Amy Smith and D-Lab
June 20th, 2007
I just flew out to Boston to spend the day at MIT meeting with Amy Smith. Aside from being a certified genius (the MIT engineer received a MacArthur “genius” grant in 2004) and just a lovely person, Amy heads MIT’s D-Lab program to point MIT undergraduates towards designing cheap, practical fixes for tough problems in developing countries.
Click on the link to check out Amy’s talk at the TED Conference in February 2006. Here’s a short summary:
Fumes from indoor cooking fires kill more than 2 million children a year in the developing world. MIT engineer Amy Smith details an exciting but simple solution: a tool for converting farm waste into cleaner-burning fuel. Plain-spoken and passionate, Smith talks about some other tools she and her students are creating, including an incubator that stays warm without electricity and a grain mill that frees women from hours of grinding every day. These are basic tools with world-changing results.
Someday I’ll figure out how to directly import the video clips into my blog. Until then, bear with me and click on the link. It’s an impressive 15 minutes, I promise!
June 26th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
What an encouraging post! Thanks for letting us know that bright minds are engaged in practical steps that save lives and ease the burden.
June 26th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
it is encouraging, isn’t it?