sustainable vision

Building on Tradition: Indigenous Green Housing

University of Massachusetts - Lowell, 2009 - $44,625

This grant addresses the issue of designing and developing environmentally and culturally appropriate housing for Native Americans on reservations. Many people living on reservations have no electricity or running water, and use outhouses. Typical development approaches ignore their traditional housing practices (separate structures for cooking and sleeping) and are not welcomed by residents.

In collaboration with the Tohono O’odham Reservation in Arizona and Tohono O'odham Community College (TOCC), University of Massachusetts Lowell students have been designing and prototyping green housing innovations for several years. They have designed a modular green house made up of the three traditional separate structures (living/sleeping, kitchen, and bathroom modules). The house is made primarily with indigenous materials but also incorporates green building strategies such as passive solar cooling and heating, solar hot water, straw bale insulation, solar cookers, windmill water pumping, composting toilets, and more.

This grant extends the collaboration to develop business plans for an enterprise based around the technologies, as well as further designing and prototyping.

Affordable Universal Socket for Amputees in Third World Countries

Mercer University, 2009 - $37,275

In developing countries, especially post-war countries such as Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Cambodia, Laos, Iraq, and Haiti, amputees cannot afford the high price of prostheses, which ranges from $500 to several thousand dollars. This team is designing a new prosthetic socket—the Mercer Universal Socket, or MUS—that is cheaper and takes less time to fit to the amputee, helping reduce overall cost.

The MUS is designed for adults and has small, medium and large sizes. Inside the socket, three silicon rings minimize pressure at the distal stump and help prevent pressure ulcers from forming. The cost per unit is estimated at $20, with manufacturing and distribution taking place in Vietnam through the Mercer on Mission program.

Flexible Ad hoc Networks for Scarce Environments

Georgia Institute of Technology, 2009 - $44,053

There is a gap in the world today between people with access to digital and information technology (in developed countries) and those without (in developing countries). Connectivity has been an issue in the developing world for a number of reasons, including unfavorable government policies, corruption, illiteracy and computer illiteracy, lack of infrastructure, and cultural norms. Generic solutions to these problems tend not to work well; solutions need to be scalable, inter-operable, replicable, and flexible enough to allow the inclusion of scenario-specific details.

In order to overcome the lack of connectivity in developing regions, this team proposes to develop MyMANET. MyMANET is a software framework for MANETs (Mobile Ad-hoc NETworks), which are infrastructure-less wireless networks that can cover a few kilometers in diameter. Every consumer device in a MANET (a cell phone, a PC) acts as a host and router at the same time, bringing flexibility and robustness to the network, without the need for infrastructure like towers or base stations. Both capital and recurrent costs are low, making MyMANET a plausible proposition for connectivity in developing areas.

Enabling Effective Management of Neonatal Jaundice in Rural India

Stanford University, 2009 - $46,500

If left untreated, neonatal jaundice can cause kernicterus, a form of brain damage with complications including deafness, cerebral palsy, and death. In the US, phototherapy treatment (shining wavelength-specific light on the baby) has virtually eliminated kernicterus, but in developing countries like India only a small segment of the population has access to effective treatment.

In order to improve patient access to neonatal jaundice treatment in rural Indian clinics, this team is developing a low cost, low maintenance opto-medical device. Instead of using fluorescent tube lights, the team’s device will use longer lasting, low power, blue LEDs supported by a battery backup for when the rural clinic’s power goes out. Typical LED phototherapy devices sell for $600-$5,000; the team is targeting $150 as the selling point for its device.

Cycle Ventures: The Rickshaw Bank Partnership

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009 - $46,200

Cycle Ventures is one of nine “D-Lab” classes at MIT; the class has a specific focus on creating pedal-powered innovations for international development. The Rickshaw Bank (TRB), formed in 2004, is a micro-credit organization in India that lets people lease-to-own rickshaws, usually in one to two years. This grant will fund a partnership between Cycle Ventures and TRB, with the goal of making TRB’s rickshaws cheaper, easier for the driver to pedal, and more attractive to customers. The team has identified three technical areas to focus on: the overall rickshaw structure; adding a suspension element to the frame; and improving the drive train. Over the course of two years the team will conduct overlapping waves of site visits, design, prototyping, and implementation.

Sustainable Venture Accelerator

Colorado State University, 2009 - $48,825

Student entrepreneurs in Colorado State University’s Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise program build sustainable ventures with a focus on an integrated bottom line. But, since these types of ventures can require a lot of time to develop before securing financial support, several of the program’s ventures have ceased to exist due to financial, time and other development pressures. In order to help sustainability-focused student ventures actually become successful businesses or organizations as students complete their studies, this grant will help launch the Sustainable Venture Accelerator (SVA) at Colorado State University. SVA’s three main objectives are to: engage outside specialists as Entrepreneurs in Residence to mentor SVA businesses; develop a network to help advance ventures; and provide space and resources. The long-term goal is for SVA to be sustained by taking equity interest in the student start-ups it supports.

Improved Rural Health Care Through Low-Cost Telecommunication in Waslala, Nicaragua

Villanova University, 2009 - $44,625

Accessing quality health care in rugged, mountainous areas like the communities surrounding Waslala, Nicaragua is a difficult challenge. About 10,000 people live in the town of Waslala itself, while 35,000 live in the 85 isolated rural communities surrounding it. While the town has a small hospital with full-time staff, residents of the rural areas can obtain health care only at clinic outposts from lay health workers with minimal experience and few supplies. If there is an emergency, the hospital is hours away on poor roads.

In order to make quality health care more accessible in the Waslala region, this team of students and faculty is developing cell phone-based technology for transmitting basic patient data in the form of coded text messaging from a rural health care worker to a central clinic for a trained health care provider to review. The doctor or nurse can then text back treatment suggestions for the health care worker to implement.

Sustainable Vision: 2009

Best of 2009: NCIIA's grantees in the news

Submitted by dave on Thu, 12/17/2009 - 10:02

From the New York Times to NPR, from alternative energy technologies and green packaging to emerging medical devices, NCIIA's grantees and competition winners were news stories in 2009. Here's our selected news highlights from 2009. Hope you enjoy these as much as we do!