AWARD YEAR
2017
CATEGORY
Body
GOALS
Good Health & Well-being
KEYWORDS
fair trade, Smart device, elderly care
COUNTRY
Republic of Korea
DESIGNED BY
ID+IM Design Laboratory, KAIST
WEBSITE
http://idim.kaist.ac.kr/masaai-smart-cane
Masaai Smart Cane
Smart Cane System for The Elderly Through Fair Trading with Masaai Tribe for their independent life
Maasai Smart Cane is a smart cane made of fair trade wood stick from the Maasai tribe. Masaai Carved birch tree is shipped from Africa and assembled with Smart Grip unit to became the Maasai Smart Cane for the elderly. Whenever user is in a trouble, he or she can send an alert to the designated person by pressing the SOS button on the Smart Grip.
Maasai tribe has traditional handcraft skills using their wood resources, but they are currently encountering economical problems. On the other hand, elders in developed country have big needs for having more active and safe daily life. We tried to solve these two problems together as designing Smart Grip which can be assembled with Masaai’s handcrafted wood stick. As we suggesting it with the Fair Trading donation system(donate all profits to the Masaai who actually made the stick), we could fulfill both needs – health-aid device for developed country by adding smart technology, and income growth for developing country by fair trading.