Author: spencer

The UC Berkeley premiere of FITE Film is October 12th in Stanley Hall room #105. A panel discussion featuring the individuals in the film will follow immediately after the screening  to  put real faces to real issues. Seating is limited! Click here to purchase tickets.

With more than 2.3 million people in the prison system, the U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Americans make up 5% of the global population but, shockingly, our prisons hold 25% of the world’s prisoners. The National Institute of Justice reports that many former offenders will return to incarceration— some as soon as the end of their first year post-release.  Recidivism, or a person’s relapse into criminal behavior, is a contentious issue amongst policymakers looking to resolve the problem of overcrowded prisons in the U.S. UC Berkeley alumna and 2016 Big Ideas Contest winner Skylar Economy and her film crew—consisting of co-producers Sheila Wagner, Tristan Caro, Christian Collins, and Clarence Ford—are adding a new perspective on how the country can address mass incarceration. They are shedding light on recidivism through “From Incarceration to Education” — the FITE Film — their in-depth documentary on formerly incarcerated students and their journey in higher education.

Ms. Economy first learned about recidivism from  an article highlighting the Underground Scholars Initiative, an organization on campus that connects and supports formerly incarcerated UC Berkeley students. Initially, FITE Film started as a short documentary Economy created for a class. As she learned more about the topic and delved deeper into the issue of recidivism, she and her co-producer decided to develop a longer film with the goal of screening it in prisons and in film festivals.

“One of our main goals is to show that it is possible to get out of the system and achieve higher education. We wanted to really bring this message to people on a different emotional level,” Economy stated. “With film, the audience is able to see and hear the people on screen. Paired with the panel, I believe this will really help to foster that personal connection between the audience and the individuals in the film.”

Not only is FITE Film an educational resource for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals, it is also part of a larger vision. Economy and her team have been actively creating a network of online resources by partnering with mentorship and advocacy organizations such as the Berkeley Underground Scholars Initiative and  Root & Rebound in order to aid currently and formerly incarcerated individuals in their transition back to society. “You can make a documentary about all kinds of different issues to inspire people, but it’s not until you give people that second step, the answer to ‘Now what?’, that they will be able to do something about the issue,” Economy said.

However, tackling an issue like recidivism does not come without challenges. The team strives to make the film accessible to individuals in the prison system, those who “need it most.” However, to be shown in prisons and other correctional institutions, the film must adhere to strict protocols in order to be approved by prison wardens. For example, Economy explains that instead of labeling the film a documentary, it must be referred to as an “educational film”. Yet, these hurdles will not stop the team from pursuing their goal to have FITE Film reach its intended audience.

FITE Film won first place in both the Big Ideas Art & Social Change category and at the Grand Prize Pitch Day in 2016. According to Economy, the value of participating in the Big Ideas contest went far beyond just the award. “Big Ideas really gave us confidence in our idea and in ourselves in order to make this project a reality,” Economy stated. “Through Big Ideas, we were given more than just funding: they gave us support from diverse, passionate people who also wanted to make a positive difference in the world.”
Since winning Big Ideas, the FITE Film project and team has grown exponentially. In the past two years, the film was chosen as a commitment in the annual Clinton Global Initiative University 2016, became finalists for Fast Company’s 2017 World Changing Ideas Award, and was also chosen as a finalist for Red Bull Amaphiko Academy 2017. The team launched a successful Indiegogo campaign that raised $15,805 online and won a highly-coveted grant for editorial assistance from the Berkeley Film Foundation.  

Looking beyond the Bay Area, Economy and her team hope to partner with other centers and prisons across the country for screenings as well. “Our ultimate goal is a self-sustaining program.  We hope in the future that anyone will be able to acquire the screening and hold a panel by themselves.” Economy said. “Hopefully, the film will pick up more attention, and more people will start to understand that no, having been incarcerated is not an end-all be-all. There are options, resources, and people that can and will support those affected by incarceration go to a better place.”

