Photo: Adital
Most of us have heard of wind powered energy. Many of us have come to know it by sight: huge windmills on the skyline, which generate energy for major corporations. Adital Ela, a TED fellow and sustainability designer, has taken the motif of the child's pinwheel toy and turned it into the basis for clean energy lighting.
Photo: Adital
Ela's innovative solution: self-sufficient modules that literally blow light into your world, using the soft breezes found in urban environments.
The downside is that any project that has a social vision attached to it, as this one does, often has to make a deal with the devil to get into production.
Photo: Adital
When Ela went looking for investors for her invention, she discovered that her vision of making it a sort of product ambassador for a fresh outlook in sustainability design may have to be put aside in favor of the 'make-it-quick, make-it-cheap' model.
Photo: Adital
Rather than do this, she has looked elsewhere, to the crowd-funding site Kickstarter.com. She has started the research and development with a $25,000 grant from AOLartists and support from the TED Fellows team, but still hopes to raise more.
Photo: Adital
Ela's goal is $65,000 in 50 days through Kickstarter. “With the campaign I hope to gain the freedom of exploring how WindyLight can grow to be a high social-environmental value and fair profit venture.”
Once launched, these lights will also be able to be used in areas without electricity, for example in villages in developing countries.
Photo: Adital
You can learn more about how the wind will blow light into your world by visiting the WindyLight website.
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