Future Ideas Projects

Here is the current list of submitted project ideas, including projects submitted by teams who are looking for team-mates (this list is the same as that found in the "Browse Project Ideas" section of the Get Connected part of this site). If you are interested in any particular project, please email the contact person directly

Do you have a project IDEA that you would like to see here? Fill in the project form, and we will post your idea on this page.

This year, IDEAS is partnering with the Stanford University Social E-Challenge to encourage cross-insitutional teams to come together and enter both contests. Cross-institutional teams will be able to leverage the similarity in interests, and diversity in skills and knowledge, of the two institutions to create innovative projects and strong proposals. To enter the IDEAS Competition, at least one third of the team-members must be MIT students; to enter the Social E-Challenge, at least half the team must be Stanford students. Take a look at the Social E-Challenge project database, and make the connections you need to form a cross-institutional team. (The two competitions have different rules and requirements, be sure you check these before entering).

In many villages throughout the developing world, peanuts serve as a major subsistence and cash crop. Not surprisingly, unshelled peanuts sell at a cheaper price than products such as peanut butter, but most small-scale peanut farmers don't have the equipment necessary to shell their crop themselves. Instead, villagers often sell their peanuts to large factories in foreign countries - and then, in a dirty twist of international trade, buy the processed nuts back at inflated prices. If small rural peanut operations are ever to gain power over their own futures, the shells have got to come off.

Of course, many companies have designed peanut shelling devices, but they were not created with developing countries in mind. Expensive, electric machines that may work in wealthy nations will not work for a village in, say, Haiti. That is not to say that developing countries have been wholly ignored by the peanut sheller industry. Several amazing shelling devices have been designed over the past thirty years which specifically target the needs of communities in developing nations. One such device used in Mali costs less than $10, is powered by hand, and shells 50 kilograms of peanuts an hour. But despite its positive attributes, this device would be a hard sell in Haiti since its construction requires fiberglass molds. Almost all existing shelling machines share a similar story: while technically reliable, they require imported materials and skills that can't be found where peanuts are farmed

Some people at MIT recognized the need for a more appropriately designed peanut sheller, and over the past few years, various groups, including teams in the 2.009 engineering design class, have constructed and tested different shelling machines. Each team certainly made progress, but each device designed thus far would have cost too much or simply never got developed enough to be field tested.

This past year, the peanut sheller project was picked up again, and this time the idea was to use the ubiquitous 55 gallon oil drum as the primary component for the sheller. A small proof of concept prototype was developed using water jugs instead of oil drums and Solid models were made, but the full scale model has yet to be completed and tested.

And while the oil drum approach appears promising, there is a very good chance other designs may work as well or better. If you are interested in either working on developing the existing concepts or have some original ideas of your own, please contact Shawn Frayne for more information.

CONTACT: Shawn Frayne, MIT alum (smf@mit.edu)

Fufu and other popular local dishes in Ghana are made by pounding Cassava into a dough with an oversized pestle and mortar. This process is time consuming and extremely hard work. A new, less time consuming method of pounding Cassava is desired.

The current process often causes blistering of the hands, sore muscles and presents a grave risk to people’s hands and fingers. Sweat is also prone to falling into the food while being pounded.

OTHER INFORMATION:

You can find more information about this project on the ENGhana website http://www.srcf.ucam.org/enghana/index.html

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

CONTACT: Tim Heidel, MIT Student (team@enghana.org)

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Palm Nut Cracking - Ghana

Cracking palm nuts to release the kernels is a time consuming and labour intensive process. Currently this is done manually using rocks. A safer, more efficient method of separating kernels from shells is desired.

Palm nut cracking is typically a small enterprise profession for local women. The palm nuts are bashed manually using a rock to remove the shells and the kernels are then taken to the mill for grinding into powder. The person cracking is in constant danger of inadvertently hitting their fingers with the rock. Flying shells also present an eye safety problem. An average work day for a palm nut cracker is from 8am until 4pm.

OTHER INFORMATION:

You can find more information about this project on the ENGhana website http://www.srcf.ucam.org/enghana/index.html

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

CONTACT: Tim Heidel, MIT Student (team@enghana.org)

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Cooking Charcoal from Agricultural Waste

Because wood and wood-derived charcoal have traditionally been the primary fuel sources for indoor cooking in Haiti, the domestic natural resources of the forests are nearing complete depletion. The impact of this deforestation on Haitian life cannot be over-emphasized. Currently, around 90% of homes use wood as their cooking fuel. Soon, they will not have that option.

Once the domestic wood resources are exhausted, an alternative cooking fuel will need to be found. Haiti does not produce fossil fuels, so any such fuel would need to be imported. Kerosene, petroleum, imported wood - almost any imported fuel - is too expensive for most Haitian households.

The burning of wood and dung indoors concentrates smoke to levels that have been shown to lead to multiple afflictions, including Acute Lower Respiratory Infection (ALRI), Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, and Pulmonary Tuberculosis, to name a few. Smoke kills more people worldwide than malaria. And yet, almost no one, except those afflicted, knows about the immense health risks of indoor air pollution. The reasons behind this unintentional cover-up are numerous, not the least of which is that the segment of society most affected by indoor smoke - women and children - is often overlooked in national economic planning. As such, reducing indoor air pollution has not typically been viewed as a means by which to reduce national poverty levels. But it is.

A smokeless cooking fuel is highly desirable, since many of the diseases associated with indoor air pollution are linked to the small particulates which make up the smoke released by fuels such as wood and dung. Charcoal happens to be a virtually smokeless cooking fuel that is currently available in Haiti. In fact, it is viewed as an advanced fuel compared to wood, since it is smokeless and produces more heat per unit weight. Unfortunately, almost all of the charcoal currently sold in Haiti is derived from wood. That means even though this wood- based charcoal is a better cooking fuel choice than wood, it nevertheless contributes to deforestation in Haiti as much as cooking with wood does.

