The Giant Solar Funnel - a new design for a solar cooker

[Vinay Gupta]

Solar funnel from Jonathan Sanderson on Vimeo.

Note the extreme manufacturability / design for extreme affordability factors.

Anybody want to take a crack at putting this into mass production? [e-mail]

[Jenara Nerenberg]

Thanks, Vinay. This is great. Where are you hoping to market and sell the product? There might be a market for it here in Nepal, where we're based...

[Vinay Gupta]

Hm, I'm not the manufacturing type. I do design and analysis - see http://hexayurt.com and resources like http://guptaoption.com/scim.pdf but not usually the business end. Do you have manufacturing resources out there?

[Jenara Nerenberg]

We have a wide network and know several people in manufacturing. We can help on the business/market research side of things. Can you tell me more about your plans for the product? Have you visited potential markets?

[Vinay Gupta]

Well, first up, there's no copyright or patent here - it's just an idea for a thing, so anybody can do this, doesn't have to be me. I'm pretty busy on other stuff. The original solar funnel design is from Brigham Young university, but it's a lot smaller and less manufacturable.

I haven't travelled much in the developing world - I'm basically unfunded, working on the neglected stuff, trying to get policy makers to understand the importance (even at a foreign policy level) of appropriate technology infrastructure.

So what would be your next move? Show it to some of your manufacturing contacts, see if anybody thinks they can make a buck selling these, then figure out how to do the pot stand?