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BERKELEY –Concluding the Big Ideas@Berkeley Grand Prize Pitch Day event, at which six of the contest’s top teams pitched their ideas to the campus community, Dave Ferguson, Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology at the US Agency for International Development (USAID), pitched one final big idea. “We are attempting to change the way we think about development and the way it is done,” Ferguson explained about USAID science and technology initiatives aimed at fostering innovation and collaboration. “We think we’re on to something.”

To achieve their big idea, USAID has launched a series of Grand Challenges for Development, inviting problem solvers around the world to combine innovative collaborative approaches with the resources of USAID. Two of USAID’s Grand Challenges, “Saving Lives at Birth” and “The Tech Challenge for Atrocity Prevention,” were the inspiration for two new Big Ideas contest categories this year: “Maternal & Child Health” and “Promoting Human Rights.” With the generous support of USAID, Big Ideas has awarded six prizes to high-impact projects that address two persistent but solvable problems.
As USAID administrator Rajiv Shah noted in his remarks at UC Berkeley last October, “Like Big Ideas@Berkeley, Grand Challenges for Development invite problem-solvers from around the world to generate high-impact innovations that address particularly pervasive problems.”

Priyanka Athavale, member of the India Smiles team, was among the winners of the Maternal & Child Health category. A UC Berkeley junior studying Molecular Cell Biology and Public Health, Athavale agrees that the contest model fosters fresh and effective approaches. She explained that with the freedom and support promised by Big Ideas, “students have the drive and motivation to go out of their comfort zone and experience the problems first hand.” She added, “Students are bright, excited and not afraid to fail—it’s our greatest asset.” India Smiles, the idea of eight undergraduates, is a 3-year project aimed at alleviating childhood malnutrition and poor oral health outcomes caused by the transition from traditional agricultural-based diets to processed snack and “junk foods” in India.

Like the Grand Challenges, Big Ideas is not only a competition—it is an “ecosystem” for social innovation. This mission of collaboration is reflected in some of the Big Ideas projects like the Bay Area Resource Consortium, an award winner of the Promoting Human Rights contest category. The project, led by UC Berkeley undergraduate Sudi Bhat, will encourage collaboration between professionals in medicine and law, as well as undergraduates to provide social services to uninsured, high-frequency patients at Bay Area safety-net hospitals. “Our project is firmly rooted on the idea that students should be active community learners and participants,” explained Bhat. Adding, “this contest gave us the opportunity to try something new to address the current system of health care for patients in safety-net hospitals.”

Among the other winners in the Promoting Human Rights category was the interdisciplinary Pachamama Project, which takes a human rights and sanitation approach to eradicate taboos and stigmas associated with menstruation and improve clean water and education in Bolivia. Emmunify, winner in the Maternal & Child Health, is the idea of a team of UC Berkeley graduate students to provide a technological solution for patient identification and immunization tracking in rural India. Emmunify’s cloud technology allows medical records to be accessed by an electronically readable tab placed on a mobile phone.

Big Ideas@Berkeley has become a hub of innovation in an already pioneering institution. The contest also stands among the principal contributions of the UC Berkeley campus to USAID’s Higher Education Solutions Network. This collaboration between USAID and Big Ideas strengthens the common goal of expanding in the search for new voices and ideas. As Ferguson explained, “The challenges we face in this century are far more fluid, transboundary and shared…We need new approaches to attack these problems…Big Ideas is an example of one of these new ways USAID is approaching development.”

The 2012-2013 Big Ideas@Berkeley contest received over 160 team entries, representing over 500 students from 75 majors, in 9 contest categories. For more information on the Big Ideas@Berkeley contest, visit: http://bigideascontest.org/
BY Luis Flores, Blum Center Student Writer

By: Luis Flores

Having nurtured their “big ideas” since September, six of the most innovative finalist teams in the Big Ideas@Berkeley contest presented their projects to a panel of distinguished judges at the Big Ideas Grand Prize Pitch Day on April 25, 2013. Pitch Day contestants had the opportunity to win up to $5,000 in prize money to support their project.  Winning teams will add their Pitch Day prizes to awards in their respective Big Ideas contest categories.

