I'll quote the American poet, James Russell Lowell: "Wealth may be an excellent thing, for it means power, and it means leisure, it means liberty."
Wealth's relative, subjective. To people who live on a dollar or two a day, the ability to produce clean potable water inexpensively is wealth, and that means a greater degree of liberty to live their lives as they see fit. Engineer
Michael Pritchard's Lifesaver water purifier is a great example of this.
I think when we innovate, the key is cost. If we're going to make or do something that people can benefit from, it should be cheap, as cheap as it can be, so that as many people as possible can benefit from it. There are numerous examples of this -
Penny-priced lab-chips for disease testing in places around the world stricken by poverty,
bags that sterilize and compost human waste for two cents a piece for places where sanitation is a problem - these are things that can actually make a huge difference in the lives of those who need such problems solved.
English Novelist William Somerset Maugham once said, "Money is like a sixth sense - and you can't make use of the other five without it." While he might have said it in jest, to the poor around the globe, the people who need innovations and innovative ideas to help them, this is incredibly apt, and incredibly important.
You need to be a member of Urgent Evoke to add comments!
Join Urgent Evoke