Design for the Third World

When I hear the phrase "third world countries", the first thing that comes to mind is the thought of multiple organizations encouraging the public to donate money to the poor. But sometimes that's not enough. The aim of Design for the third world is to design products that make use of locally available components and making use of the few environmental sources they have or even put to work manually.   

One of the existing products is the pedal-powered washing machine. It only costs forty dollars and is perfect for developing countries that lack electricity or don't have the money to buy modern and expensive washing machines. This particular washer is a combination of both a washer and a spin-dryer, powered by a foot pedal. Designers thought that it was too much of a time-consuming and effort to wash clothes manually, so they came up with this perfect design that eases the burden of manually washing and spinning the clothes. The container has a plastic lid that the user can sit on and just paddles. 


This thoughtful product was designed to transport water. Instead of carrying a heavy container on the user's shoulders or head, the innovative water-transporter was designed in the form of a wheel, so one can just pull it after him while it turns around.


The 'Big Boda Bike' is another product designed to ease the weight when travelling things. It allows the user to carry a number of unusual heavy loads on a bicycle.

This is a mobile personal water purification tool, that can be carried around anywhere and allows less unfortunate people that don't have clean water to purify the less-clean water before drinking it.

Brit Liggett. (2012). Cooper-Hewitt Receives 600K to Continue Design for the Other 90% Exhibit Read more: Cooper-Hewitt Receives 600K to Continue Design for the Other 90% Exhibit | Inhabitat - Sustainable Design Innovatio. Available: http://inhabitat.com/cooper-hewitt-receives-600k-to-continue-design-for-the-other-90-exhibit/. Last accessed 7th january 2014.