It’s not everyday that you come across a person who leaves you speechless. The first time I saw this video I got chills, her passion for educational design is truly inspiring. Words wont do this video justice, so please watch and enjoy. I’d love to hear your feedback and thoughts below in the comments section.
“As a young designer, Emily Pilloton was frustrated by the design world’s scarcity of meaningful work. Even environmentally conscious design was not enough. “At graduate school, people were starting to talk more about sustainability, but I felt it lacked a human factor,” she said. “Can we really call $5,000 bamboo coffee tables sustainable?” Convinced of the power of design to change the world, at age 26 Pilloton founded Project H to help develop effective design solutions for people who need it most.
Her book Design Revolution features products like the Hippo Water Roller, a rolling barrel with handle that eases water transport; AdSpecs, adjustable liquid-filled eyeglasses; and Learning Landscapes, low-cost playgrounds that mesh math skills and physical activity.
In February 2009, Pilloton and her Project H partner Matthew Miller began working in Bertie County, North Carolina, the poorest and most rural county in the state, to develop a design-build curriculum for high-school kids, called Studio H. In August 2010 they began teaching their first class of 13 students. Read about their experiences in Design Mind.
“… the work means something, and every day we feel that something positive is happening, whether or not we can put our finger on it. “
Emily Pilloton in Design Mind
New World of Learning 
That’s incredibly inspiring. It seems like a process that would not translate well to a larger scale, though, and she hints at that in the end. Is it too naive to think local business owners could get excited about investing in a project like this in their own communities?