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announcements Prize for "Best Use of IT in Rural America"
announcements Prize for "Best Use of IT in Rural America" Prize for "Best Use of IT in Rural America"
The co-winners of this year's student competition both focused on IT
solutions for healthcare issues in developing regions: Telemicroscopy
for Disease Diagnosis, and Coupling Output-based Aid and Mobile
Technologies. These proposals were each awarded $8500. Click here to watch a video of the awards ceremony.
Other prizes given at the awards ceremony include:
Special Prize for Best Use of IT for Rural America ($5000) to the Summer of Service Technology Institute submitted by UC Santa Cruz students Christina Hamill and Julie Caso. Their proposal will help fund a five-day tech camp for youth leaders from the Digitally Abled Producers Project (D@PP) of the Central San Joaquin Valley. The tech camp is organized by collaborative efforts of UCSC undergraduate students, the Global Information Internship Program (GIIP) and the Center for Multicultural Cooperation (CMC). D@PPers will receive an introduction into college life and hands on instruction in technical skills for social change.
Second prize of $3000 to UC Berkeley student Jesse Leaman for his proposal, Information Technology Platform to Help Motorized Wheelchair Users Achieve Universal Access. The project will test the feasibility of creating an Information Technology (IT) platform which can be mounted onto any motorized wheelchair with the goal of increasing the user's safety, productivity, and overall quality of life.
Third prize was shared by two proposals, each receiving $2000. iCare: Direct Person-to-Person Charity for Natural Disaster Relief by UC Berkeley students Anand Kulkarni, Urvashi Gupta, and Ephrat Bitton, is a new IT system that directly pairs individual donors and recipients of aid via the principles of peer-to-peer delivery and swarm distribution. Developing Interactive Lifecycle Assessment Tools for Consumer-level Goods and Services by UC Berkeley students Scott Zimmerman and Chris Jones, aims to place powerful, user-friendly and informative lifecycle assessment tools directly in the hands of consumers, retailers, producers, and city governments to allow for more informed consumer choices and how they impact the environment via CO2 production.
- Telemicroscopy for Disease Diagnosis, submitted by UC Berkeley students David Breslauer, Robi Maamari, Alison Lynch, Gene Cho and Katrina Lin, aims to create a simple, convenient, and cost-effective optical microscopy system for developing countries by converting camera-enabled cell phones into microscopes capable of routine disease diagnosis.
- Coupling Output-based Aid and Mobile Technologies, from UC Berkeley students Ben Bellows, Mahad Ibrahim, Sonesh Surana and Melissa Ho, will look at the feasibility of using smartphones to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health service delivery in Uganda with implications across many developing regions with poor healthcare and limited information technology infrastructure.
Other prizes given at the awards ceremony include:
Special Prize for Best Use of IT for Rural America ($5000) to the Summer of Service Technology Institute submitted by UC Santa Cruz students Christina Hamill and Julie Caso. Their proposal will help fund a five-day tech camp for youth leaders from the Digitally Abled Producers Project (D@PP) of the Central San Joaquin Valley. The tech camp is organized by collaborative efforts of UCSC undergraduate students, the Global Information Internship Program (GIIP) and the Center for Multicultural Cooperation (CMC). D@PPers will receive an introduction into college life and hands on instruction in technical skills for social change.
Second prize of $3000 to UC Berkeley student Jesse Leaman for his proposal, Information Technology Platform to Help Motorized Wheelchair Users Achieve Universal Access. The project will test the feasibility of creating an Information Technology (IT) platform which can be mounted onto any motorized wheelchair with the goal of increasing the user's safety, productivity, and overall quality of life.
Third prize was shared by two proposals, each receiving $2000. iCare: Direct Person-to-Person Charity for Natural Disaster Relief by UC Berkeley students Anand Kulkarni, Urvashi Gupta, and Ephrat Bitton, is a new IT system that directly pairs individual donors and recipients of aid via the principles of peer-to-peer delivery and swarm distribution. Developing Interactive Lifecycle Assessment Tools for Consumer-level Goods and Services by UC Berkeley students Scott Zimmerman and Chris Jones, aims to place powerful, user-friendly and informative lifecycle assessment tools directly in the hands of consumers, retailers, producers, and city governments to allow for more informed consumer choices and how they impact the environment via CO2 production.
Congratulations to the winners of the CITRIS White Paper competition 2007. And thank you to Tom Kalil, Special Assistant to the Chancellor for Science and Technology at UC Berkeley, who organized the contest in order to tap into the extraordinary energy and creativity of UC students to help translate basic research into projects that have a direct positive impact on society.
