Cookstoves developed at Berkeley Lab are saving lives around the world. It all started in 2005, when the U.S. government asked Ashok Gadgil, a leader at the Lab and professor at UC Berkeley, for a solution to a grave problem. In Sudan’s war-torn region of Darfur, women had to walk for hours to find firewood, risking attack every step of the way. Often they had to trade precious rations for fuel. Women were spending up to seven hours a day in their dangerous quest for fuel.

Potters for Peace is a US-based non-profit that works in two clay-related fields: working with subsistence potters in Central America (primarily in Nicaragua) and working throughout the world to assist with the establishment of small factories that produce low-cost, point-of-use ceramic water filters in order to make clean water accessible to everyone.