Judges awarded the Grand Prize in the Global Impact Pitch Round to The Pachamama Project, the big idea of Rebecca Peters, Lindsey Dreizler, and Jessica Kretch. Their initiative promotes gender equity, education, and access to clean water and sanitation in Bolivia while also engaging the stigma around menstruation.

The Grand Prize in the Campus and Community Impact Pitch Round went to Cashify, pitched in an energetic presentation by undergraduates Shuonan Chen, Justin Chu, and Virgina Chung. Their big idea is to improve financial literacy, starting on the Berkeley campus.  Cashify uses interactive online games that engage students in what the team calls “Edu-tainment” while connecting students to on-campus financial resources. “The pitch gave us the opportunity to personalize our project… to give it a heart, a soul, and enthusiasm,” explained Chen.

Finalist teams were also awarded 2nd and 3rd place prizes. In the Global Impact Pitch Round, Emmunify, an innovative project to embed immunization records in electronically readable tags placed on phones in rural northern India, took the 2nd place prize. The 3rd place prize went to Building a Youth Leadership Association in Rabinal, Guatemala, for their project that will empower indigenous teenagers in Guatemala to form their own Youth Leadership Association.

In the Campus and Community Impact category, AMASS Media was awarded 2nd place. Their project will use a web interface to connect non-profit and small social impact organizations with early career videographers to increase the impact of organizations while building the portfolios of young videographers. The 3rd place winners behind the UC Berkeley Science Shop similarly offer non-profits, businesses, and local government free or low-cost access to student scientific research on campus—allowing students to impact social change through their on-campus research.

The six teams invited to pitch their ideas to judges and the campus community were selected based on on the high scores their written proposals received. The Pitch Day forum not only opens opportunities for additional funding to top contestants, but also gives teams the chance to present their ideas in a personal and visually engaging format—a useful skill for social venture start-ups.

“Pitching is essential in any entrepreneurial venue,” explained John Chang of AMASS Media. “You have to know how to talk about your project!” Chang stressed the importance of the Big Ideas mentors in guiding their team through the process of translating their written proposal into an engaging public presentation. Chang feels that it is these types of mentorship and experiences that put Berkeley on the cutting edge of social innovation.

The teams also benefited from the engagement with the panel of expert judges in Q&A sessions that followed each pitch. “The judges’ questions challenged us with new perspectives… I appreciated that,“ said Chen.

Cashify team members Chen, Chu, and Chung nervously awaited the judges’ decision after their pitch, which was twice interrupted by technical glitches. “We have presented in business classes and corporate spaces… [but] this was more realistic,” the team recalled. “It’s harder when you’re emotionally attached!”

2013 Pitch Day Winners:
Campus and Community Impact Round
Judges: Andrik Cardenas, Director of Operations, Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership, Haas School of Business; Andrew Rudd, Andrew and Virginia Rudd Foundation; Christian Teeter, Chief of Staff, Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching, Learning, Academic Planning, UC Berkeley
1st Place: Cashify, a Social Platform and Business Model for Financial Literacy
Team Members: Shuonan Chen, Justin Chu, Virginia Chung
2nd Place: AMASS Media– Democratizing Access to Multimedia Services
Team Members: John Chang, Carolyn Kao, Dominick Ng, Yang Wang, Clayton Yan, Hannah Yang
3rd Place: The U.C. Berkeley Science Shop: Connecting Communities to University Research
Team Members: Karen Andrade, Erik Behar, Sushma Bhatia, Hekia Bodwitch, Melissa Eitzel, Jennifer Palomino, Leah Rubin
Global Impact Round
Judges: Marion Adney, AAAS Science and Technology Fellow; Jeff Burton, Executive Director of Skydeck, UC Berkeley; Wilfred Chung, President and CEO of the Philomathia Foundation; David Ferguson, Deputy Director, Office of Science and Technology, USAID; Braden Penhoet, Executive Director for Innovation and Business Development, Office of the Vice Chancellor of Research, UC Berkeley
1st Place: The Pachamama Project
Team Members: Rebecca Peters, Lindsey Dreizler, Jessica Kretch
2nd Place: Emmunify
Team Members: Sanat Kamal Bahl, Erik Krogh-Jespersen, Anandamoy Sen, Jessica Watterson
3rd Place: Building a Youth Leadership Association in Rabinal, Guatemala
Team Members: Michael Bakal, Kira Levy, Kimberly Vinall

