HUbHUMANITY UNBOUND
SPRING 2012
WOMAN IN INDIA WHO RUNS A DESALINIZATION PLANT
SPECIAL ENGINEERING & HUMANITY WEEK ISSUEAGENDA, INSIGHTS, AND INNOVATIONS INSIDE!
INNOVATION FOR THE GREATER GOOD
Reverse InnovationReinventing Fire
Homes for Humanity
INSIDE:The Cardboard Shoe Guy10 Innovations to Change the WorldWomen Plant Forests in KenyaHugh Jackman Cooks Coffee Coated Drumsticks
PEOPLE
B
www.eandhweek.org 1
HUMANITY UNBOUNDA publication of SMU's Hunter and
Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering
and Humanity
PO Box 140805
Dallas, TX 75214-0805
214.738.3655
www.EandHweek.org
Vol. 2, No. 1 - Spring, 2012
Editorial TeamStephanie Hunt |Publisher
Linda Mastaglio |Managing Editor
James Colgan |Senior Editorial Designer
Chris Kelley |Senior Writer/Copy Editor
Contributing AuthorsAnnie Griffiths
Stephanie Hunt
Chris Kelley
Linda Mastaglio
Geoffrey Orsak, Ph.D.
Sonal Shah
MissionThe mission of Humanity Unbound is to
provide a forum for information ex-
change to further the global goals and as-
pirations of the Hunt Institute for
Engineering and Humanity. Through the
power of engineering—steeped in practi-
cal solutions, collaboration with partners,
and a commitment to the principles of hu-
manity—we will meet the challenges of
the developing world.
This publication is produced by a collabo-
rative initiative involving the Hunter and
Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering
and Humanity, Southern Methodist Uni-
versity’s Lyle School of Engineering, Fair-
mont Hotel Dallas, and the University of
Oxford’s Refugee Center.
This magazine is printed on FSC-certified
papers with environmentally responsible
inks. Please recycle by sharing this publi-
cation with your local library, school, or
educational institution.
©2012, the Hunt Institute for Engineer-
ing and Humanity. All rights reserved. Re-
production in whole or part is prohibited
without permission. However, re-distrib-
ution and information sharing is highly
encouraged. For reprint and reuse per-
missions, additional copies, or comments
to the editor, contact: Linda
Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity Advisory Board Lucy Billingsley: Founder of the
Billingsley Company, Dallas, Texas
Lori Feehan: Former tax partner with
Deloitte and Touche and consultant for
high-net worth individuals and private
foundations, Denver, Colorado
Richard A. Freling: Of.Counsel to Jones
Day, Dallas, Texas
Hunter Hunt: Co-Founder, Hunt Institute
for Engineering and Humanity, Dallas,
Texas
Stephanie Hunt: Co-Founder, Hunt Insti-
tute for Engineering and Humanity,
Dallas, Texas
Thomas E. Lovejoy: Heinz Center Biodi-
versity Chair, Heinz Center for Science,
Economics and the Environment and for-
mer Assistant Secretary of the Smithson-
ian Institution
Amory Lovins: Chairman and Chief Scien-
tist, Rocky Mountain Institute, Boulder,
Colorado
Tom Luce: CEO of the National Math and
Science Initiative and former United
States Assistant Secretary of Education
for Planning, Evaluation and Policy De-
velopment, Dallas, Texas
Bobby B. Lyle: Chairman and CEO, Lyco
Holdings Incorporated, Dallas, Texas
Alfonso Montiel : Founder, Alsis Funds,
Dallas, Texas
William T. Solomon: Former Chairman
and CEO of Austin Industries, Dallas,
Texas
Gay F. Solomon: Civic Leader, Dallas,
Texas
Jonathan Trichel: Principal, Deloitte Con-
sulting, Austin, Texas
R. James Woolsey, Jr.: Former Director of
the CIA and Senior Vice President of Booz
Allen Hamilton, Washington, D.C.
Ray Zahab: Ultra-marathoner and founder
of impossible2Possible, (i2P), Chelsea,
Quebec
ABOUT THE COVER:
Despite no formal education,
Rashmi was taught to run a solar
desalinization plant in her village
in Rajasthan, India.
Front and back cover photo:
Annie Griffiths/rippleeffectimages.org
2 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Highlights
8. FINDING PURPOSE THROUGH REVERSE INNOVATIONVijay Govindarajan speaks out on con-
cepts to help businesses and individuals
thrive in a dramatically changing world.
12. TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERING TO SUPPORT WORK WITH REFUGEESBy Stephanie Hunt and Geoffrey Orsak
New partnerships are being forged to en-
courage young engineers to use their
skills in the service of refugees.
14. HELP A WOMAN, HELP THE PLANETAnnie Griffiths, well known for her pow-
erful photography in National Geo-
graphic, shares her global experiences
through pictures and prose.
28.HONORING EXCELLENCEThis year’s Living Village at SMU is dedi-
cated to Cooper-Hewitt Curator Cynthia
Smith who is making a difference with
the exhibit, “Design with the Other 90%:
Cities.”
36.THE NEXT GENERATION ECONOMYBy Sonal Shah
An investment in an “impact economy”
has the potential to create jobs, economic
value, and social benefit for the U.S. and
the world.
73.IMAGINE... REINVENTING FIREBy Amory Lovins
Adapted from the acclaimed book, Rein-
venting Fire, the article is sure to give you
ideas that will change your perception of
the future.
CONTENTS
SideLights
22.Game-Changing Innovations: Technology Serving Humanity
24.Cardboard: Reverse Technology in Action
25.Nathan Myhrvold: From Coding to Cooking
26.Harvey Lacey: Making Refuse into Building Blocks
34.Brad Oldham: A Sculptor with the Mind of an Engineer
40.Anurag Jain and Daniel Gross: Collaborating to Help Others
41.Dallas Institute of Humanity and Culture
42.Nicole Potter: Embracing the Humanity of Art
42. Michael Leavitt: Cardboard Sneakers a Huge Hit
Engineering & Humanity Week
44.Thought Leadership from InnovationForum Speakers
47.Event Schedule
54.SMU Map and Shelter Locations
56.Shelter Descriptions
62.Guest Profiles
CONTENTS
4 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Engineering is finally getting the picture; and we at the SMU Lyle School can be pleased that we played an im-
portant role in putting a focus where it needed to be.
The world’s global poor live in environments that are sadly reminiscent of ancient civilizations: devoid of
regular clean water, sanitation, safe and secure shelter, stable food supply, education and health care. Life is
based more on survival than on the pursuit of happiness. To these vast communities, it’s as if engineering
never happened. Engineers can and should do something about this – now.
In 2009, we are blessed to have established the Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and
Humanity – one of the very first international institutes focused on applying the power of innovation to im-
proving the daily reality of the global poor. Already the Hunt Institute is making its presence felt – not only by
organizing and hosting powerful events such as Engineering and Humanity Week, but by also providing the
impetus to develop and implement new educational and research programs around global development.
Just this year, we established a new interdisciplinary graduate program in Sustainability and Global Develop-
ment to help those with passion and skills pursue their dreams of improving the lives of people all over the world.
Our new university-wide minor in Global Development also allows for students across the campus majoring in top-
ics such as business, engineering, science, economics, marketing, education and anthropology to gain the under-
standing of how to effectively organize solutions to difficult problems in the developing world.
The SMU Lyle School of Engineering has always committed itself to really big problems. None are more
important today than bringing the benefits of modern society to half the world left behind over the past cen-
turies. Come join us in this noble effort.
Geoffrey OrsakDeanLyle School of Engineering Southern Methodist University
GETTING THE PICTURE
ACUGRAPHICSproudly sponsors Engineering & Humanity Week and the ongoing efforts of the Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity.Acugraphics provided the unique, hand-crafted cardboard table, printed exhibit materials, and embroidered bamboo T-shirts for Engineering & Humanity Week promotional efforts.
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Gensler Dallas is part of the global design,
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with more than 2,600 professionals networked across 35 loca-
tions worldwide. Consistently ranked by U.S. and international
industry surveys as the leading architecture and interior design
firm, Gensler leverages its deep resources and diverse expertise
to develop design solutions for industries across the globe.
Since 1965, Gensler has collaborated with clients to create envi-
ronments that enhance organizational performance, achieve
measurable business goals, enrich people and communities, and
enhance everyday experiences.
The SMU Bobby B. Lyle Schoolof Engineering is committed
to developing the new American engineer, one prepared to excel
and lead in creating new economic opportunities while meeting
the most difficult challenges facing society. The Lyle School
maintains a steadfast focus on using engineering to address im-
portant issues both at home and around the world. The school
offers eight undergraduate and 29 graduate programs, including
both masters and doctorate levels.
In the United States, Deloitte LLP and its
subsidiaries have 45,000 professionals
with a single focus: serving clients and helping them solve their
toughest problems. Deloitte works in four key business areas —
audit, financial advisory, tax and consulting — but its real
strength comes from combining the talents of those groups to
address clients’ needs. “Deloitte” is the brand under which tens
of thousands of dedicated professionals in independent firms
throughout the world collaborate.
The Beck Group was founded in 1912 and has
developed into a full-service builder with in-
ternational reach. Beck's primary focus is
cultivating long-term relationships by offering complete real es-
tate solutions. Beck's multi-faceted structure enables it to better
serve clients. By bringing together the knowledge base of all
these disciplines, Beck provides a better total solution. Beck
maintains a team of over 450 working employees, over 40 per-
cent of whom are LEED® Accredited Professionals, working
among a network of offices in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas (headquar-
ters), Denver, Fort Worth, Mexico City, San Antonio and Tampa.
The Office of the United Nations High Commis-sioner for Refugees was established by the
United Nations General Assembly to lead
and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and re-
solve refugee problems worldwide. In more than six decades, the
agency has helped tens of millions of people restart their lives.
Today, a staff of some 7,190 people in more than 120 countries
continues to help some 36.4 million persons.
The Fairmont Dallas hotel is ideally located
in the heart of the downtown Dallas Arts
District, just a few blocks from the Cen-
tral Business District, and less than one mile from Victory Park
(home of the American Airlines Center) and the West End His-
toric District. The hotel—with its 545 redesigned guest rooms--
can accommodate lodging needs for business or leisure, grand
events, weddings, conferences, or intimate meetings. The hotel
includes the four-star and contemporary Pyramid Restaurant &
Bar and a lobby-level Starbucks. Nothing compares to The Fair-
mont Dallas hotel. Visit us in person or online at www.fair-
mont.com/dallas.
One Arts Plaza provides an urban oasis to enhance
the lives of everyone who lives, works and visits
the Arts District near downtown Dallas. As a
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As a place to conduct business, it redefines state-
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or visit 2920 Skyway Circle North, Irving, TX 75038.
CONTRIBUTORSThe Hunt Institute for Engineering & Humanity is most grateful
to our sponsors for their generous support of Engineering and Humanity Week 2012.
6 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
The inaugural Engineering& Humanity Week in 2011created the foundation foran ongoing dialog. What results did it achieve?
REWIND:A LOOK AT THE IMPACT OF
ENGINEERING & HUMANITY WEEK 2011
It Changed HeartsPost-event surveys gave us the following reactions:
“It showed me how I could help with global poverty in moreways than just donating money.”
“I’ve been on campus for 5 years and had never seen or beena part of anything like it. I liked the reasoning for it andwhat it hoped to achieve.”
“The week’s efforts matched my own passions. Through theevents provided, I grew and encouraged others to grow as well.”
It Changed Lives
53% of attendees said that Engineer-
ing & Humanity Week changed the way
they think about global poverty.
And students who spent 5 days living in
disaster relief huts in the Living Village
at Southern Methodist University said
the following:
“Overall, this has been oneof the most rewarding expe-riences I’ve ever had. When
you spend days working out-side, connecting with peopleand building somethingfrom the ground up, it’s ut-terly fulfilling when youstand back and witness thefruits of your labor.”
“Even though I woke upevery morning feeling like Ihad lost a fight the night be-fore, I was dry, and clean,
and warm(ish). Comparingmy shelter to some of theothers in the village, I wasspoiled!”
“Here is a list of things that Ilearned last night: theground is hard and cold, Ihate grackles, electriciansget up early, bugs are every-where, AND guitars arepleasant to fall asleep to.”
It Changed Minds
910 people attended 18 events
and learned from26 global leaders
The theme of this inau-gural issue of Human-ity Unbound is notabout what is wrongwith the world.Rather, it is aboutwhat some amazinglycreative people aredoing to fix it.
In these pages, youwill meet people who, despite dauntingchallenges, believe meaningful changeoccurs when we explore new avenues ofpossibility.
You will learn about innovations of allshapes and materials—from cardboard torecycled plastic—that are changing theworld – one invention at a time.
You will hear from engineers and en-trepreneurs who are harnessing the cre-ativity, flexibility, and opportunity of theglobal marketplace to effectively combatextreme poverty while creating sustain-able business models in and for the coun-tries in which they are working.
And, you will reflect on amazing pho-tographs that reveal and celebrate thehuman spirit, reminding us all that, inspite of our differences, we share respon-
sibility for the care ofour planet and one an-other.
For decades, govern-ment and philanthropyhave worked diligentlyto find solutions in thebattle against globalpoverty. Now, it’s timethat geeks, artists and
capitalists get their turn.When we unleash the power of the best
thinking from and across all lines of life,we believe new, sustainable solutionswill be the result—lasting help for thosein need because they will be able to helpthemselves. This is the ultimate expres-sion of humanity unbound.
Thank you,
Hunter and Stephanie Hunt
www.eandhweek.org 7
LETTER FROM THE FOUNDERS
THE ULTIMATE EXPRESSION OF HUMANITY UNBOUND
Vijay Govindarajan (VG) is a celebrated expert on strategy and innovation, Professor of International
Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, the Founding Director of Tuck’s Center for
Global Leadership and author of eight books. His most recent work, Reverse Innovation, was
named a Big Idea of the Past Decade by Harvard Business Review. For over 25 years, VG has been
researching and writing about strategy and innovation. His publications have been cited more
than 8,000 times—placing him among the top researchers in the field of strategic management.
VG recently offered insights into his creative thought processes in an interview with Human-
ity Unbound’s editor, Linda Mastaglio.
8 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
FINDING PURPOSE THROUGHREVERSE INNOVATION
www.eandhweek.org 9
LM: Your perception of reverse innovation
has been heralded throughout the globe.
Give us the bottom line of your vision.
VG: Historically, multinational corpora-
tions in rich countries innovated and
then sold their products in poor coun-
tries. We need to do the exact opposite.
We should, for example, innovate in India
and sell that innovation in the U.S. The
current process is counter-intuitive. We
understand why a poor man wants a rich
man’s product; but it is not logical to our
way of thinking that a rich man would
want a poor man’s product. Yet, this con-
cept will provide the biggest growth op-
portunity in America in the next 50 years.
We must be curious about the problems
of consumers throughout the world.
America will face economic stagnation if
we don’t become global in our thinking.
LM: Why does reverse innovation provide
a new paradigm?
VG: In the last 100 years, American com-
panies followed one paradigm of innova-
tion–let’s innovate for U.S. consumers
and then spread it over the world. We
need a fundamentally different paradigm.
The biggest R&D lab for an American
company must be attacking complex
problems in poor countries. Those inno-
vations will transform this nation. You
see, we become insular. We have to get
over our own history and begin to focus
on our capabilities to advance problems
of humanity. In the U.S., we tend to di-
vide the world into two parts: the three
billion people who are rich and the four
billion people who are not. We must
bring the four billion into the consuming
base and that necessitates that we inno-
vate. Our innovation paradigm has been
focused on rich consumers, rooted in the
thought that we have to spend money to
innovate. In poor countries, people learn
to innovate by spending less money.
Here is a great example. We think inno-
vation in healthcare is in spending more;
yet we don’t guarantee healthcare coverage
and 60 million Americans don’t have it.
This is not the best thinking. In poor coun-
tries, they don’t have enough money to
fund healthcare, so they look for new op-
tions. Consider the Aravind Eye Hospital
(AE) in Madurai, India. That facility per-
forms open heart surgeries for about
$2,000—and they provide world-class qual-
ity. Their mortality rate 30 days after sur-
gery is 1.4%, compared to 2% in the U.S.
How can this be? It’s about innovation.
Consider this. The AE Hospital buys
the same equipment you’ll find in the U.S.
at Mayo Clinic or Massachusetts General
Hospital. The Indian hospital uses the
same equipment, they just use it 500
times more often, therefore, the cost per
patient comes way down. Consider that
the same machine in an American hospi-
tal may be used only 15% of the time;
yet Americans believe we should have
machines conveniently available when we
need them, so our expectations drive inef-
ficiency. If Ford Motor Company ran their
factories that way, would we tolerate it?
The AE Hospital has adapted princi-
ples from high volume companies like
Ford and McDonalds. They took manufac-
turing principles and applied them to
healthcare and found no difference. Many
people assume high volume in healthcare
cannot work. On the contrary, the quality
improves– and so do the outcomes of
many surgeries. Why? Say there are 10
types of bypass surgery. If doctors are
constantly performing these complex sur-
geries, they know all the complications
and can specialize in one type and then
become a world leader. AE Hospital is now
taking their expertise and using reverse
innovation to open a cardiac hospital in
the Cayman Islands to provide American
citizens with heart surgeries for about
40% of what they costs in the U.S. today.
That is the power of reverse innovation.
LM: How does the $300 house fit with the
concept of reverse innovation?
VG: In a thought experiment I wrote 12
months ago, it became clear that we can
create a $300 house for the poor. Where do
you need it? Why do we need it? There are
75 million homeless people in the world.
That’s the size of the entire population of
THREE-POINT STRATEGY TO IMPLEMENT REVERSE INNOVATION 1. To capture growth in emerging markets, you must innovate,not simply export.
2. Leverage opportunities to move emerging market innovationsto other parts of the world: to other poor countries, to marginal-ized markets in rich countries, and, eventually, to mainstreammarkets in rich countries.
3. Keep so-called emerging giants on your radar screen. Thesesmall but rapidly growing companies, headquartered in the developing world, have global aspirations that could one day threaten your own.
“We have to separate who we are from what we have. We accumulate money, houses, cars, degrees; yet the happiness quotient in our world declines as the material quotient increases. Separation is important if we are to be happy.
We must have purpose in life.”
the United Kingdom. They live on pave-
ments where the sky is their roof. Is this
really right? Even a spider has a home.
Every human has a right to a home.
This experiment also framed opportu-
nities for large businesses. Defining a
modest home is not charity; it’s a chal-
lenge of innovation. It’s a problem of com-
merce. Large businesses should tackle
the challenge so they can come back and
transform lives in rich countries like the
U.S. to solve problems like disaster relief
and low income housing. Response to
this experiment was so overwhelming
that I created www.300house.com, an on-
line community of 2,500 people who all
want to help. They are all contributing
ideas. It’s like creating a company with
2,500 employees with no CEO and not
paying out a dime and the people work so
hard. The response led to a global design
contest where we picked six winners and
brought them to Dartmouth where they
rolled up their sleeves and designed a
$300 home for Haiti. This led to building
a prototype village in Haiti. The concept
has now taken on a life of its own. I know
nothing about a building a house; but
that is my advantage. I can simply ask
the question, “Why not?” Sometimes, to
innovate, we must forget what we know.
