Vinay Gupta is a Scottish-Indian engineer who designs low-cost homes for poor parts of the world or disaster zones, and then makes them freely available on the internet so others can do the building. His flagship is the Hexayurt shelter system, which costs around $200* (£142). It uses common building materials, including insulation boards – which, he claims, are a third of the cost of a tent. The business plan is to cut the price of essential goods and services to the point where the poor can afford them.

Can we build a world with open source? which ran in the Guardian on Thursday.

First really big press that I’ve had, although the Hexayurt itself has been on TV a couple of times. It was a really comprehensive and strong article. I’m very, very pleased that the goal of “make goods and services cheap” vs. “make the poor rich” made it in. That was really unexpected. Would have been nice if Appropedia had made it in too.

* minor errata: the “third of the price of a tent” Hexayurt is the OSE-style plywood hexayurt, at around $130.

Anyway, splendid stuff, and thanks to #tuttle’s magical connecting effects [grin].