After the film screening, a Q&A panel will be led by the filmmakers, Skylar Economy and Christian Collins, and the four formerly incarcerated students from the film: PhD student David Maldonado, graduate student Clarence Ford, undergraduate student Shalita Williams, and undergraduate student Richard Rodriguez. The panel will be followed by an introduction of FITE Film’s collaboration with Root & Rebound, a legal advocacy group, where the FITE Film team will connect the audience to resources available for formerly incarcerated persons, through the use of Root & Rebound’s “Roadmap to Reentry”.

In addition to its 2017 fall premiere, FITE Film is looking to launch nationwide in 2018. Keep an eye out for FITE Film in theaters near you!

***For more information on how to support FITE film, please visit their website. ***http://www.fitefilm.com/donate

The annual Big Ideas contest seeks both students with health-focused innovations and global health experts to participate in this year’s contest!

As one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious social impact contests, Big Ideas provides up to $300,000 directly to students each year for their groundbreaking initiatives across 8 categories. Armed with the training and seed funding provided by Big Ideas, student teams have gone on to secure over $150 million in additional funding for their social ventures, and judges and mentors play a pivotal role in their success at an early stage.

Global Health is one of the contest’s most popular categories. Experts with 8+ years of experience are encouraged to support student innovators as judges and mentors, and students with creative solutions that tackle domestic and international health challenges are invited to submit a proposal!

Call for Global Health experts

Apply ASAP to be a judge or mentor (latest by November 15)!
Big Ideas judge & mentor roles are ideal for public health professionals with 8+ years of experience who are interested in engaging with and supporting student innovators! Pre-proposal judges commit between 3 to 6 hours total over the course of 3 weeks (November 18 to December 8), scoring and providing feedback on 6-9 pre-proposals. Mentors are paired with a team based on their expertise, and commit approximately 6 hours of advising to students between late January and early March. Both processes can be conducted entirely online, allowing judges & mentors to participate remotely and to give teams detailed feedback in their free time. For more information, visit the judge page and mentor page, or apply here.

Call for Student Proposals

Pre-proposal deadline: November 16, 2016 12pm (noon).
Students can win up to $18,000 for their global health innovation through Big Ideas. In the first round, students applying to the Global Health category are required to submit a 3-page concept note or pre-proposal that describes an action-oriented, inter-disciplinary project that would help alleviate a health concern among low-resource communities. Proposals submitted to this category should a) demonstrate an evidence of a widespread health concern faced by low-income populations or low-resource communities, and b) develop a system, plan, or technology that addresses this problem that is both culturally appropriate within the target communities, and appropriate for low-resource settings. Visit the website to learn more about the category and past projects, school eligibility, and requirements.

For questions about either opportunity, email us at bigideas@berkeley.edu.

Past Winners

More Winners

By Nicholas Bobadilla

In the last round of the 2016 Big Ideas Competition, finalists in the IT category presented their ideas to a panel of judges. The innovative social impact projects consisted of five applications targeting issues that spanned health justice, campus security, special education and mental health.

MBA candidate James Bui kicked off the presentations with PillPal, a novel initiative for promoting drug price transparency. Inspiration for the project surfaced when James accompanied his immigrant father to pick up medication from a pharmacy. As non-native English speaker, James’ father needed help translating dense price information outlined in his insurance plan. Identifying an opportunity to remedy this problem, James gathered a team of students to develop an app targeted at low-income populations that provides drug prices and healthcare information in an accessible format, and empowers users to make informed decisions about their healthcare. Currently, the team is deliberating a for-profit route or a non-profit route, the former consisting of private partnerships with generic brand drug companies, and the latter leading to collaboration with government agencies. PillPal’s long-term goal is to reach more high and middle income users and to partner with doctors who can offer feedback.

Next in the panel was an app developed by an undergraduate team of software engineers to promote campus safety. After team member Vinay Ramesh narrowly avoided a robbery on campus, he decided students needed a collaborative online platform to provide real-time information on dangerous activity. The solution was Wildfire, an app that notifies users with pictures, comments, or text messages when a crime occurs in their area. It also enables users to send an alert to their emergency contacts and other users in the vicinity. The app combines relevant historical data with real-time, user-generated crime reports to present the most relevant information. Already, Wildfire has garnered thousands of downloads; the team has established partnerships with UCPD and BPD and received an endorsement by UC Berkeley’s student government. With funding from Big Ideas, the team hopes to spread its services to other high-risk campuses, including UCLA and USC.

