The Maker Movement Manifesto: Rules for Innovation in the New World of Crafters, Hackers, and Tinkerers

3Communities of Practice

Naganand Murty was sitting at one of our tables in Menlo Park working on a phase-changing polymer technology. As part of a class at Stanford’s d.school (Hasso Plattner Institute of Design), Naganand, Jane Chen, and their team had identified a problem they thought they could tackle. Millions of children die each year in the developing world because they are born too early and don’t have access to a life-saving incubator. One of the reasons is that incubators cost upwards of $20,000, even in the developing world. Another reason is that many villages are simply too far away from a hospital.

Through his engineering training, Naganand knew that there were materials that could be designed to retain heat for a long time, could ...