Bicilavadora gains
acceptance in Chimaltenango, we will share the technology with people
around the world with the same need.

mayapedal-actives@mit.edu

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CHART Case Tracking Software

With certain populations approaching a 50% infection prevalence, the future fight to cure HIV/AIDS rests almost entirely in the home based health care setting. Without a comprehensive means of monitoring this fight, it is truly impossible to cite how effective a given program or regimen is for combating this disease. Most home-based care organizations utilize record-keeping systems that are paper-based and do not scale well for the tracking and treatment of large populations. These paper based systems provide insufficient access to patient visit history, population statistics or determination of program impact, and barely any help in strategic decision making. Although many embodiments of electronic medical records exist, the lack of portability and modularity in these systems make them inappropriate and difficult to administer for most HBC operations.

We are developing a modular case tracking system, which utilizes questionnaire based assessment modules that can be created by an inexperienced user on a PC. These modules run on desktops, handheld computers, and over the web concurrently, synchronizing record updates as needed and providing the security demanded for sensitive information. Modules can be entered to recreate a paper based form, and hence provide statistical analysis of records and alert-flags raised by clinical decision making algorithms. Alternatively, modules can be downloaded for common types of visits or information, such as DOTS for tuberculosis or ARV adherence. Modules are being developed to aid in the care of over 23,000 patients of our three partner home base care organizations in Lusaka, Zambia.

casetracking@media.mit.edu

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D-Lab Micro Hydro

In sub-Saharan Africa, the rural villages of Lesotho have limited access to grid electricity. Unfortunately, due to the high capital costs of linking a rural location to the grid, many are left without agrarian necessities like lighting, irrigation pumps and milling.

For these isolated villages, we propose to develop an affordable, locally maintained hydropower unit that generates electricity with minimal environmental damage. Ideally, the unit would be easy to implement in rivers which have low-head, variable flow, and high-erosion.

While at MIT, we will adapt available technologies to suit the unique river parameters in Lesotho, and develop a design packet and initial prototype. Over the summer, we will field test the prototype in Lesotho. By collaborating with locals and favoring locally available technologies, we guarantee micro hydro’s sustainability. Eventually we hope to simplify the design and document our practices so that similar communities worldwide may reap the benefits of electricity, that is, increased productivity and higher standards of living.

d-lab-hydro@mit.edu

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Freedom Walk

Freedom Walk, a collapsible/stowable walker, will be designed to increase the mobility capabilities of their users. As defined in the future project description, “current designs are heavy and bulky and discourage off-roading and travel through tight spaces (for example, small doors and cramped elevators).” It is the G-Team’s design focus to create a walker that will be easily collapsed, stowed, and transported by the majority of their users, especially the major market of elderly people that need walking assistance. In reaching a final design, umbrella (push button open and close) technology will be studied, along with possible materials, for ease of collapsibility. Different folding arrangements and ergonomic designs will be analyzed for improvement in stowing and maneuvering the walker.

drz@mit.edu

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InvenTeams Zambia

The purpose of InvenTeams Zambia is to inspire high-school students within Zambia to engineer creative solutions for their community needs and problems. Realizing the lack of emphasis on science and technology in developing countries, we seek to broaden its frontiers of invention in the hope that the program will inspire and encourage local Zambian high school students to apply their technical education to real-world problems. This project is innovative not only in its broader goal, but its administrative organization as well, pooling together a myriad of diverse resources from various sources, including local NGOs, government projects, numerous Zambian community partners and of course, the high school students.

How do we encourage innovation? Unlike other programs, we're not focussing on the students. Instead, we completely focus on teachers. Over the summer, we plan to design and develop a program for innovation. We will develop an innovation guide that will teach people how to invent, we will develop workshops, gather support material and develop assessment criteria. The latter part of the summer, we will go over to Zambia and implement these. We will select high-school teachers, and train them on innovation and sit with them to design a curricula so that this innovation can be implemented in their classrooms. Furthermore, we will bring together a board of volunteers so that these innovation-encouraging activities are continued on after we leave.