.There is a chance that all three problems can be solved by using sugarcane waste as the raw material for a new type of cooking charcoal. Students in MIT's D-lab, working in Haiti, Honduras, and India, have made considerable progress in developing ways to transform various wastes (including sugarcane, rice paddy straw, and cow dung) into charcoal, but much work remains. A simple charcoal briquette press remains to be designed, better binders for the briquettes must be found, and new kilns capable of carbonizing alternate waste products must be developed. And that's just the beginning. If you would like to learn more about work that has been done and what remains, please contact Shawn Frayne.

You can also learn more about the work to date by checking out the Sugarcane Charcoal section of the Design for Developing Countries website, http://web.mit.edu/d-lab/portfolio/charcoal.htm

Honey production is an important source of supplementary income for people in the Adaklu communities of Ghana. Hives are made from hollow hardwood logs. However it takes 3 to 4 years before the centre of the log can be removed. An alternative, quicker way of creating hives would be appreciated, enabling local honey producers to increase production over a smaller period of time.

Currently honey producers only distribute their honey to local communities and Ho. They would like to sell their honey to the tourist market in Accra. However a cost effective way of bottling and sealing the bottles is needed.

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

Moisture must be extracted from cassava before cooking. Currently, cassava is placed in a sack and large rocks are placed on top. This moisture extraction can take more than 3 days. A quicker and safer way of extracting moisture from cassava is desired.

Cassava can be used in two different ways. When only some of the moisture is extracted, the cassava is made into cassava dough and used to make banku. When more moisture is extracted, it is then dried further in the sun and fried in order to make gari. Cassava is used as a base for many of the most important Ghanaian dishes.

Using the traditional method, large rocks are piled on top of the Cassava in order to force moisture out of the Cassava. These rocks are difficult to lift and can be piled quite high. The potential of rocks falling off the bag of Cassava makes this a dangerous task. Moisture extraction can take 3 or more days using the current process.

OTHER INFORMATION:

You can find more information about this project on the ENGhana website http://www.srcf.ucam.org/enghana/index.html

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

CONTACT: Tim Heidel, MIT Student (team@enghana.org)

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Collapsable/stowable walkers would provide greater mobility for their users. Current designs are heavy and bulky and discourage off-roading and travel through tight spaces (eg small doors and cramped elevators).

SKILLS NEEDED
Project Management
Team Building
Technical - Mechanical Engineering

Recently sun released the 'speech engine" under DSI license. My idea is to create a linux version with voice interface, license-free and able to run onrefurbished PCs.

SKILLS NEEDED
Proposal Writing
Team Building
Networking
Technical - linux, c++, java

Students at the Cardinal Cushing School in Hanover, MA, have a range of developmental disabilities, and school staff are always looking for creative mechanisms to help the students overcome their challenges. Ideas include a “learn how to bike” bike that meets the special needs of these children, and a mechanism to better measure problems with eye control.

Design of an Adjustable Bicycle Frame

Cycling is emerging as a prominent sport in Special Olympics competition. However, most athletes have special needs which require custom-made bicycles for use both for training and in competitions. It is often difficult for parents and trainers to find bicycles which meet the needs of athletes, e.g. athletes may have one leg shorter than the other.

The design problem which emerges is this: can we design an adjustable bicycle frame which could be tailored to individual needs of athletes with special needs? Bicycles available today often have adjustable seats and handle bars. However, the middle frame of bikes are seldom adjustable (to the best of our knowledge). This frame is often firmly welded together to provide a rigid and robust bicycle chassis.
The goal in this project would be to design an adjustable frame which still preserves the structural integrity of the bicycle, and meets needed safety requirements. Could we design a frame which could be folded and stretched out (much like the zoom lenses on telescopes), or a frame with some form of hooks and connectors for the crossbars which could be assembled into different sizes? Could the lengths of pedals also be adjustable? What forces (stress, strain) would be acting on various parts of such a design? How safe would such a frame be?
A successful design of adjustable bicycle frames would be of great value to the Special Olympics competitions in MA and beyond, and also for the personal training and recreation of special athletes.

'Pistol' for Track Meets

Pistols are often used in track meets to signal the start of events during track meets. However, some athletes are afraid of the noise so a whistle is used. In keeping with standard practice, we'd want a device that is "in between" a pistol and a whistle, and which could be held up and fired just like a pistol. In an anecdotal sense, the designed object may be a whistle in the form of a pistol, or a pistol with a silencer! However students may need to examine the loudness and frequency range of sounds tolerable to athletes with special needs.

Walkman with a timer

Students at The Learning Center are often given the chance to listen to a walkman for a short period of time, however it is sometimes difficult to get the walkman back from the student when the allotted time is over. The teachers would like a timer integrated into the walkman so that they can set the listening time before giving it to the student; once it turns off, it will be easier to retrieve.

Create a highly customizable push-button device that can walk developmentally disabled people through the steps of taking a shower, using auditory and/or visual cues. This product is needed because privacy is critical for developmentally disabled people: research has shown that 100% of mentally retarded people in care for their whole lives are sexually abused.

Design and build a bowling ramp for athletes in wheelchairs. Bowling is currently a Special Olympics sport. In designing a bowling ramp, the aim would be to make bowling more convenient for people with disabilities.

A mobile shake-table to test low-cost housing in rural regions of developing communities.

