Harnessing nature's solar cells
Harnessing nature's solar cells
MIT researcher Andreas Mershin has a vision that within a few years, people in remote villages in the developing world may be able to make their own solar panels, at low cost, using otherwise worthless agricultural waste as their raw material.
Bill Gates - Bright minds and big problems
Bill Gates - Bright minds and big problems
Bill Gates, philanthropist and retired co-founder of Microsoft Corp., urged MIT students on April 21, 2010 to focus their talent and energy on tackling the world's biggest challenges, including global health, poverty and education.
Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC)
Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC)
Amos Winter discusses the Leveraged Freedom Chair (LFC) and results of recent trials in East Africa.
BLOSSOMS - Equilibrium (English)
BLOSSOMS - Equilibrium (English)
This video lesson will focus on systems that are said to be in equilibrium - that is, systems that are not allowed to move away from their original places or rotate about their axis. Students will learn about static equilibrium by exploring themselves what is meant by translational ...
Networks Understanding Networks, Pt. 4
Networks Understanding Networks, Pt. 4: Ricardo Hausmann
Ricardo Hausmann — How to Infer What Countries Know from What They Produce and Why It Matters
New Technology Brings Offshoring to Villages
New Technology Brings Offshoring to Villages
The Xerox CTO describes research that allows manufacturing and office workers to avoid commuting to traffic-choked Indian cities.
Cheap, Efficient Solar
Cheap, Efficient Solar
Harry Atwater, the founder of a new startup called Alta Devices, outlines his plans to make solar affordable.
The Green Grease Project
The Green Grease Project
Students from MIT's Biodiesel team organized the Green Grease project to help garbage pickers in Brazil save money and be more environmentally friendly by retrofitting their transport vehicles. In summer 2010, the team traveled to Sao Paulo, Brazil
Healing Haiti
Healing Haiti
Nobody knows precisely why it works, but doctors have known for decades that the healing process for open wounds can be greatly speeded up by applying negative pressure — that is, suction — under a bandage sealed tightly over the affected area. The speculation is that it helps by drawing ...
A labelmaker for the blind
A labelmaker for the blind
A device that started out as a class project last fall is moving rapidly toward becoming a commercial product that could make the lives of millions of visually impaired people a bit easier. Karina Pikhart '09 and classmates designed a machine to make braille labels.
The bicilavadora in Peru
The bicilavadora in Peru
MIT students and residents of an orphanage in Peru work on, and try out, the bicilavadora — a cheap, reliable washing machine powered by bicycle parts.
International Development Design Summit, MIT 2008
International Development Design Summit, MIT 2008
Using a bicycle wheel to thresh millet, making LEGO-like bricks from dirt, or hooking up an electric generator to an irrigation pump may not save the world, but such simple projects could go a long way toward improving the lives of millions of people living in the ...
Muhammad Yunus: Ending Global Poverty
Muhammad Yunus: Ending Global Poverty
Muhammad Yunus, Founder and Managing Director, Grameen Bank; 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate; Ambassador for the Joint United Nations Program on HIV/AIDS Imagine a bank that loans money based on a borrower's desperate circumstances -- where, as Muhammad Yunus says, "the less you have, the ...
Forced Labor in the Globalized World
Forced Labor in the Globalized World
Before buying your next chocolate bar or sweatshirt, bear in mind its potential hidden cost: the forced labor of an impoverished worker.
Forced Labor: The World Debate
Forced Labor: The World Debate
Zeinab Badawi, Presenter, The World, BBC Four; Jean-Robert Cadet, Author, Restavec: From Haitian Slave Child to Middle-Class American; Steven Law, Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor; Kevin Bales, Director, Free the Slaves, Inc.; Professor of Sociology, University of Surrey Roehampton, ...
U.S. Planning and Realities of Post-War Iraq
U.S. Planning and Realities of Post-War Iraq
Yosef Jabareen, Lecturer, Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Charles Patterson, Senior Associate, C&O Resources, Inc.; Former Program Officer, Future of Iraq Project; David J. Nash, President, B.E.&K., Inc.'s Government Group; Former Director, Iraq ...