World Wisdom: Origami Inspired Sustainable Lighting

MIT, Columbia, Yale professor, female founder, inventor of Solight Designs, author, and TedX speaker, Alice Chun, is working with sustainable lighting as the answer to a better future. Solight Design has been featured in Fast Company, The New York Times, Cheddar, Huffington Post, Heavy, Men’s Journal, Tree Hugger, Trend Hunter, and was nominated for USPTO Patents for Humanitarian Winner in 2018. Also featured in Hillary Clinton’s Book “The Book of Gutsy Women” Hillary Rodham Clinton and her daughter, Chelsea, share the stories of the gutsy women who have inspired them—women with the courage to stand up to the status quo, ask hard questions, and get the job done.

I had a chance to learn more in this interview.

- Can you share a little bit about how Solight was created?

While teaching as a Professor in Architecture and Material Technology at Columbia University, Alice created early prototypes of solar lights with her students. Still not satisfied, and fuelled by her passion for helping the underserved, Alice invented the world’s only self-inflatable, portable solar light, eliminating the need for a mouth nozzle. This ensured a healthy, sanitary method to inflate. Alice named this invention the SolarPuff™ and conducted three years of field testing in Haiti. In 2015 she launched Solight Design and initiated a KickStarter program with unprecedented results.INSPIRED BY ORIGAMI Our innovative, award-winning origami design differentiates our Solar Lights from our competitors because it eliminates the need for a mouth nozzle to inflate. Easier and healthier to open, our Solar Lights are designed to be able to transform from a flat polygon into beautiful cube and pyramid shapes with a simple pull-open action. Recognized globally, our designs have won several product innovation accolades, awarded two US Utility Patents and lauded by leaders in design including MoMA, the Modern Museum of Art.We are a solar innovation company, bringing solar to every household. We design and develop solar lighting and power solutions for every home. From Nigeria or New York, we believe we all have the power to create change by using solar in our lives. You don’t need to spend thousands of dollars to use solar in your life. We all have the power to help heal the planet by using individualized infrastructure. We give people the power to hold the sun in your hands. Energy is all around us, and it’s free, and limitless. By using solar products, collectively we can lower CO2 emissions one light at a time.

1solarpuff used a few hours a day instead of a regular light bulb, one person can save over 90lbs of carbon emissions a year. Multiplied by 200 million people is 9  million tons.

We founded this company for three reasons: 1.6 Billion people live without access to electricity, they resort to kerosene which is deadly and toxic. Two million children die from the pollution of kerosene and most communities living in these regions spend up to 30% of their income on kerosene. Climate change is real, and we all have to power to make a difference to change the world. Believe in the power of self-reliance and that one small thing can make a huge impact if we all work together to create change. We don’t need to tap into the grid all the time. This is individualized infrastructure, light and power any time anywhere.

- What are some of the struggles you've faced as an entrepreneur?

There will be a multitude of struggles- I don’t know where to begin. The biggest regret early on, I think was not believing in myself-trusting the intuition, your gut trust your self--. I put too much trust in others to deliver on things that never materialized. I’m very grateful for those mistakes because it prepared me to overcome any challenge. Now trusting data, history, and experience, I’ve learned so much.

- What is it like collaborating with students on prototypes?

Making prototypes with students is  collaboration at it best by creating a multitude of Iterations and discovering the possibilities through the process. - Einstein ’s quote about being able to see Further than most men because he stood on the shoulders of giants— is about how we are all giants if we can learn from each other—true innovation is about the sharing of knowledge, experience and history. 

- Why is it important to you to work on different projects to help struggling communities?

There’s a great quote from Chief Seattle “ Humankind has not woven the web of life— we are all but a single thread with in it. What we do to   the web we do to ourselves—All things are bound together-All things are connected” If there is suffering in the world we are effected by it- climate change- war- extreme poverty- are all Interconnected and historically we have all experienced the effects of these issues in tangible and intangible ways.

- How can people use their position, whatever it is, to create positive change?

One way to think of change is by starting small - but make each small effort in multitudes. It has the power to move mountains and create new Lands— literally

There is  the North Pacific Geyer that is collection of billions of little plastic waste now a land form larger than the size of Texas and is growing-nature h— this land form is the effect of each person on the planet throwing away a little piece of plastic —a small thing - but in multitudes.  If we all did one thing to contribute to this, throwing one piece of plastic away - what that means is that - we have the power to heal the planet but doing one small thing such. As using a small solar light— offset your carbon foot print and together collectively we can   change  the world— 

On a daily basis, if not multiple times each day, Alice Chun, recounts the difficulties in raising a child with asthma and how it inspired her to develop a packable, inflatable, and float-able solar lantern to reduce pollution with 10 million rays of light throughout the globe. Alice Chun is founder of Solight Design, Inventor of SolarPuff Light, professor of Architecture, and author of “Ground Rules In Humanitarian Design.”  She has taught and lectured at Columbia University, University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and Yale.

It all started after witnessing a mother and her family at the end of an alley that was covered in smoke. In the middle of the alley, there was a jug full of kerosene with a big, thick rope coming out of the jug that they had lit with fire. Alice knew she had to do something as she thought about the children breathing in the extremely harmful chemicals and toxins in the smoke each day. “It’s way more than about an object or product, it’s about creating change,” said Alice Chun. “It made me realize that health, the environment, and poverty were inextricably linked in a profound way, and that one simple solution like the SolarPuff™ could tackle all three.

As a little girl growing up in Seoul, Korea and then upstate New York, Alice spent many days learning how a simple fold can become structured. Origami forms were taught to her by her mother, who also taught Alice how to sew her own clothes. Always creative, fascinated by design, structure and forms, Alice studied architecture at Penn State where she obtained her undergraduate degree and went on to earn her Masters in Architecture at the University of Pennsylvania. 

With emerging trends in material technology resulting in smarter, lighter, faster, sustainable fabrication, Alice started to sew solar panels to fabric as early experiments for harnessing solar energy with softer, malleable material. She became focused on solar technology and finding ways to create clean energy solutions upon learning her son Quinn was diagnosed with asthma. 

While teaching as a Professor in Architecture and Material Technology at Columbia University, Alice created early prototypes of solar lights with her students. Fueled by her passion for helping the underserved, Alice invented the world’s only self-inflatable, portable origami solar light, eliminating the need for a mouth nozzle. This ensured a healthy, sanitary method to inflate. Alice named this invention the SolarPuff™ and conducted three years of field testing in Haiti. In 2015 she launched Solight Design and initiated a KickStarter program with unprecedented results. She went on to win numerous awards including the US Patent Award for Humanity and her products have been exhibited at MOMA, the Modern Museum of Art in New York City.