Latest News
Lifeplayer Rises to the Top of INDEX: Design to Improve Life Award Competition
The breakthrough Lifeplayer is the first solar-powered and wind-up digital device that combines a media player (MP3), recorder and five-band radio. It also charges cell phones. Created for humanitarian use, the Lifeplayer integrates this range of technologies in one unit to inform, educate and deliver content to the poor in ways never before possible. Lifeline Energy announced today that its new Lifeplayer has been chosen as a finalist in the prestigious competition for the INDEX: Design to Improve Life award . Five winners will be announced in Copenhagen on 2 September.
The breakthrough Lifeplayer is the first solar-powered and wind-up digital device that combines a media player (MP3), recorder and five-band radio. It also charges cell phones. Created for humanitarian use, the Lifeplayer integrates this range of technologies in one unit to inform, educate and deliver content to the poor in ways never before possible, in even the most remote locations. The MP3 holds up to 64GB of content. Listeners can tune into radio broadcasts from the world over, record and make their own programmes, and download audio Internet and cell phone content via a microSD™ card. Podcasts can be pre-loaded or created by users in the field.
The INDEX: Design to Improve Life award is conferred upon five designs that make a significant impact toward solving important world challenges while meeting rigorous environmental, economic and social sustainability parameters and addressing the UN Millennium Goals. This year, 966 nominations were submitted for judging by INDEX:’s independent, international jury.
“I extend our great thanks to INDEX: and the international jury for this prestigious recognition,” said Lifeline Energy CEO Kristine Pearson, who conceptualized and served as the project leader of the Lifeplayer. “Lifeline Energy’s mission is to provide practical, environmentally clean solutions to intractable problems caused by energy poverty,” added Pearson. “We believed that with advances in digital and MP3 technologies, it would be possible to design a product that could be pre-loaded with huge amounts of content and replayed over and over. We knew that if we got it right, the Lifeplayer could be a game changer that could positively impact millions of vulnerable and isolated people.”
Lifeline Technologies Trading Executive Director Philip Goodwin is the principal designer of the Lifeplayer. “The Lifeplayer represents the first time that the extremely poor can access information on demand anytime, anywhere -- without concern for electricity or batteries,” said Goodwin. “People can use the combined technologies to hear lessons and entertainment from a variety of sources encompassed in one portable, clean energy device. Equally important, Lifeplayer users can preserve and disseminate their own important life lessons, stories and music. The Lifeplayer’s interactivity affords communities the opportunity to create and safeguard virtual libraries of information, old and new.”
Two-time Academy Award winner Tom Hanks is Lifeline Energy’s primary funder for the development of the Lifeplayer. “Tom understands our technology and its positive impact on the poorest members of society,” said Pearson. “We are deeply grateful to him for his unwavering support since becoming our American Ambassador in 2003.”
Each winning design team will receive a monetary award of €100,000 from INDEX:. Lifeline Energy, if honoured with an award, will use the funds to accelerate its new primary school project for Maasai teachers and students in Kenya. Many Maasai schools are located in remote areas, have large class sizes, lack electricity and find it difficult to attract trained teachers. Five hundred Lifeplayers will be pre-loaded with a range of educational programmes for both teachers and children, beginning with English instruction. The Lifeplayers’ MP3 function can dramatically improve English literacy and pronunciation using specialised instruction produced by the British Council. The initiative will pay special attention to ensuring that girls receive equal access to the programmes. Students also will enjoy pre-loaded primary school lessons, as well as extra programmes focussing on health, farming and livestock. About 10,000 Maasai pupils and their teachers are projected to benefit from this project.
INDEX: Design to Improve Life is a Danish non-profit organization, under the patronage of HRH the Crown Prince of Denmark, which promotes the application of design to better people’s lives worldwide. Learn more at Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.>
