The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)-organized technology workshop, International Design and Development Summit (IDDS) wraps up in Ghana tomorrow, August 12. Since July 8, an eclectic blend of innovative doers — ranging from scientists to artists, from more than 20 countries, have been mingling and working hard to create prototypes in Kumasi, Ghana.

As explained by MIT newsletter, “IDDS is an intensive project in which the participants form teams to tackle specific problems through simple technologies, generally using materials and manufacturing methods that can be easily obtained on-site at low cost in rural villages”.

The idea is to co-create within five weeks, prototypes (example rice thresher in photo above) that the local community of Kumasi, and the greater poorer communities of the world, can put to use in their daily lives. The co-creating process involved selecting 12 focus projects ranging from water, sanitation, agriculture, manufacturing and energy production.

One of the many fascinating prototypes created deals with water safety. A team of created a low cost, low tech, system to generate chlorine for water purification.

Quoting the IDDS blog writes, “clean water and high levels of hygiene are crucial for both short term and long term health for communities in the developing world and the teams were aware of the gravity of the projects they were working on. Two teams focused on Chlorine, one on production and one on dosing…”

Catch more of IDDS summit and ideas on their blog: http://iddsummit.blogspot.com/

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