I had the pleasure of briefly meeting and listening to Dr. Gregg Zank (CTO- Dow Corning) this evening. Some very interesting work going on at Dow Corning! In particular, his discussion of a waterless powdered shampoo product for third world countries was quite amazing. It’s wonderful to imagine a waterless shampoo, let alone one that is distributed as a dry product in single use packets! Very interesting. It reminded me of another interesting humanitarian project that I’ve talked about before…
That attention to the developing world, and changing lives right now reminded me of my old post about Prof. Silver’s adaptive lenses. I think that one of the greatest things that scientists can do is to positively influence lives. We are in a unique position to do so in very large ways [think about all the amazing inventions you've used today alone]. It means so much when it enables others to benefit themselves also, by improving education, working hours of the day, personal and family health. Remembering the fluid that Prof. Silver’s adaptive lenses use, I realized that this may also be a Dow Corning product, and I was correct! Dow Corning has now partnered with The Center For Vision in the Developing World! Fantastic news, and great to hear a company like Dow Corning is involved in such a great project! Here is the project webpage: Child Vision and their press-release: Child Vision Partners with Dow Corning. Their goal is to make smaller lighter adaptive glasses that can be used by young children to help their education.
So, my hat is off to Dow Corning this evening, for helping to improve the lives of others around the world.