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Micaela McCabe Uses Product Design for Social Good

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After working in the commercial product design world for over five years since graduating from Stamps, Micaela McCabe (BA 13) carved out a role at her design firm that allows her to focus on both design and social impact.

We established a partnership between our water bottle brand, Ello and a non profit that pursues women’s empowerment by installing solar powered water systems in rural communities around the world. I designed a custom line of drinkware products and 100% of the profits will go toward funding one of these systems, with a goal to raise $20,000 by the end of 2019.

I just returned last week from a user-research trip with our partner in Kenya to potentially design a custom product to go with the system and help replace single-use plastic water bottles that are so heavily used in places without easy access to clean water. It was a particularly impactful trip for me because I got to return to the Maasai region of East Africa that I first visited in 2013 on a Stamps Eco explorer trip with Prof. Joe Trumpey, but this time in a professional design capacity. It felt very much the like the culmination of what I was working toward with my art education.

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