Amy B. Smith facts for kids

Amy Smith, born on November 4, 1962, is an American inventor and teacher. She is known for starting the MIT D-Lab. She also teaches mechanical engineering at the MIT.

Early Life and Education

Amy Smith grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. Her father, Arthur Smith, was an electrical engineering professor at MIT. When Amy was young, her family lived in India for a year. Her father worked at a university there. This experience greatly influenced Amy.

Living in India showed Amy how many children lived in poverty. She wanted to find ways to help them. She said, "Living in India is something that stayed with me—I could put faces on the kids who had so little money."

Amy studied mechanical engineering at MIT. She earned her bachelor's degree in 1984. After working with the Peace Corps, she returned to MIT. There, she completed her master's degree in mechanical engineering.

Peace Corps Service

Amy Smith joined the Peace Corps and worked for four years in Botswana. She noticed that people who needed solutions the most often couldn't create them. This experience helped her decide what she wanted to do.

While in the Kalahari Desert, she realized her goal. She wanted to use engineering to help developing countries. She enjoyed solving problems and fixing things. People in Botswana often brought her broken items to repair.

Academic Career at MIT

Amy Smith is a senior lecturer at MIT. She teaches about engineering design. Her focus is on appropriate technology for developing countries. This means creating simple, useful tools for people with limited resources.

She founded the MIT D-Lab program. D-Lab works with communities worldwide. They find practical solutions to global poverty. The program offers over 20 courses at MIT. Students can also do research and fieldwork.

Smith also helped start Innovations in International Health. This group connects researchers globally. They work together to create medical tools for places without many resources. She teaches courses like D-Lab: Development and D-Lab Design.

Amy Smith encourages women to become engineers. She notes that her classes often have more women than men. This is because women often want to see how their learning can help others. She believes that engineers should be recognized for their achievements, not just their gender.

Amazing Inventions

Amy Smith has designed several helpful inventions. These include the screenless hammer mill and the phase-change incubator. She also helped apply the Malian peanut sheller in Africa. She is a co-founder of the popular MIT IDEAS Competition. In 2000, she won the Lemelson–MIT Student Prize. This award honors inventors who are also great role models.

Motorized Hammermill

Smith invented a special motorized hammermill. This machine turns grain into flour. She successfully tested it in Senegal. Older mills needed special screens that were hard to replace. Amy's mill used a simpler design. It sifted flour using air, so local blacksmiths could build it. She used her prize money to make and share these mills.

Phase Change Incubator

Amy Smith also worked on an incubator that doesn't need electricity. It was first designed to help diagnose certain diseases. This incubator won the 1999 B.F. Goodrich Collegiate Inventor's Award. Smith wanted to start a company to produce it. She cared more about helping people than making money.

Corn Sheller

With her D-Lab team, Smith helped create a small, easy-to-make corn sheller. This tool removes dried kernels from corn cobs. It can be made from aluminum or sheet metal. Instructions for building it are available online. They are shared under a Creative Commons license, which means people can use them freely.

IDEAS Competition

Amy Smith helped create the MIT IDEAS Competition. In this competition, student engineers design projects. These projects aim to make life easier in developing countries. Many winning ideas have been very successful.

For example, a special water filter removes arsenic and germs. It is now used widely in Nepal. A microfilm projector helps with nighttime reading classes in Mali. They are also working on a system to test water safety.

International Development Design Summit

Smith is a main organizer of the International Development Design Summit (IDDS). This event happens every year. People come together to study problems in developing countries. They then create real, working solutions.

Smith strongly believes that solutions work best when created with the people who will use them. The summit brings together people with many different backgrounds. This helps them find new and creative ideas.

In 2007, the first IDDS had great results. They created a cooling unit for rural areas. It uses evaporation to keep food fresh without electricity. They also made a low-cost greenhouse from recycled materials.

Rethink Relief Design Workshop

In 2011, Smith helped create the Rethink Relief Design Workshop. This workshop focuses on creating technologies for humanitarian aid. It aims to bridge the gap between short-term help and long-term development.

The workshop brought together designers and aid workers. They explored different ways of thinking about relief work. Groups worked to create new ideas and prototypes. These included solutions for clean water, reusing aid materials, and transporting supplies.

Creative Capacity Building

Amy Smith and her D-Lab team developed a new teaching method called Creative Capacity Building (CCB). The goal of CCB is to put "the expertise in the village instead of at MIT."

The CCB program teaches the design process. It doesn't require strong reading or academic skills. The aim is to help individuals and communities identify their needs. Then, they can design and build their own solutions.

Awards and Recognition

• Collegiate Inventors Award, 1999 (for the phase-change incubator)
• First woman to win the Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, in 2000.
• MacArthur Fellowship, 2004–2009.
• Time magazine named Amy Smith one of their Time 100 Most Influential People for 2010. She was recognized in the Thinkers category.