Open innovation, such as that which
occurs at www.360house.com makes
everything we discuss available for any-
one to use; the contest winners are there;
prototypes will all be there to use. Anyone
can take the ideas and implement them—
we’re keeping nothing back. We don’t
know who will use them and we don’t
care. The point is to advance the concept;
to create a moment. If people use these
ideas and make money, fine. We have a
big problem–four billion who are poor,
with an average family size of four peo-
ple. Multiply one billion homes by one
billion families and that brings opportu-
nity. Business is the answer to solving so-
cial problems. If they know how to scale
and innovate they can do that and make
money. Capitalism is the most powerful
and best economic system in the world;
but it must be practiced responsibly. The
$300 house showcases that we can be a
force for the good. We need businesses to
solve the housing crisis and practice re-
sponsible capitalism, sharing profits and
potential with the poor.
LM: How do you see the future if reverse
innovation becomes the norm?
VG: I see a fantastic future because re-
verse innovation is at the heart of what we
are talking about–do good, make money.
The poor aren’t begging; they don’t want
charity. They want dignity and access to
opportunity. In my opinion, there is no
difference between poor and rich. The
poor have the same intelligence, same as-
pirations, same needs as the rich, so why
can’t they have the same opportunities?
To truly help humanity we need to un-
derstand that globalization is like gravity.
You cannot deny gravity, you must har-
ness it. Globalization is here to stay; in-
terconnectedness among countries is
real. We cannot go back to isolation. Glob-
alization brings many benefits. How can
we capture those benefits? As American’s,
let us improve humanity through global
efforts. To be a great country we can’t
think inside our own geography. The
world’s people are rooting for us to suc-
ceed; to regain our competitive spirit.
Horace Mann once said, “Be ashamed to
die until you have won some victory for hu-
manity.” Let us never be ashamed to die. �
10 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
“I strongly believe that engineering holds the key tosolving complex social problems such as housing, clean water, renewable energy, transportation
… the basic human needs.”
LEARN MOREConsider the following books by Vijay GovindarajanReverse Innovation: Create Far From Home, Win Everywhere Harvard Business Review, 2012 (with Chris Trimble, foreword by Indra K. Nooyi)Ten Rules for Strategic Innovators — from Idea to ExecutionHarvard Business School Press, 2005 (with Chris Trimble)The Other Side of Innovation - Solving the Execution ChallengeHarvard Business School Press, 2010 (with Chris Trimble)How Stella Saved the Farm: A Wild and Wooly Yarn About Making Innovation HappenFranklin Green Publishing, 2010 (with Chris Trimble) (Let us just keep my books on innovation)
12 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
TECHNOLOGY AND ENGINEERINGTO SUPPORT WORK WITH
REFUGEES
New partnerships are being forged to encourage young engineers to use their skills in the
service of refugees.
First published in Forced Migration Review, issue 38, 2011(www.fmreview.org/technology/)
Dadaab, Somalia-August 15, 2011:Children live in the Dadaab RefugeeCamp where thousands of Somaliswait for help because of hunger.
by Stephanie Hunt and Geoffrey C. Orsak
Stephanie Hunt serves on the boardof USA for UNHCR and, with herhusband Hunter Hunt, is co-founderof the Hunt Institute for Engineeringand Humanity at SMU within theLyle School of Engineering. GeoffreyOrsak is the Dean of the SMU LyleSchool of Engineering and a professor of Electrical Engineering.
www.eandhweek.org 13
We have all benefitted from the remarkable
global transformation brought about by
the work of engineers and innovators.
What was once science fiction is today
commonplace. None of this would have
occurred had there not been engineers
and companies motivated by the chal-
lenge of the problem paired with the po-
tential for commercial gain.
Meeting the needs of refugees and
other marginalised people, however, re-
quires us to find ways to attract crucial
engineering problem-solvers to humani-
tarian work where the profit motive is not
a primary driver.
Attracting a new generation The engineering salaries of recent univer-
sity graduates rank at the very top of the
pay scale. To attract these individuals to
careers that provide direct humanitarian
benefits, they must therefore be inspired
to a higher goal than simple monetary
gain. Engineering has a history of solving
problems for the general good – and with
so many active conflicts around the globe,
there is an opportunity to reframe the
myriad challenges associated with sup-
porting refugees as a worthy effort in
that great engineering tradition.
Many young engineers today are in
search of inspiration. Unfortunately,
their limited understanding of the global
problems of refugees comes primarily
from mass media, which often paints the
picture as hopeless and driven by politi-
cal squabbles – not effective messages for
recruiting talent. To address this prob-
lem, the Hunt Institute for Engineering
and Humanity at SMU has been working
with teaching staff across the Southern
Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas to
augment its engineering programmes
with a range of global development pro-
grammes that explore the cultural, finan-
cial, legal and of course technical
challenges faced by those in the Global
South, including refugees in camps. Stu-
dents who were once intent on gaining en-
gineering skills for a life in commerce can
now make informed choices about pursu-
ing an alternative vision for engineering.1
An early success storyEngineering innovation should not be
limited to engineering professionals; stu-
dents and non-engineers can also provide
creative solutions. At the Hunt Institute’s
first Engineering and Humanity Week
held in April 2011, interdisciplinary stu-
dent teams competed to develop a com-
plete micro-business to provide clean
water and cell phone recharging services
from within a temporary refugee shelter.
Competing teams formulated detailed
business plans that dealt not only with
product innovation but also with market-
ing, sales and distribution challenges. Cre-
ative concepts included leasing advertising
space on the exterior of the shelter to mar-
ket to those queueing for services, as well
as accepting payment via cell phone for
water or phone recharging. The resulting
ideas were inventive, practical and, accord-
ing to the competition judges, viable.
This small-scale competition success-
fully demonstrated how effective cross-dis-
cipline collaboration can be in addressing
well-defined challenges with immediate
benefit to specific local communities.
Field innovation centres In August 2011, UNHCR and the Hunt In-
stitute for Engineering and Humanity at
SMU signed an agreement establishing a
framework for increasing the role of engi-
neering and innovation in support of
refugee camp operations. This agreement
calls for the organised engagement of
universities, government-run research in-
stitutes and corporations to work to-
gether to address the most pressing
technical and infrastructural issues faced
by UNHCR in assisting refugees in rela-
tion to water, sanitation, shelter, commu-
nications and health care.
One key element of this plan is to col-
laboratively develop and deploy Field Inno-
vation Centres in a number of locations
within or adjacent to refugee camps and
urban slums. These research and develop-
ment sites will allow for researchers, engi-
neers, innovators and graduate students to
work side by side with those working and
living in the refugee camps. These Field In-
novation Centres, staffed by experts sec-
onded by their organisations, will expose
engineers and scientists to the complexi-
ties of actual problems faced within the
camps, thus increasing the likelihood of
real advances.
Importantly, the Field Innovation Cen-
tres will directly engage the refugee com-
munities themselves in the development
and testing of solutions, particularly those
refugees who have engineering skills. This
will help ensure that solutions meet the
local cultural and technical needs of the
community while in turn providing oppor-
tunities to develop a specialised workforce
within the camps for maintaining and pro-
tecting these new assets.
Furthermore, creating an interna-
tional base for technical innovation
within the refugee communities we serve
will provide a strong humanitarian mo-
tive needed to attract the best problem
solvers in the world to the service of
those with some of the greatest needs. �
1. The new programme elements were intro-duced in 2011.
MOBILE TECHNOLOGY IN EMERGENCY RESPONSEIn determining whether and how to use mobile technology (in particular, SMS) in emergency response, factors such as customs around the use and control of mobile phones, the state of the national mobile market, and the condition of the network are all important considerations. infoasaid and partner Frontline SMS (www.frontlinesms.com) have developed a checklist of factors to be aware of in assessing the mobile context.
infoasaid (http://infoasaid.org/) is a consortium of Internews and the BBC World Service Trust, funded byDfID. This initiative aims to enhance the quality of humanitarian assistance through improved information exchange between disaster-affected populations and aid agencies. infoasaid is developing a range of tools and resources for improving preparedness for communications in emergencies and is also working in partnerships with selected aid agencies to inform and support their communications responses in emergencies. See http://tinyurl.com/infoasaid-checklist infoasaid’s YouTube clip, called ‘Communication is Aid’, can be viewedat www.youtube.com/user/infoasaid
14 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Lynn Johnson/rippleeffectimages.org
PLANTING FORESTS IN KENYADeforestation has ravaged rural Kenya in
areas where drought and flooding cause dev-
astating erosion. But women’s groups are
being taught to nurture seeds and saplings,
and replant the lost forests of Kenya.
Esther Muthoni leads one of these
groups and believes that trees are a part
of who she is. She passes on the delight of
planting to the children of the school she
runs. Esther often leads them to a nearby
cornfield to plant seedlings along the
perimeter—laughing, digging, learning.
She teaches that the value of a tree is not
just for firewood or for home building but
also for cleaning the air, reducing soil
erosion and building a sense of commu-
nity values. To date, more than 11 million
trees have been planted.
The lessons planted along with the
trees are practical as well as uplifting,
teaching women and girls about best
forestry practices and irrigation tech-
niques. Because women are responsible
for the tree-planting program, they have
a sense of accomplishment that is espe-
cially powerful for this often invisible
minority. Success is reflected in every-
thing from individual self esteem, to the
group’s joyful sense of community, voices
rising in song as they work. And of course
there are the millions of trees that blan-
ket the landscape, a testament to women
creating hope for the future.
www.eandhweek.org 15
HELP AWOMAN,HELP THEPLANET
Holding seedlings that have been nur-tured with love, a Kenyan schoolgirlprepares to plant them among morethan eleven million trees planted byAfrican women and girls.
Lynn Johnson/rippleeffectimages.org
16 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
CAPTURING WATER IN AN ARID LANDIn drought prone Kenya, the unpre-
dictable rainfall has led to famine and
loss of crops and livestock. During times
of drought, women and girls sleep at dis-
tant water points waiting in lines of 300
women or more, making their water fetch-
ing ordeal last as long as eleven hours.
Sadly, the water they work so hard to carry
is of poor quality. Diarrhea and other
water borne diseases are common, leading
to the illness and death of the most vulner-
able—children and the elderly.
Working together, women have con-
structed a series of sand dams in nearby
villages. They take to heart the motto on
a local school building that shouts out,
“Unity is Strength” and “No Sweat, No
Blessing.” It is in that spirit they lift and
carry pans of cement, pass rocks hand to
hand, and continue to collect water in the
riverbed just upstream from the unfin-
ished dam. Thirty-five years ago this was
a permanent river but climate change has
altered that. But with powerful women
wielding shovels, anything can be
changed. In these communities, where
women have organized for better water
supply, girls are staying in school, crops
have higher yields and everyone is healthier.
Below: Willing hands work together tobuild a sand dam that will change thelives of hundreds of women and girls.
Top Left: Village women haul stonesand mix cement to construct a sanddam that will capture water, savingthem hours of fetching each day.
Bottom Left: Girls who once spent as much as 11 hours a day fetchingwater, are now free to go to school.
Women in developing countries bear the biggest burden as climate change impacts our planet. It is in the daily lives of these women that the battle to save the family, the planet,
and the future is played out.-ANNIE GRIFFITHS
Lynn Johnson/rippleeffectimages.org
www.eandhweek.org 17
18 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
BOTTLING THE SUNImagine your world without light. Now
imagine the challenge of preparing sup-
per, caring for children, studying for
classes or tending livestock in the dark.
Yet, in the harshest places on earth there
is one resource in abundance: the sun.
Increasingly, women and girls are being
taught to harness this boundless solar
energy to improve their lives.
A solar lantern is the gift of light. In
India, women and girls are being taught
to build and repair solar panels and
lanterns to bring light and clean water to
their families and communities. With
a solar lantern, a woman’s day is extended
by hours. She can begin her day earlier,
power the lantern for free all day, and
journey into an evening that is brighter
and safer. Solar lanterns are lighting the
way for women and girls around the
world, and Ripple Effect Images is privi-
leged to help tell their stories. �
Above: Despite no formal education,Rashmi was taught to run a solar desalinization plant in her village in Rajasthan, India.
Top RIght: Rural women of northernIndia receive solar lanterns that werebuilt by other village women. They, in turn, will be taught to build, sell and repair lanterns.
“The women who participate in and lead ecology movements in countries like India are not
speaking merely as victims. Their voices are the voicesof liberation and transformation.”
-VANDANA SHIVA
Annie Griffiths/rippleeffectimages.org
www.eandhweek.org 19
Ripple Effect Images is a team of National Geographic photographers and filmmakersdedicated to documenting the innovativeprograms that are empowering women andgirls in developing countries, especially asthey deal with the devastating effects ofclimate change. The resulting photographs,video, and stories are collected in the Rip-
ple Effect Images Archive, which is madeavailable at no cost to our partner aid organizations and to policy makers who are working to empower women andgirls. The extraordinary Ripple Effect teamincludes a MacArthur Genius Fellow, as well as Pulitzer Prize, Emmy Award, and National Humanities Medal winners.
www.rippleeffectimages.org
A Texas legend in luxury, hospitality and service.
Conveniently located in the heart of the Dallas Arts District, The Fairmont Dallas offers luxurious hotel accommodations just blocks from Uptown, the Central Business District and the Financial District. Minutes from fine dining, shopping, arts and entertainment, The Fairmont Dallas offers truly unrivalled presence and hospitality.
The Fairmont is proud to welcome a new generation of global leaders to the second annual Engineering & Humanity Week. We salute you in your efforts to end global poverty through action. Together we will work to meet the challenges of the developing world.
PROUD SUPPORTER OF
Hunt InstituteEngineering &
Humanity Week
1717 N Akard St. Dallas, Texas 75201 214.720.5290 www.fairmont.com/dallas
E X P E R I E N C E T H E F A I R M O N T D A L L A S .
Dallas, TX 75201 214.720.5249 www.pyramidrestaurant.com
Dallas, Texas 75201 214.720.5290 www.fairmont.com/dallas
1717 N Akard St Dallas, TX 75201 214.720.5249 www.pyramidrestaurant.com
Welcomes The Hunt InstituteEngineering & Humanity Week
Fresh ingredients from authentically local Texas
growers provide inspiration for an innovative menu
at The Pyramid Restaurant & Bar. Executive Chef
André Natera leads a talented culinary team in
preparing flavorful dishes, seasoned with herbs
from The Fairmont Dallas’ 3,000-square-
foot rooftop garden, for a truly
memorable fine dining experience.
22 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
10 INNOVATIONSTHAT COULD CHANGE THE WORLD
The Saiia Roofhttp://inhabitat.com/hand-powered-machine-can-make-thatch-roofs-from-plastic-bottles-in-tropical-climates/
In Ecuador, thatch roofs are a traditional buildingtechnology. Thatch keeps a home cool and reeds canbe sourced locally. But thatch has become much harderto acquire as land for food has pushed the neededgrass further from villages. Steel and fiberglass panelsare poor substitutes as they let in much more heat andduring heavy rains make a racket inside.
Dr. David Saiia, a professor of strategic economicsand sustainability at Duquesne University, has createda unique solution by taking plastic bottles out of thelocal waste stream and turning them into a thatch re-placement with a hand-powered machine he invented.
After witnessing the encroachment of un-biodegradable waste piling up in the middle of theSouth American Rainforest, he developed a device whichcan cut a 3 liter plastic bottle into strips in seconds. Heis now developing and testing multiple ways to producea thatch covering for housing using the strips.
David is continuing to test the viability of the roofto make sure it’s durable and not toxic and hope tobuild a bio diesel powered device. He hopes to see theproduction of a system which creates local cottage in-dustries in emerging economies and reduce the plasticpollution. The local labor would see a boon from re-roofing homes, which could consume between 1,200and 1,600 bottles each. �
Mine Katonhttp://www.greenprophet.com/2012/02/wind-powered-bamboo-mine-sweeper/
Afghanistan is home to more land mines than people, so designer Massoud Hassani turned a childhood toy into anextraordinary wind-powered bamboo mine sweeper that destroys and tracks them.
Made out of bamboo and biodegradable plastic, the rolling Mine Katon’s arms self-destruct when they hit andsimultaneously destroy a land mine. Equipped with a GPS chip, the device also maps out which land mines in thecountry have been wiped out so that local Afghanis know which areas of the country are safe.
As a child, Hassani made wind-powered toys and chased after them in areas of Afghanistan that werepocked with destructive land mines. Tragically, many of Hassani’s friends were killed or seriously injured when theyaccidentally encountered one of humanity’s most destructive inventions.
Twenty years later, as a student of Design Academy Eindhoven in the Netherlands, Hassani scaled up hischildhood toy by twenty times and equipped it with tools that literally save lives. Although Afghanistan? �
DOT Earth bloghttp://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/
By 2050 or so, the human population is expected toreach nine billion, essentially adding two Chinas tothe number of people alive today. Those billions will beseeking food, water and other resources on a planetwhere, scientists say, humans are already shaping cli-mate and the web of life.
Dot Earth, a blog of The New York Times writtenby science journalist and professor Andrew C. Revkinexamines efforts to balance human affairs with theplanet’s limits. Conceived in part with support from aJohn Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, Dot Earth tracksrelevant developments from suburbia to Siberia. Theblog is an interactive exploration of trends and ideaswith readers and experts.
After four years in existence, Dot Earth is nowread by millions of people in more than 200 countriesfrom Brazil to China. Andrew, a Senior Fellow for Envi-ronmental Understanding at Pace University is thefirst two-time winner of the Communication Award be-stowed jointly by the National Academy of Sciences,National Academy of Engineering, and Institute ofMedicine.
Considered a pioneer in uses of social media, An-drew has over 26,000 followers on Twitter (@revkin);he maxed out his allotment on Facebook at 5,000friends a while back. �
UNICEF Digital Drumhttp://www.designother90.org/cities/solutions/digital-drum
Access to valuable information has the power totransform individuals and communities. But thou-sands of people in rural Uganda lack access to thekind of information and technology that most of ustake for granted. UNICEF is changing this reality withthe installation across Uganda of more than 100 inno-vative computer kiosks known as “digital drums.”
Inspired by the successful “Digital Doorway” de-ployed by the Council for Scientific and Industrial Re-search in South Africa, the solar-powered kiosks inUganda are constructed of recycled oil drums and otherlocally-sourced materials and are attached to the exteriorwalls of community centers throughout the country.
Initial installation of the digital kiosks—includ-ing hardware, solar power and internet connectivity—cost about $6,000, and it will cost an additional$2,000 to maintain the computers each year.
To make the project as sustainable as possible,UNICEF has instituted small income generation activi-ties and opportunities for local micro-enterprise entre-preneurs, including battery and mobile phone chargingstations, typing, printing, and IT repair services.
The digital drums have not only become a sourceof valuable information that improves lives—informa-tion such as the national education curriculum,school-safety guidelines, and videos on topics such asschool lessons, public health, and campaigns encour-aging girls to stay in school—the computers have be-come a great source of community pride. �
www.eandhweek.org 23
The Lifeplayerhttp://lifelineenergy.org/lifeplayer.html
Lifeline Energy has invented a new tool that is beinghailed as the“iPod®” for rural populations in the de-veloping world.
Created to deliver on-demand programming thatclassrooms or communities can replay continually, theLifeplayer is an oversized MP3 player that can be pre-loaded to hold 64GB of educational content, can down-load Internet audio and can record live voice or radioprograms for playback later. Powered by a wirelesssolar panel and a hand-wound crank, the Lifeplayercan even charge mobile phones.
The Lifeplayer represents the first time that the extremely poor have the opportunity to access real-time information on demand anytime, anywhere with-out concern for electricity or batteries. Made for largegroup listening, it has excellent sound quality that en-sures 60 learners can hear it clearly. For classrooms ofmore than 60 listeners, speakers can be added to en-sure everyone can hear.
