The refuse from discarded electronic products, e-waste, end up in landfills or incinerators. In today’s ‘use and throw’ philosophy, the amount of e-waste is constantly increasing to alarming levels. It’s easier to buy a new computer, than upgrade your old one, or so most people think. Alex Lin, at age 13, started a progamme in his community to reduce e-waste by refurbishing discarded computers and providing them to families unable to afford electronic equipment.
Alex, from Westerly, Rhode Island, USA, formed Westerly Innovations Network (WIN) in 2002. He explains in the video how improper waste encompasses a lot of things, like burning, burying, and exporting. In the average computer monitor, there is 4 to 8 pounds of lead, there is also mercury, cadmium, and the plastic cases themselves, all causing severe health defects. Earlier, all the residents of Westerly were dumping their e-waste in the landfill. With a few phone calls, and some effort, they set up a receptacle at a certain point, where people could dump their computers, protecting the crops, water and environment.
The WIN team then meets once in a week in Alex’s basement to refurbish the computers. Alex feels that recycling is much more efficient than buying new pieces. They get donations from corporations and banks, and sometimes have to replace hard drives, RAMs etc. After refurbishing, the computers are usually given to people in Westerly who don’t have computers. They also sent computers to Sri Lanka after the tsunami, where they were used in an education centre.
Later the WIN team also made a presentation to the State Legislation, and because of their efforts today improper disposal of e-waste in Rhode Island is illegal. You can see Alex’s speech at the Youth Brower Awards, 2007. Today the WIN team works with people in Sri Lanka, Cameroon and Mexico. They effectively created a system that deals with several problems, those of e-waste, environmental damage, and increased access to computers for poorer sections of society. As Alex says, this is a small step in changing the way the country, and even the world deals with waste.
By Armeen Kapadia
While a lot of us take electricity for granted, there are an estimated two billion people living without power from the electric grid. These people rely on outdated, expensive, and unhealthy sources of illumination such as kerosene, candles, etc. SunNight Solar has developed a flashlight that uses solar energy, and can be used for various lighting conditions.
SunNight Solar was started by Marc Bent, a US diplomat and oilman who had spent years working in Africa, and wanted to give back. Lighting takes up almost 30% of a family’s disposable income. The SunLight series of flashlights will provide light for 750 to 1000 nights, 8 hours per night – which is a minimum of 6000 hours. Unlike conventional flashlights, which lose approximately 3.8% of energy monthly, this flashlight stays charged all the time. The SunLight series uses Nickel Metal Hydride (NiMh) AA batteries, which are the more expensive, but have the least environmental impact.
The SunLight solar flashlight, unlike many products, is easy to open up. With just a coin, one can open it, remove a battery, put in a new one and close it again. The torch has a solar photovoltaic panel that generates electricity. The electricity is stored in the three batteries. The user has to place the flashlight in the sun during the day. Though this looks like a flashlight, it can be used to light up a room. It has several different settings for different light conditions and needs of the consumer. The design of the flashlight ensures there is circulation of air around each of the batteries, vital for the batteries to retain and store energy. In many products one has to figure out the direction the battery goes in, but in this flashlight, all three batteries go positive side first, so there is no confusion.
Bent has designed the product himself, and there’s even a model in pink, to discourage men from seizing the products from women. Bent initially had invested heavily in the project, and later got help from Innocentive, an R&D firm. Thousands of Africans are using the solar powered light; SunNight Solar has passed one million in sales. Bent wants to expand the line and add a solar-powered UV water-filtration system.
By Armeen Kapadia
The Japanese architect, Shigeru Ban, believes that the strength of a building depends on the structure, and not necessarily the materials. The materials don’t have to be strong to ensure strength. He has constructed a paper bridge, and a pavilion from adhesive labels.
The Artek pavilion was built in 2007 as part of an installation in Milan. The mobile exhibition space was commissioned by Finnish furniture company, Artek, and forest industry group/paper producer/wood materials manufacturer, UPM. In keeping with both companys’ philosophies, the structure had to be sustainable in form, function and material. Shigeru Ban was commissioned for the project, and the material used was an extruded wood plastic composite made primarily of recycled paper material, specifically recycled self-adhesive labels. He believes that any weak material can also be used to build a strong structure, as the strength lies in the design of the structure. The advantage of this material, as he explains, is that you can make any number of profiles out of it, for different parts of the building, such as an L-profile, square profile or a circular profile.
