KickStart International
Donald Swen is a Design Engineer at KickStart International since July 2022, currently based at Autodesk Foundation's Pier 9. Previous experience includes serving as a Product Design Engineer and Teaching Assistant for the Product Realization Lab at Stanford University from February 2021 to June 2023, where responsibilities involved coaching students in physical fabrication and managing a machine and wood shop. Donald held the position of Design for Extreme Affordability Social Impact Fellow, collaborating with LifeMoves to create a digital kiosk for homelessness shelters. Additionally, experience includes facilitating design thinking workshops as a Design Consultant for d.school Corporate Projects and serving as a William J. Clinton Fellow at the American India Foundation, where efforts focused on business models for social enterprises addressing climate change. Donald's educational background comprises a Master of Science in Design Impact from Stanford University, a Bachelor of Science in Materials Science Engineering from Columbia University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Physics from Willamette University.
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KickStart International
KickStart’s mission is to get millions of people out of poverty quickly, cost effectively and sustainably. KickStart creates opportunities for poor, rural, entrepreneurial farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa to make money and offers a permanent solution to address the deepest root of poverty; lack of income. KickStart designs and mass markets simple, money-making tools that open up business opportunities for poor smallholder farmers. MoneyMaker brand, human powered, irrigation pumps are the most widely used of these products and provide an ideal and environmentally friendly solution that will quickly enable poor farming families to access water and grow crops. These low-cost ($35 and $100 USD) pumps are sold in local retail shops (KickStart works with factories, shippers, distributors and dealers to ensure that our pumps are made widely available and accessible to poor communities and in rural areas), and once purchased, enable farmers to move from rain-fed farming to irrigated agriculture at which point they can grow crops year-round and sell their crops at a profit during the dry season when prices are high. With increased income, they lift themselves out of poverty and improve their quality of life by being able to access: plentiful food, clean water, education for their children and healthcare for their families.