A pocket guide to plugging in off the grid in Brazil's Amazon
September 12, 2012

 

Taking Charge is featured in Engineering for Change.

 

"The Portable Light Project is another elegant off-grid power solution with a growing list of things to power up. The wearable solar textiles with built-in batteries charge power LED lights and mobile phones. And now, a new sidebar to that project is underway that ties together several interesting ways to use a phone, from aerial mapping to beekeeping...

 

... Mansfield envisions the phones as tools for ecological research and business development. With the right apps, the Amazon communities can take geo-tagged photos of plants and animals in their region and upload them to a database to document for worldwide research...

 

“Through this act of documenting their lands – an act of self-representation – river-community citizens are establishing the terms on which the rest of the outside world perceives the region,” Mansfield says."

 

Engineering for Change