Jeff Chapin, innovative designer, to deliver Pfizer Innovation Seminar at Water Institute conference

 

Chapin’s presentation is titled, “Designing Thinking for WaSH Innovation.” WaSH is the acronym for water, sanitation and hygiene.

 

The Water Institute, based in UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, is co-hosting the conference with the UNC Institute for the Environment. More than 400 delegates from 45 countries are expected to attend.

 

Chapin, a senior member of the small team of designers at IDEO focused on social innovation projects, has special expertise in water, sanitation and health. IDEO is an award-winning global design firm that takes a human-centered, design thinking-based approach to helping organizations in the public and private sectors innovate and grow.

 

Chapin designed an award-winning, low-cost latrine that is now being sold in rural Cambodia. Nearly 40,000 “Easy Latrines” have been sold in less than two years, spurring the development of more than 30 latrine entrepreneurs. The work has been adopted by multiple nonprofit organizations and triggered derivative sanitation marketing efforts that Chapin has supported in East Timor and Laos.

 

Chapin has worked with the UNC WaterSHED program and the World Bank on the design of a product to promote hand washing with soap among rural Vietnamese. In Kenya and Myanmar, he helped develop low-cost pressure and deep-lift pumps for the irrigation of small plot farms. He also worked with Unilever and the nonprofit organization Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) on the design of a pilot program to provide market-based sanitation services to urban Ghana.In his corporate work, Chapin focuses primarily on energy and environmental issues as well as medical product development. He has led and contributed to the design of home energy monitoring devices, cradle-to-cradle home furnishings, battery-powered surgical tools for orthopedic surgery, intravenous drug delivery devices, drug injectors and a product platform strategy for cardiac rhythm management devices. He has taught classes focused on green design, social innovation, global health and product design at Stanford University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Technisches Universitaet in Munich.

 

“We’re looking forward to Jeff Chapin’s presentation at the conference,” said Jamie Bartram, PhD, professor of environmental sciences and engineering and director of The Water Institute at UNC. “Bringing together a people-centered approach with real innovation is essential in responding to some of the greatest WaSH challenges we confront today, and that’s what Jeff’s work is all about.”

UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health contact: Ramona DuBose, director of communications, (919) 966-7467 or ramona_dubose@unc.edu.