This just keeps getting better. I just read article two, and it was just as amazing as the first one. This article was written by Amy Smith, an instructor and founder of D-Lab (Development through dialogue, design, and dissemination) at MIT, who writes about the Fuel from the Fields project. This project aims to find a solution to the need for healthy, renewable fuel that plagues the nearly “2.5 billion people using wood, charcoal, or dung for their cooking and heating needs.” Smith highlights the fact that “the leading cause of death in children between the ages of one and five is not malnutrition, diarrhea, or malaria, but respiratory illness caused in large part by breathing the smoke from indoor cooking fires.” Shocking, isn’t it?

The Fuel from the Fields project, tested on the people of Haiti, is an example of true problem solving, as are most of the designs in this book. The article runs through the trial and error process that accompanied the development of a source of fuel for the poor. The result of this project, after much testing and collaboration with those actually using the technology, was the development of a process by which to create charcoal briquettes out of agricultural waste (corncobs, sugarcane, etc). This result has an incredibly positive impact on the common deforestation practices that occur because of the great need for firewood, and also has the benefit of being completely safe for those burning the fuel (as opposed to the other sources that caused the respiratory problems in children mentioned before). ALSO, this process has the ability to create jobs in that the only investment required to become a briquette-maker is $10, which can be made back within one week of selling the product. As Smith notes in the article, this is a “win-win-win situation…”

Smith credits this type of design with being influenced by three fundamental movements:

1. The “appropriate technology movement,” based on the book Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher. This movement established the need for design that uses a community’s resources to create jobs.

2. Participatory Development – Novel idea… communicating directly with those who have the problem, in order to be able to solve the problem effectively.

3. Co-creation, or collaboration with the community/customer in designing the product.

Remember when I went to Mexico? Maria Rogal’s d4d (or design for development) class I took at UF is a great example of all of these things.

The Charcoal Project is also doing things to solve this problem, make sure to take a look around.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 11th, 2010 at 1:54 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.