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MIT Helps Third World With Hands-On Approach
Hugh Pickens writes "About 60 people from 20 nations will descend on the MIT campus July 14th for the second annual International Development Design Summit to begin an intensive month-long process of creating technological solutions for the needs of people in the world's developing nations. The goal of the program is to develop simple, inexpensive devices that in some cases can be produced locally and make a real difference for people and communities. The event is the brainchild of MIT Senior Lecturer Amy Smith, a returned Peace Corps volunteer and a past winner of the MacArthur 'genius' grant. Previous products of Smith's design class include a bike-powered corn sheller, a metal press that can make clean-burning fuel out of agricultural waste, and an electricity-free incubator. The workshop promotes a shift in focus among companies, universities, investors and scientists toward attacking problems that hamper development in the world's poorest places. 'Nearly 90 percent of research and development dollars are spent on creating technologies that serve the wealthiest 10 percent of the world's population,' Ms. Smith said. 'The point of the design revolution is to switch that.'"
plunder third world nations and keep the first world in comfort.
Wow.. I'm stunned by the depth of your ignorance.
We're wealthy in the first world because we've raised our productivity through capital investment. Trade with third world countries is a mutual benefit, or else it wouldn't happen. Consider for a moment why it is that the countries with the least foreign trade are the worst off.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Ah yes! where would great reasoners from Aristotle to Leibniz, compilers from Euclid to Record, method-makers from Archimedes to Descartes have been without "capital investment"?
Funny you should bring that up, because every one of them lived in abject squalor compared to the average worker in the USA or Europe today. Daily showers, refrigeration, plentiful food of incredible variety, entertainment available at the touch of a switch, transportation across continents in a single day, and many other things that each of the people you name would find luxurious beyond imagining, are commonplace to us today.
That is so laughably naive it worries me that someone with enough years to have learnt how to speak a language could utter it.
Ah, there you go: you don't have a leg to stand on with any kind of logical argument, so you get snotty.
If I use my boot to stomp your face into the mud,
Why do so many of you pinkos harbor these depraved violent fantasies?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
No, sorry, they didn't.
I see that you start your rant by denying a simple fact. Clearly this is an emotional issue for you, which is why you refuse to perceive reality. There's no more point to trying to convince you, you are impervious to reason.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."