The eventual goal is to encourage innovation among high school students by training their teachers. Eventually, we hope to merge this program with InvenTeams, a Lemelson-MIT funded program that encourages invention among high school students.

itz-www@mit.edu

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MANTRA

Our project entails designing an internet program for people living in rural areas for the purpose of a computerized medical evaluation. We aim to employ computer kiosks that already exist for this evaluation in remote rural areas that lack proper medical facilities. This program will allow for a kiosk operator or a patient to enter in their symptoms and necessary vital information for a computerized evaluation of a patient's illness. All data will be linked with a local hospital where doctors will receive all inputted data. From there, they can evaluate the risk of a patient, i.e. a patient with chest pain and dizziness will receive immediate attention over a patient with runny nose and cough. Our project will use the internet services already available to the people to increase their accessibility to health care. It will asses the needs and be self-sustaining and will involve the local community for the betterment of the larger rural community.

mantra@mit.edu

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Mozambique Environmental Sanitation Initiative

The Government of Mozambique estimates that only 36 percent and 45 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation, respectively. The problems of limited access to safe water and inadequate provisions for sanitation are compounded each year by heavy seasonal rains which bring flooding, fecal contamination of water sources, and high incidence of disease. There is an urgent need, specifically in Maputo’s bairros (unplanned urban settlements), for improved environmental sanitation.

Our project introduces innovations in environmental management and sanitation in the following ways: 1) creating a new, participatory planning methodology designed for urban communities and centered on sanitation and hygiene; (2) fostering community-based decision-making; and (3) linking the issue sanitation to flooding and health-related issues. We are developing a new set of planning tools and methodologies, called Participatory Urban Marketing for Sanitation Improvement (PUMSI). PUMSI uses cutting edge education and social marketing techniques, informed by thorough technical and social assessments at the community level. PUMSI will be used to promote hygienic sanitation practices both by raising awareness about the links between flooding, sanitation, hygiene, and health; PUMSI will also employ marketing campaigns that tap into the power of human emotions such as pride, dignity, and competitiveness to help spur community members’ desire for change.

Our principal partners are the Mozambican NGO ESTAMOS-Organização Comunitária (ESTAMOS), the UK-based NGO WaterAid, and teachers and students from primary schools in Maputo’s bairros.

mozambique@mit.edu

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O-Team

Tailors and seamstresses provide essential service for their local communities. Currently tailors and seamstresses in Adaklu and Kumbungu (Ghana, Africa) can buy either a hand operated sewing machine or a more advanced and more costly model with a treadle. An easy way to convert a hand operated machine to a treadle one would allow more efficient production of garments. Our goal for this project is to design and implement working adaptation units to convert the current hand operated machines to run by foot treadles. This project is one of the many projects presented by ENGhana.

jtc@mit.edu

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Parabolic Power II

Our objective is to implement a technical solution to a major challenge facing developing-world communities in Lesotho, southern Africa: they lack access to grid electricity and other energy options due to the mountainous terrain and the difficulty of transporting fuel. Our idea is a solar concentrator device that heats a working fluid for energy transfer to multiple, user-specified applications. Our innovation lies in the development of a novel heat to shaft power conversion system featuring a small scale closed-loop organic rankine cycle, using an ammonia/water mixture and automotive turbochargers as a cheap and available source of turbomachinery. Although this remote power generation technology could be deployed anywhere with sufficient sunlight, this project is specifically tailored to suit the needs of the Bethel Business and Community Development Center (BBCDC) in southern Africa. Located in the remote mountains of Lesotho, the BBCDC is a permaculture community and school that has pioneered solar concentrator technology using locally available materials and skills. They share our interest in creating an advanced concentrator design for the developing world context, both to further their educational mission and for wider dissemination to markets that they currently serve with their solar ovens, water heaters, and PV installations. In collaboration with BBCDC we designed and built the core system of a prototype comprising two single axis tracking parabolas (4m2 total aperture) that currently generates steam/hot water. Our aim is to expand the functionality of this system and demonstrate the viability of small organic rankine turbos for off-grid electricity generation.

mso@mit.edu

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Pathway Project

A multi-country effort to facilitate connections between indigenous groups across the Americas, the Pathway Project seeks to bring media production skills and technology to communities often misrepresented and marginalized by the mainstream media and in so doing, to challenge popular representational modes while promoting dialogue around shared issues among native peoples. Through a series of workshops and the creation of an online indigenous storytelling network, we hope to deepen our understanding of the ways in which oral traditions of storytelling translate to digital forms and the communicative possibilities this process creates for both storyteller and audience. Through increasing exposure and access to media and communications technology for indigenous youth, we believe that we will open sustainable economic portals while simultaneously encouraging dialogue around cultural expression and preservation.

vbollow@mit.edu

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Robopsy

Robopsy’s mission is to assist doctors in performing minimally invasive percutaneous biopsies remotely under computed tomography [CT] guidance. This will be accomplished by developing a user-friendly robotic device that will grip, position and insert a biopsy needle into a lesion under remote control of the doctor. Current apparatuses under development that address this problem do not compensate for patient breathing motion or are heavy, complex and expensive. Robopsy achieves needle orientation and insertion and chest motion compensation in a simple, lightweight, disposable and innovative device. Lesion biopsies are seen as the initial market, however future adaptation for other needle-based procedure is foreseen.

