Amy Smith is a researcher, instructor and inventor at MIT who is trying to save millions of lives. The funny thing is, the inventions that she’s using are as incredibly simple as using corn cobs to make briquettes that can be used as fuel—a cooking fuel that is much cleaner than wood or fossil fuels, and much more environmentally-friendly than charcoal made from wood. Two million children around the world die each year of respiratory tract infections caused by indoor stoves, and 98% of the country of Haiti has been deforested in order to fuel people’s stoves.

Smith has taken teams of MIT students out into the field in Haiti and India, among other places, to see if they can develop cheap and easy technologies that produce a cleaner fuel with a smaller ecological impact. In other words, they find out what sort of agricultural waste is produced in the area, and then look to see what is freely available to be used as a binding agent—cassava worked in Haiti, and small amounts of cow manure in India—to make briquettes. The final product has turned out to be not only better for people’s health and for the environment, but because it is made from waste, it is also economically better for people who are, for the most part, very poor.


Smith is realistic about the challenges of making her inventions available on a larger scale, and is aware that different kinds of marketing models are needed than the ones used in the United States. Other projects that she is working on involve grain grinders and safe, effective, inexpensive water treatment.

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