At least 6 awards are made each year to teams that demonstrate innovative solutions to problems in local, national, and international communities. Each winning team has demonstrated to the judges that their project was innovative, sustainable, and feasible.

Having a good idea is an important first step, but it's just an idea. Each of the following projects is an idea brought to life through the team's energy and dedication.

We wish you good luck in conceiving and developing your own ideas this year, and please check out the Get Connected part of this site if you'd like to learn how we can help you along the way.

$ 5000 IDEAS International Technology Award
(Sponsored by the Lemelson-MIT Program)

Bicilavdora

$ 5000 IDEAS Domestic Project Award
(Sponsored by The Boeing Company)

Robopsy

$ 3000 IDEAS Graduate Student Award
(Sponsored by the MIT Graduate Student Office)

Mozambique Environmental Sanitation Initiative

$ 3000 IDEAS International Technology Award
(Sponsored by the Lemelson-MIT Program)

VacPac

$ 2000 IDEAS International Technology Award
(Sponsored by the Lemelson-MIT Program)

Parabolic Power II

$ 2000 IDEAS Baruch Awards
(Sponsored by The Jordan and Rhoda Baruch Fund)

MANTRA

Solar Water Disinfection Device

$ 2000 IDEAS Award
(Sponsored by the IDEAS Competition)

Wider Reach

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 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.

Download Proposal

http://miters.mit.edu/MayaPedal 

mayapedal-actives@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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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.

moazambique@mit.edu

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VacPac

The Vac-Pac is a versatile, off-grid ready refrigerator for vaccine preservation and transportation. It was created with the intent to curb vaccine wastage, extend outreach sessions, and facilitate immunization against preventable diseases, especially for underdeveloped and hard-to-reach places. The Vac-Pac can store up to 1200 doses of vaccine and transport them for at least 12 hours on one battery charge; it can run indefinitely with various charging and operating conditions ranging from solar power, portable gas generation, electrical outlet power, and even power from a car's cigarette adapter. The Vac-Pac is a rugged backpack design which when fully loaded with vaccines, is less then 35 pounds, and is encased in durable plastic shell and aircraft aluminum tubing. To help drive down the cost, we hope also to sell this product in other medical, commercial, and recreational markets.

http://web.mit.edu/wonga1/www/VacPac/

vacpac@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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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.

www.mantramedical.org

mantra@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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Wider Reach

Wider Reach will introduce a “wireless marketplace” into the developing world. Built for the cell phone platform, this service allows community members to post items for sale, search for items to buy, and check market prices of goods. Wider Reach is initially focusing on the agricultural value chain in Bangladesh, where insufficient market information leaves farmers with virtually no market power and results in sales that occur below market price – or sometimes not at all.

The service’s value to the community lies in its ability to facilitate transactions and thereby overcome market failures. We will provide the service under the “Listy” brand name, which is the Bengali colloquialism for a shopping list.

wider-reach@mit.edu

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