Institution news
Institution members Colin Keogh and Dr Shane Keaveney set up the Rapid Foundation in 2015. They felt traditional methods of ‘delivering’ aid were slow and often missed the real needs of communities. Keogh, a research engineer at University College Dublin (UCD), says the Rapid Foundation is gaining recognition, including an Institution award, for the way it is changing people’s lives in the UK and globally.
What inspired you to set up the Rapid Foundation?
We were working in the area of product design, using disruptive technologies such as 3D printing and augmented reality. These powerful low cost technologies provide speedy results and require no significant learning curve, but were not being used in the most effective places by governments, business or other organisations. It was this frustration that led to us setting up the Rapid Foundation.
What is different about the way the foundation provides aid?
Our charity focuses on enabling people in the developing world – who know best what problems they need to solve – to use low-cost technologies to provide their own solutions.
We provide training, showing people how a 3D printer works, what it can produce, and handing technology over to them to decide what their community needs most. This may be prosthetics, tractor parts, educational materials or anything. They have the power to create, they contact us if they get stuck and we straight away support them with advice and solutions. This is a low cost, effective, empowering strategy with really high impact.
You received the 2016 Fritz Schumacher award from the Institution. In what ways has Institution membership supported your work?
We spent the award on our field trials and 3D printers for projects in India and Uganda. I am vice-chair of the Republic of Ireland Young Members panel and Shane is chairman. We feel very connected to an international network of young engineers with great ideas across the world. In the innovation and technology field it never helps to be insular – we want to extend the network for the good of engineering and communities.
What have been the foundation’s highlights so far?
Two come to mind. For our field trial in an orphanage in India, we sent 3D printers over as they had limited books and paper and limited internet connection. For geography teaching, the 3D printers provided models and maps, to help the kids engage. Kids with impaired vision could engage their tactile senses; they couldn’t see, but they could feel.
In Dublin, the health system refused to provide a prosthetic hand to a six-year-old girl, saying it was not cost-effective. We 3D-printed one, using free open-source technology, fitted it for her, and within minutes she was picking up objects. Replacing the ‘no-can-do’ approach with a simple disruptive solution was really rewarding.
Will humanitarian support be better facilitated in the future, thanks to disruptive technology?
We think so, because people without professional backgrounds, such as in medicine or engineering, can access these new technologies and we are encouraging them to do that. It’s about leveraging the power of technology, not about being inventors or scientists.
You are gaining awards and recognition: what are the benefits?
As well as the Institution’s Fritz Schumacher award, I was named on the Forbes 30 under 30 list for science and healthcare and Shane and myself were named by Junior Chamber International, as outstanding young people in Ireland – and now we go forward to a world event. Nissan selected 10 entrepreneurs, of which I am one, out of 1000 entrants in Ireland, to promote the work we all do.
I’m delighted that this recognition will support our innovation and technology, highlighting that we can change the ways we do things, for the greater good.
What project goals are in your sights over the next 5-10 years?
Our plans include to broaden into South America, Nepal and the Philippines and we are working with the European Commission and the Irish Government and with leaders in East Africa. We are also focusing also on addressing endemic plastic waste, through the Printastic Project, to put so-called rubbish back into production with a secondary use, be it to make rope, fishing nets, business or art materials, with local communities taking the lead.