Loose and shifting ground at the foot of Adaklu Mountain causes many buildings to crack during or soon after construction. A way of adapting current building styles to work with the local environment is needed.

The communities at the base of Adaklu Mountain are subject to subsidence causing most of their buildings to crack or crumble in very little time. Building houses is a large investment for local individuals who cannot afford to build structures that will fall down in a short number of years. Many of the older buildings are on the verge of falling, presenting a grave safety concern to the occupants.

The short life span of public buildings such as schools and health centres represents a major burden on public funds and outside investment. In Helekpe, a school fell down in 2001 and the government is currently constructing a new building which will accommodate only half the school. Temporary structures have been erected and will continue to be used. Teachers have expressed concerns that without modification of building techniques the new school will also crumble and it will be even harder to attract further funding for a future building. This obviously has a detrimental affect on the education of local children.In Goefe, large cracks in the floor of the school have been reported to shelter snakes, scorpions and spiders which present both a safety hazard and potential distractions.

Members of the community have identified the cracking buildings as a factor in migration out of the area.This problem also jeopardizes the successful recruitment of professionals into the area such as teachers, who are reluctant to live and work in such surroundings. Community members are very concerned about this problem and generally attribute it to their location at the foot of the mountain.

OTHER INFORMATION:

You can find more information about this project on the ENGhana website http://www.srcf.ucam.org/enghana/index.html

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

CONTACT: Tim Heidel, MIT Student (team@enghana.org)

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Temporary School Buildings - Ghana

Temporary school structures are being put to permanent use in the Adaklu communities due to lack of alternative buildings. These buildings have little protection from environmental and weather conditions and are at risk of collapse. A way of adapting the temporary structures for long-term use is needed.

The current temporary structures are potentially at risk of collapse, presenting a safety hazard to the students, as well as a constant need for replacement or alternative accommodation. In Goefe, one of the structures has already partially fallen down and classes have been moved into a local church building.

Children are often sent home on rainy days since rain and wind comes into the classroom. Many educational materials such as blackboards and exercise books are damaged by rain and wind entering the classroom. Blackboards are often propped up on sticks and fall over easily. Rain falling on metal roofing sheets creates a noise which often drowns out the teacher.

The current temporary structures have very little division between classrooms. Sounds from other classrooms are a constant distraction, especially if one class does not have a teacher present. The lack of walls means that animals, insects, and dust can enter the classrooms, and that anything or anybody passing on the roads outside can cause a distraction.

OTHER INFORMATION:

You can find more information about this project on the ENGhana website http://www.srcf.ucam.org/enghana/index.html

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

CONTACT: Tim Heidel, MIT Student (team@enghana.org)

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Cambridge Children's Shelter - an emergency shelter for abused and neglected children

Our mission: to provide emergency shelter, high quality care, and hope for the abused, abandoned, and neglected children of our community.

When children are removed from their homes due to life-threatening abuse or neglect, a temporary home must be found for them until more permanent plans are made. The Cambridge Children's Shelter would be a safe haven for young children in crisis - ages birth to 10 years of age. It is the goal of the Shelter to reduce the emotional trauma suffered by child victims of abuse, violence and neglect, in a safe and loving place.

The shelter would be comprised of a house in a local residence, providing children in crisis with a much-needed home-like environment. In addition to providing these children with shelter and the basic needs (meals, clothing, their own bed and toys, etc), we would supply in-depth professional facilities, including medical/dental care, educational care, formal testing and evaluation, and therapy. The direct care staff and volunteers would offer individualized care, nurturing, supervision, and love to these children, providing them with all the care to begin to heal and begin a new life.

Interpretive Services at Hospitals - handheld PDA for determining country of origin

This is an idea to service anyone coming to a hospital needing emergency care, but who cannot speak English. A handheld PDA can be used to display continents initially so that the incoming patient can indicate where he/she comes from. By successively zooming in to a country, a state or province, village, etc. a language can be selected that corresponds to the place where the patient comes from or a nearby substitute language. Contact information can be shown for the doctor or nurse to reach someone who can speak the language and who is trained in medical terminology.

Massachusetts law requires that hospitals make the best effort possible to obtain translation service for incoming patients. Sometimes when the need is acute, time is critical in finding someone to help translate. While the major languages can be identified fairly quickly by using a poster having messages written saying "I speak this language," there are many languages that may not have a written component and can only be spoken. It is difficult in that case to even identify the language expertise that is required.

SKILLS NEEDED:
Probably need the ability to write programs for PDA's.
Knowledge or ability to track down many different languages and possible speakers who would be willing and able to translate for medical purposes.
An interest in public health.

Cell phones have become very common in India -- having, in many parts of the country, far greater penetration than land lines or internet, both geographically and through different income levels. SMS messaging on cell phones is now very popular in urban areas -- widespread applications like railway timetables, cricket scores, and
even match-making are now being run on them. Nothing similar has happened in rural areas, inspite of mobile phones now being the predominant long distance communication media.

There is scope for bringing applications traditionally found on the web but useful for the rural areas onto cell phones. Examples could be weather forecast for fishermen, market prices of vegetables for farmers, or even simple banking or e-governance applications.

I would like to bring these applications on cell phone to the rural population. The applications can then either be marketed directly to the cell phone companies, sold on subscription basis to the cell phone users, or sold to small entrepreneurs/vendors who then sell it on subscription basis to their clients.
I will be in India for most of whatever remains in this semester, and will be working on this project part-time while there.

