Project leader| Fransisco Gomez Paz
Group Members| Yiannis Kofteros, Sergio Vergara, Naoto Arai
The ‘cradle to cradle’ theory says that every product must follow a process where at the end of it living cycle can be used in a different way (waste = food). For example a t-shirt made from organic cotton after some year of usage can be used to make compost out of it. If you add to this cycle a social sustainable part you get a positive footprint. In the cell phone industry is not common to see that kind of cycles, millions of used become waste but not food.
In our project we want to design a cell phone that follows a ‘more than sustainable cycle’. A device with a different living cycle, with a waste = food characteristic where instead of leaving negative footprints it leaves positive ones.
What is it?
In Europe, the living cycle of a cell phone is 18 months. Means, a person buys a new cell phone every year and a half because the emotional value of the device for the person is equal to zero, even though the technological value still very high after that time. Those used devices are very difficult to recycle, leaving millions of cell phones with a good technological value thrown away contaminating.
Nicholas Negroponte, with his NGO, has been working for some year in the concept of one laptop per child (OLPC). He developed the $ 100 computer with the idea of bringing knowledge to poor areas of the world were poor educational system exist. People are using that computer as a learning tool in a very successful way.
Features of contemporary cell phones are very advanced and can meet with the $100 computer ones. The idea is to design a cell phone that after 18 months can be transformed into a small computer with a minimum amount of energy. By doing this the living cycle of the device will be more than 4 years and will bring knowledge and culture to remote places like Africa. It would be like an OlPC, but almost for free…
A positive footprint will occur when the device brings culture to the people and make them know that to hurt the environment is to hurt them. Something than not many people know in developing countries.
How it works?
Ibo is divided in two lives. The first one is a stylist and slick cell phone with modern technology and features like touch screen, wifi, blue tooth, camera, video, etc. In the back part a pattern made by an Africa artist give the look of a piece of art from that continent to the device. The device is made out of advanced ecological materials.
The second life of the project starts when people return the cell phone after using it for 18 month and buy a new one. That device is inserted in a rubber body with a keyboard and a kinetic battery that will make it better to work on.
In the second life,special software for kids (Sugar) is added plus 100 Google free eBooks and plus an application so the kid can be connected to the person how donated the cell phone. Converting an old cell phone into a powerful learning tool.
In both lives a communication application is installed so the person who donated the cell phone can send messages, videos, pictures and eBooks to the kid in Africa in order to help him with his learning process.
A NGO is in charged of collecting the cellphones producing the rubber body, adding the new application and distributing them in Africa
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Value & Potential
By using old cell phones donated by people and a body that costs less than $ 10 the project will bring knowledge and culture to people in Africa and will give then opportunity to connect to the world. A culture with a higher educational rate is a culture that will be develop it self faster. So, at the end Ibo is helping to develop regions in Africa.
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| prototype development |
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