Massachusetts Institute of Technology and low-tech don’t go together in mind (other than the Car Talk boys), but here’s an instructor who wants students to imagine low-tech inventions to assist third-world nations:

Unlike most of MIT, Smith’s workshop is far from cutting-edge. There are no next-gen computers, no vials of polysyllabic chemicals, no fancy equipment. The space is decidedly low-tech – and that’s the point. D-Lab students pinpoint practical problems in the developing countries and then brainstorm and build solutions. Because the people they are trying to help are below the poverty line, the class’s inventions must be simple, effective, and most important, inexpensive.

“What people need is usually completely different from what we imagine sitting here in America,” says Jodie Wu, a mechanical engineering junior, whose group went on a school-sponsored trip to Tanzania over winter break. The idea for her current project – a mobile, pedal-powered corn sheller – came from a conversation with a Tanzanian bike mechanic.

This is really good stuff.