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On the 5th day of giving, develop a product for the disabled


December 17, 2012

As Arizona State University gears up to win the Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl, Dec. 29, in San Francisco, the university is taking the opportunity to offer suggestions for 12 Days of Giving in order to make a big difference this season and celebrate the university’s outreach role in the community.

Day 5
Develop a product that benefits disabled individuals.

Imagine being unable to attend work or school, simply because mobility and rugged terrain prohibits you from leaving your front door. A student group, BooGood Bicycles, is seeking to find an end to this problem by providing sustainable hand-cycles made from bamboo to disabled individuals living in Africa.

While an undergraduate student in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, Derrick Loud was first introduced to the idea of designing a hand-cycle by a non-profit group called Sustainable Resources, a company that offers start-up assistance to projects and industries that provide basic needs, education or jobs to those in developing countries.

Due to the rough terrain in Malawi, Africa, a 10-year-old boy was not able to maneuver his wheelchair through the roads to his school, inevitably making it impossible for him to receive an education. When Loud heard about this, he was inspired to create a hand-cycle for his senior capstone project that would easily attach to the wheelchair that the boy currently had.

After completing the capstone and having his design sent to Africa, Loud realized that he didn’t want to stop there, but instead make a universal design using sustainable materials that could potentially help those with disability across the developing world. After being accepted into the biomedical engineering master’s program, Loud went about recruiting ASU seniors Kris Saunders and Salim Zeitoun, and BioScience High School senior Doug Liu to join the endeavor.  

With funding, the group is hoping to open a workshop in Kenya where workers will be trained to build the hand-cycles using only bamboo and recycled bikes parts. This, in turn, will provide jobs and stimulate the local economy. And since bamboo is a local and widely available material in Africa, the team will not have to worry about importing or exporting costly building materials.

Implementing their “buy one, build one” model, the BooGood Bicycles team plans to have one hand-cycle built in Africa and donated to someone in need for every bamboo bike they sell here in the United States.

Learn more about BooGood Bicycles.


Natasha Karaczan, natasha.karaczan@asu.edu
480-965-6991
Media Relations