Global SoCal Presents:

PRODUCT DESIGN FOR THE DEVELOPING WORLD

MODERATOR:

Carolyn Wagner, Co-founder, Do Good LA

DISTINGUISHED PANELISTS:

Mariana Amatullo Vice President, Designmatters at Art Center College of Design

Ken Pickar Visiting Professor of Mechanical and Civil Engineering, California Institute of Technology

Debbie Aung Din Co-founder, Proximity Designs

Los Angeles-based, cutting edge social entrepreneurs will describe ways in which the innovative design solutions developed by their teams are improving the quality of life of the poor in South America, Africa, India and Myanmar. They will focus on the partnerships they have forged with international organizations to tackle issues related to clean water, agriculture, and economic development and the role that local students have had in developing safe, sustainable, inexpensive, and viable inventions and systems that address pressing needs. They will discuss the successes, challenges, and impact of their work.

Attendees will hear about many products that Proximity Designs has developed that are raising the rural poor in Myanmar out of extreme poverty including foot-powered irrigation pumps, lighting, water storage units and cook stoves. They will also learn about the inventions that students from Art Center College of Design's Designmatters program have created that alleviate poverty in developing countries, including a human-powered washer and spin driver and a portable facet that delivers a flow of water from any container, which both received top recognition from the International Design Excellence Awards this year. In addition, attendees will hear about the collaboration between Designmatters and Cal Tech that has resulted in the creation of water filters, stoves, dehydrators, vegetable carriers and zero electricity refrigerators that benefit the poor in Guatemala.

*This event is open to all Global So Cal members as well as non-members interested in knowing more about the innovative work of fledging inventors in Southern California who are helping to address specific challenges and those who might want to draw upon the example of Mariana, Ken and Debbie in their own work.

Time: 3 pm- 5 pm

Location: 7421 Beverly Blvd, Penthouse Los Angeles, CA 90036 (Operation USA Office)

Parking: 2 hour metered parking is available on Beverly Blvd; 2 hour parking is also available on Martel St, Vista St with extended parking at Pan Pacific Park on the south side of Beverly Blvd, 2 blocks west of OpUSA

Additional Details: Operation USA will provide refreshments and coffee. We encourage any organization that is involved with this topic to bring enough 1-2 page information sheets on their work to be passed out to all attendees. At 5 pm, Global SoCal members who are interested in serving on the advisory board for the 2012-2013 year are encouraged to stay for the business portion of our meeting until 6:00 pm. This is a great opportunity for both new and seasoned members to get involved in the direction of the organization.

**Special thanks to Richard Walden and Operation USA for opening up their offices and providing refreshments for this event.

Mariana Amatullo is Vice president at Art Center College of Design and Co-founder of Designmatters, the College’s social impact initiative. In June 2012, Mariana won the inaugural Dell Social Innovation Award, which recognizes outstanding leadership in teaching and supporting student social innovators. Mariana serves on a variety of advisory boards and networks engaged in the arts, design education, and social activism. In this capacity, Mariana develops strategic partnerships and oversees a portfolio of research collaborations, communications, exhibitions, and publications.

Dr. Ken Pickar is Visiting Professor of Mechanical Engineering at Cal Tech. He teaches classes on entrepreneurship and product design for the developing world. He and his students conduct in situ market research on local peoples’ needs and address problems based upon this research. Ken developed the influential course “Product Design for the Developing World” through which students from Cal Tech and Art Center have partnered with universities in Guatemala and India. Previously Ken was SVP of Engineering at Allied Signal and the Corporate R&D Manager at GE. He has a PhD in Physics, is an angel investor, and sits on the board of a number of public and private organizations.

Debbie Aung Din, a native of Myanmar, founded Proximity Designs alongside her husband, Jim Taylor, initially as a country program under International Development Enterprises (IDE) in 2004. The new entity was established as a wholly independent organization in 2008 and re-named Proximty Designs. Ms. Aung Din and Mr. Taylor, both graduates of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, received a 2012 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship.

Designmatters engages students, faculty, and alumni from across disciplines in an ongoing exploration of the role of art and design in effecting large-scale sustainable change through innovative partnerships locally and around the world. It is through the impressive outcomes generated by Designmatters that Art Center became the first design school to receive the United Nations’ Non-Governmental (NGO) status.

California Institute of Technology, which is among the world’s top science and engineering universities, offers Professor Ken Pickar’s course Product Design for the Developing World that challenges students to design a product—a machine, a tool, a gadget—or a process that has the potential to help improve those billions of lives.

Proximity Designs is a non-profit social venture working to reduce poverty and hunger for tens of thousands of rural families in Burma/Myanmar since 2004. It addresses extreme poverty by treating the poor as customers and offering innovative and affordably designed technologies and services. Its customers are families who earn their living by farming small plots of land. The products that Proximity creates are available via a nationwide distribution network of independent agro-dealers and village agents.