Designing Technology for Developing Countries

A recent CNN article examines how designers and engineers are increasingly taking the needs of developing countries into consideration in their product designs:

Imagine taking the industrial design smarts behind the iPod and applying it to the far more basic technology needs of the extremely poor. In the past, few top designers would have bothered. But that's changing.

At MIT, Stanford, and other universities, young design and engineering talents are eagerly enrolling in courses that teach them how to meet the technology needs of the developing world. Stanford offers a course called "Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability." One of the teachers, David Kelley, is the founder of IDEO, the industrial design firm behind such tech classics as the Palm V PDA and the first production mouse for the Lisa and Macintosh computers from Apple.

The article highlights some interesting programs in this area, including the International Development Design Summit, where "mechanics, doctors and farmers from around the developing world teamed up with top design talents to come up with "pro-poor" technologies that are inexpensive and effective" and the exhibit "Design for the Other 90%" which "highlighted the 'growing trend in design to create affordable and socially responsible objects for the vast majority of the world's population (90 percent) not traditionally serviced by designers,' according to organizers."

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