As part of Popular Mechanics magazine’s annual conference on world-changing innovation, Amy B. Smith, MIT’s pied piper of Design-That-Makes-a-Difference, was named this year’s Breakthrough Leadership award-winner. It was an easy choice. Smith and her team of “D-Lab” students have helped set the bar for practical brilliance. Whether they are making charcoal from plant waste or engineering a better corn-shucker, it is thrilling to see the dramatic impact their simple yet deft solutions to grinding every day problems can have on people’s lives.
Even those of us best described as “mechanically-challenged” can grasp how these inventions work — which is a big part of the point. In fact, it is #4 on Smith’s list of“Seven Rules for Low-Tech Engineering”:
Even those of us best described as “mechanically-challenged” can grasp how these inventions work — which is a big part of the point. In fact, it is #4 on Smith’s list of“Seven Rules for Low-Tech Engineering”:
Create “transparent” technologies, ones that are easily understood by the users, and promote local innovation.
Personally, I have given up hope of ever understanding all the nifty features on my too-smart-for-its-own-good cell phone. But I know I could master that corn-shucker (the“Design on $2 a Day” video includes a segment on it — note to MIT: video embed codes please…)
Rule #7 also focuses on the critical user-interface issue, but with a emphasis on design as an iterative, rather than a static, process:
Rule #7 also focuses on the critical user-interface issue, but with a emphasis on design as an iterative, rather than a static, process:
Personally, I have given up hope of ever understanding all the nifty features on my too-smart-for-its-own-good cell phone. But I know I could master that corn-shucker (the“Design on $2 a Day” video includes a segment on it — note to MIT: video embed codes please…)
Rule #7 also focuses on the critical user-interface issue, but with a emphasis on design as an iterative, rather than a static, process:
My friend Ed Jezierski at InSTEDD is attempting to apply this low-tech philosophy to high-tech, setting up an “innovation lab” in Cambodia (full disclosure: TrackerNews is also a project of InSTEDD). To jump start the effort, he helped put together a one-day tech event in September – Bar Camp Phnom Penh — for which 200 people registered and 300 showed up. Clearly, Ed’s tapped into something big. Now the challenge is to make the dream real by putting together a lab where local talent develops software solutions for local and regional needs (in this case, with a focus on health systems). “All technologies go obsolete — so for true sustainability you need to assemble a team of people that will invent the ‘next thing’ — and give it the skills, capital and opportunities to do so,” he explains.
If it works, the Cambodian lab would also serve as a prototype for labs in other developing countries. Given the infrastructure hurdles (electricity, connectivity, etc.) if the concept can make it in here — to paraphrase Frank Sinatra — it can make it anywhere.
If it works, the Cambodian lab would also serve as a prototype for labs in other developing countries. Given the infrastructure hurdles (electricity, connectivity, etc.) if the concept can make it in here — to paraphrase Frank Sinatra — it can make it anywhere.
