1. Invention as Public Service at
MIT
Inspire, Support, and Scale Student
Innovation
2. Your generation wears its commitment to the greater good
quite lightly. You use your skills to help repair a broken
world, however, you see nothing remarkable about it; you
simply expect it of each other, and of yourselves.
- President Susan Hockfield
Commencement Address to the Class of 2010
10. • B.S. in Mechanical Engineering – 2010
• Currently working for
Procter & Gamble Gillette
in Process & Engineering
• Passionate about Women’s Empowerment
through technology
11. • In Rwanda, currently:
• 36% of women miss
• 50 days of school or work a year
• because they cannot afford sanitary pads
Need for Komera
16. Why YOU should get involved
• Resourceful
• Understand the Business
Aspects
• Global Perspective
• Implementation
and Scaling
17. What’s in it for YOU….
Brilliance + Experience = Large Scale Social Impact
You have the opportunity to extend your reach beyond your current
space of engagement and make a positive difference
20. Lifecycle
1-3 Discovery, Design
Students learn about
design challenges,
teams propose solutions
and receive feedback
on their ideas.
4-5 Decide, Deploy
Judges nominate winners;
they are announced at the
awards ceremony and have a
year to implement their projects.
23. PerfectSight
Developed an innovative,
mobile system for
diagnosing refractive eye
conditions for under $1
using cell phones.
http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/19
Year awarded: 2010 Location: India
24. Egg-energy
Developed innovative lighting
and energy leasing franchise
that aims to eliminate costly,
unhealthy, and dangerous
kerosene lanterns used
around the world.
http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/2
Year awarded: 2009 Location: Tanzania
25. Konbit
Developed platform to help
communities rebuild by
collecting the skills of
residents, allowing non-
governmental organizations to
find and employ them..
http://globalchallenge.mit.edu/teams/view/28
Year awarded: 2010 Location: Haiti
31. Thank you
Lars Hasselblad Torres
lhtorres@mit.edu
On the web http://globalchallenge.mit.edu
On Twitter @mitchallenge
Hinweis der Redaktion
What problems could we solve, together? It is estimated that 25,800 companies founded by MIT alumni employ about 3.3 million people and generate annual world revenues of $2 trillion, producing the equivalent of the eleventh-largest economy in the world.*
* From the 2009 Kauffman Foundation report, “Entrepreneurial Impact: The Role of MIT”
MIT graduate and undergraduate students undertake projects in a range of fields in communities around the world.
We’ve heard – through efforts like the Alumni Association’s EES initiative – that alumns want to connect, communicate, and collaborate around innovation and entrepreneurship opportunities. We propose to involve the world-wide MIT community – 119,000 alumni across 130 countries – in “invention as public service” through the design, development, and deployment of innovative technologies in partnership with the people who need them.
We believe that the competition model provides some unique advantages, particularly in spurring innovation where there are gaps in product and service design and delivery.
Through IDEAS we connect, support, and celebrate teams of public service innovators through an annual competition that traditionally awards up to $8000 in implementation grants to teams demonstrating the greatest innovation, feasibility, and impact.
Here to share her story of how IDEAS supported innovation during her time at MIT is Amrita Saigal ME ’10 who is designing a novel sanitary pad production machine for Rwandan girls and women.
The MIT Global Challenge is launching today with MIT alumni leaders, and will launch in 2011 to the worldwide MIT community
MIT150Celebrating 150 years of service to the world
IDEAS Competition experienceAwards and implementation support since 2001
Growth of “design for development” ecology at MITCourses, student groups, labs, competitions
10 year IDEAS track record64 teams awarded $264,000 since 2002
Leveraged results$3.2 million raised by teams in follow-on funding
Lasting impact3 for-profits, 5 non-profits, 8 technology transfer initiatives(14 others moving forward)
Growing “design for development” ecology at MITD-Lab classesStrong student presence like SEIDAlignment with Institute priorities eg Water Initiative
The MIT Global Challenge is built on top of the IDEAS lifecycle, following two distinct stages over two years – ideation and implementation.
We’re making more awards available to teams as well, so that they can get to work more quickly and make fundraising less of a short-term priority.
As our work grows, the network of impacted communities and MIT presence is also growing. So far, 64 teams have traveled to and worked in 28 countries. These include teams like…
Over the years we can see that the majority of student teams – 65 percent - are carrying out projects in three regions.
Regions that all have strong alumni and at least some enterprise forum presences.
We’ve developed the MIT Global Challenge platform as a resource to connect these teams to alumni networks on the ground in these areas – to help teams better understand local needs, conditions, and resources as well as to match the passion and talent of MIT students with the experience and resources of the MIT community worldwide.
Engage the worldwide MIT community in activities that augment the innovation, feasibility, and impact of student service projects – and support the long-term health of IDEAS and the Global Challenge.
So lets talk about some ways to involve your community and networks:
Defining local problems
Connecting teams to the resources they need to succeed
Fundraising to ensure the long-term viability of IDEAS and the Global Challenge