The pavilion has corrugated roof and wall panels, and the sloping roofs ensure the run-off of rainwater. The design is highly modular, and the pavilion has been de-constructed and rebuilt several times since it was first built. The pavilion can move to many locations, for a variety of events. It is open on both ends, allowing for good ventilation and movement. Used self-adhesive labels are the main primary material of construction, and the building can be entirely recycled back to raw materials.
Ban has also built a paper bridge in France, out of eco-friendly, lightweight materials. The steps are recycled paper and plastic and the foundations wooden boxes packed with sand, and the bridge is strong enough to hold 20 people at a time. The bridge was open to the public for six weeks, before being dismantled for the rainy season.
As Ban says, each material has different advantages and disadvantages, and we have the choice, of which is the best one to use. He is not interested in decorative material, saying it is a superficial thing, and feels that if we design a beautiful structure, that is already a great decoration. Letting in natural light to create shadows, is the best decoration that architecture can give.
By Armeen Kapadia
P.S.: R.I.P., MJ.
 Mahmoud Mujahed at work One of the main difficulties faced by disabled people is while using public transport. The transportation system and often people too, are not sensitive to the problems faced by them. A disabled Palestinian man, fed up with having to wait for taxis, built his own electric car.
Mahmoud Mujahed, 64, has had severe knee injuries, and can only walk with the help of crutches. His disability forced him to give up work. Unable to afford taxis, he built his own electric car. It took him two weeks to build the car, which works on a 12 volt battery, and the help of a computer system. It can reach speeds of up to 80 miles an hour, and has 20 horsepower. Mujahed says, "Because I don’t work, I don’t have money to pay for transport. I thought I would make a car with three wheels.” The first car he built was too slow, but a friend, Abdul Sultan, suggested he make the car in this style, and it worked. “This is different to any other car and I don't think anybody has done anything like that before. Firstly we can say it's environmentally friendly because it operates on batteries".
Necessity is the mother of invention. Faced with difficulties, people are known to do the seemingly impossible, or very difficult, to overcome their problems. The human creative power knows no limits, as Mahmoud Mujahed proves. It probably goes back to the early days of humankind, when people created the first tools to help them in their work. From making the first spade, to building a car, it is this unique ability of humans that separates us from the animal kingdom. Although some animals have highly evolved problem solving and tool-making capabilities, in humans this ability has developed to a very great degree.
Mahmoud Mujahed hopes the Palestinian government, or an organization, will help take this invention to many others like him, as it can benefit millions of people worldwide.
By Armeen Kapadia
Education needs experiments. In India, especially, we need something entirely different. Digital StudyHall (DSH) is on an experimental trail. They describe their approach as an education equivalent of Netflix + YouTube + Kazaa.
Live classes by the best grassroots teachers are recorded on video and then stored on computer discs, which are distributed to rural schools. Education experts are working in tandem with computer scientists to explore pedagogic approaches in the rural context.
Firstly, DSH is focusing on creating a video database of everything. (usually in the local language) Going a step ahead, they have structured the sequencing of these videos to fit into the current state board curriculums so that any school can use it. Some of the best teachers have recorded their discourses. What they have done here is go beyond the flash-ware and slide-ware kind of modules. This approach believes that teachers are still a prime agent in the learning environment. Although the output is aligned to the syllabus, the teachers have re-interpreted the syllabus in terms of interactivity.
Secondly, DSH adopts a decentralized network. Although content is produced and disseminated for local use, it is shared with the other towns and cities. The videos are recorded in the contextual learning environment instead of recording it in schools in cities. The relevance of content is key in creating this database.
Thirdly, the school needs a tv, dvd player and an inverter. They know that children can't learn by just watching videos. They have adopted mediation-based pedagogy. It means that there is a mediator, usually a teacher, between the students and the TV. The mediator pauses the video and engages children in activities, games, even a q&a session.