Following Wildfire was Et al Health, which delivers healthcare information on rare diseases like ALS and Cassalmen’s. Due to the rareness of these diseases, patients often have trouble finding a specialist to treat their condition or administer information. To remedy this problem, Et al Health provides a search tool that allows patients to find doctors based on their research expertise. “We’re providing provide honest, accurate, and friendly information in order to get patients the treatment they need,” said team member Bill Chambers. The process is rigorous, requiring the team to parse through and clean various data sources. But the challenge is worth it to these dedicated students, who are set on providing an exceptional experience to their users.

MBA candidate Andrew Hill followed up with LiftEd, an app designed for tablets that enables Special Education teachers to more easily track their students’ progress. “Special education is like having two full-time jobs,” said Hill during the pitch. Teachers must simultaneously teach and track the progress of their students. But with LiftEd, teachers can easily input data and focus more attention helping their students. Because the data is collected and stored in a digital platform, teachers and administrators can easily track progress, as well as share information with parents. The team is focused on a grassroots approach, having already developed a partnership with a New Jersey school district and hoping to expand to more districts in the future. They also hope to galvanize support among parents, who are the best equipped to advocate for the quality of their children’s education.

Last to present was an app aimed at helping users manage their mental health struggles. After enduring depression during their first year in medical school, Ramin Rajaii and Brandon Brown understood the need for a platform that helped students in similar circumstances. The response was MindFull, an app that empowers users to create a personalized treatment plan to address their emotional hardships. “The app provides mental health treatments as daily tasks users can accomplish. These are split into a three-week treatment regiment,” said Brown. The treatments, which include meditation and exercise routines, draw from research-based strategies that have proven effective at alleviating depression and other mental health conditions. Users can enter data pertaining to their moods, and will be able to track their progress given the visualization tools in the app. After testing MindFull with a cohort of medical students, Brown and Rajaii hope to bring on physician mentors to oversee their progress and consult on the app’s effectiveness.

By Nicholas Bobadilla

2015 Global Health Big Ideas winner Hombres Verdaderos aims to improve health outcomes by stopping domestic violence before it starts. Set to launch in March, the program will engage young, at-risk adolescent boys, ages 11 to 14 years old, from districts in Barranquilla, Colombia.

Co-led by UC Berkeley Master of Public Health candidate Nerissa Nance and her friends and colleagues Jairo Martinez and Vanessa Sanchez Conquett, Hombres Verdaderos is a product of passion and diligence that developed over several years. The idea for the organization grew out of Nance’s conversations with Martinez and Conquett, two psychologists who work with the Ministry for Women and Gender Equity in Barranquilla. Together, they discussed ideas to collaborate on a nonprofit organization dedicated to preventing domestic violence by focusing on youth populations. Nance also mulled over ideas with Aarthi Rao, a student in Berkeley’s MBA program, about a domestic violence prevention program that combined their interests in health and behavioral economics. With the support of Big Ideas, and project mentor Bridget Brennan, the group came together to create a concrete design for Hombres Verdaderos.

“We wanted to address the upstream risk factors of violence,” Nance said. “We wanted to engage young boys and expand on existing programs.” She is adamant about domestic violence’s relevance as a public health issue. “Domestic violence isn’t what people think of when they think of public health, but I see domestic violence as an issue that affects the health outcomes of all genders. That’s what we had in mind when writing the proposal.”

Through workshops and youth-driven media campaigns, the boys in the program learn about domestic violence prevention and become advocates for change. Participants undertake a month-long series of play-based workshops on relevant themes, including power, oppression, and the effects of gender expectations. The project will enlist older adolescent volunteers to help lead the workshops and create positive role models for the boys.

