The Open Philanthropy Project recommended a grant of $500,000 over two years to Engineers Without Borders USA to support the Affordable Off-Grid Refrigeration Challenge. The competition will seek to develop proof of concept prototypes for refrigerators and ice-makers that have the potential to provide sustainable and affordable refrigeration for off-grid, developing world communities. Engineers Without Borders USA believes that affordable off-grid refrigeration will help reduce illnesses and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases, food poisoning, and malnutrition, and that making refrigeration more widely available will also diminish food waste, enable small farmers to grow higher value crops, and reduce the burden on women by eliminating the need to travel to the market daily for perishable food.
This grant falls within Open Philanthropy's work on scientific research, and specifically within its interest in advancing human health and wellbeing.