Lastly, the web2.0 application that they have developed doesn't require physcial infrastructure. The computer discs are transported by the postal system.
Digital StudyHall works best in the Indian context. It is striving to break new ground in schools across India.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
 Energee-Saw in action A design student at Coventry University in the UK, Daniel Sheridan, designed a simple see-saw which generates enough energy to satisfy a school's electricity needs. His research report Power Through Play explored positive aspects of African communities and tried to combine it with a daily need.
His report concluded that the joy and energy of children was one the most positive aspects and the need of electricity at schools was one of the key needs. Based on these conclusions, he created a see saw called Energee-Saw that generates electricity by using a generator mechanism.
A pilot installation was done in a Ugandan primary school in early 2008. Daniel recently completed his major project with the assistance of Aventure, a charity and volunteer placement enterprise, to develop power-generating play equipment for a community in Uganda. He's now secured funding from a consortium of investors and a local innovation investment initiative that will allow his company to start implementing the product on a broader scale with Ugandan schools, in partnership with the Build A School charity. Daniel's example shows that well-considered work at the student level can have far-reaching effects.
The see-saw design is provided to the community in a kit form that will use local materials to bring down costs. Daniel is engaging local communities to build the see-saw too. The energy generated through the see-saw can power LED based classroom lighting, radios, mobile phones and low-power laptops. It just takes 5-10 minutes of play to light the school for an entire evening.
Ultimately, Daniel wishes to design an entire playground of different pieces of equipment that can generate electricity.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
A huge problem for disabled people in the developing world is the lack of a suitable means to get around. A team of designers in the USA and Guatemala have created wheelchairs from old bicycles.
At the California Institute of Technology, two students of the product design class Rudy Roy and Ben Sexson, built a prototype of a wheelchair that could be made using the parts of a bicycle. The design uses normal bicycles as well as mountain bikes, which can navigate rural terrain. They continued the project after the semester ended and teamed up with Charlie Pyott, another student from the Art Centre College of Design, to form a non-profit organization called Intelligent Mobility International.
The class worked closely with students of Rafael Landivar University in Guatemala to gain important insights into the lives, needs and culture of the local people. Made in a Guatemala City workshop, the wheelchair can be easily made from ready-made bicycle parts, and bicycles are widely available in Guatemala. A standard wheelchair in Guatemala costs around $400, which is twice the average monthly household income. This wheelchair costs around $40 to $150, and could last up to ten years, much more than other wheelchairs. Opportunities for disabled people are often scarce, especially in Guatemala, as the government does not offer many opportunities. It is estimated that at least 55,000 people in Guatemala are disabled, with at least half of them in rural areas. Intelligent Mobility International employs disabled people in their factory for the manufacture of the wheelchair.
The primary goal of the company is to improve the lives of the immobile through transportation. The idea is for the wheelchair to be locally made, by the disabled people there. There are an estimated 300 million people with disabilities in the developing world, with 20 million in need of new chairs.
Innovations for the developing world need to fulfill many criteria, including providing much needed employment and encouraging local talent. What started as a classroom project became a passion for these students, and they took academics far beyond the classroom to actually impact lives.
By Armeen Kapadia
 Kyoto Box Kyoto Box solar cooker is a pin-hole camera kind of solution for food. Joe Bohmer, a Norwegian, now based in Kenya, has designed a basic solar cooker, which looks like a child's science experiment. The outcome is life-altering for thousands living in Africa. It is a cardboard box that uses the sun's rays to cook without burning firewood.
The Kyoto Box consists of two cardboard boxes, one inside the other. The outer cardboard box flaps are intact, whereas the inner box flaps are removed. The inner surface of the outer box is covered with tin foil to concentrate the sun's rays. The inner surface of the inner box is painted black to maximize absorption of solar energy. A plexiglass cover is used to trap heat inside. Temperatures inside the box can reach at least 80 degrees Celsius on a sunny day. Kyoto Box can boil 10 liters of water in two to three hours, and boiling or near-boiling water can cook beans, rice, grains and meat. The Kyoto Box, already in production, costs $6, and can be produced in any cardboard factory.
