For anyone interested in the work of inventor Dean Kamen, I recommend the new documentary Slingshot. Kamen is the creator of many innovative medical devices, including the AutoSyringe, the iBot (standing wheelchair), and the portable dialysis machine. He is best known, of course, for the Segway.
This documentary touches on those inventions but it also offers a look into one of his new projects, which is a water purification device that can make the water in the most fetid, contaminated pools and puddles drinkable. The health implications for avoiding cholera, dysentery, and other water-borne diseases in developing countries are obvious and enormous. The device is called the Slingshot water vapor distillation system.
The climax of the film centers on how Kamen will solve the problem of getting the devices sent, setup, and used in the towns and villages around the world–i.e. the problem of distribution. He tried going to the UN, WHO, and other governmental and non-governmental bodies, but ultimately decided to work with a major global corporation instead. (You’ll have to watch it to see which corporation.) Moreover, he seems to recognize, at least at some level, that the standard aid model does not really work, and that it would be better to figure out a way to enable people to build entrepreneurial ventures around his new water purification device.
http://www.slingshotdoc.com
