IDDS 2013 was hosted in Zusaka, Zambia. Under the theme “Better Living through Collaborative Innovations,” the summit identified dynamic local innovators as a central part of each team. These local innovators worked on design teams of people from diverse backgrounds to develop and improve the design of their technologies. This summit made use of the abundant resources found in the rural and peri-urban areas of Zambia.

This summit was part of the vision for improving design approaches, particularly in southern Africa where Zambia is part of the Southern African Innovation Support Network and where country to country collaborations are weak and rarely used as platforms for developing lasting solutions to common social challenges.

Projects included:

• A redesigned aluminum casting furnace to improve safety and efficiency
• A low cost kiln using locally-accessible materials
• An air-tight maize storage container made of locally available materials
• Menstrual hygiene pads made of locally-accessible and environmentally-friendly materials
• A food dryer that uses direct and indirect heating methods to speed the drying process
• An efficient, affordable stove and heating drier that can generate heat from recycled solid waste materials
• Technologies for more efficient palm leaf processing
• Heart Beat 5 — a simple SMS service that provides health information to mothers with children under five

Host: Natural Resources Development College
Partners: National Technology Business Centre, Disacare, Light of Hope