SKILLS NEEDED:
Proposal Writing
Team Building
Business Skills
Networking
Technical - someone with a good understanding of telecom technology and/or device programming

Point Accident Data

A new GPS application for the automotive industry. This could be used to improve safety on the road. The device's most important advantage will be to aid understanding of what happened in a car accident.
Using this system it will be possible reconstruct the trajectory that the car had, even when the car crash did not have any witnesses who can tell us what have happened or how the accident developed.

EXISTING SKILLS:
+OS /WinXp/WinNT/Win98/Win95/Windows/DOS/

+Program languages /VisualBasicR6/C/Visual C++(basic level)/SQL/FoxPro/d-baseIII/QuickBasic/basic/Lisp/VLISP/VRML/OpenGL(basic level).

+CAD tool /AutoCAD (2D, 3D advanced) 2002 2000 2000i 14 13 12 10/Autocad Script (advanced)/Eagle point R 13/SOFTDESK R14/AutoCAD Land development desktop 2i/AutoCAD Land development desktop 3 (advanced Autocad script code)

+GIS tools /Arc view 3.1 /Arc Map 8./

+Terrain model Terragen/Microdem/Wilbur/3dem

+graphics maya/Photoshop 7.0/ Adobe Illustrator 10/ 3Dstudio max 2.

Microsoft office XP excel, word, PowerPoint (advanced level), Access/ FrontPage

/FTP file transfer protocol)

SKILLS NEEDED:
GPS technology
Autocad
Language Programming
knowledge about car engines

Sunday’s Bread would like to automate their e-mail system so reminders can be sent out automatically to volunteer contacts and replies retrieved and sorted easily. Currently, a large number of volunteer organizations send them email announcements, which they must then resend out by hand. Saturday’s/Sunday’s Bread serves free hot meals to people in need in Boston every Saturday and Sunday. Over the course of its 19-plus years, Saturday’s/Sunday’s Bread has served more than 280,000 guests.

It is hard to build quality high schools in rural india and ensure they remain viable. This is because teachers are hard to find and 1-2 villages cannot sufficiently supply a student population to the school. Our goal is to come up with innovative ideas to counter such issues

SKILLS NEEDED:
Proposal Writing
Technical - economics, educational analysis, architecture

Foreign Language Learning: Beyond the Textbook

http://www.langwidge.com/sims/paragraph_one_shrunk.wmv"
In a typical foreign language textbook, the primary focus is generally on structuring the linguistic information to be taught, with activities such as matching or fill-in-the-blank then provided secondarily for students to practice and reinforce their learning. Here is a sample page from a $100.00 textbook used at UCLA to teach professions in German:
http://www.langwidge.com/sims/kontakte_professions_shrunk.gif

However, if we look at the video game ever, The Sims, we see that much of the exact same content is available in an engaging format which has made it the number one best selling video game in history.
This game has already been translated into multiple different languages and tools are freely available which allow users to intelligently combine the different versions. This allows us to create a bi-lingual versions in which players can try to play the game in a language which they are attempting to learn, but retain enough support in their native language so they don't get stuck or frustrated. See http://www.langwidge.com/images/sims_bilingual_screenshot.gif an example of how elements of the English and German version could be mixed.

Besides video games, I have a paper http://www.langwidge.com/llt/embedded_language_instruction_current_draft.doc you can read outlining how other elements of the digital world and popular media artifacts such as web interfaces, foreign pop music and mp3 trends can be harnessed to extend foreign language learning beyond the constraints of a textbook.

The use of video games and web interfaces could greatly improve the lives of American high school students trying to learn a foreign language (and all the people they could then interact with as they grow up). The MP3 solutions [slightly lower-tech, but very powerful] could greatly aid immigrants trying to learn English, but are unable to set aside enough time to locate and attend quality ESL classes. Both could help learners in other countries trying to learn English. For more information, see my website at http://www.langwidge.com

SKILLS NEEDED:
Knowledge of a foreign language (especially Spanish or German) would be great, though, really it depends what shape the final project would take.
Interest in improving the state of foreign language learning/teaching.

Design a solar/biogas hybrid electricity generation system to be used in rural areas of developing countries.

Management

Like many other non-profits, the CASPAR shelter on the MIT campus needs volunteers—but also like other shelters and community agencies, it has a great deal of difficulty in attracting, managing, and maintaining volunteers. Innovative thinking is needed to help this homeless shelter develop a functional volunteer management system.

Sports Thermometer

Severe dehydration and heat strokes have caused the deaths of a number of football players this summer. In hot humid weather, the body temperature soars above tolerable limits and results in death. This project proposes the design of a temperature detector – say a small patch, much like a Nicorette nicotine patch – which could be attached to the body. This patch could be linked to a reader, say a device like a wrist watch which displays the body temperature continuously. The watch could sound an alarm when the body temperature rises to high to signal sportsmen to re-hydrate. Such a device could find use not only in service-related sectors, but also in the sports industry at large.

AIDS testing in third world countries have posed a huge problem for health care workers. The cost is high ($50++/ test) and the availability of test fascilities is prohibitive. A low cost platform currently used for cell detection can be modified to detect key markers for AIDS testing. It is possible to detemine the stage of the disease and properly administer the correct drugs (in the right does) for infected individuals.

One of the biggest problems caused by the lack of low cost testing is the inability to properly match drug dose and disease stage. The result is that often drugs are given unncessarily (or at a higher dose than need be) because there is no easy way to determine the "right" amount... resulting in the prevelance of drug resistent strains.

SKILLS NEEDED:
Understanding of any of the following:
Disease mechamism of action
Drug dosing
Pharma market infrastructure
Diagnostic platforms
Third World country health care infrastructure
Humanitarian aid work

My name is Rajiv Dulepet, and I am currently a Visiting Fellow/Industrial Affliate in MS&E (Mgmt Science & Engg) department, Stanford University. I am also founder of Lakshya Inc.

