The Berkeley City College Service Community (BCCSC) connects UC Berkeley students with community college students in a leadership development program that promotes civic engagement. Community College is the fastest growing path in pursuing a degree in higher education. A major challenge for community colleges is in providing an active “college experience,” due to low levels of student engagement opportunities. With low funding of core operations in registration, enrollment, and orientation, many community college students have limited opportunities to become involved in internships, volunteer opportunities, and other career paths. BCCSC will connect Berkeley City College students to their campus and assist in easing their transition into four-year universities.
This project seeks to develop low-cost, web and mobile-based software that will increase transparency, traceability, and quality assurance along the global commodity chain for coffee. By digitally aggregating information during the coffee production cycle, the project will increase farmers’ access to capital, mitigate risk for loan providers, and provide transparency for producers and consumers. By increasing the transparency, traceability, and quality assurance throughout the coffee industry, From Crop to Cup hopes to provide increased economic opportunity for low-income communities, and increased effectiveness of all organizations involved.
Diarrheal disease from drinking unsafe water is one of the leading causes for death in Mexico. Today, millions of Mexicans in low-income communities are still at high risk of waterborne diseases because of inadequate water infrastructure and insufficient water quality control. In particular, safe water remains unavailable to those who cannot afford commercially sold bottled water. Point of use water technology like the UV Tube, developed through a collaboration between UC Berkeley and Fundacion Cantaro Azul, is an effective means to secure water quality at home. Nuestra Agua, a new social franchise designed by UC Berkeley students, will expand on the UV Tube project and offer a local, affordable, and reliable option for people who need to purchase safe water and an economic opportunity for local entrepreneurs. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Safe Water Enterprise” category.)
Current water-heating technologies in developing countries are either expensive or have poor quality that increase health and environmental risks. CalSolAgua (CSA) designed a simple, yet patentable, low cost solar water heating system capable of reducing energy costs and carbon emissions for households in developing countries. CSA’s solar water heater can sell for onethird of the price of competing water tank heaters and less than one-eighth the cost of existing solar water heaters. Additionally, it will reduce carbon emissions by over 90 million tons, which is equivalent to taking 17 million cars off the roads. As a 2008 Big Ideas award recipient, CSA has made considerable progress in developing its technology, partnerships and business model. The team will build off this foundation by launching sales in Guatemala and preparing to launch in Mexico City through market research and test installations, to be followed by expansion to Brazil, China and India.
Social Resources for a Healthy Community aims to take available social services and fully maximize their effects on communities. The program is designed to engage Berkeley students in service learning and immerses them in real life issues. Students will be trained through DeCal classes on campus in social work approaches and methods with the assistance of the School of Social Welfare. The ultimate goal of this project is to establish a Volunteer Income Tax Assistance site at Berkeley, establish a social resource consultant structure, and provide information regarding finance, health, education, and legal rights through workshops and educational outreaches.(Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Social Justice & Community Engagement” category.)
The Youth Empowerment Program (YEP) aims to provide a network of support and hope to immigrant children held in federal custody by connecting them to student role models from the University of California. YEP uses a five-month curriculum to help detained youth develop teamwork and leadership skills, reflect upon their past and make positive plans for their future while connecting with college student mentors. YEP provides an extensive leadership training program for volunteers by bringing in experts in diverse fields with the purpose of building future leaders for social justice. YEP volunteers utilize their leadership immediately by working with detained unaccompanied immigrant children every other week and engaging in direct community outreach. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Social Justice & Community Engagement” category.)
Access to standard lab equipment is a serious limitation to scientific education, research and capacity building in many parts of the world. To combat this problem, Tekla Labs aims to empower scientists and engineers to construct their own quality lab equipment from locally available supplies using detailed and reliable protocols. While many real-world examples of doit-yourself (DIY) equipment already exist, quality assurance and comprehensive instructions on how to build education and research grade lab equipment are lacking. To address this, Tekla Labs is creating an interactive online library of tested “How-To” blueprints. All equipment instructions will be freely available under an unrestricted creative commons license to allow users throughout the world to use and add to Tekla Labs. The interactive online forum will allow researchers to ask questions and make requests, share their own improvements and alternative solutions, and connect to other labs worldwide.
(Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Social Entrepreneurship” category.)
There are countless student projects completed each year in academic classes that never get used in the real world because students do not know how to move them to the next level. Similarly, there are real causes that desperately need creative solutions. They can provide a forum for learning in class projects. “Class Projects to Social Ventures” will facilitate collaboration with social ventures to lead to a win-win situation: students will be more motivated because they will know their work can be utilized in a real world context, and the organization will benefit from a project overseen by experts: professors who are specialists in the field. “Class projects to Social Ventures” will provide the missing matchmaker that can 2 connect these parties. Through it, collaborations would be facilitated and students would have more opportunities to apply the knowledge they learn in classes in engaging “real world” projects. (Note: This project originally won in the Big Ideas “Social Entrepreneurship Category” category.)
Through the introduction of an all-access computer center at San Quentin State prison, we propose a feasibility study and a pilot impact study of computer training in two distinct educational programs: one program will focus on instructing basic computer literacy to inmate students in the GED preparation class, and the other will concentrate on teaching advanced computer-aided design (CAD) to inmate-students in the prison’s vocational-training machine shop. This will be the first study of the ability of Information Technology to reduce the crisis of overcrowding in California’s prisons. This project has the full support of San Quentin’s administration and expands upon a thriving service-learning project that we coordinate, in which 70 UC Berkeley undergraduates teach and tutor weekly at San Quentin.