The actor Tom Hanks, an advocate for renewableenergy solutions, is the primary funder of the Lifeplayer. �
Camfedwww.camfed.org
“When you educate a girl in Africa, everythingchanges. She’ll be three times less likely to getHIV/AIDS, earn 25 percent more income and have asmaller, healthier family.”
This is the premise behind an innovative programin Africa known as Camfed—the Campaign for FemaleEducation founded in 1993 by a Welsh social entrepre-neur named Ann Cotton, who began by raising moneyat her kitchen table to send 32 girls from poor familiesin Zimbabwe to school.
Today, the organization works with 3,667 schoolsin rural parts of Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania, Ghanaand Malawi, and has provided direct support for morethan half a million children to attend primary school.
Camfed has also provided grants to enable 60,000girls to complete secondary school, supported 15,000more who attend university or receive business training,and provided financing for 8,000 of their enterprises.With only 133 full-time employees, Camfed is improvingthe educational environment for two million children. �
AisakaArchitects’ Atelierhttp://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&up-load_id=19342
Le Corbusier, a master of modern architecture, once said:“A house is a machine for living in.” The description aptlyapplies to a new home in the suburbs of Fujisawa, Japan,built by a young couple.
In a densely populated country like Japan, effec-tive use of space is not only smart but required. Allrooms must serve a purpose. But what if you don’t yetneed a room for children? Or a guestroom becausethere are no guests?
Aisaka Architects have created an innovative fea-ture that allows form to follow function: a folding floorabove the couple’s living room. By closing the foldingfloor, an extra room can be created whenever it isneeded, and by opening the floor, the unused volumeof the upper room can be added to the room below thatis in use.
In short, the folding floor continuously maximizesthe home’s floor area ratio. �
GRASP Labshttps://www.grasp.upenn.edu/
Roboticist Vijay Kumar and his team at the Universityof Pennsylvania's General Robotics, Automation, Sens-ing and Perception (GRASP) Laboratory have created aseries of eight-inch, .1-pound, four-rotor autonomousflying robots capable of performing 360-degree flips inless than half a second, zooming through hula hoopsthrown into the air and building mini-structures—allwithout human control.
The flying robots riveted the crowd at the annualTechnology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conferencelast February in Long Beach. While theirperformancewas impressive and highly entertaining, it's just one ofmany things the robots can do.
Potential uses go beyond simple tricks. For exam-ple, they could act as first responders, venturing intocollapsed buildings or locations with biochemicalleaks to measure damage or toxicity levels and effec-tively eliminating the need to put a human at risk. Thedevelopment of larger models could even enable themto transport cargo, either individually or in a swarmformation. The application possibilities are endless. �
INBARwww.inbar.int
In sub-Saharan Africa, 70 percent of the people cooktheir meals over wood fires. The very poorest cut downtrees for cooking fuel; those slightly less poor buycharcoal made from wood in those same forests. Everyyear Africa loses forest cover equal to the size ofSwitzerland. Moreover, much cooking is done indoors.The resulting air pollution kills some two million peo-ple a year. Almost half the deaths are from pneumoniain children under age 5.
But an innovative new collaboration is working toreverse this sad reality. INBAR—the International Net-work for Bamboo and Rattan—is a membership or-ganization of 38 countries based in Beijing. INBAR isproviding technical support for growing and usingbamboo in Ghana and Ethiopia, where deforestation ofhardwoods, carbon emissionsand frequent famineshave combined to create a vicious cycle.
A new bamboo plant is mature enough to harvestafter three to six years, depending on the species, andmost importantly, is renewable. Unlike hardwoodtrees, bamboo regrows after harvesting, and can beharvested every single year for the life of the plant.Be-cause bamboo roots grab onto soil, it can help preventmudslides and erosion and the plant requires little ofAfrica’s most precious resource: water. �
sOccketwww.soccket.com
For many people around the world, kerosene is the al-ternative to electricity, but the fuel can cost a family upto 30 percent of their annual income not to mentiontheir respiratory health.
But an innovative product that looks like an ordi-nary soccer ball—a sOccket—could change that out-come. The sOccket is a power source for small electronicdevices—an eco-friendly power generator, which issomething the developing world desperately needs.
The invention of Harvard graduates Julia C. Sil-verman and Jessica O. Matthews, who came up withthe idea while taking an engineering class for non-en-gineers, harnesses kinetic energy using a stripped-down gyroscope inside the ball that's rolling as theball is rolling. The gyroscope harnesses the kinetic en-ergy generated during play and stores it in a batterythat users can plug appliances into.
The balls haven't been priced yet, but are ex-pected to be in the price range of mid- to high-endsoccer balls, around $60. The balls are currently beingused in Mexico, El Salvador, and in South Africa, andare heading to Haiti and The Gambia later this year. �
24 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
In Yemen, it’s a symbol of democracy: the
cardboard voting booth. For thousands of
refugees around the world, a bed made of
cardboard provides a good night’s sleep.
And, when it comes to bicycle helmets,
cardboard looks to be safer and more effec-
tive than plastic. Invented 195 years ago,
cardboard is one of the most versatile and
durable mediums for innovation today. En-
gineering & Humanity Week 2012 is
pleased to celebrate the use of the recycled
and recyclable medium as a source of inno-
vation, inspiration and novelty.
Perhaps nothing better symbolizes
the spirit of innovation in the developing
world than the cardboard voting booth. In
Yemen, and other countries throughout
the Arab world, the cardboard voting boothis both a tool of democracy and a source
of inspiration.
Easy to trans-
port and as-
semble,
cardboard vot-
ing booths
can be de-
ployed in a matter of seconds, offering
privacy, peace of mind and fulfillment for
voters around the world—some ingredi-
ents of freedom.
The Kranium cardboard bicycle helmet
is made of the same material used for
boxes at a supermarket, and it has been
proven to absorb four times more impact
energy than a standard polystyrene hel-
met. The Kranium cardboard helmet
passed official safety tests after being
smashed five times in a row. The card-
board used in a helmet is mixed with a
waterproof acrylic compound, so it has
the same level of resistance to sweat and
rain as a standard plastic helmet.
The furniture retailer IKEA has re-
placed its wood shipping pallets with a
lighter, thinner and more affordable card-
board variant. Corrugated cardboard
shipping pallets are strong enough to
support loads of up 1,650 pounds, which
is the same as timber. When compared to
the traditional wooden pallet, the card-
board version is one-third of the height at
2-inches tall and 90-percent lighter,
weighing only 5.5 pounds. In January,
IKEA switched all of its 10 million
wooden pallets to cardboard, which will
save the company an estimated $193 mil-
lion per year in transportation costs.
A low-cost, modular bed made entirely
of cardboard has been created for emer-
gency and temporary housing. The LeafBedis an easily transportable and affordable
alternative to bulky camp beds that have
been deployed by governments and relief
organizations during disasters. One hun-
dred of the beds were delivered in Decem-
ber 2010 to people living in unstable
housing conditions in Niamey, Niger. Six
months later, it was discovered that 99
percent of the recipients were still sleep-
ing on the beds, and 85 percent of the
beds were undamaged. LeafBeds are also
100-percent recyclable.
Minnesota-based Cardboard Innova-tions is leading the way in creating prod-
ucts that are entirely made of cardboard.
The company specializes not only in re-
tail displays but cardboard furniture,
such as full-size tables, chairs and shelv-
ing units that are custom-made and com-
pletely recyclable. Other cardboard items
that the company pro-
duces include cat
scratchers, easels,
decorative products
and more.
The London Festi-
val of Architecture
commissioned a
group of local artists,
architects and designers to curate a pop-
up exhibition that explored the intersec-
tion between hats and architecture.
Hoping to make people smile and help
them to understand that architecture can
be playful by putting it somewhere unex-
pected, they produced a series of hats in-
spired by the city of London. One of the
favorite displays: A recycled corrugated-cardboard bowler hat by the architects at
Austin + Mergold, who have graciously
loaned us the bowler for display at Engi-
neering & Humanity Week.
Sometimes a good thing can go too
far. One household brand has found ways
to help conserve cardboard, so less goes
to waste. Campbell Soup Co. has redesigned
the shape of its Pace salsa jars, which
eliminated a need for extra cardboard in
the packaging.
Campbell has re-
moved a cardboard
insert from its popu-
lar V8 product pack-
aging, which has
netted the soup
company about $230,000 in annual sav-
ings, not counting the environmental ben-
efits. Call it reverse reverse technology. �
REVERSE TECHNOLOGY IN ACTION:
CARDBOARDFrom left to right: TheLeafBed, The Kraniumcardboard bicycle helmet,IKEA’s corrugated card-board shipping pallets, cor-rugated cardboard bowlerhat by Austin + Mergold
by Chris Kelley
www.eandhweek.org 25
What do you get when a genius billionaire, who at one point was one
of the biggest brains behind Microsoft, decides to spend a great
deal of time and money in the kitchen? The answer is one of the
most unique—and some would say one of the most important—
cookbooks ever written. With five volumes, 2,438 pages and a
weight of 38.5 pounds, Nathan Myhrvold’s Modernist Cuisine
aims to forever change the way we look at food preparation.
The culinary masterwork is nothing if not innovative and
thorough. Picking up with what is often called “molecular gas-
tronomy,” Modernist Cuisine looks deep into the science of our
food. It details exact temperatures at which to cook certain
dishes for the best results, which can vary depending on where
you are on the planet and even, the authors say, what type and
color of pan you are using. This isn’t a cookbook that could have
been created with your run-of-the-mill kitchen, mind you.
Nathan and his team had plenty of high-tech toys, including
ultrahigh-pressure homogenizers and a 50G ultracentrifuge.
But then, maybe that’s the kind of kitchen you should expect
from a man who has studied with Stephen Hawking.
More than just an expensive playground for cooks and scien-
tists, the modernist cuisine movement delves into the finer
points of food safety and food preservation. Modernist Cuisine
claims to have the most com¬pre¬hen¬sive guide yet pub¬lished on
cook¬ing sous vide (French for “under vacuum”). It’s not just
about improving your meal at a high-class restaurant—it’s about
improving the quality of food for every-
body and creating things once thought
impossible, like foods that change tem-
perature when eaten or even edible
menus. "I believe human creativity is
unlimited and that people will con-
tinue to come up with fascinating and
wonderful food — both chefs and home-
makers,” Nathan told TIME. “Everyone
who cares about cooking.”
An interesting cooking side note of Engineering & Humanity
Week 2012 is that the Innovative Leaders Forum will take place
at the Dallas Fairmont Hotel, which is home to a 3,000 square-
foot organic herb and vegetable garden and green house. In ad-
dition, the Fairmont lodges two bee hives that, during peak
season, can house up to 80,000 honeybees capable of producing
60-80 pounds of honey per year. Now, that’s sweet! �
FROM CODING TO COOKINGNATHAN MYHRVOLD
by Chris Kelley
26 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, the old saying goes. But
Wylie, Texas metal worker Harvey Lacey is bringing that truth to
life in Haiti and soon, he hopes, in other developing countries.
Harvey, a popular figure at the inaugural Engineering & Hu-
manity Week last
year, sees three
problems that
plague most devel-
oping countries: A
lack of housing, a
lack of jobs and an
excess of trash.
Using common-
sense logic and sim-
ple machines, Harvey aims to solve all three problems at once by
teaching the people of Haiti and other places how to turn their re-
fuse into building blocks for new homes. Such blocks, built from
materials such as plastic and Styrofoam, are lighter than cin-
derblocks but still impressively stable when plastered together.
Since a prototype of his Ubuntu-Blox house debuted at last
year’s Engineering & Humanity Week, Harvey has built two of his
block building machines in Haiti. He didn’t simply come up with
the idea and ship it off for someone else to deal with. He has trav-
elled to Haiti to teach residents how to collect plastic and build
the houses. Harvey is taking a true “teach a man to fish” mental-
ity rather than building a few homes and calling it a day. He has
also submitted the idea to officials in India, where huge housing
challenges exist.
In February, a test house built from Ubuntu-Blox withstood
a simulated earthquake performed at National Technical Sys-
tems in Plano, which imitated an earthquake between 7.0 and
8.2 on the Richter scale. The house escaped the faux earthquake
with no significant damage, further proving its use in a place
like Haiti, which is still recovering from the January 2011 cata-
strophic earthquake. The structure also withstood simulated
winds and rain up to the standards of a hurricane.
The word “Ubuntu” means, “I am what I am because of who we
all are.” It’s a philosophy meaning that we should all work together
for each other’s benefit. Harvey’s Ubuntu-Blox homes embody the
idea, applying clever solutions to prevalent problems. �
MAKING REFUSE INTO BUILDING BLOCKS
HARVEY LACEYby Chris Kelley
A Century of ExcellenceA Cen y of Excellence ntur
28 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
HONORING EXCELLENCE
Living Village at SMU Dedicated to Cooper-Hewitt Curator Cynthia Smith
The 2012 Living Village at Southern Methodist University (SMU) was dedicated to Curator Cynthia Smith inhonor of her passion for the poor, her commitment to research, and her ability to spread knowledge throughcreative educational exhibitions. Two such exhibits are ”Design with the Other 90%” (2007) and “Design
with the Other 90%: Cities” (2011) which she curatedon behalf of the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Mu-seum, a subsidiary of the Smithsonian Institution.“Hunter and I first saw ‘Design with the Other
90%’ in 2007 and we were so taken by the breadth anddepth of knowledge it presented,” says Engineering &Humanity Week founder Stephanie Hunt. “It servedas our inspiration to create the first SMU Living Vil-lage during Engineering & Humanity Week last year.The village has changed lives and so have the ‘Designwith the Other 90%’ exhibitions. Cynthia’s work hasinfluenced countless people and inspired action andchange in so many ways. It is an honor to dedicatethis year’s Living Village to her.”
Cynthia Smith exudes passion. Such zeal is a
perfect attribute for the person who would
curate “Design with the Other 90%: Cities.”
She says: “Ultimately, the exhibition is
about improving people’s lives. That’s al-
ways a goal for me – to support the people
living in urban areas and to inspire people
who work in this arena…to help them think
about design in a different way. The people
living in settlements have good ideas; and
when there are reciprocal arrangements
with good designers and residents, a great
idea exchange takes place.”
When Cynthia accepted the challenge
of curating this global endeavor, she did
not know the impact it would have on her
perspective. Using funding provided by the
Rockefeller Foundation, she toured 16
cities in Asia, Africa, and Latin America
throughout 2009 and 2010 to gain a hands-
on understanding of the people who live in
the urban settlements. With the help of a
global advisory committee, the exhibit was
pared from 300 sites to 60. Her studies
spanned two years -- a very compressed re-
search timeline in museum terms
“The first group of women I met was
in Manila, in the Philippines,” she says.
“They were involved in a peer-to-peer ex-
change, sharing tools and experiences,
saving together, and building trust. I was
struck that the only thing they lacked was
an opportunity. They were just like any-
one I’ve met. They could’ve been my
neighbors. Now they are finding ways to
build opportunities for each other.”
Cynthia talked about her research
with people living in the settlements and
with groups and NGOs working in the set-
tlements. All helped define the form of
the exhibition, inputting perceptions of
what they thought was important and
what content would be particularly im-
portant for people to understand. “The ex-
hibition was conceived to broaden the
exchange of information,” she adds.
Cynthia also used social media to fur-
ther the conversation, writing a blog and
tweeting about the work. She found that
tweeting extended the conversation to a
large international following. She also
contacted young researchers interested
in marginalized communities to write
guest blogs.
“Design plays an important role in
bringing form to ideas, and good designers
help define inclusive and sustainable
cities by gaining the first-hand knowledge
of the people served by their designs,” Cyn-
thia adds. “There is vibrancy and culture
in each settlement and both should come
through planning and design.”
About the Exhibit“Design with the Other 90%: Cities” is
the second in a series of themed exhibi-
tions by Cooper-Hewitt that demonstrate
how design can address the world’s most
critical issues. The exhibition features
more than 60 projects from 23 countries
around the globe.
The exhibition explores design solu-
tions to the challenges created by rapid
urban growth in informal settlements,
commonly referred to as slums. Close to 1
billion people live in informal settle-
ments, and that population is projected to
swell to 2 billion by 2030. This acceler-
ated urban expansion will take place pri-
marily in developing and emerging
economies in an increasingly climate-
challenged world.
The exhibit includes projects and prod-
ucts at every scale, with a focus on designs
that are informed by end users: alternative
housing design, methods and materials;
low-cost clean water; accessible education
initiatives; sanitation and solid-waste man-
agement; transportation solutions; innova-
tive systems and infrastructure; and urban
design and planning.
“Cities” is divided into six themes:
Exchange, Reveal, Adapt, Include, Prosper
and Access. To orient the visitor, com-
pelling information is presented via
maps, comparative statistics and a video
and sound installation organized by
www.eandhweek.org 29
The DESIGN OTHER 90 NETWORK – Plug In!
The Design Other 90 Network (www.designother90.org) is an open-network database which extends Design for theOther 90%: CITIES beyond the boundaries of the exhibition and catalog. More than a collection of resources, theDesign Other 90 Network is a social-media platform that invites members to:• Share vital design resources for developing and emerging economies.• Connect with stakeholders in the fields of design, architecture, sustainability, humanitarian aid, and more.• Engage a broad international audience in developing solutions for those living in poverty.• View and share the more than 100 projects and solutions already in the system, as well as add a project that is making a difference in your community by uploading photos, videos, and text.
• Create a group for a project and let other members gain from your knowledge. Become a member of the Design Other 90 Network and you can make a difference in the lives of your neighborsand people around the world.
Top Left:“Design with the Other 90%: CITIES" instal-lation at the United Nations. Photo: Matt Flynn, ©Smithsonian Institution
Bottom Left: Shack/Slum Dwellers International Yer-wada Slum Upgrading Project. SPARC Samudaya Nir-man Sahayak (SSNS) and Pune MunicipalCorporation, with SPARC (Society for the Promotion ofArea Resource Centres), NSDF (National SlumDwellers' Federation), and Mahila Milan, Shack/SlumDwellers International (SDI) affiliates. Yerwada slum,Pune, India, 2008-present. Photo: © SDI
Top right: "Design with the Other 90%: CITIES" in-stallation at the United Nations. Photo: Matt Flynn, ©Smithsonian Institution
Bottom right: Praça Cantão, Favela Painting Project.Artists: Jeroen Koolhaas and Dre Urhahn,Haas&Hahn, with Santa Marta favela communityyouth. Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2009-10.Photo: © Haas&Hahn for favelapainting.com
30 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
urban videographer Cassim Shepard.
“Cities” is accompanied by an online
open-network database, which extends
the exhibition beyond the physical space.
Developed in collaboration with the mu-
seum’s curatorial communications and
education staff, the database provides de-
sign resources for developing and emerg-
ing economies; connects stakeholders
who practice socially responsible design;
and engages a local and international au-
dience in developing solutions for those
living in poverty. The database started
with 100 projects from both the “Design
with the Other 90%” and “Design with the
Other 90%: Cities” exhibitions, and in-
vites user-generated content in order to
track a multitude of projects throughout
the world and their global impact.
An illustrated catalog accompanies
the exhibition, and features essays by
Somsook Boonyabancha of the Asian
Coalition for Housing Rights, Edgar
Pieterse of the African Centre for Cities,
and Christian Werthmann from Harvard’s
Graduate School of Design. Cynthia per-
sonally conducted interviews for the cata-
log with such leaders as Jockin Arputham
of Shack/Slum Dwellers International;
Sheela Patel of SPARC; Juliana Rotich of
Ushahidi; Rob Small and Christina Kaba
of Abalimi Bezekhaya; Gabriela Sorda
from the Architecture, Design and Urban-
ism Department at the University of
Buenos Aires; and Sharad Sapra of
UNICEF.
