Please vote for my Dream Assignment
By Ian Maclellan
23 Mar 2009
Simple Innovation as the Power to Change the Developing World
To follow the engineering projects aimed at combating poverty, hunger, and environmental degradation. I would travel from laboratories of MIT to troubled countryside of Zimbabwe and show the world the wealth of fresh ideas worldwide.
Components of Project
This project would follow some of the individuals and institutions who are working hard to create change through construction and action. This project has two main components, 1. photographing at technical universities from MIT to Addis Ababa University that are doing research to better the condition in the developing world and 2. going to sites in the developing world that are currently starting new sustainable engineering projects.
Goals
The goals of this project are 1. help bridge the information gap that stops new technology from catching on worldwide with the photography and blog, 2. inspire further innovation with the spread of ideas to create new designs for those who need it, and 3. show off successfully implemented innovation. The photographs created with this project will be close up portraits of the people behind the engineering, the people who benefit from the engineering, and the technology in action. The blog posts will show these photographs, give in depth information on the technology behind the engineering, and give as much information as possible on the groups involved and how the public could help them.
Detailed Summary
Engineering and innovation have the power bring new, fresh ideas to the developing world that can revolutionize both urban and rural lives, alleviating poverty and fostering long term environmental safety. We live in a world with so many gigantic problems, many of which can be solved better by new design than policy making. Engineering is unique because it has the power to create and "do" that is lacking in general policy measures. Engineering projects in the developing world that use technologies to help necessities in new cheap and simple ways are the focus of this project.
The stories this project will follow fall into three main categories all aimed at using technology to better the condition for those with need, 1. poverty alleviation through the creation of new entrepreneurship, 2. increased food production, and 3. stop environmental degradation that causes deforestation that leads to erosion and landslides and pollution to water resources.
1. I could photograph an Engineers Without Borders project in Kabul that has created a local business owned and operated by orphans and the previously impoverished disabled, which creates sustainable fuel briquettes from paper and other waste. This project not only creates jobs using a simple engineering design, but uses waste instead of producing it.
2. I could photograph at a Heifer International project in rural Zimbabwe that seeks to introduce new farming techniques to increase food production in the poorest country in the world. Heifer works to establish food self-reliance and sustainability, while empowering women and individuals who currently be self-reliant.
3. I want to photograph projects that are working to create preventive technology in South-East Asia to prevent disaster in future natural disasters, through environmental protection. I would search through projects from governments, NGOs, and the UN that hope to revolutionize home construction and water systems and filtration to protect victims and the environment. Projects that aim at preventing erosion, by using sustainable materials that require no deforestation and prevent landslides are particularly interesting, as well as projects that focus on creating protected water supplies against salt water intrusion and other water pollution.
These are only potential destinations and my final destinations will be determined based upon the innovators I meet at the IDEAS Competition and what other new and exciting technologies prove necessities in future global conditions.
Photographic Destinations
Amy Smith's Invention Lab and the IDEAS Competiton at MIT- Cambridge, USA
Addis Ababa University Technology School- Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Fuel Briquette Project in Kabul, Afghanistan
Heifer project in rural Zimbabwe
Flooding relief projects in South-East Asia
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