Frugal science: A physicist view on tackling global health and education challenges

Science faces an accessibility challenge. Although information/knowledge is fast becoming available to everyone around the world, the experience of science is significantly limited. One approach to solving this challenge is to democratize access to scientific tools. We believe this can be achieved via “Frugal science”; a philosophy that inspires design, development and deployment of ultra-affordable yet powerful scientific tools for the masses. Using examples from my own work (Foldscope: one dollar origami microscope, Paperfuge: a twenty cents high-speed centrifuge); I will briefly describe the process of identifying challenges, designing solutions and deploying these tools to enable open ended scientific curiosity/inquiries in communities around the world. By connecting the dots between science education and global health, I will explore the role of “simple” tools in advancing access to better human health in a resource limited world.