The museum’s main facility, housed
in the Carnegie Mansion, is experiencing
a $64 million renovation which began in
the fall of 2011. Consequently, the exhibit
opened in the United Nations where it ran
through January 9, 2012. The exhibit is
now on tour and will make appearances
this year on the West Coast and the Mid-
west. The Hunt Institute intends to bring
the exhibit to Engineering & Humanity
Week in Dallas in 2013. International in-
terest has also been expressed. �
ExchangeIncreasingly, local and regional authorities cannot keep up with the unprecedentedgrowth of informal settlements or slums. This section of the exhibition showcasesinnovative solutions that have emerged as the informal and formal cities exchangedesign knowledge. Projects include community-generated solutions by Shack/SlumDwellers International that address secure land tenure, housing, basic amenitiesand livelihood through community-to-community exchanges throughout Africa, Asiaand Latin America; the Urbanism Manual for Precarious Settlements, a free “how-to” urban design manual for newly arriving settlers; and the Incremental Housingproject in Iquique, Chile, and Monterrey, Mexico, which produces half-finishedhouses that are completed by the residents and contain only the essentials of a builthome—bathroom, kitchen, structure and roof. Other projects in this section explorebuilding methods, materials and manufacturing, including a full-scale shelter in-stallation representing an alternative gabions construction method used in MexicoCity, in which mesh and wire containers are filled on-site with locally available ma-terials. Also on view is a plastic formwork kit to produce cast-in-place mortar struc-tures using mostly indigenous materials.
RevealThe projects in this section increase awareness of the scope and scale of the condi-tions in informal settlements, which are often invisible and do not show up on offi-cial maps or on census roles. Highlights are:• The Praça Cantão Favela Painting project in Santa Marta, Rio de Janeiro, whereartists engaged community members to paint the building exteriors in their neigh-borhood. • The open-source mapping project, Map Kibera, in Nairobi, Kenya, which engageslocal youth to map the settlement to locate and number the hundreds of thousandsof people living there and document the lack of basic services in that informal set-tlement.
AdaptDesigners and architects are collaborating with communities to create design solu-tions that respond to the local terrain, urban or climate conditions of the region.Featured works include:• The Integral Urban Project San Rafael-Barrio Unido in Caracas, Venezuela, whichupgraded the extremely vertical settlement with an improved network of stairs thatintegrate drainage, sewage and clean water infrastructure. • The Floating Community Lifeboats in Bangladesh which provide space for solar-powered schools, libraries, clinics and community centers in response to rising wa-ters and extreme density.
IncludeThis section features design solutions that involve those who had been marginalizedby the established city—the poor, women, youth, and entire communities. Amongthe featured projects are:
• The Jiko ya jamii (Community Cooker), a large-scale oven that uses trash as fuelto power a communal cooking facility in Kibera, Nairobi. • The city of Diadema, Brazil, where the mayor worked with the informal communi-ties through participatory planning and budgeting to re-urbanize the settlements,including widening and paving what were once narrow streets, cooperatively build-ing social housing, establishing a new system of land tenure and providing qualityhealth care to all residents. • The Kaputiei New Town in Kenya, developed by Jamii Bora Trust, a micro-financeorganization started by 50 street beggar families who saved enough money to foundthe Trust. Jamii Bora members receive loans to start small businesses and saveenough to purchase a house in the town where social amenities, facilities and openspaces are maintained by neighborhood management associations.
ProsperThe projects in this section create work opportunities, such as:• Spaza-de-Move-on in Durban, South Africa, a portable, durable device that pro-vides dignity and convenience to informal street vendors.• M-PESA, a mobile money transfer service that enables urban migrants in Kenya tosend money back to their villages via a mobile device. • Babajob.com, in Bangalore, India, that provides a social-networking service thatconnects impoverished job seekers with employers through chains of personal con-nections, replicating the process by which Indians hire in real life.
AccessThe largest section of the exhibition includes design solutions to improve access towater, sanitation, food security, electricity, health, transportation and education.Projects include:• The SONO Water Filter from Bangladesh, a low-cost, reliable and user-friendlyhousehold system to remove arsenic from drinking water through a series of bucketsfilled with locally available materials that act as natural filters.• The BioCentres in Nairobi, complexes that feature toilets and washrooms accessi-ble to the disabled with free child-only toilets and water kiosks selling affordableclean water. • Garden-in-a-sack in Kibera, Nairobi, made from inexpensive materials and yetpromoting micro-agriculture. • The Bicycle Phone Charger, a simple device made from bicycle and radio partsthat attaches to a bike to generate enough power to charge a cell phone. • The Shasthya Shebika (Health Volunteer) Kit, a portable pharmacy kit for healthvolunteers in informal communities in Dhaka, Bangladesh. • The Guangzhou Bus Rapid Transit system in Guangzhou, China, which services nearly1 million riders per day at a cost that is 10 times less expensive than the metro. • The Digital Drum in Kampala, Uganda, a solar-powered information access pointmade from two durable, low-cost oil drums welded together,rugged keyboards, solar panels and low-power tablets.
The Six Themes of the Cities Exhibition
DOORS OPEN FALL 2012
Responsible use. Sustainable design. These are the keys that will open the door to a future of clean air, fresh water, and a higher quality
of life for all humanity throughout the world. These are the concepts that must be embraced
by designers, engineers, architects. By leaders in every sector, public and private. This is
Sustainability and Development, to be offered this fall by the Lyle School of Engineering at SMU.
For those who strive to innovate, whose goal is to be a catalyst for change, who intend to make a positive impact, this is the program that can open
the door to a future unbound.
ENROLL NOWP. O. Box 750335 Dallas, Texas 75275
[email protected] / lyle.smu.edu
214-768-2002
Design Changemaster of arts in sustainability and development
create a better world
32 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
“THE REAL DISCOVERY SEEKING N BUT IN SEE
NEW E
www.eandhweek.org 33
VOYAGE OF LIES NOT IN
EW LANDS, EING WITH
EYES.”— MARCEL PROUST
34 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Brad Oldham is a sculptor with the mind of
an engineer who enjoys creating artistic,
useful pieces for communities, business,
and upscale residences, as well as buildings
undergoing historic restoration. Well
known for iconic public sculptures like
“The Travelling Man” sculptural series in
Dallas, Brad and his team at Brad Oldham
International Inc. have an uncommon repu-
tation for quality and a distinctively warm
and inviting style.
Brad’s custom art and products have
been featured on Good Morning America
and in Architectural Digest, Better Homes
& Gardens, Veranda, The Dallas Morning
News, and other publications. Brad was
presented the “2011 Artisan Award” by
Texas Society of Architects and the “2011
Artist/Craftsman of the Year” by the
Dallas Chapter of the American Institute
of Architects. He was honored to have his
work featured in the Americans for the
Arts’ prestigious “2010 Year in Review,” a
recognition of the best public artwork in
the U.S. and Canada.
More important however, is his
team’s commitment to their community
and to the greater good. “We believe
strongly in the critical importance of
reaching out to our community members
in need of help,” says Brad’s wife and
business partner, Christy Coltrin. To do
so, the company established a community
relations agenda that allows it to build
long-term relationships with key partner
organizations. The company supports
LaunchAbility, which provides services to
help people with disabilities to reach
their maximum potential and The Arts
Community Alliance. Brad served as the
Arts Mentor for Coca Cola during its two-
year pilot program; he mentored high
school juniors and seniors in how to run
an arts business and how art is made.
Stephanie and Hunter Hunt have long
admired Brad’s work and commissioned
him to design the Visionary Award that
is being presented to Vijay Govindarajan
during Engineering & Humanity Week
2012’s Innovation Forum. Inspired by the
cause, Brad created the sculpted piece
with much input. Because the award rec-
ognizes individuals making change on a
global level, the 10-inch tall sculpture
incorporates global imagery. The bronze
globe is elevated on a tree trunk and in-
stead of longitude and latitude numbers,
Brad and the Hunts collaborated on key
messages along the coordinate lines run-
ning across the sculpted continents and
oceans. But the globe is not a complete
sphere. Like a geode cut in half, the globe
is cut to expose the beauty of what’s
inside. The cutaway reveals people,
dwellings and commerce – both ancient
and modern – working in concert with
one another. �
A SCULPTORWITH METTLE
On a road trip throughWest Texas to deliver asculpture, Oldham madeseveral stops to photo-graph the Bird sculpturesin beautiful settings. Thestainless steel Bird on thetracks shown here is 27inches tall.
corr.indd 2 4/5/12 11:43 AM
36 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Issue 1: The Future Of... Social Innovation is fast gain-
ing traction in the United
States and overseas. While not a new con-
cept, there is growing recognition that in
order to change our trajectory and solve
some of the world’s greatest challenges,
there needs to be real innovation and
scale in the social sector as well as the
economy more broadly. The current struc-
tures created for addressing social prob-
lems are inadequate and incentives are
not aligned toward achieving outcomes.
Hence, social innovation is about build-
ing the infrastructure necessary to create
an economy that can have a transforma-
tional impact in our country and the
world around us. This investment in an
“impact economy” has the potential to
create jobs, economic value, and social
benefit for the US and the world. Creating
this economy and having real innovation
requires an investment in nonprofits, for-
profits and hybrid enterprises to develop
the necessary ecosystem for growth.
The most important aspect of the impact
economy is that each of these sectors
measure results. For too long, the defini-
tion of success has been the growth of an
organization rather than outcome
achieved, for example, whether more chil-
dren graduated from high school, or fewer
people were diagnosed with diabetes. In-
Sonal Shah is the formerDirector of the first WhiteHouse Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation, and is currently a Tides Fellow.
THE NEXT GENERATION
ECONOMYby Sonal Shah
The Next Generation Economy is reprinted with per-mission from Momentum, a quarterly publication ofTides. Sonal Shah is a Tides Fellow. Learn more athttp://momentum.tides.org
www.eandhweek.org 37
stead, investors should be asking what
problem the organization is trying to solve,
and hold themselves and the organization
accountable for achieving the stated objec-
tives. This can be achieved across sectors:
nonprofits need to start managing to out-
comes, not just outputs; governments need
to assess how to align incentives to solve
problems, not just keep the status quo; and
businesses need to find better ways to part-
ner with both governments and nonprofits
to help scale solutions.
This requires a real investment on be-
half of philanthropists to help build the
infrastructure that can meet this de-
mand, and build the ecosystem to help
create the next generation economy. As
the growth and demand of the impact
economy increases, there will be real op-
portunity to more clearly define the term
“longterm value” to incorporate social
and environmental criteria.
Non-profits Nonprofits play a critical role, providing
necessary services to ensure a more edu-
cated, healthy, and prosperous society.
They work within local communities,
across communities, and nationally to ad-
dress some of our nation’s and world’s
most critical challenges. These are
largely grantbased organizations like the
Latin American Youth Center, Youth-
Build, or Year Up. However, as budgets at
local and national levels become tighter,
it is important to ask what new models
need to be developed to help solve some of
the tough challenges. Policies and invest-
ments in the sector need to focus on the
evidence of impact – not just on number
of people served. In his book Leap of Rea-
son, Managing to Outcomes in an Era of
Scarcity, Mario Morino offers a critical
view of how leaders and investors of non-
profits can best manage to outcomes, es-
pecially in an era of decreasing budgets.
Grantbased models are changing and it is
even more critical to develop new ones,
with the appropriate incentives to achieve
real results. Philanthropy and government
need to support and scale innovative new
models and structures that have the poten-
tial for transformational change.
For-Profit Enterprises For-profit businesses and enterprises are
also critical to creating an impact econ-
omy as they have the greatest potential
for reaching scale. According to B Lab,
there are 50,000-60,000 mission-driven
businesses in the US.
These are not corporations practicing
corporate social responsibility (CSR), but
firms specifically created to achieve so-
cial purpose and deliver financial re-
turns. These enterprises come in many
forms and stretch across industries: from
privately held manufacturing businesses
such as Interface Carpets in Atlanta, GA,
to publicly traded automotive companies
like Tesla Motors in Palo Alto, CA; from
dynamic software startups including
iContact in Raleigh, NC, to corporate-
owned beverage companies like Honest
Tea in Bethesda, MD (which was acquired
by Coca Cola in 2011). Investment in these
types of businesses is called “impact in-
vesting” because they create both social
value and have financial returns. Accord-
ing to the Monitor Institute, this is consid-
ered to be a $50 billion market that could
grow tenfold by the end of the decade.
Foundations like Rockefeller, Kellogg, and
Heron are already experimenting with “im-
pact investing.” There needs to be greater
investment in the sector to create more
businesses and a longer conversation with
larger corporations on how CSR can more
effectively achieve social change while
keeping a business focus.
Hybrid Enterprises The third sector in the impact economy is
made up of hybrid or social enterprises,
which are neither nonprofit nor strictly
forprofit. Generally they are innovative
non-profit organizations that are driving
revenue through dynamic earned income
models such as Greyston Bakery in New
York City, the Chrysalis workforce train-
ing program in Los Angeles, or Aravind
Eye Hospitals in India. These social enter-
prises, like for-profit businesses, believe
that organizations need to do more than
generate shareholder returns, they must
also build value chains that bring value
back to the communities that they serve.
Whether job training or green jobs, hy-
brid organizations are creating a new
form of engagement between companies
and nonprofits. In some cases like Ar-
avind, they are introducing new efficien-
cies in the market while maintaining
incredible quality. When investing in
these enterprises, investors should help
develop effective business models or con-
tinue to scale the existing models, while
also providing capital—or outright
grants—to continue to innovate and adapt
to the needs of the market.
We have an opportunity to define new
structures that will last into the next cen-
tury. We can either continue to work at the
margins, make small changes, and hope for
the best; or we can create new business
models for each of these sectors, ask our-
selves the tough questions about the im-
pact we want to have, and make some
radical changes. The real question is
whether we are willing to make the neces-
sary investments and take the risks needed
to create a new impact economy that can
fundamentally transform our world. �
For too long, the definition of success has been the growth of an organization rather than outcome achieved.
38 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Poor and marginalized communities are on
the front lines of climate change and
adaptation. For decades, the Aga Khan De-
velopment Network (AKDN), the world’s
largest private international development
network, has worked with communities to
develop sustainable solutions to environ-
mental and social challenges: water
scarcity, drought, deforestation, and other
natural and man-made impacts. In the
coastal and high mountain areas of Asia
and Africa where AKDN focuses its work,
climate change is expected to have lasting
and severe impacts.
One example of AKDN’s approach to
innovative solutions at the community
level is its promotion of improved stoves
and construction methods in remote
mountain areas.
Building and Construction Improvement Program
PROBLEM: High Poverty and Deteriorat-
ing Housing Conditions
In Pakistan’s most remote and eco-
nomically disadvantaged northern re-
gions, mountain communities are
exposed to frigid weather. Temperatures
drop as low as zero degrees Fahrenheit
COMMUNITY-BASEDSTRATEGIES
FOR ENERGY-EFFICIENTTECHNOLOGIES
www.eandhweek.org 39
Left: Most houses in northern Pakistan are cold, dark,damp, smoky, structurally unstable and congested.Heavy use of wood for construction, cooking and heat-ing has caused deforestation and greenhouse gasemissions, and affects families’ respiratory health.
Right: The fuel-efficient smoke-free cooking stove hasbeen one of BACIP’s most popular innovations. The improved metal sheets and chimney pipes (ferifei) prevent smoke from leaking into the home.
during the four to six-month winter.
With an unemployment/underemploy-
ment rate of approximately 70 percent,
living conditions are difficult for many.
In this poverty, most families have
poor housing. Most homes are cold,
smoke-filled and drafty. Heavy use of
wood for construction, cooking and heat-
ing is causing rampant deforestation,
greenhouse-gas emissions and deteriorat-
ing health of residents. An average house-
hold burns roughly 5.5 tons of fuel wood
every winter.
These living conditions have led to
high rates of environment-related health
problems. Pneumonia, acute respiratory in-
fection, eye infection and diarrhea/dysen-
tery account for more than half of all
reported cases at local health centers. In
Northern Pakistan, women and children
under the age of five, groups who spend the
majority of time inside the home, suffer
most from exposure to smoke and related
health risks.
SOLUTION: Building and Construction
Improvement
In 1997, Aga Khan Planning and Building
Services, Pakistan (AKPBS,P) launched
its Building and Construction Improve-
ment Programme (BACIP), which devel-
ops and tests technologies made using
local materials. Each product is designed
to make homes more efficient - by de-
creasing indoor smoke, improving struc-
tural integrity or better insulating
homes. To date, more than 70 different
kinds of household improvements have
been developed.
Improved Cook Stoves With around 11,500 sold, the fuel-effi-
cient smoke-free cooking stove has been
one of BACIP’s most popular innovations.
The improved metal sheets and chimney
pipes prevent smoke from leaking into
the home. BACIP’s water-warming facility
works with the stove to further reduce in-
door smoke emissions. By running pipes
through the stoves, families can heat
water while cooking. The access to hot
water relieves women and children from
doing laundry by the river – typically a
cold, wet three to four-hour activity.
BACIP places a heavy emphasis on
sustainability. Before the program agrees
to work with a village, that village must
have a Village Organization in place that
has demonstrated its willingness and ca-
pability to manage a project. Aga Khan
Planning and Building Services, Pakistan
only covers the cost of research and devel-
opment of products. Community mem-
bers finance most of the recommended
house improvements themselves. For ex-
ample, a water-warming stove costs ap-
proximately US $30-40.
Village women act as sales agents
and keep products like the water-warm-
ing stove on display in their home to
demonstrate to potential buyers. Once a
product is sold, the women earn a modest
commission, creating a steady business
for otherwise poor families. To make
these improvements available to all in-
come levels, BACIP partners with the
First MicroFinanceBank Ltd of Pakistan,
which offers homeowners microcredit
loans ranging from $20-$200.
Done properly, BACIP products re-
duce fuel costs, health bills, money spent
on home repair and workloads for women
and children. Since 1997, BACIP has fa-
cilitated the installation and use of
nearly 23,000 energy-saving and home
improvement products in over 11,000
households in 125 villages. Recognized
by the United Nations and other interna-
tional governments and organizations,
BACIP, now replicated elsewhere, is con-
ducting research and developing tech-
nologies to meet people’s needs.
This program is an example of
AKDN’s integrated approach to develop-
ment, addressing health, environmental
and economic factors of sustainability.
Just as other AKDN programs address
multiple social and economic issues,
BACIP is improving health, generating in-
come and protecting the environment.
The Aga Khan Development Network
is a group of nine agencies and over 150
entities working in over 30 countries, with
mandates ranging from health and educa-
tion to architecture, culture, microfinance,
rural development, water and sanitation,
disaster reduction and more. �
Visit www.akdn.org.
40 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
The two men met at last year’s inaugural
Engineering & Humanity Week in Dallas
and discovered a shared passion that is
now poised to change the lives of thou-
sands of India’s poor.
Last year, Anurag Jain, founder of
Viziniti Global LLC, attended the confer-
ence in his role as founder of Laurus
Edutech, a leading certified skill develop-
ment and training company in India,
which sponsored the Living Village at En-
gineering & Humanity Week 2011.
Daniel Gross, founder and president
of WorldHaus, which manufactures and
builds customized, weatherproof homes
for families in the developing world at a
price they can afford, was a 2011 confer-
ence speaker.
