Ideas change everything

Simple designs to save a life

1,906,525 plays|

Amy Smith |

TED2006

• February 2006

Fumes from indoor cooking fires kill more than 2 million children a year in the developing world. MIT engineer Amy Smith details an exciting but simple solution: a tool for turning farm waste into clean-burning charcoal.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

Fumes from indoor cooking fires kill more than 2 million children a year in the developing world. MIT engineer Amy Smith details an exciting but simple solution: a tool for turning farm waste into clean-burning charcoal.

Want to use TED Talks in your organization?

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.

About the speaker

inventor, engineer

See speaker profile

Amy Smith designs cheap, practical fixes for tough problems in developing countries. Among her many accomplishments, the MIT engineer received a MacArthur "genius" grant in 2004 and was the first woman to win the Lemelson-MIT Prize for turning her ideas into inventions.

This talk was presented at an official TED conference.

Read our curation guidelines.