As part of today's kickoff event for the White House National Week of Making, Moore Foundation grantee Manu Prakash announced Foldscope Instruments and Prakash Lab, with support from the Moore Foundation, will provide one million Foldscope Origami microscopes to children around the world in 2017, engaging them in hands-on, curiosity-driven science learning.
Foldscope is a $1, pocket-sized, paper-based microscope that can magnify contents more than 2,000X. An active community of Foldscope users in more than 130 countries are currently using these microscopes to collect and openly share data and information focused on biodiversity, public health and environmental conservation.
This ambitious challenge builds on Prakash's ongoing foundation-supported work to refine the Foldscope, manufacture to scale, and develop corresponding educational materials for children and adults exploring the microscopic world.
Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, was a winner of the foundation's 2014 Science, Play and Research Kit (SPARK) Competition, a challenge to reimagine the chemistry set for the 21st century.
Learn more about the million microscope initiative here.
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