Peachpittv - David berman discusses the play pump

there's lots of examples of designers coming up with very creative ways to do good in the world. One of my favorites is Trevor Field. He's an advertising executive and he was traveling in Africa and he noticed how children would play on the merry-go-round. And, at the same time it was in an area of the continent where there was a shortage of drinkable water and there's a problem with getting power in to pump water out from the deep. They knew where the water was but the the power grid wasn't available to pump the water out. He came up with this very clever idea. Why not use the child power of playing on the merry-go-round to pump the water out. And it created something called the play pump, and now today there's about over a thousand play pumps in various countries in the southern end of Africa where children play on a merry around and it pumps water to the surface. Trevor being an advertising executive actually thought of this in terms of a sustainable business model because he decided that the entire play pump contraption contraption could actually have four billboard faces on it so he could sell space on the play pump to whomever chose to sponsor it. And of course that corporation could associate themselves with doing good.