I have about 10 years experience in various capacities at Bell Labs, Microsoft, Deloitte, specifically emphasizing on high technology, telecommunications etc. I have Masters in Computer Engineering, and well versed with hardware and software. I was also co-founder of a networking startup that we sold in 1999. I was also Director of a company called Tejas Networks (http://www.tejasnetworks.com) that was involved in development of fiber optic based internet access across India. This network enabled network access in train stations (which is most prevalent form of long distance transport in India), and in the process involved traversing rivers, desert terrain etc.

I am currently interested in developing socially relevant innovative technologies that impact the lives of millions of people globally. I have the ways and means to attract financing, and currently in the process finding like minded folks with similar interest.

Currently there are some chronic medical problems that plague millions in developing countries, especially related to asthama, heart, diabetes, blood pressure etc. It is not uncommon in most of the developing coutries to not go through routine annual medical checkup due to costs, access, etc. For instance it is taken for granted that people once they reach middle age will automatically have chronic problems such as high blood pressure, sugar, diabetes, heart problems. The percentage of heart Attacks, failures, Heart Bypass surgery, and angiograms etc have gone up dramatically, and mostly attributed to the diet etc.

I would like to develop low cost, small form factor, mobile devices that can help in early detection of chronic conditions. I would also like to extensively adopt wireless technology, SMS since it is prevelant in most countries, even in the remotest areas.

I don't think the above goals are feasible unless we have a team of medical and engineering professionals. Please contact me ASAP if you are interested in collaborating on this project for IDEAS or BASES, also feel free to ping anybody else in medical school etc who might be interested. Please note that albeit I have altruistic goals, this is focused on developing something that is socially relevant as well as profitable.

COMMUNITY CONTACT'S SKILLS:

Marketing and Business
Hitech (Hardware, Software)
Entrepreneurial
Contacts to partner with the community
Telecommunication

Medicine
Medical technology
Wireless
Mechanical Eng Design
Wireless/telecommunication
Electrical Eng

CONTACT: Rajiv Dulepet, Visiting Fellow/Industrial Affiliate, MS&E Department, Stanford University (rdulepet@stanford.edu)
Founder, Lakshya Inc (http://www.lakshyainc.com)
tel: (818) 472-5072

What is Scale-up Power?
Mission: To supply health clinics and surrounding communities with the energy and basic infrastructure needed to combat many of today's greatest global health threats -- including HIV/AIDS, unsafe pregnancy, indoor air pollution, and unsafe water -- by developing and marketing modular and scalable power systems and appliances that set new standards for cost, performance, and ease of ordering, installation and maintenance.
Vision: Reliable, affordable, clean energy and infrastructure for health in every clinic and community, worldwide, by the end of 2010.

Why is Scale-up Power needed?
Health clinics and surrounding communities need energy and basic infrastructure to enable health improvements. Applications include those for specific health interventions; those needed generally for a functioning close-to-client health system; and those needed for improving community health.

Just in the places where health problems are gravest, infrastructure for health is often the worst. In much of sub-Saharan Africa, for instance, rural health clinics and health posts are off the electrical grid and lack a reliable supply of electricity. In Uganda, for example, in 52 of 56 health districts, less than 50% of health facilities have a reliable supply of electricity; in some of those, only a single facility -- the district hospital -- has reliable power. When lower-level clinics have power, they often have just enough for a single vaccine refrigerator.

Supply of energy to health clinics can also be used as a 'hook' for energy supply to communities and households. For instance, investments in health clinics can lower both up-front and recurrent costs for supplying energy to surrounding households, a major

Neither individual countries nor the international community have adequately addressed energy supply for health or for the some 2 billion people currently without access to improved sources of energy. Yet the UN Millennium Development Project notes that energy supply is a key enabler of the Millennium Development Goals, and recommends as a matter of priority that health clinics around the world be supplied with power. Innovative solutions are needed that draw on the strengths of governments, international organizations, NGOs and the private sector.

What goods and services will Scale-Up Power supply?

Goods:
A set of modular, scaleable kits for health clinics, health posts and surrounding communities containing:
       Generating technology
        * Solar PV and/or clean generator
        * Batteries and balance of system as necessary
        * Mounting fixtures as necessary
       Cold chain: refrigerator
       Illumination: lights and fixtures
       Clean water: pumping and/or purification equipment
       Data and communications
       Laboratory equipment
       Spare consumables
       Secure, reusable packaging

Services:
Full service cycle from estimation of needs to long-term maintenance including:
       Estimate of needs (out-sourced)
       On-line ordering system
       Kitting and delivery (out-sourced)
       Installation and maintenance (out-sourced)

Where will Scale-up Power work?
Initial countries of focus will likely be selected from among the following:
Rwanda, Burundi, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, UR Tanzania, Zambia, Malawi, Mozambique

Criteria for inclusion were:
1) high share of unmet need for treatment of HIV/AIDS
2) large number of finance partners working on ART in country
3) low per capita consumption of electricity
4) high existing experience with renewable energy for households and institutions

What will Scale-Up Power's operating model be?
Scale-up Power will provide goods and services on a not-for-profit basis to governments, NGOs and communities seeking to improve energy and infrastructure for health.

Scale-up Power will market to potential clients directly, and through health and energy sector partners. It will mobilize partners or employ contractors to conduct assessments of client needs. It will offer clients comprehensive contracts covering both goods (including kitting, shipping and delivery), and services (including installation and long-term maintenance).

