Big Ideas for a Better World

For PM's third annual innovation celebration, we honor eight bold inventors (with video from the lab) and 10 cutting-edge products with one big, IQ-packed party and three important discussions for our future.
* PLUS: 10 Most Brilliant Gadgets of 2007
* UPDATE: Where Are Past Winners Now?

Some neat stuff and interesting links: vibrational wind generator, do-it-yourself 3-D 'inkjet' printer prototyper, length morphing helicopter rotor, etc.

The best ones are the simple, low-tek items that millions can benefit from.

The Make-anything machine could be a boon for cottage industry manufacturing across the world.

Hod Lipson and Team: The Make-Anything Machine
Picture a 3D inkjet printer that deposits droplets of plastic, layer by layer, gradually building up an object of any shape. Scientists at Cornell developed the low-cost, open-source Fab at Home and encouraged experimentation online.
TECH WATCH: Open-Source Building Blocks for Portable Anything
EARLIER: Bio-Inkjet Printer Draws Muscle and Bone

Shawn Frayne: The Nonturbine Wind Alternative
In a conventional wind generator, gears help transfer the motion of blades to a turbine where an electric current is induced. The Windbelt is simple and efficient in light breezes—a magnet mounted on a vibrating membrane simply oscillates between wire coils.
GREEN LIVING: 3 Ways to Fix U.S. Wind Power
VIDEO: How to Safely Install a Power Generator

Ashok Gadgil, Christina Galitsky: The High-Efficiency Cookstove
In Darfur, some 2.2 million refugees cook their meals over inefficient wood fires in camps, with plenty of risks to refuel off-site. There’s nothing high-tech about this stove, but it slashes the time refugees need to spend in heightened danger.
BREAKTHROUGH ‘06: Low-Tech, Make-Anywhere Peanut Sheller for Africa
PM NEWS: Practical Low-Tech Solutions on Display at MIT

Kelydra Elizabeth Welcker: The DIY Water Cleaner
As debate raged about health effects from a DuPont plant’s pollution, our 18-year-old Next Generation Award winner took action. Using hand-me-down chemistry equipment in a trailer, Welcker developed combined the stuff that cleans fish tanks and electrosorption.

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