BIOGRAPHY

It weighs about 70 kilograms and it’s moved by the wind. It has about 175 legs, sticking out of a core. It rolls along, and if it presses a land mine, it makes it detonate.” Massoud Hassani describes the device he designed to clear mines. It’s faster, safer and more than 100 times cheaper than traditional techniques.

Growing up in Afghanistan, Hassani and his friends would make wind-blown toys – ingenious spheres or tubes made of simple materials that rolled across the desert. But the desert could be a dangerous place to play: years of conflict have left Afghanistan littered with lethal landmines.

Hassani moved to the Netherlands as a teenager and went on to graduate from Eindhoven’s celebrated Design Academy. Inspired by the wind toys of his childhood, he created a wind-powered device that trips land mines as it rolls. This award-winning invention, the Mine Kafon, has met with international acclaim. It will be exhibited at New York’s Museum of Modern Art from April 2014.

Massoud Hassani’s website: massoudhassani.blogspot.nl