If you’ve ever needed the inspiration to start doing things that benefit the host of people that face more pressing problems than slow internet connectivity or slow traffic on the N1 highway, Mick Ebeling, the founder of the Not Impossible Foundation is the person to provide that inspiration.
He’s the guy behind one of Time Magazine’s best innovations of 2010, a Frankenstein-like gadget called the ‘Eyewriter’ that was hacked together from a pair $7 sunglasses bought on Venice Beach, a coat hanger and a cracked open Sony PS3 camera. It’s the device that enabled a world-renowned L.A. graffiti artist, Tempt, suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease to begin communicating and painting again.
He was also so touched by the story of a Sudanese teenager who had lost his arms to the violence in his country, that he set his mind to building a way for prosthetic limbs to be 3D printed in the field. And then flew to Sudan, printed Daniel (the injured child) some new arms and then taught a host of doctors how to do the same.
If you’re not familiar with these two stories, go and listen to his TED talks and Google him. Prepare to have your life changed.
Ebeling was the speaker chosen to open the annual International Science and Engineering Fair (sic) (ISEF) in Los Angeles — probably the biggest event of its kind in the world. Every year, ISEF plays host to over a thousand of the brightest and most ambitious science and engineering students from over 70 countries. This year, there’s roughly 1300 kids in attendance and Africa boasts representatives from South Africa, Nigeria, Tunisia Egypt and for the first time, Kenya.
It’s the perfect place for Ebeling and his crew to recruit smart, young and ambitious talent for their cause. And from the sounds of the reactions from the crowd who cheered and whooped last night, he got a few new followers. Even if the majority of the students attending the keynote last night don’t get involved in Ebeling’s movement, they’ll undoubtedly be spurred on to do great things by Ebeling’s contagious optimism.
Apart from his enthralling stories of innovation, Ebeling had a couple of interesting, albeit unconventional pieces of advice for the young minds attending the Fair. The first is, commit and figures out how, later. Both of the remarkable feats of innovation Ebeling and his team have been responsible for, started with the team committing to solving a problem and then worrying about finding a way to get it right, no matter what.
The second is to shrug off the belief that anything is impossible. Ebeling says the concept of impossible is what’s standing in the way of some of the world’s most pressing problems not being solved. Sitting around one day, he says he thought about all of the things in the world that were possible, but were at some time considered impossible. He then tried to count the number of things that were possible today what weren’t at some stage considered impossible.
He obviously couldn’t come up with even one example, leading him to believe that everything that’s today considered impossible is just waiting to be made possible. Ebeling urged students to consider how in 1954 Henry Bannister ran the first mile in recorded history in under four minutes. This was something that up until 1954 was considered impossible. But once this ‘impossible’ feat had been made possible, Bannister’s record was broken twice in literally no time flat. The first time was a mere 54 days later. The next time was 60 days after that.
Uncannily, he said, the moment something impossible is proven possible, massive progress follows. What drove Ebeling to develop these two amazing solutions and just give them away, instead of taking them to industry and making a bundle of cash off of them? Social responsibility.
He says he fully and wholly believes in capitalism and that people should absolutely be able to make money from their innovations. At the same time however, there are certain rights humans should be afforded. And that solving issues where human rights are being challenged is not one of the places capitalism should live. He also says it’s also important to remember that solving the problem doesn’t necessarily mean your can stop innovating.
Tempt – the graffiti artist he and his team helped in 2010 – is for example, losing the ability to blink really quickly as a result of his disease. This means, the current design for the Eyewriter isn’t as effective as it used to be. So the team is working on a new version, it will be unveiling (and then open sourcing, like its predecessor) in London on the 3rd of July. While details are still kind of sketchy, Ebeling says the new design will make use of the world’s first Ocular electroencephalography (EEG) machine.
Another team in his foundation is, led by a 16 year old school kid, building a low cost exoskeleton for kids that can’t walk.
Listening to Ebeling talk, it’s apparent that Not Impossible’s ambitions seem almost infinite: “We’re only one year old,” Ebeling says, “so we’re still figuring this thing out as we grow. We definitely want to reach out and pull people together to work on new projects,” he adds.
To this end, he urged students to visit Not Impossible’s website. And I really hope they do. After all, the world could quite frankly do with more Mick Ebelings running around solving some of the most pressing issues.
[image – theverge.com]
