Institute For The Future

Humanitarian engineer

Amy Smith is a "humanitarian engineer." Her aim is to tackle big problems faced by rural villagers in developing nations that might be solved using innovative technology. Her inventions include a phase-change incubator--a cheap, easy-to-operate device that tests for microorganisms in water supplies--and a screenless hammer mill. Traditional hammer mills use screens to separate small and large particles. The screens break easily though and aren't easily repaired. Smith's mill uses air flow to separate the particles and is apparently 25% cheaper and more energy efficient than standard hammer mills.

Smith is an instructor at MIT's Edgerton Center. You can listen to Smith's presentation from this year's TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference here or read an interview with her in the new issue of Smithsonian magazine here. From the Smithsonian interview:

 

 

What would you say was the coolest project that you've worked on?Well, it's not very romantic, but I think our charcoal project is going to have a huge impact, because it allows you to have a clean-burning fuel without cutting down trees. We're planning large-scale dissemination in Haiti. There's no glitz factor to it, but it's probably going to make a huge amount of difference....What is the biggest problem facing rural communities in the developing world?

I don't think you can say there's a single one. Obviously access to safe drinking water is a huge problem, and lack of access to opportunities, and general poverty. But if you get people safe drinking water, and then they still have no way to earn any money to feed their families, you still have a problem. And if you give them better methods of agricultural processing or ways to create clean energy, but there's still drinking water that makes them sick, you still have a problem. There are too many interrelated issues, so solving one problem won't completely change the lives of millions.