At Engineering & Humanity Week,
the two entrepreneurs discovered a
shared vision: safe, affordable and sani-
tary housing for populations living at the
bottom of the pyramid (BoP)—the 2.5 bil-
lion people worldwide who live on less
than $2.50 per day.
Today, Anurag and Daniel are collabo-
rators on an ambitious plan to build
5,000 homes by the end of 2013 in India,
employing a modular building system
that allows families to build to any size
and configuration they desire.
“Engineering & Humanity Week has
been the most successful conference for
us as a business to date,” said Daniel.
“Anurag has been indispensable to our
company. He is a visionary, he is practi-
cal, and he has provided me not only with
a lot of resources, but his connections in
India have been critical to our success. I
am so lucky to have found him at Engi-
neering & Humanity Week.”
Through his impact investing incuba-
tor, Viziniti Global, Anurag has teamed
with Daniel’s WorldHaus to complete
their first home last January in Chennai,
India—a 220-square-foot house built of lo-
cally-sourced interlocking compressed
earth-bricks, steel and polystyrene roof
panels, and concrete—at a cost of $1,500.
It was built in 10 days.
With a WorldHaus home, a family
also can include amenities like clean
burning stoves, toilets, and solar electric-
ity systems and expand living space from
the one-room base model.
“We are working with microfinance
institutions and regional rural banks to
make our homes available for monthly in-
stallments of $20, well within the reach
of rural middle class families making be-
tween $3 and $10 a day,” Daniel said, not-
ing that WorldHaus will start work on
150 homes in the next few weeks.
“We are also in the process of setting
up partnerships with state governments,
NGOs, and landlords to make the homes
available to families making less than $2
a day through subsidies and rental hous-
ing programs.”
Housing, along with education,
healthcare and energy, is a personal pas-
sion for him, said Anurag, who until June
of 2011, was leading the Dell Services De-
livery unit, a global team of more than
18,000 professionals who deliver over $3
billion of leading edge technology solu-
tions to Dell customers around the world.
“There is a huge opportunity with the
people that we consider BoP,” Anurag
said. “They need and deserve the same
things we are used to every day.”
Anurag Jain is the Founder of Viziniti
Global LLC.
Prior to Viziniti Anurag also founded
Laurus Edutech, a leading ISO
9001:2008 certified skill development
and training companies in India. Laurus
Edutech provides services across com-
plete skill cycle like training, certifica-
tion and assessments support, skill
technology, placements and skill infra.
Laurus Edutech is one of the leaders in
the assessment support space and has
helped its clients manage over 77,000
students assessed through its platform.
The Services Delivery unit includes
Dell’s technology service functions of In-
frastructure and Managed Technology
Services, Applications, and Business
Process Solutions. The organization also
included Dell’s Innovation group, which
is pioneering technology advancements
in areas such as Cloud Computing, Mobil-
ity, Virtual Data Services, Technology De-
livery and Optimization, and others.
Anurag previously led the Perot Sys-
tems (now Dell) Applications, Business
Process Solutions, Financial Services and
Insurance organizations, where he di-
rected global operations and sales to en-
hance growth and business results. He
also served as managing director of the
company’s Asia Pacific region.
Anurag also previously founded 3
highly successful, large-scale, India-based
IT services outsourcing businesses. In ad-
dition to his business career, Anurag has
been a tireless leader and innovative sup-
porter of skill and vocational development
in India. He has been Chairman of the Skill
Development Forum for the Federation of
Indian Chambers of Commerce and Indus-
try (FICCI). He also served on the Board of
the National Skills Development Corpora-
tion until July 2011, a first-of-its-kind pub-
lic-private partnership in India.
In addition, Anurag serves on the
Boards of North Texas Food Bank, Asia
(Chennai) Engineering and WorldHaus.
Anurag holds an MBA from the Uni-
versity of Michigan and a Bachelor of Sci-
ence degree in electronics and electrical
engineering from the Birla Institute of
Technology and Sciences, Pilani, India. �
ANURAG JAIN AND
DANIEL GROSS
www.eandhweek.org 41
DALLAS INSTITUTE OF HUMANITIES & CULTURE
For more than 30 years the Dallas Institute of Humanities & Cul-
ture has sought to enrich lives through literature, history, phi-
losophy, politics, psychology, mythology and everything else
that makes up the humanities. Since it was established as a non-
profit organization in 1980, the Institute has strived to discover
what the humanities can offer to the cultural life of the city with
classes, conferences, seminars, publications and more. It also-
holds many meaningful and impactful events and programs,
such as its Festival of Ideas and its annual MLK Jr. Symposium.
A big focus for 2012 is the Louise and Donald Cowan Center
for Education.The Cowan Center method is based on a belief in
the art of teaching for teachers and students alike, with an em-
phasis on non-competitive, collegial learning. By the completion
of 2012, the Cowan Center will have conducted its 2nd annual Su-
perintendents’ Symposium, its 2nd annual Education Forum for
citizens and educators, multiple programs for principals and
teachers, and its 29th consecutive session of the Sue Rose Sum-
mer Institute for Teachers. Through its programs, the Cowan
Center aims to deepen all educators’ understanding of the
human condition.
Institute Executive Director Dr. J. Larry Allums explains,
“Like the humanities themselves, the Institute aims at the dem-
ocratic ideal – the conviction that every citizen of Dallas can
without fail not only learn but feel the genuine pleasure that
learning brings. In the process of our individual lifelong learn-
ing, our city only gets better – deeper and richer in the ways that
matter most: intellectually, imaginatively, and spiritually.” The
ideals of the Institute can affect educators across the globe,
which in turn can improve and enrich the lives of countless peo-
ple in various countries and cultures. �
dallasinstitute.org
by Chris Kelley
42 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
At the age of 12, Dallas artist Nicole Potter
received her first canvas—and it changed
her life forever.
As a junior at Highland Park High
School, she began selling her art as a way
to raise funds for children with cancer.
In 2010, Nicole graduated from Texas
Christian University with a degree in art
history with a focus on Mayan/Aztec art.
Today, Nicole is juggling multiple
commissions for commercial projects, the
launch of a new jewelry line and the sales
of her work at a Dallas art gallery and
through an online art space.
Nicole creates paintings that are pri-
marily large-scale, mixed media acrylic
on canvas. Much of her inspiration comes
from vintage photography and advertise-
ments in addition to awareness of her
surroundings.
For Engineering & Humanity Week
2012, Nicole has created an original work
of art—painted mannequins of a child and
adult to represent the Hunt Institute’s
work with refugees. Photographs of
refugee camps taken by Stephanie Hunt,
the Institute’s co-founder, inspired the
collage effect achieved by the piece.
Nicole also just completed an art in-
stallation at Dallas’ NorthPark Center
commissioned by Engineering &Human-
ity Week partner Gensler for RETRO-
SPECT, an annual event (April 5-15)
organized by the Dallas Chapter of the
American Institute of Architects to intro-
duce architecture to the community
through three-dimensional displays.
When she is not painting, Nicole en-
joys travelling and spending time with
her family and friends—collecting mo-
ments and memories that she may very
well recollect in future pieces, or so we
can hope. �
Nicolepotter.com
EMBRACING HUMANITY NICOLE POTTER
by Chris Kelley
Cardboard is generally seen as the thing
that a new pair of shoes comes in—not a
material to make shoes from. So, when
Seattle artist Mike Leavitt began making
cardboard shoes that not only are func-
tional, but stylish as well, the world took
notice of the reverse innovation.
Mike excels at a lot of different types
of art. He’s well known for a series of
artistic action figures that depict famous
subjects, such as Vincent Van Gogh, Ste-
vie Wonder, Ralph Nader and urban artist
Banksy. But he also has a background in
environmentalism and charity, which in-
cludes engineering “portable homeless
shelters” for tent cities in Seattle.
So why make shoes? "I might dabble
in satire of other essentials in a bad econ-
omy: eye glasses, winter coats, food
items… but shoes are so intimately linked
to our visual culture,” he has said.
“They’re a necessity that we still get to
have fun buying and wearing.”
Mike’s cardboard shoes seem to main-
tain that fun factor. He has crafted many
shoes that mimic popular models of
“real” shoe brands, such as Nike, Adidas
and Converse. He has recreated famous
styles like Air Jordans and Chuck Taylors.
Just because they're made from a material
most people throw away doesn't mean
they can't look good on your feet.
Why use cardboard? "It's ironic to use
a cheap disposable material like card-
board,” Mike says. “Cheap, disposable ma-
terial makes an expensive product, oddly
resembling the manufacturing of bou-
tique footwear. The simple image of the
cardboard shoe speaks humorously and
clearly on consumerism."
It may be art and it may have a mes-
sage, but there's no doubt that the idea of
cardboard shoes has highly practical uses
outside of the “cool” factor. Taking a re-
source that's abundant and fashioning it
to make items that are in need is the kind
of resourceful thinking that could change
a society, one foot at a time. �
intuitionkitchenproductions.com
THE CARDBOARD SHOE GUY MIKE LEAVITT
by Chris Kelley
THOUGHT LEADERSHIPPERCEPTIONS FROM GUEST SPEAKERS AT THE INNOVATION FORUM
44 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
“We have to separate who we are from what we have. We accumulate money, houses, cars, degrees; yet the happiness
quotient in our world declines as the material quotient increases.Separation is important if we are to be happy. We must
have purpose in life.”Vijay Govindarajan (VG) is a Professor of International Business at the
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, the Founding Director of Tuck's Center for Global Leadershipand author of Reverse Innovation.
“Engineering finds its ultimate usefulness both in alleviatinghuman suffering as well in contributing to humanity's
appreciation of Mother Earth.”Sanjay Rawal is Founder of Illumine, a firm representing celebrity philanthropic interests, a board
member for the Voss Foundation and the Global Syndicate, and a documentary filmmaker.
“By bringing capital markets to the social sector and leveragingtechnology and innovation we can truly solve some of the
world’s toughest challenges.”Sonal Shah served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the first White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. She is a fellow with the Tides Foundation
and co-founder of the international non-profit, Indicorps.
www.eandhweek.org 45
“I have witnessed the miracles that happen when women andgirls are taught technological skills. The bridge from engineeringto human need must be built if we are to change the world.”
Annie Griffiths was one of the first women photographers to work for National Geographic and she isExecutive Director of Ripple Effect Images, a collective of photographers who document the programs
that empower women and girls in the developing world.
“Engineering and Humanity is not just about delivering solutionsto vulnerable people; it is about listening to and partnering with
them to enable them to find their own solutions.”Dr. Alexander Betts is a University Lecturer in Refugee and Forced Migration Studies at the University
of Oxford, author of numerous books on refugee issues and global politics. He has workedwith the United Nations in multiple capacities.
“In this new millennium, a new wave of engineers, designers, architects, and social entrepreneurs are working directly withpeople with limited resources, collaborating across sectors to
find solutions, demonstrating that humanitarian design can playa significant role in solving the world’s most critical problems.”Cynthia Smith serves as Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum’s Curator of Socially Responsible
Design and who curated both the 2007 Design for the Other 90% exhibition and the 2011 Design with the Other 90%: CITIES.
“The best design solutions are responsive to individual clients,local climate, and community context; and yet we also have toprovide solutions at a scale commensurate with the scale of the
problems we face. This is our paradox.”Casius Pealer is Principal of Oystertree Consulting L3C, a corporation that provides real estate
advisory services focusing on affordable housing that encourages energy efficiency and practical solutions to performance and verification.
46 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
“We are all engineers of a kind, it's just the contents of our toolkits that vary. The challenge is how to apply our ingenuity
to advance humanity, rather than destroy it.”Luciano Calestini has been based in Kosovo where he will spend at least three years working with the
UNICEF team to help secure the futures of Kosovo's young people.
“It’s not about us. It's about education being the key to overcoming obstacles. It's about being conscious of what we do
and how we do it. It's about discovering everyday what we don’t know and doing better the next time.”
Barry and David Steingard partnered with Hugh Jackman to create Laughing Man Coffee & Tea.Laughing Man Worldwide gives 100% of profits to charity by incubating companies
and products worldwide.
“One of the world's greatest challenges and opportunities in thecoming decades sits right at the intersection of engineering andhumanity: figuring out how to spur economic growth while using
natural resources more efficiently.”Jeffrey Ball, until recently The Wall Street Journal’s environment editor, is scholar-in-residence at
Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance.
“We have had 200 years of reductionist science and engineering,which have led to great things but today the objective must be
integration with humanity for needed good things.”Carl Hodges is an internationally known scientist and Founder and Chairman of The Seawater
Foundation which uses seawater, photosynthesis and human intelligence to provide long-lasting planetary ecological balance.
SUNDAY - APRIL 15 Innovation Leaders Forum Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, TX
3:30 – 4:00 pm Registration
4:00 – 4:05 pmWelcome – Stephanie and Hunter Hunt
4:05 – 5:00 pm Opening Discussion: The 21st Century SupermarketIn the developed world, especially in the
U.S., citizens view access to nutrition and
nutrients as a basic human right; but as de-
mographics shift in the U.S. and agribusi-
ness is forced to deal with the harsh
realities of slimmer profit margins, we've
seen entire groups cut off from affordable,
quality nutrition. Perhaps nowhere is this
divide on larger display than in urban com-
munities where poor neighborhoods suffer
a lack of affordable, healthy food options.
Moreover, recent reports from government
oversight agencies and the media have dis-
closed stories of shortcuts taken in manag-
ing the food supply chain, resulting in poor
and unsafe working conditions, marginal-
ization of food chain employees and, in ex-
treme cases, even slavery. In the 21st
century, just how are large retailers moni-
toring their supply chains? Why do Ameri-
cans seem to accept violations of labor
practices overseas that they themselves
would never tolerate at home? What can
citizens do to support the cause of progres-
sive food supply chain monitoring for the
21st century supermarket? This panel of in-
dustry experts, academics and activists—
among them a Hollywood star—will explore
these questions and offer some answers.
Moderator: Sanjay Rawal, Documentary FilmmakerPanelists: Eva Longoria, Actress and Activist
Jack L. Sinclair, ExecutiveVice President, Food Division, WalmartGerardo Reyez-Chavez,Coalition of ImmokaleeWorkersGreg Asbed, Coalition ofImmokalee Workers
www.eandhweek.org 47
2012 ENGINEERING & HUMANITY WEEK
EVENT SCHEDULEApril 15-20, 2012 - Dallas, TX
Annie Griffiths/rippleeffectimages.org
"AT ENGINEERING & HUMANITY WEEK, WEPROUDLY SERVE LAUGHING MAN COFFEES, TEAS,AND CHOCOLATES. LAUGHING MAN WORLDWIDEGIVES 100% OF PROFITS TO CHARITY BY INCUBATING COMPANIES AND PRODUCTS THATSERVE A GREATER GOOD. SUPPORT THEIR WORKBY BUYING LAUGHING MAN PRODUCTS AT WWW. HTTP://SHOP.LIVELAUGHINGMAN.COM/."
Afternoon Discussion: Business Models Turned Upside DownApple, J.C. Penney, G.E. They're examples
of big brands that have turned business
models upside down, whether through
pricing, customer service or reverse inno-
vation. In established markets, con-
sumers are more knowledgeable about
what they want or about the prices they
are willing to pay—indeed, they've never
been smarter. Customers want to do busi-
ness with brands that offer not only the
right product at the right price, but ones
which provide intelligence, passion and
principle as part of the sale. Apple's sleek
retail stores showcase solutions and serv-
ice (i.e. the Genius Bar), providing not
only products but a philosophy. J.C. Pen-
ney is retooling its department stores by
adding "information specialists" and
"consultants" to go with a new logo,
spokeswoman, and pricing strategy.
Emerging markets are also seeing busi-
ness models reinvented. G.E., for exam-
ple, is adopting a strategy of reverse
innovation as the company strives to
change their organizational architecture
to successfully shift power to where the
growth is and to build new products from
the ground up at a lower cost. It isn't a
choice. In emerging global markets, lo-
cally-based competitors have proven that
they possess the technical know-how, low-
cost strategies and understanding of
local needs that allows them to create
market-specific technologies for use in
richer countries, such as the U.S. This
panel brings together some of the most
creative minds in the business world with
experience both in the U.S. and abroad to
explore how business models must evolve
or likely face steep declines in market
share -- or worse.
Moderator: Jeff Ball, Stanford UniversityPanelists: Vijay Govindarajan,Professor of Strategy,Tuck School at DartmouthAmory Lovins, RockyMountain Institute; Author, Reinventing Fire
48 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
MONDAY - APRIL 16Innovation Leaders Forum Fairmont Hotel, Dallas, TX
11:00 – 11:30 am Registration
11:30 – 1:30 pmKeynote & Awards Luncheon: Reverse InnovationVijay Govindarajan, Recipient of the 2012 Visionary Award; Author, Reverse Innovation
© Solidarités International
www.eandhweek.org 49
3:30 – 4:30 pm Discussion: Humanitarian Innovation: The Global StageHumanitarian assistance relies upon a
range of products and processes in order
to address the shelter, health, water, sani-
tation, livelihoods, education, communi-
cation, and other protection needs of the
most vulnerable people. As an area domi-
nated by a relatively small number of or-
ganizations, humanitarianism has often
been institutionally closed to new ideas
and ways of thinking. The result has been
that the scope for product and process in-
novation has been limited, and that hu-
manitarian institutions have drawn upon
a restricted array of possible solutions
and ideas to understand and address hu-
manitarian challenges. However, new
thinking is beginning to emerge across
the private sector, international organiza-
tions, and universities. This panel brings
together some of the most creative minds
working in this area to assess existing
best practices and to set out a vision for
humanitarian innovation.
Moderator: Alex Betts, University of Oxford, RefugeeStudies CenterPanelists: Sonal Shah,Former Director of theWhite House Office of So-cial Innovation and CivicParticipation andGoogle.orgLuciano Calestini,UNICEF Innovation Lab,Kosovo
Cynthia Smith, 2012 Living Village Honoree; Curatorfor Socially Responsible Design, Smithsonian Cooper-Hewitt, National Design MuseumCasius Pealer, Oystertree Consulting
4:30 – 5:00 pm Annie Griffiths, National GeographicPhotographer
5:00 – 5:15 pmClosing Remarks
6:30 – 9:30 pm Nasher Sculpture CenterSponsor Dinner honoring Cynthia Smith, Curator, Cooper-HewittPresentation by Carl Hodges, Salt water Farming in Desert Regions
1:30 – 1:45 pm Break
1:45 – 2:15 pm Paula Broadwell, Author, All In: The Educationof General David Petraeus
2:15 – 3:15 pm David and Barry Steingard, Father and Son Co-founders, Laughing Man Coffee & Tea. Inspired by actor Hugh Jackman, LaughingMan Worldwide gives 100% of profits to charity by incubating companies and productsthat serve a greater good.
