Hasta La Ideas

Image courtesy of the UN Population Fund.
Article by Beth Comstock, Senior Vice President & CMO, GE.

According to the United Nations, today we celebrate the birth of the world’s seven billionth person. This is both awe-inspiring and terrifying. Awe-inspiring when we consider the new ways that technology will connect those seven billion people and the tremendous opportunity it creates. Terrifying in that it raises some serious challenges for society. How do we feed, clothe, treat, educate, and supply power to seven billion persons, all while not destroying this beautiful planet?

There has never been a better platform upon which to showcase the power of design thinking than this moment. The complexities of our expanding world require innovations that go beyond simply adding more to meet the growing demand, but that identify the true roots of the demand, consider the context surrounding the need and apply creativity and empathy to defining the solution. In short, design thinking is the answer to managing the growing global community.

The good news is that brilliant designers around the world are already hard at work creating these solutions. Consider—how would you house seven billion people, when two billion are surviving on less than one dollar a day? You’d need houses that were both safe and functional, and that cost only a few hundred dollars. Sound impossible? Patti Stouter, founder of Simple Earth Structures, proved us wrong. She recently won Vijay Govindarajan’s and Christian Sarkar’s $300 House Challenge with a home that would cost $293 to build.

Or, think about the challenges we face delivering water and sanitation, when already one billion people lack access to clean water. IDEO is doing some incredible work with the people of Ghana to create better access to sanitation services via portable, low-cost, functional toilets that will reduce spread of disease while preserving the dignity of the Ghanaian people.

And I’m not the only one lauding the power of design. Across industries we are witnessing an increased focus on solution-centered designs. Design with the Other 90%: CITIES, a Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum exhibit at the United Nations in New York City, is filled with real-life examples of how designers are addressing major world challenges. I encourage everyone to check out the broad range of powerful designs on display, such as the Millennium School Bamboo Project that addresses the large number of Typhoons in the Philippines and bePRO motor-taxi helmet for motorcycle taxis in Uganda.

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Che bomba!!! Qui le istruzioni per costruirvelo.
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“Just look at the paintings and relax.” Better yet, laugh. Such is the advice of Joe Queenan, whose latest Wall Street Journal column takes the form of “three tips for surviving the art museum.” His first rule? Avoid the acoustiguide. “Art phones have turned museum-going into a dreary chore,” writes Queenan, who we suspect didn’t opt for the experience-enhancing headphones at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s recent Alexander McQueen blockbuster. “It’s like being back in high school, where you’re expected to memorize everything.” He’s also no fan of docents, who he describes as “blathering idiots who think they missed their calling as stand-ups” and “living proof that people should not be allowed to retire, because in retirement, the pathologically garrulous cease to be merely annoying and become truly dangerous.” (We’ll spare you the bit about dispatching NATO warplanes on a docent destruction mission.) Focus on his third tip: Don’t be afraid to laugh at the art. “If an art museum is clicking on all cylinders, you shouldn’t be able to get out of there without doubling over in laughter at least three times,” writes Queenan, who offers examples ranging from Francois Boucher‘s toddler hunters to comtemporary works. “If you can’t laugh at Anthony van Dyck’s boozed-up cavaliers, Thomas Gainsborough’s cadaverous, blue-faced debutantes, or Damien Hirst’s 13-foot shark in a few thousand gallons of formaldehyde, you’re really missing out on some great fun.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Milan-based designer Gabriele Diamanti‘s “Eliodomestico” solar-powered eco-distiller was recently selected as one of 12 finalists for the Prix Émile Hermès 2011. The small, vat-like still is made entirely from terracotta and zinc-plated metal sheets, and, in keeping with the Italian designer’s intention for “Eliodomestico” to be completely open source, “it’s designed to be produced (and eventually repaired) by local craftsmen.”

The project is conceived like an household: it works autonomously during the day, just in front of people’s houses. Its design is inspired from archetypal forms and materials, because it has to be highly recognizable: as a matter of facts, one of the biggest problems in delivering technologies to the developing countries, is that usually the people doesn’t understand them.

The device can produce up to five liters of drinking water per day through a direct solar-powered distillation process—i.e. no filters or electricity—making “Eliodomestico” nearly three times as efficient as existing solar stills of equal size.

The distiller is very easy to use: in the morning, simply fill the water tank with salty or dirty water from a local source, and in the evening collect clean, evaporated and re-condensed water in a portable recipient placed underneath the tank.

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Double tiered side tables for the bedroom or the living room with a single dovetailed drawer box.