Bottom line: we are all invested in schools but don’t know it.

The Photo Lady Project proposes innovation at the true heart of IDE's operation, its distribution network for products for the poor. By creating a network of women sales people, much like the "Avon Ladies" that propelled Avon to market dominance in the United States, the Photo Lady Project will create a new distribution channel for IDE Myanmar. The project proposes accomplishing this by creating entrepreneurial opportunities for rural women through house-to-house sales of photographs. Each Photo Lady will have earn sufficient income and build sales territory during all months of the year so as to greatly enhance their sales of IDE agricultural products, for which there is a large market principally in the dry season.

IDE has successfully provided over 2.5 million families with tools to improve their access to water. They have accomplished this through hard-won insights into the mechanical constraints around developing human powered tools, and equally hard-won insights into the market systems in which these tools, and their owners, must operate. Building on this wealth of experience, The Electricity Pump project proposes development of an affordable means of generating electricity that would integrate into the water pumps IDE is currently manufacturing, leveraging existing IDE technical and market knowledge to generate new income-generating, life-improving technologies.

While the design needs of a small number of organizations can be met by events like the Aspen Design Summit, large scale global change will require a less labor intensive means of connecting social ventures to design talent and educators. The AIGA is well positioned to be at the cutting edge of design and social change by developing such a vehicle in the form of a website. The AIGA Global Purpose Website has the opportunity to differentiate itself from other networking and volunteer matching websites by remaining focused on design, and by developing an on-line market-place for design projects.

Tools and technologies can greatly increase farmer productivity, tripling income to $150/day. But these farmers desperately need access to training and best practices in order to fully take advantage of new markets and continue to improve their standard of living. Our team examined several platforms for increasing access to information within these largely illiterate communities, including festivals, calendars and video based case studies. We propose a partnership between designers, strategists and NGO's like International Development Enterprises to develop creative ways of capturing knowledge and sharing information within these farm communities.

Sustainable Community Development
Imagining the mechanisms and strategies for change in America’s urban environments More...

In the South Bronx, the Hunts Point community is faced with the prospect of a 2000-bed prison on the site where Sustainable South Bronx has envisioned a state-of-the-art recycling industrial park that would contribute safe jobs and promote sustainability in a community in dire need of both. Instead of designing an anti-prison campaign, we’ve proposed a campaign that gets at the root of the problem—a fundamental lack of democratic process. Our campaign uses stirring community-generated images and artwork to put pressure on city leaders to open up an informed, equitable public dialogue around the proposed building site that would serve as a new model for how decisions affecting the future health and livability of the South Bronx should be made. Politicians and powerbrokers must see the faces and hear the stories of those affected by their backroom deals. No more closed-door meetings. No more disempowerment. This time: We decide.