Scale-up Power will in turn contract with best-in-class suppliers of kit components; kitting/procurement organizations; and installers/maintainers. It will place particular emphasis on developing long-term relationships with firms based in client countries, and on innovative finance that gives incentives for high-quality installation and keeping systems in working order.

SKILLS NEEDED:
       Business plan development
       Engineering: mechanical, electrical, power systems, water
       Data systems and communications for developing countries
       Financing: micro-finance, project finance
       Enterprise development for developing countries
       Web design & E-commerce

CONTACT: Joel Brenner, Office of the Assistant Director-General for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, World Health Organization (brennerj@who.int)

(Neither the existence of this document nor anything it contains should be taken to reflect any approval or endorsement of this project by the World Health Organization. The contact person proposes this project solely in his personal capacity.)

Peak flow meters measure the maximum amount of airflow during expiration and are used to diagnose and manage asthma.

An appropriate and sustainable design could be built and used by health care providers and community organizations in developing countries and the US.

Asthma is a fast growing medical problem that affects the lives and health of many, especially children in urban areas. With poor housing, increased exposure to dust and allergens, children living on ranches are also susceptible to asthma.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZATION:
The Coastal Health Alliance (www.coastalhealth.net) is composed of three community health clinics in Marin County, California. We serve a rural community that includes a large population of Mexican dairy workers and their families. We are initiating an asthma management program and are seeking ways of providing more services to our uninsured families with asthmatic children, including the development of a low-cost spacer for inhalers.

theCylinder.net is a website I set up to learn more about appropriate health technologies. Currently, it's a small index of existing devices and projects, but I hope to build it into a platform for the discussion, research, and development of appropriate health technologies.

SKILLS NEEDED:
I am a Family Nurse Practitioner with some experience in international development. I have an initial plan for the peak flow meter and have been tinkering with it in the shop. I need someone with engineering skills to help with the development, design, callibration, and construction of the device. Web design skills are also needed for theCylinder.net.

Other relevent information:
Websites:

thecylinder.net
http://www.thecylinder.net/

Peak flow meter overview
http://asthma.about.com/library/weekly/aa050997.htm

Inhaler spacers
http://www.thecylinder.net/index/bottlespacer.html

One-to-one skill matching for mentoring relationships using proximity sensing via cell phones - a la serendipity, Advogato (a reputation system), and a token credit system with points awarded for tutoring services.

SKILLS NEEDED:
Proposal Writing
Business Skills
Project Management
Team Building
Networking
Technical
Other - interest in mentoring/education

CONTACT: Tony Pryor, community partner and volunteer at MIT Media Lab (tpryor@media.mit.edu)

Web/email based technical project support. Appropriate technology research. Global connections. Project pack deliveries. Student field support.

SKILLS NEEDED:
Proposal Writing
Business Skills
Team Building
Networking
Technical - webdesign, front and back end

While having the skills and the expertise, university students in China often lack the mindset, the financial means, the technical guidance, and the social support to innovate solutions for their own problems. We wish to provide them with the financial means and the technical guidance in order to inspire them to have a more innovative mindset and then to help them build their own social infrastructure that facilitates further innovations and problem-solving activities. To the government of China, we are helping university students contribute to the development of their motherland by embracing the open-door policies and welcoming foreign help.

We will start by helping a group of graduate students in China address the lack of heating in university dorms throughout Southern China. We will then move on to address the lack of hot water showers. We will focus on the process and the involvement of the students in China rather
than the technological inventions themselves.

We will market innovations by the students and use the profit for funding further innovations. We will also enlist help from NGOs in China. We will then help the students found an organization in China that will facilitate problem solving by students for students.

SKILLS NEEDED:
Material science
Economics, MBA
Political science, TPP

CONTACT: David Huynh, MIT student(dfhuynh@mit.edu)

WHAT IS ASAP's GOAL?
Develop a prototype for an annual fundraising campaign to demonstrate how local communities nationally and internationally can use real estate related revenues / savings from e-commerce real estate transactions to provide shelter subsidies for AIDS orphans through ASAP / AIDS Shelter Alliance Partners.

WHO WOULD BE INVOLVED IN ASAP?
Organize a coalition of tradition and new e-commerce business models in the trillion dollar residential real estate industry to partner with existing AIDS related organizations. A local demonstration project in Greater Boston might a variety of orphan care providers including Harvard Medical School's Division on AIDS, Cambridge Cares about AIDS, and potentially past IDEAS Competition winner EASE and the newly formed www.theCollegeCorps.org to raise awareness of their response to the AIDS pandemic and create an ongoing revenue stream to fund their efforts.

WHEN WOULD ASAP BE IMPLEMENTED?
Enter implementation plan into the fall IDEAS competition, and present progress report on prototype development for the spring competition. If appropriate student team members could attend the annual convention of the National Association of Realtors, November 7 to 11 in San Francisco to build on previous coalition building efforts. Alternatively, ASAP could have it's own exhibit booth or hospitality suite to recruit industry partners.

Depending on resources, momentum, and time constraints, the proposed ASAP campaign could be announced as early as December 1st, World AIDS Day, or after the second application deadline on March 1st.

HOW WOULD ASAP BE IMPLEMENTED IN THE FUTURE?
If successful, one way to structure future ASAP fundraising campaigns could be to host a friendly competition, between real estate companies or between cities which ideally would become an annual event. One major company, ForSaleByOwner.com, which is the 5th leading real estate web site nationwide and has local print partners in 36 cities has expressed a preliminary interest in a Spring marketing campaign entitled the Million Dollar March. The goal would be to see which company or city could help real estate consumers save one million dollars first, and how much of those savings were passed on to AIDS shelter providers.

