This mini-blog series highlights members of the coworking space, “The Workspace” located at the KEDCO Downtown Business Studio (207 S Buffalo St, Warsaw, IN).
Design Outreach (DO) is a nonprofit Christian research and product development organization with a vision to see low-income and marginalized communities transformed physically, economically, and spiritually through the development of life-sustaining, appropriate technology and products.
Since its formation in 2013, DO has strived to solve the global water crisis, with a focus on developing reliable water technologies such as the LifePump, a deep reaching and long-lasting hand pump for rural communities in developing countries. DO has built an extensive network of volunteer engineers and designers (many of whom are experts in their respective fields), industry and academic partners, and field implementing partners in 12 countries.
DO headquarters is located near Columbus, OH, and they opened a field office in Malawi in 2020 with a charter to establish supply chains, provide training, advocate for policy change, and test new technologies in Malawi and surrounding countries. DO recently launched Design Outreach Medical and is now developing medical devices for low-resource contexts such as mission hospitals in rural Africa. DO celebrated the opening of the new Warsaw office and launch of DO Medical with a ribbon-cutting ceremony in the KEDCO building on November 28.
Michael Cook (pictured) is the DO R&D Partnerships Director, responsible for the recruiting and mentoring of DO volunteers and members of the Fellows program. He shares DO’s mission, vision, and programs by speaking in churches and organizations around the country, leads a development project to improve the reliability of existing public domain handpumps in marginalized communities around the world, and travels to Africa to help implement and monitor new technologies. Michael is enjoying his new office space in the KEDCO building which is an excellent downtown location for meeting DO business partners.
📸 Pictured is Michael Cook, DO R&D Partnerships Director, and member of The Workspace at the KEDCO Downtown Business Studio. Learn more about Design Outreach at doutreach.org.