Six of the most innovative projects in the 2012-13 Big Ideas@Berkeley contest have been selected to present their projects to a panel of judges and the campus community at the Big Ideas Pitch Day Grand Prize. Winning teams will secure additional funding for their projects. The annual Pitch Day event, held in Blum Hall on April 25th from 2-5pm, will feature presentations by multidisciplinary groups of undergraduate and graduate teams addressing social problems in two categories: Campus & Community Impact and Global Impact.

“Being selected for Pitch Day is a huge honor,” said Michael Bakal, a member of the Building Youth Leadership in Rabinal team that has been named a Pitch Day finalist. “Having the opportunity to share the stories and aspirations of the youth we work with in Guatemala shows that the world is not indifferent to their destiny, and that there are people and institutions out there who believe in young people’s capacity to better their communities and our world. Big Ideas is helping us transform potential into action!” Michael added.

Presenting teams will take the stage for a five-minute project pitch followed by a question and answer session. The 1st place team will receive $5,000, the 2nd place team will receive $3,000, and the 3rd place team will receive $1,000. All these projects remain in the running for prizes in one of Big Ideas’ nine contest categories, for which the winners will be announced later this month.

The teams presenting under the Campus & Community Impact category are:
UC Berkeley Science Shop: Developed by a group of undergraduates from College of Natural Resources and a Haas MBA, the UC Berkeley Science Shop will provide community non-profits, small businesses, and local government offices free or low-cost access to student scientific research on campus. The Berkeley Science Shop would provide Berkeley students the opportunity to contribute to the welfare of their communities through their research.
AMASS Media: The idea of an interdisciplinary team of undergraduates in Computer Science, Business Administration, and Film Studies, AMASS Media seeks to expand access to quality multimedia services for social impact organizations. This project connects student early-career videographers looking to build their portfolios with community non-profit organizations looking for quality multimedia services.
Cashify, A Social Platform and Business Model for Financial Literacy: The undergraduate team behind Cashify has developed a model for financial education that uses interactive online games to empower students by providing the necessarily knowledge and resources to make sound financial decisions. Students using Cashify would navigate college life as a virtual financial adventure—students would track their own personal finances, participate in games that teach essential financial concepts, and interact with others. Through this reward-driven interactive financial adventure, Cashify aims to spread financial awareness in the Berkeley campus and beyond.

The teams presenting under the Global Impact category are:
Building a Youth Leadership Association in Rabinal, Guatemala: This team, composed of graduate students in the School of Public Health, School of Education, and medicine, seeks to empower indigenous teenagers in Rabinal, Guatemala, to design and implement solutions to their community’s public health problems. This project builds on the work of team member Michael Bakal’s organization, Voces y Manos (Voices and Hands), which sought to improve community health though the provision of medical care. This project is a response to community feedback, which revealed that communities wanted to take control over their own health. After training a group of indigenous teenage leaders, this project will give the Youth Leadership Association control over a $4,000 budget to implement public health solutions in their community.
The Pachamama Project: Led by a team of graduate and undergraduate students from College of Natural Resources, the College of Engineering, and the Environmental Science, Policy, and Management Department, this project will work toward the realization of human rights through gender equity, education, and access to clean water and sanitation in Cochabamba, Bolivia. The Pachamama Project will use education initiatives to engage with the stigma surrounding female reproductive health and the hygienic management of menstruation. While working toward improving the health of women in Bolivia, the Pachamama Project will also engage in community discussions on human rights to water, education, and gender equity.
Emmunify: Graduate students at Haas, the School of Public Health, and the School of Information are addressing the disproportionate lack of immunizations that reach rural populations in India. Emmunify is a non-profit social venture that enables rural villagers to carry an electronic medical record containing their child’s immunization history on an electronically readable tag laced on their phone. Emmunify would allow for rural families to be reminded of immunization appointments via SMS text and voice messages. By dramatically simplifying the immunization process for rural villagers and health workers through technology, Emmunify has the potential to decrease the number of preventable child deaths in rural India.
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The Big Ideas People’s Choice Video Award, worth $2,500, will also be announced at the Pitch Day event. This contest invited all Big Ideas finalists to submit a video about their project, giving the public an opportunity to vote for their favorite project video. Eighteen videos are currently featured on the Big Ideas facebook page.