The current procedure for these interventions is iterative and time-consuming with the doctor manually orienting the needle before insertion, then incrementally advancing it while conducting multiple scans to verify the needle position. This necessitates that the doctor move continually between the control room and CT room. Robopsy would eliminate this unnecessary activity as well as provide a “third hand” during tissue sample collection. The Robopsy device will improve patient care through decreased procedure time, sedation time and radiation exposure as well as by enabling biopsies of smaller lesions than are currently accessible manually. As well as this fewer needle passes of the needle will also decrease the possibility of pneumothorax (collapsing of lung).

robopsy@mit.edu

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Solar Water Disinfection Device

The 2.2 million deaths every year from waterborne diseases could be avoided through improved water supply, water quality and sanitation. Most of these people live in Asia and Africa, where less than half of Asians have access to improved sanitation, and three-fifths of Africans lack to an improved water supply. These numbers, however, are for urban areas; rural areas are even farther from the goal of universal access to a safe and plentiful supply of drinking water and appropriate sanitation.

One potential solution is a solar water disinfection device. Current solar water disinfection devices are either too expensive for households in developing countries or inefficient in terms of transportability and disinfection time. Our goal is to design an inexpensive solar disinfection device that is easily transported in bulk to distribution sites, quick to disinfect water, and easy to use and maintain in the areas of need. This device will have to be rugged enough in order to survive constant exposure to the sun, while at the same time being functional enough to be handled by a single individual.

Using our strong ties with reliable community partners in Zambia, we will also develop a device that is marketable to our population of users, and generate different marketing plans to maximize the dissemination of our product. Inspired by Paul Pollack’s inexpensive and mass produced drip irrigation kit, we hope to create a similar easy-to-produce product that can also be traded in for credit toward the purchase of the next device, so as to ensure that waste accumulation does not become a problem that plagues even the most remote of areas representing a large share of our ideal market.

swd@mit.edu

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Wheelchair Hub

Twenty million disabled people in developing countries need wheelchairs, but less than one percent own or have access to them. Whirlwind Wheelchairs International has designed and produced dozens of technically innovative wheelchairs that are low cost and appropriate to the conditions of developing nations. However, each workshop exists as an isolated entity that has no regular communication with the Whirlwind office or with other workshops. Remarkable innovations that occur at each shop rarely spread to others, and most shops operate below 30% of their capacity because of inadequate funding.

Whirlwind’s troubles are not unique; many international humanitarian organizations face similar problems. They cannot afford expensive management systems that are used by corporations to improve communications about goods, services and management practices.

Our social innovation is an advancement in two avenues of communication: between humanitarian operations at the field level and between a field operation and the world at large. This decentralized network promotes collaborations and partnerships among non-governmental field operations and greatly facilitates fundraising. Our technical innovation to address this challenge lies in modifying current technology to create social network software appropriate to the limited computing resources and Internet training available in developing nations.

We have built a prototype system for implementation in Whirlwind’s Central American workshops. We enable collaboration among Whirlwind workshops that will offer their communities improved wheelchair services and economic enrichment without the need for clumsy interactions with larger organizations in far away countries. Our system demonstrates that we can create community where none existed before.

ideas_wic@mit.edu

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Young Activist's Multimedia Toolkit

Young people usually have the time, the energy, the will, the basic skills, and the right to participate and help improve the quality of life in the places where they live. What they lack is appropriate space, support and recognition.

We believe that community technology centers can provide the necessary conditions to support youth activism projects. However, practice has shown that, besides other challenges, the centers lack appropriate technology for that kind of initiative.

This project proposes the creation of a set of collaborative and multimedia software tools to support the development of youth-led social change projects. Among others, the toolkit will facilitate common youth activist practices such as drawing neighborhood maps, creating photo albums, handling voice interviews, and sharing information through the construction of websites containing the multimedia elements just mentioned.

We use a user-centered, iterative design process that incorporates feedback from participants in local youth activism groups. We expect that the proposed toolkit will be distributed to organizations from all over the world and help create an international network to foster social awareness and the improvement of the quality of life of many communities in need.

yan-tools@mit.edu

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