Beyond Traditional Borders:Students Solving

Global Health Challenges

Maria Oden, Rebecca Richards-Kortum

Beyond Traditional BordersUndergraduate program at Rice

• Students learn the engineering design process and apply it to designing solutions to real-world global health challenges provided by our partners.

• Students have the opportunity to apply for internships that allow them to travel to our partners’ sites to implement the designs.

Impact

• These technologies have been used in 21 countries

• Over 45,000 people have been directly and positively impacted through the use of these technologies

28 designs have been evaluated or used in the field

Challenge: Moving from design to dissemination

HaitiMexico

NicaraguaEcuador

Guatemala Honduras

LesothoSwaziland

Botswana

Rwanda

MozambiqueMalawi

Tanzania

Sierra Leone

United States

Dominican Republic

Myanmar

Niger

Kenya

Peru

India

Teaspoon Syringe Dosing Clip

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March 2011

Success Stories- Dosing Clip

Licensed to 3rd Stone DesignDual Market Product

bCPAP

Water Level = 6 cm(Flow = 7 L/min)

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NCIIA Course Grant

NCIIA eTeam

USAID

Stalled?

• Challenges– Bandwidth– Identifying the right partner and/or business

model– What is the real market? – Education focus– Funding- try, try again

Steps to Success

• Design, Prototype, Evaluate, Redesign• Evaluation research

– Initially in US if possible– Clinical trials– Publish– Obtain funding

• Identify local champion • Partner, partner, partner• Dual Market