As we count through our many blessings this holiday week, I wonder how many of us will think to give thanks for the light around us? And yet, that is just what I found myself doing once I read about the Portable Light Project: Sloan Kulper MID ‘06 was one of the project’s leaders.

Portable Light is a non-profit initiative established by Kennedy & Violich Architecture, Ltd. (KVAmatX) in Boston that creates new ways to deliver power and light to developing impoverished communities by embedding flexible solar nano-technology into textiles that can harvest energy and generate light, an alternative to large glass-based solar panels which are too expensive to manufacture and transport over rough terrain. The Portable Light Project team created a lightweight, portable solar textile kit, allowing people to use traditional weaving and sewing techniques to create clothing, blankets, and bags that harvest energy. View this video for more about the project, and the semi-nomadic Huichol people of Mexico who are benefiting from this technology.

This project was recently chosen as a winner of one of this years Tech Awards, an international awards program that honors innovators from around the world who are applying technology to benefit humanity, and was  featured in the Museum of Modern Art  show “Design and the Elastic Mind” as well as the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum show “Design for the Other 90%.”

Sloan and his team are currently at work on a new project at KVA centered on bringing Portable Light to rural South Africa.  This is powerful stuff.  RISD Alumni are changing the world.