Curry Stone Design Prize: Design With a Mission

When I think of design I think of structures like Disney Hall and Grand Central Station. Things, like iPads. Objects, like cars. But ideas are also designed. Ideas powerfully shape neighborhoods. People can be rescued by concepts. The Curry Stone Design Prize was created to recognize that designers can be a force for improving people's lives, and on November 7th, the day the prizewinners will be announced at Harvard, ideas that became tangible instruments of change will be recognized...

...Ken Banks is also an idea guy, and also has a knack for turning concepts into action. In 2005, he was in Africa and casting about for a way for large groups to communicate. Fewer than 10 percent of Africans are online, but nearly half of the African population have mobile phones. Everybody texts, so Ken, being an IT guy, figured out how to turn a laptop or desktop into a hub for sending texts, even without an internet connection. The idea won him a Curry Stone Design Prize this year because the application he created, FrontlineSMS, has become a driver of positive social change. In 2007, FrontlineSMS was used in Nigeria to monitor an election, and family farmers in Laos have used it to track crop prices. You can get the full story at the be global podcast where there is an interview with Ken, who joined me online from the UK.

The Curry Stone Prize is rewarding ingenuity, to be sure, but it is also rewarding bottom up social change. The people driving this movement are filled with hope for the future. Want some optimism? Ken Banks's blog will let you in on the latest FrontlineSMS projects as well as providing good advice for social innovators. He's on Twitter and so is FrontlineSMS. Also, have a look at Constantin and Doina's Urban Tactics site if you want to get some ideas about how to revitalize your community...