Designing for the Symptoms versus Designing for the Disease

     This week’s selection of readings highlight clever innovations, inventions, and devices that could impact and is currently impacting communities in need. For example, a straw that filters water before it reaches the drinker’s mouth [1] or Ikea’s a cheap, solar-powered shelter that refugees can quickly assemble and offers protection and privacy [2]. These inventions can tangibly improve someone’s circumstances immediately, providing a quick solution for issues of comfort, safety, and health. They do not, however, attack the source of the issue. These inventions merely treat the symptoms of larger issues.
     I am interested in how innovators can undermine existing power structures or institutions that block people from success or make it extremely difficult for people to improve their situation without access to significant capital. I am speaking of the ivory tower we currently peering out of: academia. Education can be liberating, life-improving, and a means of investing in one’s future and earning potential. A formal education is also extremely expensive, time-consuming, and out of reach for many people, in the US and worldwide. How then do we make education available cheaply while maintaining quality? Perhaps, Khan Academy is currently the best solution.
     Khan academy offers an online classroom, where self-motivated students can dive into subjects that interest them, watch and rewatch instructional videos, and ultimately learn at their own pace, guided by their specific learning needs [3]. Khan Academy is a free, open-source alternative to the institutionalized  inefficient  expensive educational standard. I predict that within the next decade, the institution of education will continue to be challenged by enterprises like Khan academy.
      Khan academy exemplifies such a hopeful look into that future. Rather than a quick fix or a cheap device, the long-lasting benefit of education can eventually elevate a community’s socioeconomic level, irritate diseases, and combat poverty. According to a study in rural Uganda comparing the health of educated teenagers versus the heath of teenagers who received less education, education is “one of the most powerful tools to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS,” [4].
     The institution of education invites reform, since the act of educating are human interactions and information which can be recorded and distributed. What other institutions could have compounding benefits if released to the world in a cheap and accessible way? How can an innovation reimagine a centuries old paradigm?

[1] 6 Water-Purifying Devices for Clean Drinking Water in the Developing World (Inhabitat, November 8, 2013); http://inhabitat.com/6-water-purifying-devices-for- clean-drinking-water-in-the-developing-world/

[2] A New Ingeniously Designed Shelter For Refugees—Made By Ikea (Fast Company CoExist, June 26, 2013); http://www.fastcoexist.com/1682416/a-new- ingeniously-designed-shelter-for-refugees-made-by-ikea

[3] One Man, One Computer, 10 Million Students: How Khan Academy Is Reinventing Education (Forbes, November 19, 2012); www.forbes.com/sites/michaelnoer/2012/11/02/one-man-one-computer-10-million- students-how-khan-academy-is-reinventing-education/

[4] The Case for Universal Basic Education for the World's Poorest Boys and Girls (Council on Foreign Relations, November 2005); http://www.cfr.org/education/case-universal-basic-education-worlds-poorest-boys-girls/p9739