Some inventors and designers who typically develop goods and appliances for the 10 percent of the world’s affluent population are now creating devices that are inexpensive, can be produced locally and improve the chances for staying alive and increasing the comfort level for the world’s poor.

My travels around the world have introduced me to the desperately low standards of living in many countries. Things most Americans take for granted are often not available: drinkable water, water for growing crops when it is needed, fuel for cooking food, transportation, basic shelter from the weather and educational opportunities.

In Karachi, Pakistan, and Nairobi, Kenya, I was told 25 percent of the children die before age 5, most frequently from waterborne diseases. Six million children under age 5 in the world starve to death each year.

When we were in Minneapolis last year, Carla and I chanced upon a marvelous traveling exhibition, "Design for the Other 90%," a collection of inventions chosen and arranged by the Smithsonian Institution and the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum.

We had gone to the Walker Art Center to view its beautiful new building with its collection of modern art. On the front lawn were about a dozen 12-foot-by-2-foot connected buildings with the sign: "Design for the other 90%."

Each of the small buildings, themselves designed for Third World use, contained some of the new inventions that are in use around the world. The first contained the Life Straw, an oblong device like a big straw that is dipped in the water. The thirsty person sucks on the top, drawing the impure water through a hydrogen-based resin that kills bacteria causing cholera, diarrhea, dysentery and typhoid.

Another room housed ceramic water filters that use colloidal silver to clear the water. Having the advantage that local artisans can build them, these filters are now in use in 18 countries, including Cambodia, Ecuador, India, Nepal and Nicaragua.

In some countries, like India, there is a season of too much water and a season of too little water. A low-cost, 10,000-liter plastic bag that can be enclosed in a hand-dug pit is now available to store water for the dry season, greatly increasing how much food can be grown.

Several years ago on a trip to Wolf Ridge Resort in northern Minnesota, we had been introduced to a variety of energy-saving devices, including a black cooking box that used mirrors to create an oven. The staff baked a tasty cake for us. These boxes are now in use in countries that have a surplus of sunlight.

More surprising at the "Design for the Other 90%" exhibit was the emphasis on creating charcoal briquettes from waste materials such as corn cobs and sugarcane stocks. The necessary tools are easily obtainable - 50-gallon steel drums and a briquette press. I had become familiar with cow dung as the fuel of India in my travels there, but this widens the number of countries that can turn readily available waste into usable fuel.

Good roads are practically nonexistent in many poor countries. One display at the exhibit included bicycles with various kinds of racks developed to carry heavy loads of boxes or cut wood, or to serve as rickshaw taxies.

Seeing that exhibit reminded me of Columbia’s own Mel West, who created the Personal Energy Transport Project, which builds hand-cranked wheelchairs here for use in places where regular wheelchairs will not work.

A $100 computer, with the goal of one for every child in the world, was on prominent display. Devices for charging the batteries are an important part of the design. The goal is to make every child literate, regardless of how remote he or she is from a school.

The exhibition had an interesting set of suggestions for someone who wants to design in this important area, one of which was: "If you haven’t had a good conversation with your eyes open with at least twenty-five poor people before you start designing, don’t bother."

In October, the exhibit traveled to the Ontario College of Art and Design’s Professional Gallery in Toronto and will remain there through January. I wasn’t able to confirm where it will move after that, but the concept of design for the poor of the world is good enough that more people should be and will be exposed to it.

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