Hombres Verdaderos will partner with a local organization called Promotora de Excelencia Personal (PEP) that provides youth the skillset to become responsible leaders in the community. “We identified PEP as a great program, because they have youth that are motivated and want to be successful,” said Nance. The current cohort will then train the next cohort, and eventually Hombres Verdaderos will recruit from other youth development programs within the Ministry for Women and Gender Equity.
Nance recently returned from Colombia where she, Martinez and Conquett were building rapport with PEP and the Ministry for Women and Gender Equity. Their ultimate hope is to scale up Hombres Verdaderos regionally through the ministry, but recent structural changes have fenced this goal and forced the team to seek out new ways of scaling. This isn’t the first set of hurdles the project has had to overcome. In December, the team put the program on hold due to complications in developing the curriculum. Nance considered handing it off to a third party, but found it difficult given how much the team had already invested.

Now set to begin in April, the program will consist of two month-long phases. The first is educational and will engage participants in a series of workshops that explore gender roles, violence and the potential for change. The primary focus will be improving bystander intervention among young men, which has proven an effective and productive method of preventing domestic violence. Nance says, “The psychological literature says bystander intervention moves past blame and shifts toward a more positive role we can play in preventing domestic violence.”

Pre and post-program surveys, along with interviews and focus groups, will be conducted among participants to measure impact. The team will also issue follow-up surveys six months after implementation to test for attenuation of program effects.

Following the first phase, the youth participants will recruit a second cohort through social media and arts-based campaigns. This approach will allow them to engage with the community, integrate the freshly learned ideas into their own value system, and take on leadership roles among their peers. The long-term benefits of Hombres Verdaderos will be based largely on the strength of peer influence.
“When youth are teaching youth, they get to have this feeling of ownership over the program,” Nance says. “Once you pass a certain age, the people you look up to start to be your peers, especially during this period of early adolescence. Youth seek to belong to something and feel good about their positions relative to their peers.”  Nance stresses the importance of targeting male youth through the program, saying that peer influence in a single-sex environment will have a large impact. “Boys bonding and going through the program with other boys will begin to shift the paradigm of what it means to be cool,” she says. “That happens in a very different way in a single-gendered environment than in a co-ed situation.”

(Hombres Verdaderos recently received a spot in the Clinton Global Initiative University. Donate to their crowdfunding campaign and help them advance to the next round!)

By Sybil Lewis

In 2011, Nick Pearson was working for Acumen Fund seeking to invest in businesses serving low-income populations in Kenya, when he felt compelled to start a social enterprise for improving maternal and infant health care.

Pearson’s decision was influenced by his wife, Megan Huchko, an obstetrician on the UCSF faculty who had worked extensively in Western Kenya. Together, they saw that even though the number of women delivering babies in health facilities had grown in Kenya, maternal mortality in peri-urban or slum communities remained high: 700 deaths per 100,000 live births, compared to the national average of 360.16, and a hundred times higher than some countries in Western Europe.

The aim of Jacaranda Health was to recognize that the main problem facing poor women was not a lack of access to health facilities, but a lack of quality facilities and skilled care.

“In the last 20 years there has been a strong focus on facility-based care across all income levels,” said Pearson, who holds a MBA from UC Berkeley. “The problem for the next generation is not that women aren’t going to the hospital, but that when they do go the quality is poor and they are often disrespected.”

Indeed, a 2006 study from the African Population and Health Research Center found 70 percent of births in Nairobi’s peri-urban areas take place in health facilities, but only 48 percent of women deliver in facilities meeting minimum standards. Women reported being physically and verbally abused by healthcare practitioners during their maternal visits, discouraging them from returning for postpartum check-ups.  Other reports found inadequate resources in public health facilities, resulting in understaffed facilities and overworked practitioners. Kenya falls below the international minimum threshold of 23 doctors, nurses, and midwives per 10,000 people to deliver essential maternal and child health services.

“Jacaranda Health emerged from a confluence of understanding health care through the eyes of women and identifying the gaps in the business landscape,” said Pearson. “This was a good opportunity to use business models to address clinical service gaps.”

In 2011, Jacaranda Health started operations as a mobile clinic providing antenatal care. By 2012, it had opened its first maternity clinic in Ruiru, a community east of Nairobi, after receiving feedback from women that they preferred a fixed clinic because it better met their expectations.

