Design for the Other 90% Exhibit Opens
(May 4, 2007) IDE's affordable income-enhancing technologies are featured in a new exhibit at the Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, located in New York City. On view from May 4 through September 23, 2007, “Design for the Other 90%” features more than 30 works that demonstrate how design can be a dynamic force in transforming—and even saving—lives.
Exploring the variety of affordable and socially responsible products designed for the more than five billion people across the globe who often lack the means to purchase even the most basic goods, the exhibit highlights products in the areas of food, water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, energy and transportation that provide solutions for the extremely poor and marginalized throughout the world. “By showcasing the work of designers who use their skills and ingenuity to produce architectural and design solutions that really affect quality of life issues, Cooper-Hewitt will raise awareness of the critical need for humanitarian design,” said Director Paul Warwick Thompson.
IDE has been at the forefront of developing and marketing affordable technologies in developing countries since 1981, and continues to be a catalyst for affordable design innovation through collaboration with design schools at Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “Ninety-five percent of the world’s designers focus all their efforts on developing products and services exclusively for the richest 10 percent of the world’s customers,” said IDE founder Dr. Paul Polak, “Nothing less than a revolution in design is needed to reach the other 90 percent.”
IDE technologies featured at the exhibit will include a treadle pump, an inexpensive foot-powered pump that allows small-plot farmers to produce high-value crops during the dry season, allowing them to move beyond subsistence farming. Also included will be a garden with a working IDE low-cost drip irrigation system, which reduces water use by 30 to 70 percent and increases yields by more than 50 percent. Other design innovations featured will include inexpensive shelters, a personal water purification device, a bicycle that can easily carry hundreds of pounds of cargo, and an inexpensive universal laptop computer to be used as an educational tool for children. |
