The mine kafon: Massoud Hassani at TEDxUtrecht

Born in Afghanistan in 1983, Massoud Hassani moved to Holland in 1998 in search of a better life. Having adopted a new lifestyle and cultural habits, Hassani decided to pursue a creative education at the Design Academy Eindhoven. His creative talents had already emerged as a child in Kabul, where he would make all kinds of toys, sculptures and paintings.
Hassani's 2009 research project focused on air, fire, earth and biomimicry, the result of which he turned into products. One such product is the Mine Kafon, a landmine decommissioning device that takes its inspiration from a childhood toy. Mine Kafon is a wind-blown, bamboo-spiked ball that loses spikes with each landmine detonation. A GPS built into the Mine Sweeper tracks the landmines back to a website to help track a safe course.
As a child in Afghanistan, where there are literally millions of landmines and the Mine Kafon is Hassani's solution to this problem. The project has won several prices and is nominated for the Design of the Year 2012 by the Design Museum in London.
Hassani's latest project is a series of cooking products called "Silk Cooking", inspired by Afghan traditions. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)