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Firefly featured in Fast Company

In response to the growing conversation about the role of non-profit design in the developing world, Fast Company has written an intriguing article which profiles DtM's philosophy and projects.

"In 2001, Tim Prestero quit his PhD program at MIT, and founded Design That Matters, a nonprofit that started as a class project. The ultimate objective of this almost all-volunteer organization is to aid the poor through product development. As an institution, it is specifically founded on nonprofit ideals, or as Prestero puts it, “I like the [nonprofit status] because it's a kind of discipline. I like the fact that, like Odysseus, we can chain ourselves to the mast. Google’s commitment to don’t be evil isn’t enforced by any outside body. Our commitment to don’t be evil is actually written in law.”

"Consider what's happening at Design That Matters. The organization is putting its latest product, the Firefly, a device to cure jaundice in newborn babies, into clinical trial. Barring any catastrophes, it will then go to a pilot program in Vietnam this coming April. After the pilot program, there are two possible pathways this product will take to reach its market. The first, and more traditional, is that the Firefly will be made by a local Vietnamese manufacturer, Medical Technology Transfer and Services, and then distributed by the East Meets West Foundation, a nonprofit."

"You might call the second possible pathway a quasi-capitalist model. And it might offer vastly larger scale: the East Meets West Foundation could instead sign a partnership with a major multi-national that currently cranks out an incubator every 30 minutes. That company would then produce and distribute the Firefly through their for-profit emerging markets medical arm. Why would they care? After all, as Prestero says, “their next 400 million customers aren’t coming from the United States, they’re coming from emerging markets.”

The development of the Firefly, which looks like a simple incubator, actually took 10 years to perfect. It's no surprise that the model for getting it out into the world will require just as much care and boldness."

- Shoham Arad, Do Designers Actually Exploit The Poor While Trying To Do Good? Jan Chipchase Responds, Fast Co Design, 04Jan2012

Learn more about Project Firefly

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