In September 2014, Jacaranda Health opened its second maternity hospital in Kahawa West, a community on the outskirts of Nairobi, with new facilities to perform cesarean sections and other emergency care. Since Jacaranda’s founding in 2011, the two clinics have served over 7,000 women and delivered over 900 babies with over a 99 percent survival rate. The nonprofit employs 80 people in Kenya.

Jacaranda Health’s model is built on the principal of patient-centered design and currently provide antenatal, obstetric, postnatal, and family planning services to its patients. In addition to providing medical services, the Kenya-based organization strives to be a “global innovation laboratory,” adapting and integrating the best clinical protocols, technologies, health information systems, and business approaches. Clinic staff focus on adapting internationally recognized medical protocols to the Kenyan context, to ensure that women receive quality care as well as care that is respectful and dignified.

“In the American health system, quality care is defined in seven pillars and one of them is respectful care, which is especially important when dealing with maternity care,” Pearson said. “From focus groups, I heard stories of women delivering their babies in public and private hospitals in Kenya, but being treated terribly by medical personnel who lacked empathy. This has an impact on women’s dignity, self-respect, and empowerment, preventing them from seeking further care.”

By adapting recommendations from international organizations, such as the World Health Organization and the Population Council, providers at Jacaranda Health ensure that women build a rapport with their providers while also receiving high quality of care. Some of the evidence-based protocols include checklists, evidence-based algorithms for clinic operations, and regular clinic case and chart reviews with staff. Jacaranda Health also incorporates a Japanese philosophy called Kaizen, commonly known as “Lean Methodologies,” which relies on small, continuous improvements to boost productivity and reduce waste.

Jacaranda has been able to succeed with its patient-centered approach by adapting human resources. Nurse aides conduct non-clinical care, and community health workers manage home visits and client education, granting Jacaranda’s nurses more time to tend to individual patients.
With the goal of being a health care think tank, as Pearson describes it, Jacaranda has incorporated various technological innovations to further improve its client experience. Because over 80 percent of clients have mobile phones, the clinics send SMS text messages to schedule appointments and send postpartum family planning information. Other simple uses of technology include a Whatsapp messaging group for groups of prenatal clients to ask questions and share their experiences.

Jacaranda supports itself through grants and client fees, with a goal of having its maternity facilities become self-sustaining from earned revenue. According to Pearson, normal delivery costs are about US$90, significantly less than other private clinics in Nairobi. Furthermore, in 2014 Jacaranda Health was certified to accept Kenya’s National Health Insurance Fund, reducing out of pocket costs for many clients.

While the majority of services provided are pregnancy-related, Jacaranda Health is expanding its family planning offerings. In 2012, Sirina Keesara, a UCSF medical student now doing her ob-gyn residency at the University of Chicago, won a $9,000 award from the Big Ideas@Berkeley competition in the Global Poverty Alleviation category to build Jacaranda Health’s family planning portfolio.

Keesara arrived in Kenya in August 2012, and implemented a human rights-based counseling process for nurses to better inform patients about contraceptive decisions. The process is based on the Population Council’s Balanced Counseling Strategy (BCS+), which allows mothers to lead the discussion as they consider their option. Keesara extended her stay in Kenya until August 2014 and increasingly focused on postpartum family planning, which is crucial to initiate six weeks after delivery. According to a study published in the International Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, the ideal interval between pregnancies is 18 months and women with shorter birth spacing times were twice as likely to have a premature birth.

“In Kenya, almost all family planning resources are easily available, but what was missing was excellent counseling on the different options and the potential side effects to help women make the best decision for themselves,” Keesara said.

Jacaranda Health is also trying to involve male partners in family planning decisions by providing educational materials tailored to fathers’ needs and by encouraging open discussion.

To scale up its health impact, Jacaranda is working in partnership with public hospitals to adapt its tools for delivering high-quality care. In 2015, the organization launched its first partnership with two hospitals outside Nairobi and will expand its partnerships in 2016.

“To achieve scale and impact, we plan to have a few of our own maternity centers of excellence to act as drivers of innovation, and then to work with the government to adapt and replicate quality care in public hospitals,” Pearson said.