Win $5,000: Designing for Better Health Competition

This is a fantastic opportunity for our readers.

The deadline for submission of entries is April 1, 2009. The three best entries win $5,000 each. For more details on the competition, please visit http://www.changemakers.com/en-us/designingforbetterhealth

Ashoka’s Changemakers and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation have launched a global search for “nudges” – innovative little pushes that help people make better decisions for their own health and the health of others.

This year, the focus of this open forum competition is health---and there's only 4 Days left to Enter!

Full Disclosure: I am a judge in the competition. And naturally, I've love to see some really good entries.

2008 NCIIA Annual Conference: Wrap up

3 : Hours in the ER before my DC flight due to Aerovax prototype airborne shrapnel landing in my left eye
7:30 : Scheduled departure from Logan to Dallas on Tuesday
5 : Number of liquid crystal displays on the Airtran Embraer Jet taking me to DC connection
1 : Number of check engine lights that rendered the LCDs useless and grounding the flight
2:30 : Arrival time into Dallas the next afternoonDespite the misadventures of travel, I left the 2008 NCIIA Conference wiser and humbled, having met an oustanding group of individuals and institutions working on fascinating products, educational strategies, and global challenges. I'm going to provide some detailed notes at the expanded Conferences and Lectures version of LTDC.

A quick preview:

• Paul Polack on Design for the Other 90% (it's not just the museum exhibit, it's going to change the face of business and products for folks in emerging markets)
• Sir Ken Robinson on creativity.
• The Small Engines group from the Global Innovation Center in Energy, Health and Environment at Colorado State University (guys I need a link here).
• Baylor University's efforts of transforming coconuts into Home Depot products
  

More after coffee break (Dallas has a severe deficit of Starbucks, though).

Credit Card tool

Credit card-sized tools are really neat. Brookstone sells a variety of them, but this one, made by BCB Survival USA includes a few thins that others lack such as a butterfly screw wrench, and a 4 position wrench. Wouldn't it be neat to talk to doctors and healthcare workers to find out what their dream credit card sized tool would be? It's cut plastic or metal, which would make fabrication real easy...let me know please.

Some ideas but again, open to suggestions:
- thermometer
- medicut scissor
- epi dispensers

More at Cool Tools

Microinsurance contest

Microinsurance is a very interesting concept. I particularly like the notion that a farmer, for instance, can insure his working hand, for very little money. I know, I know, it's not the total healthcare solution, etc...but still.

There is a competition with a €1000 purse for an idea to communicate what microinsurance is effectively. Nextbillion describes the rules

As (micro) health insurance is difficult to explain, the MIA invites proposals for innovative, intuitive and original ideas to explain the value proposition of health insurance for poor people and grassroots groups. Proposals could include good stories, anecdotes, games, simulations, picture-stories, scripts for video clips or short movies and the like, to explain insurance to persons with no prior insurance experience.

So break out your short stories, claymation, graphic facilitation tools, videos, and give it shot!

more at Nextbillion

A Round Up of Neat Stuff

THD Blog highlights Stanford's "Rethinking International Health".

Worldchanging covered BusinessWeek's "Design for Social Innovation"

Anne Swift found SustainLaine, a startup with innovative offerings that bring awareness of sustainable living. This includes an animated series, and a national city rankings for sustainability (1. Portland, 2. Seattle, 3. San Francisco...Boston was 7, yeah!)

She also announces the BiD Challenge 2007---win 20,000 Euros for your social venture.

And also of note Fast Company's Social Capitalist Awards

Social Enterprise Conference today at HBS

I totally wanted to go this and I totally forgot to register!

Tough week.

Anyways, I know some of you may be going, so take notes, blog, send me your bootleg tapes podcasts, anything...

The schedule seems to be interesting. Speakers include Victoria Hale and David Gergen.

There's going to be a career fair, a Pitch for Change competition, and 18 different panels.

I'm so bummed.

I recently learned that Aerovax was nominated for this year's Tech Museum Awards in the Health category. Of course, our team is thrilled and humbled that someone out there thinks so highly of our project. Stay tuned and cross your fingers for us! And a big thanks for the person(s) that nominated us!

From their website:

The Tech Museum Awards is an international Awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity.

The Tech Awards program inspires global engagement in applying technology to humanity's most pressing problems by recognizing the best of those who are utilizing innovative technology solutions to address the most urgent critical issues facing our planet. People all over the world are profoundly improving the human condition in the areas of education, equality, environment, health, and economic development through the use of technology. It is the goal of The Tech Awards to showcase their compelling stories and reward their brilliant accomplishments.

Each year, candidates are nominated and then invited to submit applications. Individuals, for-profit companies, and not-for-profit organizations are eligible. International panels of judges review the applications and annually select 25 Laureates. Awards are presented in five categories: Health, Education, Environment, Economic Development, and Equality.

More from the Tech Museum Awards site

Tags: competition, design, medical, social entrepreneur, Aerovax, Tech Museum Awards

2007 MIT IDEAS Competition

The 2007 MIT IDEAS Competition is in full swing. The teams being formed in and around Cambridge, MA include the following:

• A specially designed training bicycle for mentally disabled people
• Portable water distiller
• System of wound care therapy centers
• Corn flour milling machine for yummy tortillas
• Electric generator using a specially designed solar concentrator
• Many more operating under the radar!
  

The IDEAS competition at MIT brings togethor projects that focus on community and international development questions answered by novel projects backed by technology and invention. Started in 2001, the competition has propelled many projects that have gone on to become sustainable long term endeavors in energy, water sanitation, microfinance, medical devices, agriculture, and information technology.

Tags: appropriate, competition, design, social entrepreneur, MIT, IDEAS, social technology, gadgets

L.E.G.S.: LeTourneau Engineering Global Solutions

My friend Alissa recently informed me about this project that is going on at Le Tourneau. An excerpt from their website...

The LeTourneau Engineering Global Solutions initiative was formed in early 2004 through the vision of Dr. Roger Gonzalez at LeTourneau University with the aim of providing low cost, high-quality prosthetic limbs for people in developing nations. The initial team consisted of five undergraduate engineering students under Dr. Gonzalez's direction. With the goal of creating a lower-limb prosthesis for people with amputations above the knee, the initial design phase involved significant research and evaluation of needs. The project focused on developing a high-quality polycentric knee and an energy-returning foot as the key components of the project.

Tags: appropriate, assistive, competition, design, LeTourneau, L.E.G.S., Roger Gonzalez

Bubblicious: Teen uses BubbleWrap to Enhance the Texture of Prosthetics

Grayson Rosenberg has invented a way new use for Bubble Wrap: a cost effective cosmetic skin covering for prosthetics.

Rosenberger was able to turn a basic artificial leg into a more realistic one using a heat gun to mold Bubble Wrap cushioning around the steel rod of a prosthetic limb to give it muscle-like tone and shape. He said his invention should benefit amputees in Africa who are viewed strangely because they have to "walk around with an open metal rod" as a leg.

I learned two things:
1. There is a BubbleWrap competition for Young Inventors
2. BubbleWrap is trademarked. I think the generic name is "protective packaging".

Naturally, this qualifies as another great Little Device That Could. Rosenberg's background has taken him to missionary trips to Ghana where he gained insight into a way to give amputees some dignity regardless of their country's economic status.

Tags: assistive, competition, design, economics, Rosenberger, Bubble Wrap, prosthetics