3:15 – 3:30 pmBreak
50 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Other Engineering & HumanityWeek Related Events
March 24: Human Rights Initiative's 5K, Bachman Lake, Dallas
March 31 and April 1: Cardboard Design Competition entry drop-offbetween 12pm - 3pm. One Arts Plaza is located in downtown Dallas at 1722 Routh Street
April 14: The Spirit of Uganda, Empower African Children's professional training and touringgroup, will be featured at a benefit concert at8 p.m., McFarlin Auditorium, SouthernMethodist University
April 15: Cardboard competition awards announcement,One Arts Plaza, 12pm - 3pm
April 15 to April 21:Living Village at Southern Methodist University
April 19: Refugee Culture Night at the Living Villagehosted by the Anthropology Department at SMU
April 21: Earth Day at Fair Park
"AT ENGINEERING & HUMANITY WEEK, WE PROUDLY SERVE LAUGHING MAN COFFEES, TEAS, AND CHOCOLATES. LAUGHING MAN WORLDWIDE GIVES 100% OF PROFITS TO CHARITY BY INCUBATING COMPANIES AND PRODUCTS THAT SERVE A GREATER GOOD. SUPPORT THEIR WORK BY BUYING LAUGHING MAN PRODUCTS AT WWW. HTTP://SHOP.LIVELAUGHINGMAN.COM/."
www.eandhweek.org 51
Mario Batali’s Spicy Coffee-Coated Drumsticks Recipe(As seen on The Chew)
Did you watch Hugh on The Chew? Want to get the recipe for the
Spicy Coffee-Coated Drumsticks that he and Mario Batali
whipped up on the show? Look no further. Below is the recipe
from ABC-TV’s The Chew. And to watch Hugh cook this dish on
the program, click on www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPRxz-fqIPY.
Things You’ll Need:
12 Chicken Drumsticks
1 cup of Laughing Man Coffee
2 tablespoons of Tabasco Sauce
2 tablespoons of Black Pepper
2 Fennel Bulbs
1/4 cup of Red Wine Vinegar
Kosher Salt
1/2 cup of Buttermilk
1 tablespoon of Fennel Seeds
2 tablespoons of Dark Roast Coffee (we recommend the Flores)
4 oz of Gorgonzola Dolce
1/2 cup Extra Virgin Olive Oil
DirectionsStep 1: Preheat the oven to 400
degrees F.
Step 2: Place 12 Chicken Drumsticks
on a baking sheet and season all
over Kosher salt. Bake unadorned
for 20 minutes (25 minutes if your
drumsticks are very large).
Step 3:Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, stir together the
following ingredients:
• 1 cup of strong Laughing Man Coffee
(we recommend the Flores)
• 1/2 cup of Buttermilk
• 2 Tablespoons of Tabasco sauce
• 1 Tablespoon of Fennel Seeds
(lightly crushed in a spice or coffee grinder)
• 2 tablespoons of Black Pepper
• 2 tablespoons of Dark Roast Coffee
(we recommend the Flores with a fine grind)
Step 4: As soon as the drumsticks come out of the over, toss
them, in batches, into the coffee-buttermilk mixture to turn to
coat, then place skin side up on the rack to drain. Spoon a little
of the mixture, with the fennel seeds and pepper, over the top of
each one and set aside.
(The drumsticks can be baked and marinated up to a day ahead;
leave them on the rack, cover, and refrigerate. Bring to room
temp before grilling.)
Step 5: Preheat a a gas grill or prepare a fire in a charcoal grill.
Step 6: Trim the fennel bulbs, cut lengthwise in half, and cut out
most of the core. Cut into 1/4 inch wide batonettes and toss into
a bowl of ice water.
Step 7: Crumble 4 ounces of Gorgonzola cheese into a small
bowl and mash with a fork. Add 1/4 cup of red wine vinegar and
stir with the fork until fairly smooth. Drizzle in 1/2 cup of extra
virgin olive oil, stirring, to make a dressing. Pour into one or
more shallow bowls for dipping.
Step 8: Place the drumsticks on the hottest part of the grill,
cover the grill, and cook, turning occasionally at first and then
more often as they start to caramelize, until cooked through,
10 to 12 minutes.
Step 9: Put the drumsticks on a platter. Drain the fennel sticks,
pat dry, and plate with the chicken and dipping sauce.
Time: 30-60 minutes. Servings: 6 �
WORTH THE TIME
EVERY MAGAZINE DESERVES TO OFFER
ONE GOOD RECIPE … ESPECIALLY WHEN IT COMES
FROM HUGH JACKMAN!
52 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Q: Are Laughing Man products fairly
traded?
A: Our product selection is guided by one
principle: respect. Respect for the
farmer, respect for the land, respect for
the bean and respect for the community.
There are many different certifications
that embody the principle of respect. The
most well-known include: Fair Trade, Or-
ganic, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ, Bird
Friendly, Shade Grown, Direct Trade and
Relationship Coffee. There are also many
uncertified coffees that are also grown
respectfully. Laughing Man only offers
coffees that respect the farmer. Our goal
is 100% transparency between the farm
and the cup.
Q: Your company slogan is “ALL BE
HAPPY.” What does that mean?
A: ALL BE HAPPY is a view of the world
that comes from a special moment of
connection with the person in front of
you, your community, the world as a
whole. In essence it is a connection with
a larger sense of family. From that con-
nection the natural emotion of love
arises and wishes all to be happy. ALL BE
HAPPY comes from an ancient prayer
that says MAY ALL BE HAPPY, MAY ALL
BE FREE OF DISEASE. MAY ALL HAVE
WELL BEING, AND NONE SUFFER MIS-
ERY OF ANY KIND. Everything we do at
Laughing Man is to help make an ALL BE
HAPPY moment possible for our guests
and staff. Because from that moment of
great things can happen to benefit
Mankind.
Q: Does Laughing Man give profits back
to charity?
A: Laughing Man Worldwide gives 100%
of profits to charity by incubating com-
panies and products that believe in the
ALL BE HAPPY vision. Laughing Man
Coffee & Tea is the first business started
by Laughing Man Worldwide.
Better Living from Laughing Man Coffee & Tea
Be careful with that cof-fee! Here are some tipsfor stain removal so youcan go back to drinkingyour perfect beverage inharmony with yourwardrobe.
• Don’t let the stain set! A dry stain is a difficult stain,so try to treat it right away.• Use a commercial stain remover then wash immedi-ately. This is your best bet, if you’re near a washingmachine or Laundromat.• Use vinegar – the green cleaner. Mix one teaspoon ofwhite vinegar in one quart of cold water. Dab stain andwipe clean.• Baking soda – that other green cleaner. Sprinkle alittle baking soda on a wet cloth and dab then wipe thestain away.
All be happy!
MAKING ADIFFERENCEAn interview with Barry and
David Steingard, Laughing Man
Coffee & Tea
When Barry and David Stein-
gard joined with Hugh Jack-
man to create Laughing Man
Coffee & Tea, they learned
more about life than about bev-
erages. In a recent interview,
they provided some thought-
provoking insights:
54 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
SMU LIVING VILLAGE
The Living Village on the campus of Southern Methodist University (SMU) will be an interactive displayand teaching tool for the second Engineering & Humanity Week April 15-20 as students live, cook andsleep in temporary shelters designed for international refugees and rapidly expanding urban populations.
Students, faculty and local members of the community will build the village on the SMU campuslawn during Engineering & Humanity Week, showcasing a variety of shelter technologies with applica-tions for people displaced by war and natural disasters, as well as impoverished urban dwellers in thedeveloping world. The village’s temporary residents will be without electricity and running water in theshelters, as is frequently the case for refugee populations.
The public is welcome to tour the village and speak with participants who also will be bloggingtheir experiences. Follow them at eandhweek.org.
www.eandhweek.org 55
N
TO CARUTH BUILDING
56 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
SHELTER PROFILES
In 2010, following a Hunt Institute presentation by Kenyan archi-
tect Ronald Omyonga, Texas inventor Harvey Lacey began
mulling an outside-the-box idea for housing the extreme poor.
Within six months, Lacey, a metal worker from the Dallas
suburb of Wylie, had invented Ubuntu-Blox, small bricks of plas-
tic refuse—some made of discarded water bottles, others of Sty-
rofoam and plastic film—bound like miniature hay bales.
The bales are wired together to form walls, post-tensioned
two ways, and covered in mud and stucco. It all adds up to a
house that can be built for about $250, using parts that you can
find anywhere and plastic trash that you can find, unfortu-
nately, everywhere.
“There is a plastic pollution problem in our world. There is a
shortage of building materials for housing. The poor need jobs,”
Lacey explained. “Where those three bad things collide we find
extreme poverty and opportunity. If we are looking for extreme
poverty, it is there. On the other hand, if we are looking for op-
portunity, it’s there too.”
Harvey has since taken his technology to earthquake-rav-
aged Haiti (see story on page xx).
Harvey’s Unbuntu Blox house was a huge draw at the inau-
gural Engineering & Humanity Week in 2011, and it’s back for a
repeat appearance in the Living Village. �
More at recycledplasticblockhouses.com
What ideal building material is made of recycled product and, on
its own, recyclable, affordable and plentiful? Bottles and tires
meet the criteria, but not as cost-effective building material for
refugee housing in Kosovo—the aim of Manhattan-based archi-
tects Suzan Wines and Azin Valy.
Suzan stumbled over the answer on her way home from work
one night when she tripped over a shipping pallet. The rest, as
they say, is history.
Using only shipping pallets, or skids, the architects have cre-
ated a tiny, modular home design called simply a Pallet House. Fol-
lowing Ikea-style pictorial instructions, it takes four to five people
using power tools less than a week to build a 250-square-foot
home out of 100 pallets.
"We've also used zip ties to build entire structures," said
Wines, "which is pretty quick, cheap and easy and doesn't re-
quire any tools."
While a house made of pallets may be considered a more
rudimentary form of transitional housing, finding shipping pal-
lets in a disaster zone—where shipments of clothing, food and
other emergency supplies arrive on pallets—shouldn’t be too dif-
ficult, the architects figured.
Not only is shelter provided by material once considered a
waste byproduct of the emergency response process, the pallets
can be recycled when they’re no longer needed. �
More information at i-beamdesign.com
PALLET HOUSEUBUNTU BLOX/RECYCLED PLASTICBLOCK HOUSE
www.eandhweek.org 57
Homelessness is a systemic issue for communities around theworld and, for decades, Los Angeles’ skid row has been home to
thousands of permanently homeless individuals.
Believing that every person deserves some form of shelter,
Tina Hovsepian, a 2009 graduate of the USC School of Architec-
ture, has designed and developed a foldable, portable, emer-
gency housing shelter based on the principles of origami—a
design she has field tested in LA’s skid row.
Cardborigami is a portable shelter that provides insulated,
water-proof, flame-retardant and recyclable space with no as-
sembly required. It expands into a shelter big enough for two
people to sleep in. The cardboard origami shelter can fold down
small enough to carry or even be placed on bus bike racks for
long distance transport.
Cardborigami’s mission is to provide temporary, transitional
shelter and connections to social services to help get people off
the streets. The vision is to bridge the gap between design and hu-
manity by attracting attention to social issues such as homeless-
ness through design.
“With funding we can finalize product development and con-
duct research by implementing case studies to study behavioral
adaptations to the shelter and success rates of those we transi-
tion of the streets,” said Tina. “We will then refine the structural
elements of the shelter to improve the ergonomics of the unit,
making sure that it provides a sufficient fit for the human body,
its movements, and its cognitive abilities.” �
More at cardborigami.org
What began as a challenge in a blog post on the Harvard BusinessReview website in August 2010—figure out a way to construct a
simple house for $300 or less—has resulted in a collection of 300
design submissions from around the world (and huge awareness
of the need for affordable housing for the extreme poor).
The idea for the $300 house project originated in a conversa-
tion between Dartmouth College Tuck School of Business profes-
sor Vijay Govindarajan and marketing consultant Christian
Sarkar. Shelter is one of humanity's most basic needs, but a house
is a luxury beyond the wildest dreams of most people in the
developed world.
The $300 House Open Design Challenge asked designers to
figure out a way to construct a simple house that could be built
on a massive scale.
More than 300 entries poured in from the global competi-
tion, which received widespread media attention.
The winners, selected by the public and a panel of judges
comprised of expert designers, architects, and thought leaders,
shared $25,000 in total prize money.
A prototyping workshop for six participants followed, as did a
trip to Haiti, where the $300 Rural House design was field tested.
Plans are underway to build the first house—designed for two
adults and four children in the Gaspard neighborhood of Fond des
Blanc, a community located 60 miles from Port-au-Prince.
The house “represents a sense of dignity” for the family and
the community, said Vijay, who also serves as director of Tuck’s
Center for Global Leadership. “It is a metaphor for a bundle of core
human values that many in our world don’t have access to.” �
More information at 300house.com
$300 RURAL HOUSE CARDBORIGAMI
58 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. But, teach a
man to fish and you will feed him for a lifetime.”
IADDIC Shelters of Flower Mound, Texas has taken the fa-
miliar saying to heart, creating not only a line of highly insu-
lated, low-cost, eco-friendly homes and emergency relief
shelters–but a business opportunity for local entrepreneurs to
help construct them.
IADDIC Shelters are based on a patented new approach to
housing, Structurally Insulated Housing (SIH), which relies on a
mold-making process to produce temporary shelters and/or per-
manent homes fast and at high volumes.
The iHouse in the Living Village was made in 2 hours and
can house a family of five for approximately $1,500. Measuring
10'x12'x9.5,' the structure has three windows and one door, and
its SIH foam walls are imbedded with steel piers for anchoring
to any foundation.
“It will not rot, insects will not eat it, is not harmful to pets,
people, or the environment, and can be recycled,” said Richard
Grabowski, CEO of IADDIC, & UN Rio+20 Sustainable Commu-
nity Advisor.
IADDIC has also created a turn-key business solution for
local entrepreneurs in developing countries called The iVillage,
which is shipped in containers. The housing solution contains
needed materials and supplies to make a large quantity of cus-
tomized homes, as well as licensing, training and project man-
agement to ensure the first projects are successful and the local
business thrives. �
More at iaddicshelters.com
IHOUSE
Chartered in 2009, the SMU Chapter of Habitat for Humanity will
debut a new design for a Habitat shelter in the Living Village.
Members of the chapter work closely with Highland Park
Methodist Church and Dallas Habitat for Humanity to build
quality homes for deserving, needy people locally throughout
the school year, said Gwen Carris, chapter treasurer.
During summers, several chapter members participate in in-
ternational build events in places such as Paraguay, El Salvador
and Costa Rica.
“Engineering in Humanity Week’s goals directly align with
Habitat for Humanity's goals,” said Gwen, a freshman Civil Engi-
neer and Spanish major. “We want to enable people everywhere
to live healthy, productive lives, regardless of where they are
born. Home ownership enables stability, community, and safety
for families and children, which in turn brings about an in-
crease in education and economic prospects.” �
More about Habitat for Humanity at habitat.org
SMU HABITAT FOR HUMANITY SHELTER
www.eandhweek.org 59
Japanese architect Shigeru Ban may be known best for his inno-
vative work on three continents—architectural gems such as mu-
seums, factories and houses.
But Shigeru’s pioneering Paper Tube Structures (PTS) solu-
tion for low-cost emergency housing is also gaining interna-
tional attention.
Shigeru has routinely built shelters for victims of natural
and manmade disasters since 1995, when he designed emer-
gency housing with beer-crate foundations and paper-tube walls
for survivors of the earthquake in Kobe, Japan.
In 1999, he made prototype tents with paper poles for a
refugee camp in post-genocide Rwanda. And he built a paper-
frame schoolhouse in Chengdu, China, after the 2008 earth-
quake that ravaged Sichuan Province, which The New York
Times said “typifies the architect’s gift for combining poetry
and utility.”
Most recently, the PTS technology has been deployed in
Shigeru’s homeland, following the devastating 2011 Tohoku earth-
quake and tsunami on March 11, 2011.
Not only can Shigeru’s low-cost paper tube structures be
molded quickly into load-bearing columns, bent into beautiful
trusses and quickly assembled by volunteers without heavy ma-
chinery, they can also be made waterproof and fire resistant
with varnishes, films and waterproof sponge tape.
For Engineering & Humanity Week 2012, Randy Harrill will
lead the Acugraphics team to build a representation of Shigeru’s
Paper Log House. The walls are made from 3¼-inch tubes and
held together with double-stick tape in keeping with the spirit of
Shigeru’s houses. The roof and curtains are made from used
banner material and the floor consists of cardboard pallets. �
More at shigerubanarchitects.com
David Pennington’s passion for aquaponics—the science of effi-
cient food production in a water-based system—has led to the de-
velopment of a dome shelter made mostly of waste EPS
(expanded polystyrene, commonly known by the trade name
"Styrofoam").
Aquaponics is the combination of hydroponics (growing plants
without soil) with aquaculture, the farming of aquatic organisms.
As CEO of Synergy Aquaponics LLC, Dave designs aquaponic sys-
tems in which fish waste is filtered and cleaned using plants. The
waste byproducts from aquaculture, which are otherwise serious
pollutants, are thereby turned into valuable products.
Dave has built a prototype dome structure out of waste EPS
near Poetry, Texas. He originally came up with this concept be-
cause there wasn’t an affordable insulated structure on the mar-
ket to house aquaculture species, such as tilapia. As it turns
out, the same building method can also be used to construct af-
fordable and efficient housing, which is the purpose of the Po-
etry dome.
To build his domes, Dave affixes an inflated balloon form to a
“base ring.” A center pole attached to a rotating scaffold allows
workers access to spray or hand apply Dave's EPS composite mate-
rial which, when smoothed and hardened makes a durable insu-
lated shelter or containment vessel. The dome structure—20 feet in
diameter and 14 feet tall—is very durable, fireproof, insect and im-
pact resistant, and it can also be recycled repeatedly.
Scale models of various dome designs, along with photos
and videos of the first prototype dome, will be on display in the
Living Village as will composite samples, construction machin-
ery and even a small aquaponic unit. �
More at AquaponicDave.com
THE PENNINGTON SHELTERSHIGERU BAN’S PAPER LOG HOUSE
60 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Designed by a team of SMU senior engineering students, therefugee camp is located outside Dolo, Ado, Ethiopia and named
Tasfa, or “Hope” in Ethiopian. Members of the team from the
SMU Lyle School of Engineering are Ford Binning, Mary Cather-
ine Corey, Farhan Fazal, and Michelle Senner.
Building materials for the camp are native to Ethiopia and
require neither water nor any components that need holes bored
into the soil; the ground cover is very fine beach sand.
Designed for 56,000 refugees, the camp will be divided into
two large areas—one built for 184 communities with a popula-
tion of 27,600 people and the other with 194 communities and
29,100 people.
Both areas will feature tent shelters that are easily assem-
bled by women and children since they will comprise most of the
camp’s population.
The shelter tents, called “Rajo” tents (“Rajo” means hope in
Somali), will be made of a chicken-wire structure wrapped and
tied securely to a PVC frame by rope and PVC fittings and af-
fixed to hooks fastened to stakes attached to a sand-filled base.
Tightly secured canvas will cover the tent structure, except
in good weather when it can be rolled up to enjoy the breeze. An-
imal hides will cover the tent’s entrance.
The “Rajo” tents will replace UNHCR refugee tents, which
have been in short supply, tend to wear out faster and are often
subject to catastrophic failure from the region’s notorious and
dangerous sandstorms.
Although more expensive than UNHCR tents by $50 each,
the “Rajo” tent will house larger families more comfortably, last
twice as long and be more stable than UNHCR tents.
Other infrastructure—water supply, restroom facilities and
a laundry area—will also be provided.
Although the Senior Design Project is an exercise, the need
for new refugee camps in Ethiopia, sadly, is true. �
More about the Lyle School of Engineering at smu.edu/lyle
In the Rio Grande Valley of Texas, residents of Cameron Countyand its largest city, Brownsville, have seen more than their fair
share of hurricanes and the havoc they leave behind.
The Rapido shelter prototype, debuting for the first time in
the Living Village during Engineering & Humanity Week, seeks
to help South Texas residents not only get back into a shelter,
but help them create an attractive, permanent home.
bcWORKSHOP, which provided the commissary and a
portable gallery at last year’s inaugural Engineering & Human-
ity Week, is developing the Rapido prototype as part of the state
of Texas’ Natural Disaster Housing Reconstruction Plan, which
seeks to test the feasibility of rapidly deployed replacement
housing for victims of federally-declared natural disasters.
