ThinkCycle at M.I.T. Sharing Distributed Design Knowledge for Open Collaborative Design

Creating a Culture of Socially-Conscious Design Innovation How does one go about designing better water filters for solving the clean water needs of 1.3 billion people, simplified intravenous (IV) treatment devices for cholera patients in refugee camps, low-cost prescription eye-wear for communities in Africa or active response kits and temporary shelters for disaster relief? Critical design challenges in the environment and under-privileged communities have generally not been well addressed by either existing market mechanisms, academia or government organizations. We feel that such initiatives require diverse domain expertise (from doctors, engineers and practitioners), motivated design teams (perhaps based in universities and industry), and fieldexperience from both entrepreneurial and non-governmental organizations (NGO) working in such areas. This class of “critical global challenges” requires a new approach towards collaborative design, one, which embraces multi-disciplinary teams and contributions from participants in different institutional settings.