July 03, 2003
Design that Matters, a Massachusetts non-profit corporation, is dedicated to improving the quality of life in underserved communities. We do this by fostering the development of products and services that meet immediate community needs in areas such as clean water, health care, renewable energy and education. We also do this by developing curriculum materials that engage university engineering, science, policy and business in the design process, thereby strengthening their commitment to serve these communities throughout their careers. Since its launch at MIT in 2000, DtM has worked with over 300 engineering and business students to develop dozens of prototypes that promise to improve thousands of lives.
To learn more about our work in communities and universities around the world, see the DtM homepage.
Welcome to the DtM Field Journal
In summer 2003, Design that Matters and four members of the MIT Kinkajou design team conducted an extensive field study in Mali and Benin. The objectives of this study were to broaden our network of collaborators among local communities and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), test a prototype educational tool developed by the student team, share information on existing DtM design innovations, collect data for new DtM design challenges, and generally experience life in sub-Saharan West Africa.
This journal is an account of our experience. Listed below are some of our favorite entries. You can read the complete story in the journal archives, which are listed in the right-hand column.
The Field Journal category archives are organized as follows:
Book Recommendations: books that we felt gave us insights into West African culture, and contributed to our understanding of international development.
Design Challenge: these are open design challenges--unsolved problems faced by underserved communities that were either identified or further explored during the field study.
Design Resource: notes taken during the field study that help to describe conditions in West Africa, and generally provide useful information for development-related design projects.
DtM Partner Org: these community groups and NGOs help Design that Matters to identify appropriate design challenges, and they take the lead in testing and implementing DtM innovations.
Journal Entry: our personal observations on the trip.
Kinkajou Design Review: notes from the many design reviews conducted during the field study.
Light Up the World: notes from our various field tests of the LUTW solid-state lamps.
Kinkajou Microfilm Projector
The Kinkajou Projector is a novel educational tool for developing countries that combines the efficiency of LEDs with the durability of microfilm. The Kinkajou alpha prototype, shown in the photo below, was developed in Fall 2002 at MIT as part of Woodie Flower's and Dave Wallace's senior capstone mechanical engineering design course, "2.009 Product Engineering Processes." The Kinkajou team continued working on the project through the Spring semester, developing the beta prototype model we're packing with us. To learn more, see the Kinkajou website.
DtM Design Challenge Portfolios
These are curriculum materials that we provide to faculty in industrialized and developing countries to use in their courses and research. We solicit our network of collaborators for well-defined problems in areas such areas as clean water, health care and renewable energy. We package these problems into design challenge portfolios.
To learn more, see the DtM design challenge portfolio library.