Until Engineering & Humanity Week, Rapido prototypes
have been confined to designs on paper. But the prototype de-
signs will come alive in the Living Village as bcWORKSHOP will
experiment with specific design elements.
During Engineering & Humanity Week, bcWORKSHOP de-
signers will be seeking feedback from SMU students and visitors
to help them incrementally improve the project’s design, con-
struction process, deployment method, organizational require-
ments, and performance.
In the near future, Rapido shelters will actually be con-
structed as prototype homes for victims of previous natural dis-
asters in Cameron County as part of the feasibility testing for
delivering rapidly deployed replacement housing. bcWORKSHOP
designers have already held community meetings with county
residents to seek their input on the prototypes.
“bcWORKSHOP’S disaster housing reconstruction strategy
engages residents throughout and contributes to the sustain-
able growth of place by enabling communities to recover faster
and allowing families to rebuild stronger,” said Dallas architect
Brent Brown and founding director of bcWORKSHOP. �
More at bcworkshop.org
BCWORKSHOP’S RAPIDO PROTOTYPE“RAJO” SHELTER AT TASFA
Photo courtesy of the UN
www.eandhweek.org 61
A course on cultural anthropology can be
quite academic, but SMU students in Dr.
Faith Nibbs’ ANTH 2301 Introduction to
Cultural Anthropology class have created
several life-changing options that can be
implemented today for refugees living in
camps. Moved by the transient chal-
lenges of the people who wanted to con-
tinue their traditions, lifelong trades and
cultural identities despite their plight,
the students demonstrated what they had
learned through displays representing
two sets of refugees in Africa and Asia.
The students’ focused on cultural sus-
tainability after hearing the stories of
refugee camps occupied by the Burundi
and Bhutanese people. Burundi is an
eastern African country, bordering
Rwanda, populated by the Hutu and Tutsi
farmers, both of whom have fled to es-
cape ethnic persecution and violence
brought on by civil war. The Bhutanese
are Nepalese in origin, but have lived as
immigrants in southern Asia for cen-
turies due to inter-cultural and religious
discrimination.
Recognizing the need for refugees to
continue their important cultural prac-
tices to contribute some sort of normalcy
to their lives while in a refugee camp, the
students turned ideas into actual tools
and material solutions that can be
adapted by UNHCR. A portable pagoda
temple makes continuing salient reli-
gious traditions possible due to a $49
pop-up tent. A 4-by-6 foot lightweight and
mobile garden plot by each camp tent al-
lows agricultural groups to continue
growing vegetables, and can fold up and
be reused in another location when a
camp is emptied. Material for an open
lean-to space creates a cultural preserva-
tion site so that the groups’ youth can
learn of their heritage. Students also cre-
ated a camp employment program where
refugees can find meaningful work by
sharing in the tasks it takes to run the
camps. Additionally, a computer program mod-
eled after FEMA’s system to reunite family
members after a crisis gives refugees the abil-
ity to find missing relatives.
The course—headed by Dr. Nibbs and
her teaching assistant, Zasha Russell—
got its sparks of inspiration from visits
to the class by refugees from the two
groups who are now living in the U.S.
“Camp workers are just thinking about
how we can survive,” said one former Burundi
refugee, “but in these crises, we are also think-
ing, ‘How is our culture going to survive?’” The
students of Dr. Nibbs’ class hope that by apply-
ing the principles of cultural anthropology,
they can help solve some of these dilemmas. �
SHELTER AND CULTURAL SUSTAINABILITY FOR REFUGEES
62 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Jeffrey Ball, until recently The Wall Street Journal’s environment editor, is scholar-in-
residence at Stanford University’s Steyer-Taylor Center for Energy Policy and Finance.
Ball spent more than a decade at the Journal writing about energy and the environ-
ment, in particular about the economic viability of changing the way the world con-
sumes fossil fuels. He covered the auto industry for the Journal out of its Detroit
bureau, and the oil industry from the paper’s Dallas bureau. In 2009, he wrote a Journal
column called Power Shift, which won an award from the National Press Foundation for
its coverage of the changing energy and environmental landscape. He spent most of
2010 covering the Deepwater
Horizon oil spill, focusing on
questions about the spill’s
environmental effect.
Also at the Journal, Ball
created and was the found-
ing editor of Environmental
Capital, a blog on energy and
the environment. He helped conceive, and was a host and moderator of, ECO:nomics, an
annual conference on energy and the environment that brings together chief execu-
tives, policymakers, and other leaders in the field. In addition, Ball helped host the
Journal’s CEO Council, a group of global chief executives who meet annually in Wash-
ington to discuss policy issues and make recommendations for federal action. �
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
-ROBERT FROST
SPEAKER PROFILE: JEFFREY BALL
Greg Asbed is a Co-Founder of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW), a worker-based
human rights organization. He works with farmworkers and their student, labor, and reli-
gious allies to organize the national Campaign for Fair Food, a worker-based approach to cor-
porate accountability in the agricultural industry. He coordinates the CIW's negotiating team
in talks with food industry leaders, negotiating "Fair Food" agreements with multi-billion-dol-
lar retail food corporations, including McDonald's, Subway, Sodexo, Whole Foods, and Trader
Joe's. He is currently leading the effort to develop new farm labor standards in collaboration
with leaders of the Florida tomato industry through ongoing implementation of the CIW's
Fair Food Code of Conduct. He
is a member of the team that
developed and established the
Fair Food Standards Council,
the third-party monitoring or-
ganization that ensures com-
pliance with the code through
audits and complaint investi-
gation and resolution. Greg is one of the authors featured in the textbook Bringing Human
Rights Home: Portraits of the Movement. He has an M.A. in International Economics and So-
cial Change and Development from Johns Hopkins and is fluent in English, Spanish, and Hait-
ian Creole. He has also spent the past 15 seasons harvesting watermelons in the states of
Florida, Georgia, Missouri, and Maryland. �
“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
-MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
SPEAKER PROFILE: GREG ASBED
www.eandhweek.org 63
Dr. Alexander Betts is University Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Refugee and Forced
Migration Studies in the Department of International Development, at the University
of Oxford, where he was previously the Hedley Bull Research Fellow in International
Relations. He has also been Director of the MacArthur Foundation-funded Global Mi-
gration Governance Project and a Senior Researcher at the Global Economic Gover-
nance Programme. His research focuses on the international politics of asylum and
migration, with a geographical focus on Sub-Saharan Africa.
Alex is author or editor of numerous books, including Forced Migration and Global Poli-
tics, Protection by Persuasion:
International Cooperation in
the Refugee Regime, Global Mi-
gration Governance, Refugees
in International Relations
(with Gil Loescher), and
UNHCR: The Politics and Prac-
tice of Refugee Protection (with
Gil Loescher and James Milner). He has worked for The Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Refugees and as a consultant to the Council of Europe, the International
Organization for Migration, the United Nations Development Programme, and the Common-
wealth Secretariat. His work has been funded by, amongst others, the MacArthur Foundation,
the Leverhulme Trust, and the Economic and Social Research Council. He has held teaching
and research positions at Stanford University and the Universite Libre de Bruxelles. �
“It is necessary to help others, not only in our prayers, but in our daily lives. If we find we cannot help others, the least we can do is to desist from harming them.”
-DALAI LAMA
SPEAKER PROFILE: ALEX BETTS
Paula Broadwell is a research associate at Harvard University's Center for Public Leader-
ship and a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of War Studies at King's College London.
She spent much of the past year in Afghanistan as an embedded author, building upon
her previous two-year pursuit of a doctoral dissertation: a study in transformational
leadership and organizational innovation influenced by U.S. Army General David
Petraeus. Her work culminated in the book, All In: The Education of General David
Petraeus (with Vernon Loeb), which examine Petraeus’s career, his intellectual develop-
ment as a military officer, and his impact on the U.S. military.
Broadwell's passion for leadership and security policy stems from her background in the
U.S. military and her academic pursuits. She graduated with academic and leadership hon-
ors from the United States Military Academy at West Point. She has lived, worked, or traveled
in over 60 countries during more than 15 years of military service and work in geopolitical
analysis and counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations. She has completed assign-
ments with the U.S. intelligence community, U.S. Special Operations Command and an FBI
Joint Terrorism Task Force. She remains active in international women's counter-terrorism,
peacekeeping, and conflict resolution efforts as well as veteran support organizations, espe-
cially the fitness-oriented Team Red White and Blue. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: PAULA BROADWELL
64 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Vijay Govindarajan is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading experts on strategy
and innovation. He is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the
Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He was the first Professor in Residence
and Chief Innovation Consultant at General Electric. He worked with GE’s CEO Jeff Im-
melt to write “How GE is Disrupting Itself”, the Harvard Business Review article that
pioneered the concept of reverse innovation – any innovation that is adopted first in
the developing world. Harvard Business Review rated reverse innovation as one of the
ten big ideas of the decade.
VG works with CEOs and
top management teams in
Global Fortune 500 firms to
discuss, challenge, and esca-
late their thinking about
strategy. He has worked with
more than 25% of the For-
tune 500 corporations in-
cluding: Boeing, Coca-Cola, Colgate, Deere, FedEx, GE, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, J.P.
Morgan Chase, Johnson & Johnson, New York Times, Procter & Gamble, Sony, and Wal-
Mart. He is a regular keynote speaker in CEO Forums and major conferences including
the World Innovation Forum, BusinessWeek CEO Forum, World Business Forum, and
World Economic Forum at Davos. �
“Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”
-HORACE MANN
SPEAKER PROFILE: VIJAY GOVINDARAJAN
Luciano Calestini was born in Sydney, Australia to a New Zealand mother and an Italian
father. He spent his childhood equally between those three countries, completing his
education in Australia before accepting a short-term mission to southern Sudan in the
late 1990s to join the famine response. Thirteen years later, the three-month mission
continues and since Sudan, Luciano has lived and worked in East Timor (in the after-
math of the 1999 referendum), Kosovo (following the 1999 NATO intervention),
Afghanistan (in the period subsequent to the 9/11 attacks), the eastern Democratic Re-
public of Congo, and three years in Iraq. He has also been deployed on several short-
term assignments to support
emergency response, includ-
ing Haiti, at the time of the
cholera outbreak, and Libya,
in the period of the fall of the
Gaddhafi regime.
Since April 2010, he has
been based once more in
Kosovo where he will spend at least three years working with the UNICEF team to help
secure the futures of Kosovo's young people. Luciano graduated in International Rela-
tions from the University of Sydney and has a Masters of International Development
from RMIT University in Melbourne. He has just begun a second masters, this time in
Public Policy Management with the University of York in the UK. �
“Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.”
-T.S. ELIOT
SPEAKER PROFILE: LUCIANO CALESTINI
www.eandhweek.org 65
One of the first women photographers to work for National Geographic, Annie Griffithshas photographed on every continent during her illustrious career. She has worked on
dozens of magazine and book projects for the Society, including stories on Lawrence of
Arabia, Baja California, Galilee, Petra, Sydney, New Zealand, and Jerusalem.
In addition to her magazine work, Annie is deeply committed to photographing for
aid organizations around the world. She is the Executive Director of Ripple Effect Im-
ages, a collective of photographers who document the programs that are empowering
women and girls in the developing world, especially as they deal with the devastating
effects of climate change.
With author Barbara
Kingsolver, she produced
Last Stand: America’s Virgin
Lands, a book celebrating
the last pristine wilderness
in North America. Proceeds
from the book have raised
more than a quarter of a million dollars for grassroots land conservation. In 2008,
Annie published A Camera, Two Kids and a Camel, a photo memoir about balance, and
the joy of creating a meaningful life. In 2010, she published Simply Beautiful Photo-
graphs, which was named the top photo/art book of the year by Amazon and by Barnes
and Noble. Annie is currently at work on three new books. �
“Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything.
That's how the light gets in.”-LEONARD COHEN, ANTHEM
SPEAKER PROFILE: ANNIE GRIFFITHS
Carl Hodges is Founder and Chairman of The Seawater Foundation which uses seawater,
photosynthesis and human intelligence to green coastal deserts, create communities,
generate wealth and abundance, and provide immediate and long-lasting planetary eco-
logical balance. Carl is an internationally known scientist and a generator of new ideas.
An atmospheric physicist and mathematician, the result of his research was seen in
Seawater Farms Eritrea (SFE), an integrated agricultural and aquacultural farm in Er-
itrea, Africa. Leading to this achievement, has been a history of controlled environment
agriculture in the Middle East and the Americas, the Land Pavilion at EPCOT Center at
Walt Disney World in
Florida, scientific consultant
on Biosphere 2 and many as-
sociations with corporations
such as Coca Cola, Disney,
Kraft Foods, W.R. Grace, and
Lufthansa.
Through his leadership, The
Seawater Foundation has designed Integrated Seawater Agriculture Systems (ISAS) in,
Mexico, Egypt, Oman, and the U.S. and has developed a number of salt–tolerant crops
that could replace wheat, rice, and soybeans. His work has been acknowledged in publi-
cations worldwide. Over 500 articles have been written about Carl and his work over
the years, from TIME magazine to the Wall Street Journal and Vanity Fair. �
“…pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge….”
-FROM THE POEM JOURNEY TO ITHACA BY C. P. CAVAFY
SPEAKER PROFILE: CARL HODGES
66 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Hunter Hunt is President and CEO of Hunt Consolidated Energy, the holding company for
Hunt Oil Company, Hunt Refining Company, and Hunt Power. Hunt Oil Company was
founded in 1934 and is one of the largest privately-owned energy companies in the
world. Hunt Power was established in 1998 to seek opportunities in the utility industry.
Hunt Power created Sharyland Utilities, L.P., a Texas-based transmission and distribu-
tion electric utility, which was the first new regulated electric utility created in the U.S.
in over 30 years. Sharyland Utilities is currently developing a 300-mile electric trans-
mission project to bring wind power from the Texas Panhandle into major metropolitan
areas. Prior to joining Hunt Consolidated, Hunter worked with Morgan Stanley, both in
corporate finance and com-
modity trading. Hunter gradu-
ated from SMU summa cum
laude with degrees in econom-
ics and political science.
At SMU, Hunter serves
the Engineering School’s Ex-
ecutive Board, the John Good-
win Tower Center for Political Studies, and the 21st Century Council, which he chaired.
He co-founded the Hunter and Stephanie Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity
and serves as Vice Chair of the Board of Directors for the All Stars Project, a nationwide
charity based in New York that focuses on developing underprivileged youth through
performance and career training.
SPEAKER PROFILE: HUNTER AND STEPHANIE HUNT
Stephanie Hunt co-founded the Hunt Institute for Engineering and Humanity within
SMU’s Lyle School of Engineering. The Hunt Institute is dedicated to bringing technol-
ogy-driven solutions to improve the lives of those in extreme poverty, and to developing
a new generation of engineers who will apply their talents to the challenges facing the
global poor. Stephanie currently serves on the boards of the USA for UNHCR (the UN
Agency for Refugees); the Human Rights Initia-
tive of North Texas (providing free legal repre-
sentation and social services to asylum seekers);
and The da Vinci School, which specializing in
early childhood education. Stephanie is a past
chair of the AFI DALLAS International Film Fes-
tival and continues her support of film preserva-
tion through the American Film Institute in Los
Angeles. She studied at Sotheby's in London and subsequently worked in their Dallas
office. Two years later, she joined the energy research group of the investment bank
Wasserstein Perella. �
HumanityUnbound_Layout 1 4/4/12 7:18 PM Page 66
“If you think you are too small to make a difference, , try sleeping with a mosquito.”
- DALAI LAMA
“Success consists of going from failure
- WINSTON CHURCHILL
to failure without loss of enthusiasm.”
www.eandhweek.org 67
Keith Lebowitz is a two-time Emmy Award winning journalist for Outstanding Sports Re-
porting who has served as a Main Anchor for Fox Sports Net, NBC, CBS, and other tele-
vision networks and cable outlets. He also produced, wrote, and hosted “Season of
Speed,” an Emmy Award-winning, 11-hour-long NASCAR show. Keith also served as Vice
President of Marketing for Oryon Technologies, an innovative company that provided
an electroluminescent light solution that was bendable, flexible and washable. The
company lit the costumes for the Disney Motion Picture Tron Legacy. Most recently, he
helped create a television show entitled Eat More Chocolate.
Throughout his career, Keith has provided voiceovers and commercial talent for
some of the largest companies in the world including Wal-Mart, Energizer, Fuji-Film,
Castrol, and Dean Foods. He hosted Fox Sports’ Afternoons with Keith Lebowitz on Fox
Sports Radio 1190 and has covered major sporting events, including several Super
Bowls, NBA finals, Stanley Cup finals, World Series’, PGA Tour events, and World Cup
Soccer. While anchoring at Fox Sports Southwest, he was part of a team of anchors and
reporters that won a Katie Award for Best in Texas. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: KEITH LEBOWITZ
Eva Longoria is an actress best known for her role as Gabriel Solis on the hit show Des-
perate Housewives. In addition to acting, Eva produced the National Council of La
Raza’s ALMA awards, Harvest, a documentary about the plight of child farm workers
in the U.S., and Latinos Living the American Dream, a film documenting the contribu-
tions of Latinos in America.
Eva is an active philanthropist. She founded the Eva Longoria Foundation in 2012
to help Latinas build better futures through education and entrepreneurship. She also
co-founded Eva’s Heroes, a San Antonio non-profit that benefits developmentally dis-
abled children; and she serves as a spokesperson for Padres Contra el Cancer, an organ-
ization supporting Latino families who have children with cancer. Additionally, Eva
sits on the boards of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund and LA Plaza de Cul-
tura y Artes. She has supported United Farm Workers and the Dolores Huerta Founda-
tion, among others and has received numerous awards for her philanthropy from
organizations such as the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the National His-
pania Leadership Institute, and The National Civil Rights Museum.
In 2011, Eva was appointed by President Obama to the commission on the National
Museum of the American Latin. Today, she serves as a National Co-Chair for President
Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: EVA LONGORIA
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68 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
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www.eandhweek.org 69
Physicist Amory Lovins is Co-founder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist of Rocky Mountain
Institute (www.rmi.org), an independent, non-profit, think-and-do tank that drives the
efficient and restorative use of resources. An advisor to major firms and governments
in over 50 countries for the past four decades, he authored 31 books—his most recent is
the acclaimed Reinventing Fire: Bold Business Solutions for the New Energy Era. In
2009, Time named him one of the world’s 100 most influential people, and Foreign Pol-
icy selected him as one of the 100 top global thinkers.
Educated at Harvard and Oxford, he is a former Oxford don, an honorary U.S. archi-
tect, a Swedish engineering academician, a member of the National Petroleum Council,
and a Professor of Practice at the Naval Postgraduate School. He has taught at nine
other universities, most recently Stanford University’s School of Engineering.
Amory is the recipient of the Blue Planet, Volvo, Zayed, Onassis, Nissan, Shingo, and
Mitchell Prizes, MacArthur and Ashoka Fellowships, 11 honorary doctorates, and the
Heinz, Lindbergh, Right Livelihood, National Design, and World Technology Awards.
