Bridging the electricity gap, on the cheap

The first articles that dealt with frugal innovation and the discussion within them about how new ideas are great, but only if they can be afforded for the audience for which they are meant were really impactful. The OLPC program seems like such a feat and when you acknowledge that priced at $188 is over 500% too expensive, my first reaction is despair. Yet ideas and discovery continue and a goal of providing handheld computing abilities for $35/ unit is made a reality. Pairing this line of thought with the last article about how many in poverty live with electricity led me to take a look around.

I found some articles that seem to be a perfect union of the two topics: an affordable solution to rolling power outages for those who cannot afford generators.
 
http://design-for-impact.blogspot.com/2012_04_01_archive.html#!/2012/04/12-dollar-recycled-back-up-power-device.html
 
Once again, students come to the rescue! This proves once again that innovation knows no bounds and ideas and passion have great results. When Mollini and Kurzrok acknowledged frequent power outages in hospitals that put lives at risks during procedures, they decided to look for an alternative to costly to run uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) such as a generator. Using salvaged and recycled materials, they were able to get the cost down from $75 to $12.
 
This idea won them recognition in Dell’s Social Innovation Challenge in 2010 and seems like it has continued to gain ground.
 
Waste to Watts, The Tomberg Prize in Environmental Sustainability
Georgia Institute of Technology, Duke University
Creates innovative products to tackle energy poverty in the developing world.