The Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in NYC is having an exhibit on products designed to help serve the world's poor. The exhibit, called "Design For The Other 90%" serves to salute the designers dedicated to improving the lives of the billions of people around the world living on less than $2 a day. Most of the world's smartest designers cater to the needs of the world's richest 10%, and hence the phrase "other 90%".
Among some of products being exhibited is the Q-drum, a toroid shaped jerry can that rolls smoothly enough on the ground for a child to tow with a rope. It addresses the need of millions of women and children, who spend hours each day fetching water and transporting it over several miles while balancing it on their heads, both tiring and a cause of injury.
Another cool invention is the Lifestraw, a personal water purification device that kills bacteria when water is sucked through it. Designed to prevent diseases, it seeks to help in achieving "the Millennium Development Goal of ‘reducing by half the proportion of
people without sustainable access to safe drinking water’ by the year
2015".
Snippet from the NYTimes:
Interestingly, most of the designers who spoke at the opening of the exhibition spurned the idea of charity.
“The No. 1 need that poor people have is a way to make more cash,” said Martin Fisher, an engineer who founded KickStart, an organization that says it has helped 230,000 people escape poverty. It sells human-powered pumps costing $35 to $95.
“Most of the world’s poor are subsistence farmers, so they need a business model that lets them make money in three to six months, which is one growing season,” he said.
