Amy B. Smith

Amy Smith is an inventor who lectures at MIT and develops low-tech devices for use in developing countries.

Early life and education

Smith's father, Arthur Smith, was an electrical engineering professor at MIT. Arthur Smith took his family to India for a year when Amy was growing up while he worked at a university there. "I think that set a lot of things in motion for her. It's very different from growing up in a Boston suburb", he said. [http://www.bizjournals.com/boston/stories/2000/02/28/story4.html "Technology as a form of altruism"] by Roberta Holland, "Boston Business Journal", February 25, 2000] Smith says that being exposed to severe poverty as a child made her want to do something to help kids around the world. [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/people-places/interview-smith.html?c=y&page=2 "Interview: Amy Smith, Inventor"] by Amy Crawford, "Smithsonian" magazine, September 1, 2006] "Living in India is something that stayed with me—I could put faces on the kids who had so little money."

Smith received her Bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from MIT in 1984. Smith returned to MIT after the Peace Corps to get her master's degree in mechanical engineering.

Peace Corps service

Smith joined the Peace Corps serving four years as a volunteer in Botswana. During her Peace Corps service she was struck by the fact that "the most needy are often the least empowered to invent solutions to their problems." [http://www.namibian.com.na/2004/october/world/04732B289F.html "A MacGyver for the Third World"] by Kari Lynn Dean, "World News", October 22, 2004] While she was serving in the middle of the Kalahari Desert, she decided what she wanted to do with the rest of her life. "At one point I had sort of an epiphany, sitting at my desk looking out over the bush, when I realized I wanted to do engineering for developing countries", Smith said. "In Botswana, I was teaching and then working for the ministry of agriculture as a beekeeper, and I remember thinking to myself that I really liked doing development work, but I wished could do some engineering too, because I like creative problem solving", says Smith. "People in the developing world scrape every last ounce of life that they can out of objects, and my students used to bring me things to fix, and I always enjoyed being able to do that."

Academic career

She is a senior lecturer in the [http://meche.mit.edu/ Department of Mechanical Engineering] at MIT specializing in engineering design and appropriate technology for developing countries. She founded the [http://web.mit.edu/d-lab D-Lab] program at MIT which introduces students to technological, social, and economic problems of the Third World. She teaches the courses SP.721/11.025: D-Lab Development, SP.722/2.722: D-Lab Design, and SP.784: Wheelchair Design in Developing Countries. She has taught in the past 2.72: Elements of Mechanical Design.

Smith encourages women to become engineers although she dislikes being referred to as a woman engineer. "Actually, because my class involves humanitarian engineering, I very rarely have more men than women. There have been times where there have been ten women and one man. This isn't surprising, given that women often want to see an application to what they're learning that they feel is worthwhile", says Smith. "But I'm not involved in any particular projects to encourage women engineers, because I dislike being referred to as a woman engineer. I don't like programs that single out woman engineers as particular achievers just for being women. I think that it should be coincidental."

Inventions

Smith's designs include the screenless hammer mill and the phase-change incubator, and she is also involved with the application of the Malian peanut sheller in Africa. [http://fullbellyblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/mit-report-amy-smith-in-ghana.html] She is also one of the founders of the popular MIT IDEAS Competition.

In 2000 Smith won the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize that honors inventors who are also good role models. Smith is the first woman to win the prize.

Motorized hammermill

Smith invented a motorized hammermill that converts grain into flour which she successfully tested in Senegal. The problem with other motor-driven mills is that the screen that filters out rocks and coins could not be made locally and it could take several months to get a new screen. Smith's mill sifted out finished flour aerodynamically using a simpler design that could be manufactured locally by village blacksmiths. "It's nice when looking at things differently is a good thing, and not something where you get zero credit on a problem", Smith said. Smith planned to use some of the prize money from the $30,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize to produce and distribute the mills.

Phase change incubator

Smith worked on an incubator that requires no electricity. The device was originally designed to diagnose sexually transmitted diseases. The phase change incubator won the 1999 B.F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventor's Award for $20,000. Smith planned to start a company around the incubator. "I'm not a person who likes money, so whether it makes a profit is neither here nor there", Smith said. "I didn't want to be in the position of closing down the product because it wasn't making money. That's not the point of the product."

IDEAS competition

Smith runs MIT's IDEAS Competition where teams of student engineers design projects to make life easier in the developing world. "Some of the IDEAS competition winners have been very successful", says Smith. "The compound water filter, which removes arsenic and pathogens, is now deployed quite extensively in Nepal. The Kinkajou microfilm projector, used in nighttime literacy classes, is being deployed in Mali. We’re working to commercialize a system for testing water for potability. It's in the field in several countries, but not on a widespread basis. We're looking towards doing a trial of aerosol vaccines in Pakistan, so that's exciting."

International Development Design Summit

Smith is one of the lead organizers of the [http://iddsummit.org International Development Design Summit] , held annually to study problems in the developing world and create real, workable solutions to them. "I believe very strongly that solutions to problems in the developing world are best created in collaboration with the people who will be using them", Smith said. "By bringing this group of people together, we get an incredibly broad range of backgrounds and experiences. [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/iddesignsummit-0713.html "Making a difference in the developing world"] by Heather Manning, "MIT News", July 13, 2007.] ]

"WorldChanging" reported on August 14, 2007 that the results from the first International Development Design Summit (IDDS) had been very positive with end products including an off-grid refrigeration unit tailored for rural areas using an evaporative cooling method to store perishable food and a low-cost greenhouse from recycled and widely available materials. [http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007106.html "South-South Design Flourishes at MIT Summit"] by Jonathon Greenblatt, "World Changing". August 14, 2007]

More information on projects from IDDS can be found [http://www.appropedia.org/IDDS here]

Awards

*Collegiate Inventors Award, 1999 (for the phase-change incubator)
*First woman to win the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, in 2000.
*MacArthur Fellowship, 2004-2009.

Citations

External links

* [http://web.mit.edu/mmadinot/www/home.html Amy's Home Page]
* [http://web.mit.edu/invent/a-winners/a-smith.html Amy Smith - 2000 Student Prize Winner] Describes some other inventions (including a technology for diagnosing tuberculosis, and a clamp to regulate intravenous drips), as at February 2000.
* [http://www.umsl.edu/~sauter/analysis/creativity/30MIT.html Necessity Is the Mother of Invention] - "New York Times" article.
* [http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,65276,00.html?tw=wn_story_related A MacGyver for the Third World] - "Wired" article
* [http://web.media.mit.edu/~nitin/thinkcycle/notes/dtm_feb20.html Design that Matters] article on an MIT website
* [http://peacecorpsonline.org/messages/messages/467/2030595.html Peace Corps biography of Amy Smith]
* [http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2007/iddesignsummit-0713.html Amy Smith is one of the lead organizers of first International Development Design Summit]
* [http://fullbellyblog.blogspot.com/2006/02/mit-report-amy-smith-in-ghana.html MIT Report: Amy Smith in Ghana] Full Belly Blog entry, 2/2/2006
* [http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=a_smith Video] of Amy Smith discussing her inventions including eco-friendly charcoal and a laboratory incubator which doesn't require electricity. Presented at the TED Conference (February 2006) Monterey, CA. Duration 15:48