How a Zero-Electricity Fridge Will Bring Medicine to the Developing World

Adam Grosser and some geeks from Stanford built a fifty-dollar device that could cool vaccines where they're needed most.
Hero Design Lab

More than a billion people lack access to electricity and refrigeration, which means they also lack access to important vaccines that need to be kept cool. Nonprofits are pouring millions into developing vaccines that don't need refrigeration, but tech venture capitalist Adam Grosser has a different idea: change the fridge.

Working with a thermodynamics team at Stanford, Grosser built a thermos-sized device that contains a refrigerant that's triggered when the device is heated and left to cool. It then acts like a powerful cold pack, turning anything from a jug to a hole in the ground into a twenty-four-hour minifridge. At roughly fifty dollars apiece, Grosser's device could potentially bring people in the developing world high-maintenance medicines -- and the simple pleasure of a cold drink on a hot day.


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