WHY AN ASAP DEMONSTRATION PROJECT NOW IN CAMBRIDGE / BOSTON?
Locally, the name of the proposed ASAP campaign has taken on a new urgency. Statewide, nearly 5,100 properties representing *** $2.4 BILLION dollars *** in revenue were pulled off the market between the 4th of July and Labor Day 2003 because they failed to sell during the spring home buying season. Cambridge alone had 122 "expired" listings representing $84 million in gross value; while another nearby city Newton, had $98 million in expired listings. Significantly, the number of expired listings has risen to the highest point since 1998, and will be the subject of an upcoming feature story in the Boston Globe on Sunday October 26.

With this market slowdown, ASAP, is now presented with a new fundraising opportunity: can an MIT IDEAS team develop a mechanism to help homeowners sell their homes as soon as possible -- ASAP --in exchange for a donation to an approved AIDS shelter alliance partner? If expired listings can be sold without a listing agent or for a reduced fee, that could represent $5 to $10 million in commission savings in Newton and Cambridge alone. Statewide, commission savings could total as high as $120 million.

WHO IS READY TO RESPOND ASAP?
ASAP's goal is to capture a fraction of those consumer savings and to enhance the effectiveness of our local demonstration project through an interfaith coalition as described above. Towards that end, preliminary efforts are being made to involve local faith communities in the ASAP demonstration project as early as this fall and a variety of resources are already in place or being mobilized for a show of unity by World AIDS Day, December 1, 2003. Additional involvement from MIT and Harvard students as well as members of other academic and non-academic communities would be welcome additions to the proposed IDEAS Competition team.

Assuming the local ASAP demonstration project is a success, the Million Dollar March would also be entered into another competition in June 2004 sponsored by Global Business Coalition on HIV/AIDS as a model for community involvement in the fight against AIDS, see: http://www.businessfightsaids.org

Currently tailors and seamstresses can buy either a hand operated sewing machine or a more advanced and more costly model with a treadle. An easy way to convert a hand operated machine to a treadle one would allow more efficient production of garments. Tailors and seamstresses provide an essential service for the local communities.

OTHER INFORMATION:

You can find more information about this project on the ENGhana website http://www.srcf.ucam.org/enghana/index.html

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

CONTACT: Tim Heidel, MIT Student (team@enghana.org)

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The Brahmaputra river and its tributaries flow down from the eastern Himalaya and the Tibetan Plateau into Assam in Northeastern India, enriching and also devastating the region every year with silt deposits and vast flooding and erosion. An estimated two to three million people (about 10 percent of the population) are displaced by floods and high water every year, with little access to health and other facilities, including education (schools and colleges are damaged and flooded) while lack of sanitation results in the spread of diseases such as dysentery and diarrhea. Government outreach is limited by a number of factors, including financial resources, personnel and the lack of good and well equipped boats which can move quickly over flood waters to reach the needy and stranded.

The Centre for North East Studies (CNES) proposes the development of a prototype of a well designed and locally built country boat, low-draft and quick-moving, to carry teams of medical personnel from government and private agencies as well as life saving equipment sent by government, donors and relief agencies. Such boats can be designed and built locally but with better technology including the use of stronger diesel engines , rather than irrigation pump sets which double as motors. Through the process of designing and building such a boat, CNES would seek to encourage changes in government policies to develop a fleet of ships which can not just reach the stranded at times of flood but also become part of macro and micro-level planning and implementation – these are practical ways to close gaps in rural needs.

Early this year, CNES drafted a proposal for the "Ship of Hope" requesting for funds from the World Bank as part of the Bank’s Development Marketplace 2004 (www.developmentmarketplace.com) in New Delhi. Out of 1500 proposals, CNES was one of the 20 winners and was awarded a seed grant of $20,000 to design and implement the idea.

After a comprehensive exploratory study, local boat builders, CNES & AID-MIT volunteers have created a draft of the revised boat design. However, in order to finalize the design and begin boat construction, the project requires people with technical and design expertise who can verify the boat design, perform engine power and other technical calculations and help in fundraising so that the project idea can become a reality.

• Sanjoy Hazarika, the managing trustee of CNES and his team of local boat experts in Assam, India.

SKILLS NEEDED:
Technical and Design Expertise
Fundraising

CONTACT: Dinesh Balachandran, MIT alum and volunteer with AID-MIT (Dinesh.Balachandran@FMR.COM)

Water is in extremely scarce supply throughout the Adaklu communities in Ghana. The problem is compounded by an annual four month period of no rainfall. A method of supplying and/or conserving safe drinking water is needed.

The collection of water is difficult throughout the year, however, the December to March dry season is a particularly trying time for the Adaklu communities. Rainfall is often non-existent in this period. During the dry season, community members must travel to Ho, nearly 16kms, to fetch water. This is expensive and time intensive. It is particularly difficult for residents of Tokor and Kordiabe who must then climb the mountain upon return.

Water borne diseases are often found in animals. Worms are a problem due to animals drinking the water and then being eaten or leaving faeces in public areas as well as direct drinking of poor water. While this problem is lessened in humans due to some awareness about unsafe sources of water it is still a local concern. The health centre doses children throughout the Adaklu communities every three months to treat against worms.

Many residents see the lack of water as a factor in the poor state of local education, explaining that teachers often refuse to stay in the area due to the living conditions. Lack of water has also been described as a factor in migration out of the communities.

OTHER INFORMATION:

You can find more information about this project on the ENGhana website http://www.srcf.ucam.org/enghana/index.html

ENGhana welcome people to work on the challenges they propose and encourage people to enter their solutions into the IDEAS Competition.

