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"Name: ARCHIVE\nBig Idea: ARCHIVE (Architecture for Health in Vulnerable Environments) is an international 501(c)(3) charity that brings awareness to the relationship between poor housing and poor health.\nWhy It's Working: By designing and implementing housing improvements, ARCHIVE can bring down rates of tuberculoisis, HIV and AIDS. A healthier community means a healthier economy.\n\"Health and housing are inextricably linked,\" says Peter Williams, founder of ARCHIVE. \"We know \u2014 and we've known for quite some time \u2014 that the environment is directly proportional to the health risk that these communities face.\"\nEnvironmental factors, like a lack of ventilation and overcrowding, can increase the risk for and exacerbate the symptoms of diseases like tuberculosis, HIV and AIDS. Therefore, ARCHIVE develops housing plans as a strategic way to improve the health and quality of life of the world's poor, says Williams. But the poor are not confined to the developing world \u2014 ARCHIVE has developed housing in West Africa, Haiti, and the UK, where there are 9,000 cases of tuberculosis each year. Around the globe, one billion people live in urban slums, so ARCHIVE has its work cut out for it.\nAnd it all started with a blog (still online, but not active). While working as an architect in countries like Saudi Arabia and Singapore, Williams wrote about the relationships between epidemics, public health policy and architecture; and it attracted a following of people who work in architecture, design, planning, public health, medicine, engineering and more. Facebook hadn't yet blown up and Twitter was not yet born, so instead of building a community within the comments of the blog, Williams received enthusiastic commentary from professionals, academics and students. \"The more I wrote, the more it became increasingly difficult to reconcile some of the early lived experienced I had seen in Jamaica, as well as subsequent travels to countries such as Brazil and South Africa,\" says Williams. \"I felt that as an architect, I could do more than speak about important, thought-provoking issues \u2014 I could mobilize people and communities to act.\" \nAnd to mobilize, he founded ARCHIVE in 2006. Since then, emerging tech has helped ARCHIVE have a bigger impact.\n\"I believed technology could be used as a platform to directly enhance the connection between citizens and communities willing to co-create healthy environments,\" says Williams, adding that tech is integral to what ARCHIVE does. Its upcoming global project involves crowdsourcing and vetting on tech platforms.\nARCHIVE has come a long way since its blog beginnings, and Williams says, \"It starts with a vision.\" Once he established his vision, passion and flexibility have fueled ARCHIVE's growth. \"We set out a way to prioritize one disease over another to ensure that we're addressing the need where it's greatest.\" For example, in Haiti, the focus is on battling tuberculosis.\nARCHIVE's work has been funded by fundraising campaigns and grants. But soon it will add an earned income stream, with its sustainable trading arm, set to launch later this year. It's just another way in which to broaden ARCHIVE's reach.\n\"One has to stay committed to the passion \u2014 that's why you're doing it,\" says Williams. \"What gets me out of bed every day is that this is an urgent issue that isn't being addressed.\"\n"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/04/19/peter-williams-archive-video/>