H79.2774 Lecture 4 Credits
Instructor(s): McGraw
"To make people free is the aim of art, therefore art for me is the
science of freedom...I wish to go more and more outside to be among the
problems of nature and problems of human beings in their working
places." ~Joseph Beuys. This course presents students with an
opportunity to learn about and connect with information technology and
micro-power projects in East Africa. The goal of this course is to link
creative designers and thinkers (i.e., ITP students) with real people
who have real needs. The instructor “introduces” the students to a
number of East African residents who have a range of communication and
power consumption requirements. For example, Rose is a mother of eight
children (four of her own and four orphaned and left with her) who
operates a community-based organization (CBO). How can she stay in touch
with her community without electricity to charge her cell phone? Dr.
Richard, a traditional healer and tinkerer who holds a PhD from a
university in London,
has returned to Kenya practice medicine in his village and would like
help developing a solar-powered drip irrigation system for medicinal
plants for the increasingly long and frequent dry seasons. Gomba, an
artist living in the Kibera slum, only has illegal and dangerous access
to electricity in his studio. How can he create inexpensive safe
lighting? TICAH (Trust for Indigenous Culture and Health), a Kenyan non-
governmental organization (NGO), would like to develop an inexpensive
text messaging
system for people to send in stories of foods eaten that help boost
immunity as well as to manage specific health problems.
This is a lab course that covers theories and technologies specific to
the developing world. The instructor shares lessons from case studies of
projects, organizations and people in Kenya whilst guiding students to
develop their own prototype of a practical application for real people
located in both rural and urban East Africa. The course also introduces
students to development theory, particularly the idea of expanding
human rights, capabilities and freedoms. Such ideas are shaping
international development; they are relevant for thinking about how to
design and distribute innovative, suitable, and desirable products and
services for low-income people around the world. We meet these ideas
through readings and case studies of institutions practicing such ideas
from the global to the grassroots level. ITP students will collaborate
with people at the "bottom of the pyramid" to address a specific need.
