Design that Matters is a non-profit that promotes new economies through well-designed and affordable products. Their Kinkajou Microfilm Projector is a low-cost teaching tool designed to improve and expand access to education by transforming night-time learning environments in rural, non-electrified settings. What’s more, the projector is a combination of efficient LED lights, reclaimed lenses from Fisher-Price ViewMaster toys, and durable, inexpensive microfilm.

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With 10% of the world population living with a disabling hearing impairment, and 80% of them live in developing countries, a big challenge is the battery, which is often expensive to keep charged and replace. The SolarAid solar-powered hearing-aid battery recharger, developed in Botswana by Godisa Technologies, helps those with hearing disabilities afford to continue in school and participate in economy activity without worrying about their hearing aid battery. There are already more than 7,000 units in use in South America, Central America, Africa, and Asia.

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Kickstart, an organization promoting tools and technologies to end poverty, has found a great product that solves immediate problems and stimulates potential local economies. It’s called the MoneyMaker Micro-Irrigation Pump, available as the Original design or the new Super pump, and it allows rural small-scale farmers to pull water from underground to more efficiently irrigate their farms. Many thousands of entrepreneurial farmers are now irrigating with Kickstart’s manual MoneyMaker irrigation pumps and changing their small subsistence farms into vibrant new commercial enterprises. With irrigation they can grow and sell as many as three to four high value vegetable crops every year, and ensure that the crop is ready for market when the price is high. The pump is currently being distributed throughout Africa, Asia, and Latin America. See exactly how it works here.

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What do you get when you combine the design acumen of IDEO with the social entrepreneur advocacy of the Acumen Fund? A symbiotic relationship that benefits both the design world and the fight against poverty. IDEO, the industrial design firm led by socially-conscious design leader Tim Brown, has partnered with Acumen Fund to bring great design to those who need it. Over the last two years, the partnership has begun to explore how Acumen Fund’s focus on using entrepreneurial approaches to address the problems of poverty, coupled with IDEO’s human-centered approach to design, could create synergy and help both organizations achieve their broader goals.

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The Watercone makes salt and brackish water fresh using only the sun, evaporation, and a simple, portable plastic cone. Every day 5000 children die as a result of unsafe water-related diseases, and Watercone provides up to 1.6 liters a day, covering all of a child’s daily water needs. The process is simple- fill the black base pan with salty or brackish water, float the cone on top. The black pan absorbs sunlight and heats up the water to support evaporation. Through condensation, the evaporated water collects in the form of droplets on the inner wall of the cone. These droplets trickle down the inner wall into a circular trough at the inner base of the cone. The cone can then be flipped over and the fresh water poured out.

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Proving once again that sometimes the simplest ideas are the most powerful, the Q-Drum makes water transportation a (rolling) piece of cake. For the vast majority of Sub-Saharan Africa, fetching water isn’t as easy as a nearby well, often involving daily trips to water sources miles away. Q-Drum makes these trips less taxing, and proves that a simple tweak to a simple barrel shape can, in fact, re-invent the wheel and bring life-saving water to millions a little more easily.

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