Watch the live Pitch Day webcast at http://ustre.am/Xm9j.

With final project proposals submitted to the Big Ideas@Berkeley contest, student teams are now playing the waiting game. Thankfully, they are not alone. Behind nearly every student seeking up to $300,000 in seed funding is a project mentor, proud of them yet anxiously awaiting behind the scenes to hear the judges’ decision.

Almost everyone in urban India has a cell phone, but few have access to running water. NextDrop, winner of the 2011 Big Ideas@Berkeley contest, has a simple solution. The Wall of Fame welcomes its cofounder Anu Sridharan ’09, M.S. ’10 as the last, and youngest, alumna celebrating Women’s History Month.

by Luis Flores

“It all starts from one idea,” said Alejandro Velez during the first informational session for the Big Ideas@Berkeley contest. For Velez and his partner Nikhil Arora, that idea came from a lecture with professor Alan Ross. Just three years later, their one idea can be found on the shelves of over 300 Whole Foods stores across the country.

Velez and Arora, winners in the 2009 Big Ideas contest, built up their idea to grow mushrooms from used coffee waste into a venture with over 30 employees. Their company, called Back to the Roots (BTTR), promotes urban farming and food consciousness with “grow-your-own” mushroom kits that allow customers to farm gourmet mushrooms sustainably and from home.

“We want to promote the idea that you can learn more about where your food comes from,” said BTTR Executive Coordinator Jared Abbott, “the idea that you can grow your own food even if you don’t have a big backyard.” Social entrepreneurship, Velez later explained to an audience of potential contest participants, doesn’t start with large firms but with big ideas. BTTR is set to collect, divert, and reuse 3.6 million pounds of used coffee grounds this year.

The story of BTTR was one of a simple idea, passionately and creatively pursued. From their first experiments growing buckets of gourmet mushrooms in the basement of a fraternity house to their bold decision to walk into Chez Panisse to get Alice Waters to comment on their mushrooms, Velez and Arora have fueled their idea with excitement and vision.

The BTTR story resonated with students in the audience like Elise Luc, who was inspired by the journey of growing an idea. “I was really inspired by Alejandro’s story,” she said. Luc found it encouraging that social concerns over urban farming and sustainability could grow to become a substantial venture.

This information session was the first of numerous resources designed to guide students with ideas through the Big Ideas@Berkeley proposal writing process. In addition to three information sessions, Big Ideas is also hosting two pre-proposal writing and budgeting workshops (dates posted on the Big Ideas website).

Scheduled for September 18, the next Big Ideas info session will feature 2008 Big Ideas winner Dr. Laura E. Stachel, co-founder of WE Care Solar. Dr. Stachel’s idea for a “solar suitcase” makes essential hospital equipment available to maternal clinics in Nigeria and has already reduced maternal mortality by 70 percent at one hospital. Having just won the “Saving Lives at Birth Challenge” grant from the Gates Foundation, Dr. Stachel’s story will illustrate the far-reaching potential of one idea. The event will be held in 102 Wurster Hall at 6pm.