Global by Design: Creating Technologies for Developing and Emerging Markets
All dates for this event occur in the past.
Amos Winter, Associate Professor, Director, Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Laboratory, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, http://gear.mit.edu/
Bio: Amos Winter is an Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering at MIT. His research focuses on machine and product design for developing and emerging markets. Prof. Winter earned a BS from Tufts University (2003) and an MS (2005) and PhD (2011) from MIT, all in mechanical engineering. He received the 2010 Tufts University Young Alumni Distinguished Achievement Award, the 2012 ASME/Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal, was named one of the MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 (TR35) for 2013, and received the MIT Edgerton Faculty Achievement Award and an NSF CAREER award in 2017. Prof. Winter is also the principal inventor of the Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) wheelchair, which was a winner of a 2010 R&D 100 award, and was the subject of “Engineering Reverse Innovations”, winner of the 2015 McKinsey Award for the best article of the year in Harvard Business Review.
Abstract: This talk will present approaches for creating high-performance, low-cost products for developing and emerging markets, which can expand to become disruptive, high-value innovations in wealthy markets. A key theme in the presentation will be the power of characterizing the unique technical and socioeconomic constraints of resource-constrained settings, then combining these insights with engineering science and product design to create new innovations. Three case studies will be explored that highlight this approach: a method for tuning the behavior of low-cost, passive prosthetic feet to induce near able-bodied biomechanics; characterizing the coupled solid and fluid mechanics of drip irrigation systems to design devices that require one-half the pumping power as conventional technology and lower the capital cost of off-grid systems by up to 40%; and co-optimization of electrodialysis (ED) desalination and photovoltaic (PV) power systems that are at price parity with reverse osmosis (RO). All of these technologies have been tested in the field and demonstrated substantial performance gains relative to existing solutions. Furthermore, all are on track to become multi-market products that can benefit people in poor and rich counties alike.
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