Students and Faculty of the Hampshire College Lemelson Center are continually engaged in identifying appropriate technology with regard to applied design and invention. The Center encourages student use of economical, simple, sustainable, and universal solutions to design problems. Can the product be repaired when it breaks? Is it durable to begin with? Is it designed for the widest range of abilities? Has it been prototyped? Tested? Documented? Could it be duplicated efficiently? Students engaged in project-based experiential courses with service learning expectation cannot design in a vacuum – they are accountable to end users. The Center has been collaborating with several international and regional organizations, businesses, and individuals to identify technology needs and create viable solutions.

Sustainability: Sustainability is a characteristic of a process or state that can be maintained at a certain level indefinitely. The term, in its environmental usage, refers to the potential longevity of vital human ecological support systems, such as the planet's climatic system, systems of agriculture, industry, forestry, and fisheries, and human communities in general and the various systems on which they depend.

Appropriate Technology : Appropriate technology (AT) is technology that is designed with special consideration to the environmental, cultural, social and economic aspects of the community it is intended for. With these goals in mind, AT typically requires fewer resources, is easier to maintain, has a lower overall cost and less of an impact on the environment.

Developing Countries: A developing country is that country which has relatively low standard of living, an undeveloped industrial base, and a moderate to low Human Development Index (HDI) score and per capita income, but is in a phase of economic development.

Student Projects
• Bicycle Ambulances
• Pearl Millet Thresher
• Pedal Powered Grain Grinder
• Whirlwind Wheelchair Manual Leverdrive
• Tropical PC

International Collaborations

International Activities

International activities during the grant period included engagement in productive collaborative relationships, and also “international” events and projects such as the following:

• A special six-week exhibit at the United Nations that included several original pieces of innovative technology equipment designed and fabrication by LATDC students, a LATDC photographic exhibit of “log book “ inventions, a looping DVD video about the LATDC program and its work, and distribution of LATDC brochures

• An international Design Summit that brought together engineers, designers, and appropriate technology practitioners from the U.S. and abroad to generate solutions to technology problems faced by wheelchair users globally

• Support of student and alumni work in Nicaragua and Vietnam including a long-term collaboration with an international wheelchair NGO; support of student research on assistive technology in Kenya; support of alumni work in agriculture and development Guatemala; and support of alumni work developing new technology applications including establishment of a bicycle ambulance building facility in Windhoek, Namibia in southwestern Africa

• A long-range relationship with Whirlwind Wheelchair International, a global non-profit organization that has reached over 15,000 people in less developed countries with appropriately designed wheelchairs and has created new jobs for many people in these areas

• Hosting of a one-day conference titled “Developing Solutions, Developing Nations,” at which representative from worldwide organizations discussed the state of critical technologies for people with disabilities in less developed nations

• Development and redevelopment of a regularly taught LATDC course titled “Appropriate Design in the Developing World,” which has included collaborations with people on a variety of projects for various less developed countries.