invention as public service at mit

Invention as Public Service at MITInspire, Support, and Scale Student Innovation

Your generation wears its commitment to the greater good quite lightly. You use your skills to help repair a broken world, however, you see nothing remarkable about it; you simply expect it of each other, and of yourselves.

- President Susan Hockfield

Commencement Address to the Class of 2010

No MIT students were harmedmaking this presentation

Imagine if we applied MIT’s entrepreneurial talent to to today’s urgent humanitarian challenges

Agriculture, Processing

Education, Training

Emergency, Disaster Relief

Energy, Environment

Employment, Entrepreneurship

Housing, Transportation

Health, Accessibility

Mobiles, ICTs

Water, Sanitation

Involve the world-wide MIT community in “inventionas public service”

Prizes incentivize innovation both where markets failand when problem space is complex

Annual competition that awards implementation grants

Amrita SaigalTeam Komera, ME ‘10

Sanitary Pad Manufacturing Process for the Developing World

• B.S. in Mechanical Engineering – 2010

• Currently working for Procter & Gamble Gillette in Process & Engineering

• Passionate about Women’s Empowerment through technology

• In Rwanda, currently:• 36% of women miss • 50 days of school or work a year

• because they cannot afford sanitary pads

Need for Komera

Pad Making Process• Pulp

• Our Task:

Alpha Prototype

Social Entrepreneurship

• Mentoring

• Funding

• Networking

• Socializing Komera

IDEAS helped Komera move forward…

Why YOU should get involved

• Resourceful

• Understand the Business Aspects

• Global Perspective

• Implementation and Scaling

What’s in it for YOU….Brilliance + Experience = Large Scale Social Impact

You have the opportunity to extend your reach beyond your current space of engagement and make a positive

difference

Launch in the context of growth and celebration

Experience suggests now is the right time

Lifecycle1-3 Discovery, Design

Students learn aboutdesign challenges,teams propose solutionsand receive feedbackon their ideas.

4-5 Decide, DeployJudges nominate winners;they are announced at theawards ceremony and have ayear to implement their projects.

PerfectSightDeveloped an

innovative, mobile system for diagnosing

refractive eye conditions for under $1

using cell phones.http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/19

Year awarded: 2010 Location: India

Egg-energyDeveloped innovative

lighting and energy leasing franchise that aims

to eliminate costly, unhealthy, and dangerous

kerosene lanterns used around the world.

http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/2

Year awarded: 2009 Location: Tanzania

KonbitDeveloped platform to

help communities rebuild by collecting the skills of residents, allowing non-

governmental organizations to find and

employ them..http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/28

Year awarded: 2010 Location: Haiti

26%

22%

17%

Alumni involvement will be critical to the success ofIDEAS, the MIT Global Challenge, and our teams

How can we achieve that success, together?

Thank youLars Hasselblad Torreslhtorres@mit.edu

On the web http://globalchallenge.mit.eduOn Twitter @mitchallenge