Luminavi is a dynamic anonymous reporting and data collection app that will allow the campus community to identify spaces on campus where sexual misconduct is prevalent. Using the information aggregated from the app, service providers like the Restorative Justice (RJ) Center can more effectively direct services to those spaces. The RJ Center will promote opportunities for the community to dialogue in these “spaces” so that victims, offenders, and bystanders have a meaningful opportunity to voice their concerns and can be better informed about how to change the social as well as cultural dynamics in those spaces that enable sexual misconduct. Through access to data provided by app users that illuminate trends in particular spaces, Luminavi can help institutions use big data to adjust their overall response strategy to address sexual misconduct. Over time, Luminavi can catalyze more evidence-driven, community-based responses to sexual misconduct.
Awards: 3rd Place
UbiSafe Technologies: Reimagining Personal Safety for UC Berkeley
UbiSafe provides discreet personal protection that is accessible at your fingertips. With crime rates rising year after year, consumers are flooded with new-fangled safety gadgets from something as simple as a whistle or a stun gun to something more high-tech like emergency apps. The thing is, they don’t work. Whistles and stun guns, when misused, escalate the situation, and you do not have time to unlock your phone and start an app when someone has you at gunpoint. UbiSafe’s team decided to take advantage of how people always have their phones in hand, whether in use or not, to allow for a faster and more discreet system of emergency reporting. UbiSafe’s Nappi utilizes an NFC-powered tactile button connected to your smartphone via mobile application. Simply press, hold, and release the button, and the police and your family will be alerted of your precise location and sent a message without potentially aggravating the attacker.
PedalTap: Modifying the Water Tap System to Create a No Touch Cost Effective Solution in Developing Countries
This year, the PedalTap team is taking this Big Idea to another level. The innovative Tippy Tap was made to prevent the spread of infection at communal hand washing facilities in rural areas in Uganda. It is foot-operated, preventing the need for touch. The product is a free-standing, universally-fitting connection that can easily attach to any tap. It is operated by a foot pedal, which is made of a bicycle brake handle and system connected to a spring-loaded water cut off. It is very cheap, easy to produce, and simple to connect. It is also easy to use and water flow can be controlled. It is particularly good for use in communal and crowded spaces. The Tippy Tap builds on existing infrastructure, so there will no extra costs incurred.
SHRI Community Sanitation Facilities
SHRI works alongside communities in rural India to increase access to essential health infrastructure by providing access to toilets that are able to convert waste into energy that runs a water filtration system. SHRI will sell safe drinking water at a fair price to generate revenue. This project aims to end open defecation by encouraging behavior change and positive health outcomes through education. Partnerships with local governments will ensure that allocated land and funding goes to those most in need of these services.
Ricult
70% of the world’s poor are smallholder farmers, and they produce 80% of the global food. However, these farmers are poor and food insecure. By 2050, the world will need to produce at least 50% more food to feed 9 billion people. This dual-pronged problem of poverty and food insecurity is caused by 3 main issues in agricultural value chains: supply chain inefficiencies, financial exclusion, and information asymmetry. Ricult is solving these issues by establishing a multi-sided, mobile e-commerce platform that fills the holes in the agricultural supply chain by providing farmers direct access to financial instruments, input sellers, end buyers, logistics providers, and real-time crop information. As 80% of the smallholder farmers have access to mobile phones, Ricult’s solution is accessible through both low cost feature phones without Internet connections and smartphones.
PictoKit: Retirement Toolkit
The Retirement Toolkit is a reproducible workshop kit that through the innovative use of co-design seeks to address the gap in retirement financial literacy for low income, young working adults. The Toolkit’s application of co-design for education allows the participants to actively shape their learning experience as opposed to conventional, one-sided forms of teaching. Through creative discussion, design activities, and active visual learning, the program not only teaches, but also empowers participants to secure their own financial futures. Furthermore, the project is highly scalable because the workshop guide and toolkit can be easily reproduced to allow third parties to hold their own retirement workshops beyond the Bay Area. Additionally, the individualized curriculum will allow participants to tailor the material to their needs. The project thus addresses the lack of effective financial literacy programs for low income, young working adults in an innovative application of co-design.
ViaeX: Biowaste to Nanofilters for a Sustainable and Clean Future
Rapid modernization and industrialization in developing nations has significantly improved global standards of living at the expense of human health and the global environment. Air pollutants are now regarded as the most widespread carcinogen and lead to 7 million deaths worldwide annually. Project ViaeX aims to restrict human exposure to both indoor and outdoor air pollution while also providing clean air for people of all sectors of the society. ViaeX is developing a novel low-cost high efficiency nano filtration technology, which can remove 99.999% of all pollutants from the air with no end-of- life environmental impacts since the product is 100% biodegradable. This technology has the potential to transform air filtration into an affordable solution for everyone because it can be used to curtail air pollution at the source or at any point where humans may be exposed to it.
The Medical Social Emotional Arts Project: Transforming Patient-Centered Care
The Art of Healing will train UCLA medical students and professionals to integrate creative arts programming in inpatient pediatric pain management. They will learn best practices established by the UCLArts and Healing Social Emotional Arts (SEA) Certificate Program for amplifying the innate 4 social-emotional benefits of the arts by using mental health practices. Training will cover verbal and nonverbal communication, managing special needs, traumatic responses, and self-care. Four arts modalities (visual art, dance/movement, poetry, and music) will also be incorporated. By successfully integrating such a program in a clinical setting, the pediatric inpatient experience can become one of reflection, meaningful dialogue, and increased empathy that also fosters connection while reducing the emotional distress of all parties involved.
Aqua Power: Feed Forward to a Secure Water Future
Water is a precious resource and is vital for all forms of life. In California, 34% of all non-farm use water is used for residential purposes, of which 40% is used in showers, baths and in faucets. Aqua Power aims to address these water shortage challenges by developing an easy to install, low cost device that will provide real time information on the quantity of water used, track cumulative water used per day with the ability to set water saving goals, compare performance with neighbors, and track progress in a social setting. The product aims to achieve water use reduction using a combination of technology and social engineering, and is based on the concept that providing instantaneous feedback is the most effective change agent.