It seems blindingly simple. A lighter font is bound to take less ink as printers whirr and cartridges/jets disburse ink while printed documents come tumbling out. It needed out-of-the-box thinking to be able to see it all so clearly. When the maths is done, the project becomes massive given the promised saving of $400 million a year just for governments in the United States, due to the mountain of materials they use in printing in a so-called paperless age.
Great credit goes to Suvi Mirchandani, a 14-year-old person of Indian origin, whose “eureka” moment came as he was doing a eco-sustainability study in school. A new perspective may have come in one so young, perhaps, because he brought fresh thinking to the table. It is the ready application to the real world that makes his project so valuable, though giant organisations like governments may think on a different plane, like reducing printing altogether by putting documents online. His idea is well worth pursuing at offices worldwide to achieve a more economical printing mode.
Where Mirchandani excelled is in thinking on practical lines. There are millions of young dreamers who have come up with ideas on eco-friendly fuel and clean energy to save the planet, but few have come with a readymade solution that also serves the bottomline while furthering environmental sustainability. Also, the advantage he has enjoyed in wide acceptance of a bright new idea is due to the environment of knowledge seeking that is encouraged by institutions of higher learning like Harvard.
