The nine-day Dutch Design Week (DDW) is the biggest design event in Europe and is held in Eindhoven every October. It presents work and concepts by hundreds of designers to visitors from the Netherlands and abroad.

This year marks the first time a design concept from a Bangladeshi designer has been featured in this prestigious event.

The concept was developed by Md. Sadik Abdal, an Electrical and Electronic Engineering (EEE) undergraduate from Independent University, Bangladesh (IUB). Sadik's off-grid vaccine refrigerator idea has received funding from the IKEA Foundation and now has even been showcased in the 2021 Dutch Design Week.

The smart vaccine refrigeration and storage system harnesses the power of the sun to create ice banks that help keep vaccines at an optimum temperature throughout the night as well as cloudy days when irradiance levels are low. This has been achieved by using solar direct drive technology, which means that batteries are not needed.

The refrigerator's two-chamber design separates the ice layer and the vaccines in the refrigerator, which helps provide more storage, enhance temperature control, and provide improved thermal insulation. The solar direct drive vaccine refrigerator can help enhance the availability of vaccines in remote and off-grid locations, which can improve health outcomes for vulnerable communities in developing countries.