CONTACT: Tim Heidel, MIT Student (team@enghana.org)

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Safe Water System

The Safe Water System (SWS) is a water quality intervention that employs simple, robust, and inexpensive technologies appropriate for the developing world. The objective is to make water safe through disinfection and safe storage at the point of use. The intervention consists of three steps: Point-of-use treatment of contaminated water using sodium hypochlorite solution purchased locally and produced by a local manufacturer or in the community from water and salt using an electrolytic cell; Safe water storage in plastic containers with a narrow mouth, lid, and a spigot to prevent recontamination; and Behavior change techniques, including social marketing, community mobilization, motivational interviewing, communication, and education.
These activities increase awareness of the link between contaminated water and disease, the benefits of safe water, and hygiene behaviors, including the purchase and proper use of the water storage vessel and disinfectant.

PROBELM STATEMENT : Currently, the safe water system includes chlorine addition, storage in a safe container, and education. The safe container is currently plastic and is not stackable, which raises logistical and transportation difficulties.

QUESTIONS: Can we design a better stackable system with an attached lid, a spigot, and a way to get the water into the system?

How does the plastic container or receptacle degrade with time with chlorine use?

How does the plastic react with the chlorine? Is there any danger of generation of by-products from either the plastic container for the sodium hypochlorite or the plastic receptacle?

CONTACT: Daniele Lantagne, MIT alum, now with the Center for Disease Control (dul4@cdc.gov)

PROBLEM STATEMENT: Although simple and inexpensive to produce locally, sodium hypochlorite solutions are not the ideal product for chemical treatment of drinking water at the point-of-use for several reasons: a) they are not active against many parasites and some viruses; b) they lead to the formation of disinfection by-products in treated water, particularly in the presence of organic material; c) because of their weight and volume, they are relatively expensive to distribute; d) they have a limited shelf life; e) they produce a taste and odor in treated water that is not always appreciated by consumers.

QUESTIONS: What are the relative benefits, and the disadvantages of using chlorine dioxide in place of hypochlorite salts? (Chlorine dioxide can be produced locally through technology marketed by several companies – see http://www.projectgoodwater.com/product2.htm. We have not evaluated this technology in the lab or in the field. Is it practical, inexpensive, safe, acceptable, and effective?

Ozone is a powerful disinfectant. Are there methods by which it could be safely generated in situ for household water treatment applications?

What potential do other chemicals have for point of use disinfection applications (peroxides?) What are the criteria to consider when evaluating new compounds for potential point-of-use applications (cost, ease of manufacture, safety, effectiveness, etc.), and can a candidate list be identified?

Is it possible to engineer nano-particles that will adsorb and inactivate or remove pathogenic organisms from water? Or evaluate existing nano-particles? At what cost could these be produced? To what degree would pre-treatment filtration or flocculation be required?

CONTACT: Daniele Lantagne, MIT alum, now with the Center for Disease Control (dul4@cdc.gov)

PROBLEM STATEMENT: Many homes in Africa collect their drinking water in plastic jerry cans, and then pour the water into large 60 L ceramic vessels that are stored on the floor. There are many issues with this, including treatment in the large vessels, removal of water from something stored on the floor, and design of the pots themselves.

If water is treated in the jerry cans and then poured into the ceramic, is there enough residual to ensure no contamination in the pots?

What cultural factors exist that prevent users from using plastic jerry cans to store their water in – would people be willing to switch to plastic?

Is there more chlorine demand in clay or plastic pots? How does the clay and chlorine interact?

CONTACT: Daniele Lantagne, MIT alum, now with the Center for Disease Control (dul4@cdc.gov)

PROBLEM STATEMENT : Accurate determination of the strength of hypochlorite solution produced, and of the available free chlorine residual in treated water is critical to program success. We generally rely on the DPD colorimetric method, but recognize that it is not 100% reliable.

QUESTIONS: What interferences can give false positive readings for chlorine residual and what measures can be taken to improve accuracy?

Are there simple inexpensive field-friendly methods to test hypochlorite solutions for the presence of metallic ions?

When salts that contain bromide are used to produce hypochlorite by electrolysis, bromates are also produced. How can we test the salt to make sure it is safe to use to produce hypochlorite? What concentration of bromide in the salt would be acceptable?

CONTACT: Daniele Lantagne, MIT alum, now with the Center for Disease Control (dul4@cdc.gov)

PROBLEM STATEMENT : A variety of naturally occurring materials (alum, moringa seeds, other plants) have traditionally been used to clarify water. More recently, manufactured products for flocculation and coagulation (e.g. PuR) have been introduced. These products can remove the organic matter that reduces the effectiveness of chlorine.

QUESTIONS: What are the characteristics and relative advantages / disadvantages of these different materials?

Do any of the naturally occurring flocculants have the potential to be inexpensively manufactured on a large scale and become commercially viable alternatives?

CONTACT: Daniele Lantagne, MIT alum, now with the Center for Disease Control (dul4@cdc.gov)

PROBLEM STATEMENT: A key challenge to any developing world project is distribution and marketing. First, how do you get the product to those most in need, and secondly, how do you make the project sustainable. Currently, we implement many of our projects through the social marketing agency Population Services International. While they are very good at marketing and distribution, it is unclear how their model correlates to correct and consistent usage in the home.

QUESTIONS: What is the level of continued and consistent use of hypochlorite solutions in populations served by PSI? How do we assess that?

What are models to combine the top-down marketing approach of PSI with bottom-up approaches on many NGOs? We have done some work with Community Sales Agents and community mobilization – what are methods to improve this?

What other models are out there to ensure access of the product to those in need?

CONTACT: Daniele Lantagne, MIT alum, now with the Center for Disease Control (dul4@cdc.gov)