Design for the other 90%

"Design for the Other 90%" is a new exhibition running through Sept. 23 at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum in New York City focusing on sustainable innovation. A few of its highlights will be familiar: The Katrina Furniture Project, the One Laptop Per Child initiative and Lifestraw (pictured), for instance, have both received generous media attention.

In featuring more than 30 innovative tools—each of which addresses issues such as safe drinking water, shelter, health and sanitation, education, and transportation—curator Cynthia Smith hopes to illuminate the critical need for humanitarian design. "It's a call to action," says Smith, who has worked for the Lee Skolnick Architecture + Design Partnership and studied at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. "We're trying to show that design can change lives."

While these consumers face many issues—poor shelter, limited medical care, and substandard school systems—developing appropriate solutions is easier said than done. To craft low-cost, high-impact remedies, like the ones featured in "Design for the Other 90%," Smith says innovators must "get creative." "There's more than one way to fix the world's problems," she explains, adding that roughly 2.8 billion people live on less than $2 a day. "We're trying to showcase a variety of solutions."

Read more and see a slideshow of some of the innovations at Businessweek online.