Community Research Seminar

Please join us for a Community Research Seminar (CRS) on Thursday, November 5th, 12-1:00 PM, in the Crescent Room.

For those of you new to Olin or the CRS, these are short talks (~30 minutes) from Olin community members and visitors on their research. These can be formal presentations with a slide deck, or something more casual (like a chalk talk). If you have research you'd like to share with the community, or a visitor you’d like to invite, please email research@olin.edu to sign up for a talk.

For the November 5th seminar, we’re delighted to welcome Dr. Amos G. Winter, V, Germeshausen Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director, K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center at MIT, who will join us to present:

Global by Design: How to Create Innovations that Scale, Travel, and Transform 

Abstract: Developing countries face the most compelling humanitarian challenges in the world today—around poverty, water, health, and energy—and emerging markets present the greatest economic opportunity for multinational companies, growing at twice the rate of wealthy economies and holding billions of new consumers. Designing products and services that satisfy the wants and needs of these resource-constrained markets can create tremendous social and economic impact, and disrupt wealthy markets by providing higher performance at lower cost. In this presentation, Prof. Amos Winter will share a practical framework from his new book Global by Design for creating innovations that scale across borders, industries, and income levels. Through examples from engineering and product development, he will show how to identify consequential problems, define the requirements for a viable solution, and use socioeconomic and technical insights to create solutions that deliver impact and value across global markets. The presentation will be followed by a fireside chat exploring specific challenges and opportunities of designing global technologies and answering audience questions.

About Amos G. Winter

Amos Winter is the Germeshausen Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Director of the K. Lisa Yang Global Engineering and Research (GEAR) Center at MIT. His research focuses on using mechanical design and product design to create high-performance, low-cost technologies for resource-constrained communities around the world. His portfolio of work includes technologies for irrigation, desalination, clean energy systems, and global health, many of which have been commercialized through startup companies or licenses. A book on his innovation and design approach, Global by Design: How to Create Innovations that Scale, Travel, and Transform, was published by Harvard Business Review Press in 2026 and follows “Engineering Reverse Innovations,” winner of the 2015 McKinsey Award for the best article of the year in Harvard Business Review. Prof. Winter’s work has also been acknowledged through the ASME/Pi Tau Sigma Gold Medal, an NSF CAREER award, an R&D 100 award, and being named one of MIT Technology Review’s 35 Innovators Under 35 (TR35).