The design is smart and efficient for rural Africa. It is claimed that this product will prevent two tonnes of CO2 emissions per family per year. This sustainable innovation can make solar cooking widespread in the developing world. With Kyoto becoming popular, villagers don't have to trek miles to collect wood nor spend hours inhaling wood smoke. Reducing reliance on firewood reduces deforestation.
The best ideas aren't always the most sophisticated. In an interview with CNN, Bohmer said, "A lot of scientists are working on ways to send people to Mars. I was looking for something a little more grassroots, a little simpler. It took me about a weekend to design it and it worked on the first try." Some skeptics feel that this innovation is just a band-aid on a cancer lesion.
Listen to the BBC Interview here. The intention here seems right, and the future should reveal its true effect.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
 www.civiltwilightcollective.com On a full moon night, there is enough moonlight to make your way around quite easily. In cities we don’t notice this light because the streetlights overpower the light of the moon. The Civil Twilight Design Collective has designed a streetlight that responds to the strength of the surrounding moonlight, and adjusts to the different phases of the moon.
On no moon nights, the light is at it’s strongest, and on full moon nights, it is extremely dim or as good as off, resulting in major power savings of 90 to 95%. Retrofitting existing streetlights with dimmable LED bulbs and a highly sensitive photo-sensor cell that could detect and respond to moonlight can create these streetlights. Most people in cities never see the stars, or appreciate the cycle of moonlight. Only out in the country does one really notice the light of the moon, which is actually enough for us to see by.
Moonlight, is in fact more uniform in nature. Biologically, the human eye is capable of seeing in a broad range in intensities, and functions well in moonlight, with both the rods and cones in the eye being active. Civil Twilight member Anton Willis says the idea evolved out of his master’s thesis for the architecture school at the University of California, Berkeley. Willis enlisted his friends and collaborators Kate Lydon and Christina Seely to help build the idea. All three have always had an interest in sustainability and energy issues. You can read more about the project here.
This project has a ‘magical’ appeal, a mix of poetry and inspiration with science. This project could impact light pollution and energy savings on a global scale. As of now, the founding trio sees it being used more by college campuses, and other small independent entities. It might take some time for the concept to be embraced by city municipalities. And there are some places, such as hospitals or airports, where it may not be the ideal lighting system. But if even some areas of cities implement it, it can have widespread impact, and create more beautiful, and natural urban living spaces.
By Armeen Kapadia
A. Bamublance Trailer Frame — bamboo
1. Hitch — bamboo and nylon webbing
2. Splash Guard — used truck tarp
3. Mountain Bike Tires & Dropout — welded metal
4. Disc reflectors — small plastic reflectors
5. Wheel Guard — used truck tarp
B. Bambulance Stretcher Frame — bamboo
6. Integrated Metal Foot & Stretcher Frame Spreader — welded metal
7. Ergonomic Hand-holds — bamboo and used truck tarp
8. Stretcher Bed & Indexing stripe — used truck tarp
9. Safety Belt — nylon webbing
Africa sees thousands of people die from diseases, serious illnesses and injuries because they have no access to emergency healthcare. Bambulance designed by a Canadian charity Design For Development (DFD) Society is a low-cost, practical and sustainable solution to transport victims during crisis.
Using bamboo, which is inexpensive, lightweight and strong, minimizes costs since it is locally available in many regions of Africa. The prototype will be designed at the Emily Carr Institute and DFD in Vancouver. Bambulance will be manufactured locally by two Nairobi based organizations and five community-based health organizations will participate in training, monitoring and evaluation.
DFD's aim is to reduce poverty and increase community self-reliance through demonstrated and advocated use of the design process. Bambulace is an emergency medical transportation device (EMTD) and its benefits are improved speed and comfort over options that are currently available, while maintaining cost efficiency and sustainability. It can easily transport patients who weigh less than 250 pounds. It was started to improve access to health services, introduce bamboo as an alternative material, generate income among HIV and AIDs affected and promote design as a problem-solving tool.
Bambulance was designed by two Emily Carr design students — Philippa Mennell and Chris Ryan. Currently the project is in need of donations.
By Sanjay Basavaraju
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