Amy Smith has been working for years in humanitarian design, she gives a great course at MIT “Design for Developing Countries,”. Last year with the help of her students she figured out how to make charcoal out of local non polluting resources such as roots, cane sugar remaining and similar.Now that Tabasco lacks of many of its old infrastructure, this kind of alternative energy is a great way to teach people how to be a bit more independent of traditional and costly energy sources. Specially in non urban areas, this can be a great step towards life increasing life quality.

Mechanical engineer Amy Smith’s approach to problem-solving in developing nations is refreshingly common-sense: Invent cheap, low-tech devices that use local resources, so communities can reproduce her efforts and ultimately help themselves. Smith, working with her students at MIT, has come up with several useful tools, including an incubator that stays warm without electricity, a simple grain mill, and a tool that converts farm waste into cleaner-burning charcoal.

via ted