Commercially available motors have certain limitations for solar-car-racing applications and focus on delivering higher than necessary top speeds at the cost of sacrificing torque output. The goal of the Rotors in Motion project is to develop a general method for optimizing motor designs and to then use this method to manufacture a motor for the UC Berkeley Solar Vehicle Team CalSol.
The Health, Equal for All team works to achieve equal health care for all citizens in Chile regardless of background, ability to pay, preexisting diseases, sex, age, location, etc. This group is seeking to create resources that can be used to advance policy reform with the goal of aligning policy with ethical principles. This team will include individuals that are well informed in health policy and are motivated to work with a team of multimedia experts to achieve greater equality in access to health care. This team will implement multimedia resources to attract citizens to the debate on health policy. The first step will be a series of short videos that will be disseminated through Chilean social media by the end of the year.
Diabetes mellitus affects over 285 million people worldwide, and the number of people living with it grows at an annual rate of 2.3%. Pathologicode introduces innovative application and computer vision technologies to detect microangiopathy associated with prediabetes in individuals. This non-invasive, in- vivo procedure will provide healthcare professionals with detailed information on overall systemic health in order to screen for early indications of developing diabetes. By providing tools to screen for early indications of the disease, Pathologicode’s Peek software will enable healthcare professionals to provide early intervention through disease management protocols, ultimately leading to an overall improvement of patient health.
On any given night Berkeley has between 1,000-2,000 people sleeping on the streets. These individuals contend with a myriad of medical and psychiatric issues, but one problem that is often overlooked is oral health. A Healthy Smile at the Suitcase Clinic Dental Section provides free comprehensive restorative dental care in the form of dentures, stay-plates, and crowns on a weekly basis. Through the existing collaboration with the Berkeley Free Clinic and five volunteer dentists, the goal is to provide this much-needed restorative care to four clients per week. A Healthy Smile hopes to establish a mutually beneficial and sustainable collaboration in order to purchase dental materials at a reduced cost. The aim is to secure funding to ultimately provide 30 dentures, 30 partial dentures, 30 stay-plates, 29 implants crowns, and 100 crowns per year with the hope of improving the lives and social mobility of those in need.
EMS: Shirati was founded by four Cal seniors in collaboration with the Shirati KMT Hospital in Tanzania and Bay Area NGO AISCS. The team aims to expand upon the the hospital’s Emergency Medical System (EMS), which some of the team members helped establish in 2009. The current objective is to reduce maternal mortality throughout the region of Rorya by working with TBAs and introducing a motorcycle ambulance system. The goal of EMS: Shirati is for community volunteers to train nurses in local hospitals basic Emergency Medicine, specifically for obstetric emergencies and to expand the EMS (Emergency Medical System). The team’s solution is the MedBike, a modified motorbike with a sidecar addition designed to provide safe transportation for pregnant women to reduce maternal mortality. The MedBike will be operated by community volunteers and nurses and will be able to access areas not accessible by cars and ambulances, where the majority of the population of Tarime lives. This will streamline access to medical care in emergency situations, allowing healthcare providers to come to the patient and provide care until they get to a doctor, significantly increasing survival rates.
Diarrheal disease from drinking unsafe water is one of the leading causes of 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. Water technology like the UV Tube, developed through 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 as well as an economic opportunity for local entrepreneurs.
Otitis Media (OM), more commonly known as a severe ear infection, is a medical condition that is caused by a variety of pathogens and affects 70% of all children under the age of three. Currently, most ear infections are treated with multiple rounds of antibiotics. With the onset of antibiotic-resistant pathogens, this type of treatment may be inefficient, costly, and time consuming. A more effective treatment is known as Tympanocentesis, a medical procedure used for diagnosing and treating ear infections. The need for the procedure is rising along with emerging bacterial resistance, but no fully-integrated device for administering the treatment exists. Current methods involve using a spinal needle tap, fed through the viewing window of an otoscope, to puncture the ear drum, which is an extremely unstable process and is oftentimes avoided by pediatricians. This project will develop a novel, single-handed, integrated, and ergonomic device that can perform tympanocentesis with existing disposable materials commonly found at the doctor’s office.
Despite decades of child nutrition initiatives, the rates of malnutrition throughout the developing world have remained high, and there is a need to explore new strategies to address this problem. Among the strategies to reduce malnutrition, there has been little exploration of the role of severe tooth decay—which is an infectious disease and the most prevalent chronic disease worldwide, currently affecting 50-95% of young children in developing countries. Over the past 2 decades, with rapid modernization and increased marketing and consumption of non-nutritious processed foods such as candy and soda, Vietnam and other developing countries face serious emerging risks to children’s oral health and nutrition. This Big Ideas project aims to solve two global health epidemics—severe early childhood tooth decay and malnutrition—using simple, low-cost interventions: fluoride dental varnish, toothbrushes, toothpaste, and oral health/nutrition education to improve the health and well-being of children in areas that currently lack access to these resources.
The Microfluidic Biomolecular team is developing an integrated microfluidic system for simple and robust biomolecular amplification with an inexpensive reader to conduct a rapid and complicated analysis of a range of samples encountered in the field. They are targeting this microfluidic biomolecular amplification reader (MicroBAR) at global health diagnostics, with a specific focus on tuberculosis detection and classification based on drug resistant genotype. Funds will be used to return to South Africa to scale up their project for field deployment.
Blum Center for Developing Economies
The University of California, Berkeley
bigideas@berkeley.edu
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