Amory co-authored the business classic Natural Capitalism. Other significant
works include Small Is Profitable: The Hidden Economic Benefits of Making Electrical
Resources the Right Size and the Pentagon-co-sponsored Winning the Oil Endgame. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: AMORY LOVINS
Casius Pealer is Principal of Oystertree Consulting L3C, a mission-driven limited liability
corporation that provides real estate advisory services focusing on affordable housing. Oys-
tertree specializes in efforts to use green building as a tool to achieve long-term affordable
housing solutions. TexEnergy and U.S. Eco Logic in Dallas, TX are key clients with deep ex-
pertise in energy efficiency and practical solutions to performance and verification.
Trained as an architect and a real estate attorney, Casius has 15 years of commu-
nity development experience, including five years as legal counsel for public housing
authorities across the country implementing mixed-finance redevelopment projects.
Casius served as the first Di-
rector of Affordable Housing
at the U.S. Green Building
Council and is a Senior Sus-
tainable Building Advisor for
the Affordable Housing Insti-
tute in Boston, MA.
Casius is also an Adjunct
Lecturer in Tulane University's Master of Sustainable Real Estate Development
(MSRED) program in New Orleans, LA. He has been published in the ABA Journal of
Affordable Housing and Community Development Law, the AIA Journal of Architecture,
and Architectural Record in addition to speaking regularly at professional conferences
nationwide. Casius holds a Masters in Architecture from the Tulane School of Architec-
ture and a J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. �
“You can't ask poor people to save things that rich people are exploiting.”
-PAUL HAWKEN
SPEAKER PROFILE: CASIUS PEALER
70 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Sanjay Rawal is Founder of the Illumine Group, representing corporations, philanthro-
pists and NGOs in emerging markets, is a board member of the Voss Foundation, and is
a documentary film maker. He has more than a decade of experience in managing cor-
porate social responsibility, philanthropic and government endeavors both domesti-
cally and abroad. He has a background in agriculture and is Vice President of
California Hybrids, his father's specialty tomato and pepper breeding company.
Sanjay was introduced to film as a consultant to the producers on the award-win-
ning doc Pray the Devil Back to Hell, which chronicled the peace movement led by 2011
Nobel Peace Prize winner
Leymah Gbowee. Sanjay’s
first short doc, Ocean Monk,
won Best Short Documen-
tary Film (FestivalsOnline) at
the 2010 St Louis Intl Film
Festival. His second film,
Challenging Impossibility,
about the weightlifting exploits of spiritual teacher Sri Chinmoy, premiered at the 2011
Tribeca Film Festival and has played at 75 festivals since then, winning best short docu-
mentary film at the Atlanta Shortsfest, Duke City DocFest and DocMiami.
Sanjay is currently directing a film on farm labor entitled Food Chain, with an an-
ticipated release date of fall 2012. �
“Gratitude is receptivity, the receptivity that acknowledgesothers' gifts, others' love and concern. Each time we
express gratitude, we expand our hearts.”-SRI CHINMOY
SPEAKER PROFILE: SANJAY RAWAL
Gerardo Reyes-Chavez has worked in the fields since age 11, first as a peasant farmer in
Zacatecas, Mexico, and then in the fields of Florida picking oranges, tomatoes, and wa-
termelon. He joined the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) shortly after his arrival
in the United States in 2000, when his fellow farm worker roommates, who had previ-
ously escaped a violent slavery operation hidden in the swamp south of Immokalee, FL,
invited him to come to the CIW’s Wednesday evening community meetings. Since then
Gerardo has been a key leader of the CIW, his work focusing both at the community
level, mobilizing the Immokalee community around national actions in the CIW’s Cam-
paign for Fair Food, and more broadly at the consumer level across the country, raising
awareness in support of the Campaign through presentations, workshops, and
speeches. Gerardo has helped investigate several modern-day slavery operations, in-
cluding going undercover to work on tomato farms and interviewing workers who have
escaped from violent, brutal operations. He is today a key member of the CIW’s negoti-
ating team in talks with retail food and tomato industry leaders and has been instru-
mental in forging many of the CIW’s Fair Food agreements. Gerardo also helps to run
Radio Conciencia, the low-power community radio station through which the CIW is
creating a space to share the diversity of cultures, languages, and experiences that
make up Immokalee. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: GERARDO REYES-CHAVEZ
www.eandhweek.org 71
Jack Sinclair is executive vice president of the grocery division for Walmart Stores Divi-
sion. He has responsibility for overall grocery strategy for Wal-Mart Stores U.S. In addi-
tion, he works to integrate planning, category management, store experience, and
private brand development into the grocery business unit. Jack has worked in the retail
food business since 1982. He began his career as a trainee at Shoppers’ Paradise in the
United Kingdom. He has also worked for Tesco and Safeway PLC, where he eventually
served on the board of directors that lead the merger of Safeway PLC and Morrison’s.
He has served as the European development director for SB Capital, partnering with
banks, private financiers, and private equity houses to assess, advise and implement
strategic retail acquisitions. He joined Wal-Mart from McCurrach, a U.K.-based field
merchandising business. Sinclair earned a bachelor's degree in economics and market-
ing from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland.
SPEAKER PROFILE: JACK SINCLAIR
Sonal Shah is a fellow with the Tides Foundation focusing on bringing capital markets to
the social sector and leveraging technology and innovation to solve social problems. This
entrepreneur and innovator served as the Deputy Assistant to the President and Director
of the first White House Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. Sonal also
served on President Obama's Transition Board overseeing and leading the Technology, In-
novation, Government Reform group in setting up the government. Before joining the
White House, she led Google’s global development initiatives for its philanthropy,
www.Google.org, leveraging technology and information to help the world’s poor. Prior to
Google, Sonal was a Vice President at Goldman Sachs Inc. where she worked with the
Chairman and CEO to develop and manage the firm’s environmental strategy.
Sonal has also started and managed non-profits. She is co-founder of Indicorps, an
international non-profit which offers fellowships for the Indian diaspora around the
world. Sonal also helped set up the Center for Global Development, a leading develop-
ment think tank in Washington, D.C. She worked at the Center for American Progress
and also as an economist at the Department of Treasury, where she directed the office
for African Nations, worked on the Asian Financial Crisis, and assisted in the post-con-
flict development in Bosnia and Kosovo. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: SONAL SHAH
72 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
Barry is a close friend of Hugh Jackman. Hugh’s visit to Ethiopia and his friendship with
Dukale, a local coffee farmer, inspired the vision for Laughing Man Coffee & Tea. The
two came together on this idea in a moment of synchronicity. While attending A Street
Car Named Desire in Brooklyn, Barry (a 25-year veteran in the coffee and restaurant
business) mentioned to Hugh that he and his son, David, were getting back into the cof-
fee business. Returning from Ethiopia and wanting to tell Dukale's Story, Hugh asked
Barry if he wanted a partner.
David was born and raised in New York City. He left his job as a criminal prosecutor in
Brooklyn to return to his entrepreneurial roots and run the day-to-day business of
Laughing Man. His wide array of experience in marketing, sales, law, writing, travel
and his sincere interest in meeting and being of help to others provides a solid founda-
tion from which to lead Laughing Man. He is proud and honored to be part of the
Laughing Man team and join the good company of other businesses that believe com-
merce and community can grow together for the benefit of all. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: BARRY AND DAVID STEINGARD
Cynthia Smith serves as Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum’s Curator of Socially Re-
sponsible Design. Trained as an industrial designer, she led multidisciplinary planning
and design projects for cultural institutions for over a decade. After earning a graduate
degree at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, she joined Cooper-He-
witt where she integrates her work experience with her advocacy and activism for
human rights and social justice issues.
Cynthia co-authored The Politics of Genocide: U.S. Rhetoric vs. Inaction in Dafur for
the Kennedy School Review. She co-curated the 2010 National Design Triennial: Why
Design Now? and curated both the 2007 Design for the Other 90% exhibition and the
2011 Design with the Other 90%: CITIES. This most recent exhibit has been displayed at
the United Nations Headquarters and has taken her around the world researching in-
formal settlements in emerging and developing economies. Named a “20/20 New Pio-
neer” by Icon design magazine and one of Metropolis magazine’s “next generation of
young curators”, Cynthia has served on international design juries and lectured widely
on socially responsible design. �
SPEAKER PROFILE: CYNTHIA SMITH
Imagine the year 2050
Imagine the U.S. economy has grown 158%
Imagine that the nation thrives without oil, no coal, and no nuclear energy.
IMAGINE…REINVENTING FIRE
Adapted from Reinventing Fire by Amory Lovins (http://rmi.org/rfexecutivesummary)
www.eandhweek.org 73
Digging up and burning the deposits ofancient sunlight stored eons ago inprimeval swamps has transformed humanexistence and made industrial and urbancivilization possible. However, those
roughly four cubic miles of fossil fuels
every year are no longer the only, best, or
even cheapest way to sustain and expand
the global economy—whether or not we
count fossil fuels’ hidden costs.
Those “external” costs, paid not at
the fuel pump or electric meter but in our
taxes, wealth, and health … are dis-
turbingly large. Tens of billions of tax-
payer dollars each year subsidize
America’s fossil fuels, and even more flow
to the systems that burn those fuels, dis-
torting market choices by making the
fuels look far cheaper than they really
are. But the biggest hidden costs are eco-nomic and military.
America’s seemingly two-billion-dol-
lar-a-day oil habit actually costs upwards
of three times that much—six billion dol-lars a day, or a sixth of GDP. That’s due to
three kinds of hidden costs, each about a
half-trillion dollars per year: the macro-
economic costs of oil dependence, the mi-
croeconomic costs of oil-price volatility,
and the military costs of forces whose pri-
mary mission is intervention in the Per-
sian Gulf. Those military costs are about
ten times what we pay to buy oil from the
Persian Gulf, and rival total defense
spending at the height of the Cold War.
Any costs to health, safety, environ-
ment, security of energy supply, world sta-
bility and peace, or national independence
or reputation are extra. Coal, too, has hid-
den costs, chiefly to health, of about $180–
530 billion per year, and natural gas had
lesser but nontrivial externalities even be-
fore shale-gas “fracking” emerged.
All fossil fuels, to varying degrees,also incur climate risks that society’sleading professional risk managers—reinsurers and the military—warn willcost us dearly. And even if fossil fuels had
no hidden costs, they are all finite, with
extraction peaking typically in this gen-
eration. Yet “peak oil” is now emerging in
demand before supply. Thus industrial-
ized countries’ total oil use peaked in
2005, U.S. gasoline use in 2007. Even U.S.
coal use peaked in 2005, and in 2005–10,
coal lost 12% of its share of U.S. electrical
services (95% of its market) to natural
gas, efficiency, and renewables. This is
not because these fuels’ hidden costs
have been properly internalized yet into
their market prices, but rather because
those market prices today are too high
and volatile to sustain sales against ris-
ing competition.
Making a dollar of U.S. GDP in 2009
took 60% less oil, 50% less energy, 63%less directly burned natural gas, and 20%less electricity than it did in 1975, be-
cause more efficient use and alternative
supplies have become cheaper and better
than the fossil fuels they’ve displaced. Yet
wringing far more work from our energy
is only getting started, and is becoming
an ever bigger and cheaper resource, be-
cause its technologies, designs, and deliv-
ery methods are improving faster than
they’re so far being adopted.
Many other countries have lately
pulled ahead of the United States in cap-
turing the burgeoning potential for
greater energy productivity and more
durable and benign supplies. During
1980–2009, for example, the Danish econ-
omy grew by two-thirds, while energy use
returned to its 1980 level and carbon
emissions fell 21%. Now the conservativeDanish government has adopted a virtu-ally self-financing strategy to get com-pletely off fossil fuels by 2050 by furtherboosting efficiency and switching to re-newables (already 36% of electric genera-
tion, which is the most reliable and
among the cheapest pretax in Europe).
Why? To strengthen Denmark’s economyand national security. Europe as a whole
is going in the same direction, led by Ger-
many, and now Japan and China are mov-
ing that way. What could the U.S. do?
In 2010, the United States (excluding
non-combustion uses as raw materials)
used 93 quadrillion BTU of primary en-ergy, four-fifths of it fossil fuels. Official
projections show this growing to 117
quads in 2050. But delivering those same
services with less energy, more produc-
tively used, could shrink 2050 usage to 71
quads, eliminate the need for oil, coal, nu-
clear energy, and one-third of the natural
gas, and save $5 trillion in net-present-
valued cost. As a better-than-free byprod-
uct of efficient use and a continued shift
to renewable supplies, fossil carbon emis-
sions would also shrink by 82–86% below
their 2000 levels despite the assumed
2.58-fold bigger economy than in 2010.
Natural gas saved through more-effi-cient buildings and factories could be re-allocated to cleaner, cheaper, and moreefficient combined-heat-and-power in in-dustry (though we conservatively assume
none in buildings), to displacing oil and
coal in buildings and factories, and option-
ally to fueling trucks. America’s energy
supply in 2050 would end up roughly three-
fourths renewable and one-fourth natural
gas (the same fraction as in 2010, but of a
smaller total—one-fourth less primary en-
ergy and one-third less delivered energy).
The remaining gas use, which is probably
conservatively high, could phase out over a
few decades after 2050. Meanwhile, the
United States could take advantage of new
shale-gas resources if their many uncer-
tainties turned out well, but not be caught
short if they didn’t. Biomass would supply
about six times more energy in 2050 than
in 2010—two-thirds from waste streams
(chiefly in industry) and one-third from cel-
lulosic and algal feedstocks whose produc-
tion wouldn’t interfere with food
production nor harm soil or climate. Liquid
biofuels needed for transportation would
be equivalent to less than one-sixth today’s
total U.S. oil consumption.
To shrink U.S. energy use while GDPgrows 158% is not a fantasy; in nine of
74 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
www.eandhweek.org 75
the 36 years through 2009, the U.S. econ-
omy actually did raise energy productiv-
ity faster than GDP grew… Just as whale-oil
suppliers ran out of customers in the
1850s before they ran out of whales, oil
and coal are becoming uncompetitive even
at low prices before they become unavail-
able even at high prices. It’s about $5 tril-
lion cheaper, and smarter in other ways,
not to keep on burning them, even if their
hidden costs were worth zero.
Realizing this potential does not re-
quire business to take a hit or suffer a
loss. On the contrary, Reinventing Fire ap-
plies normal rate-of-return requirements
in each sector, so each proposed change
must earn at least a 12%/y real return in
industry, 7% in buildings, and 5.7% in
electricity, and new autos must repay any
higher price within three years. Actually,
the suggested investment portfolio con-
siderably outperforms these hurdle rates:
the Reinventing Fire strategy would
achieve Internal Rates of Return averag-ing 33% in buildings, 21% in industry, 17%in transportation, and 14% across all sec-tors—including making the entire electric-
ity system clean, secure, reliable, resilient,
flexible, and at least 80% renewable.
These are among the highest and least
risky returns in the whole economy.
Overall, a $4.5-trillion extra invest-ment would save $9.5 trillion, for a 2010-
net-present-valued saving of $5 trillion
during 2010–2050, and many key risks to
individual business sectors, the whole
economy, and national security would be
mitigated or altogether abated. Counting
the important hidden benefits and costs
(to health, productivity, security, etc.) not
included in these figures would make the
economic case even stronger.
The net effect of the Reinventing Fire
transition on jobs would be at worst neu-
tral and probably significantly positive,
again without counting potentially domi-
nant gains in competitive advantage that
could stabilize or reverse the decline of
some major U.S. industries... This fits the
latest data in the marketplace: more
Americans now work in renewable energy
installation or in energy efficiency instal-
lation than in the entire coal industry, for
example. Those new jobs, too, are widely
distributed by occupation and location,
are durable, and can’t be moved offshore.
Countries with more coherent transi-
tional policies are already further ahead.
Denmark’s relative economic health issubstantially driven by its world-class en-ergy-technology exports (chiefly wind-
power) and its lower energy imports and
costs. Germany, which has staked its en-
ergy future on an efficiency-and-renew-
ables transition, already has fuller
employment than it did before the Great
Recession. In essence, Germany pays its
own engineers, manufacturers, and in-
stallers rather than buying natural gas
from Russia, and that investment shift is
already paying off.
Incumbent industries that extract,
supply, and use fossil fuels are a major
force. They must adapt to these new con-
ditions and requirements just as they al-
ways have to many kinds of change. But
change need not harm their strategic
prospects. Hydro carbons are generally
worth more as a source of hydrogen and
organic molecules than as a fuel. Hydro-
carbon and electricity companies have
important assets, capabilities, and skills
whose judicious deployment will be vital
to a successful energy transition. Moving
beyond oil and coal can harness those ad-
vantages in ways that sustain profits, di-
versify options, and manage risks. The
firms that do this first should beat the
laggards. This is not merely a matter of
normal domestic industrial evolution but
of global revolution, because extraordi-
nary competition from abroad—most of
all from China and Europe, but rapidly
spreading around the globe—leaves Amer-
ican industries little choice…
The key barrier to success is not in-adequate technologies but tardy adoption.The rate of implementation required to
reach Reinventing Fire’s ambitious goals
is challenging but manageable—just as it
was in 1977–85, when the U.S. cut its oil
intensity at an average rate of 5.2%/y. Our
analysis assumes that on average, the en-
tire United States will ramp up over
decades to the rates of efficiency and re-
newables adoption that the most atten-
tive states have already achieved.
Whatever exists is possible. What’s
needed is a coherent and compelling vi-
sion, leadership at all levels (but not nec-
essarily from Congress, whose action is
not actually required for Reinventing
Fire), and the courage to capture the op-
portunities now before each of us. Their
value, feasibility, and practical uptake
can thrive in our immensely diverse and
politically fractious society if we focus on
outcomes, not motives—if we simply do
what makes sense and makes money,
without having to agree on why it’s impor-
tant. In a nation tired of gridlock, this
trans-ideological attractiveness and prac-
ticality is good news. Whether we most
care about economy, security, or health
and environment, Reinventing Fire isspherically sensible—it makes sense nomatter which way around you view it. �
Learn more at reinventingfire.com
76 Humanity Unbound/SPRING 2012
The international energy system needs an
overhaul. The sector is multidisciplinary:
it must serve modern civilization without
compromising economic opportunity, un-
dermining national security or impinging
on the environment. Yet innovation today
prioritizes improvements to discrete
technologies and progress in single disci-
plines rather than rebuilding the whole
system. A more joined-up approach is
needed, beginning with education.
Retooling the system will require a range
of experts who understand new technologies
and can translate them to the public, while con-
sidering the economic drivers necessary for
their adoption.
In the United States, for example, the
educational framework for undergraduates
does not always keep pace with advances in
science, engineering and innovation. Even
though energy is a leading international pri-
ority, it lacks definition in universities,
where it is largely perceived as a profes-
sional pursuit, or as a subset of fields such
as petroleum engineering. Often, students
are exposed only to glimpses of the sector
and do not acquire an integrated, systems-
level perspective.
Whereas institutions such as Duke
University in Durham, North Carolina,
the University of Texas at Austin and the
University of British Columbia in Vancou-
ver, Canada, have created programmes to
address the changing energy landscape,
none offers an interdisciplinary energy-
focused degree at undergraduate and
graduate levels.
We propose that large energy depart-
ments should be set up at universities
worldwide to tie seemingly disparate
fields of knowledge together. Graduates
could move between disciplines to pro-
mote ideas and work towards practical so-
lutions. By fostering an open dialogue
between specialists, this nascent labour
force would then be well equipped to navi-
gate through all of the technical, political
and social issues related to energy. �
ENERGY SHOULD FORM ITS OWN DISCIPLINE
Reprinted with permission from the au-
thors and from Nature journal. Original
article available at
nature.com/nature/journal/v478/n7367/
full/478037a.html
Sheril R. Kirshenbaum and Michael E. Webber of the University of Texas at Austin
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