Do you have an idea that you think could change the world?  Are you looking for mentorship and cash to help you bring your innovation to developing countries?  Do you want to meet with other student social entrepreneurs and innovators from across the globe?

The TechCon 2014 Innovation Marketplace showcases the concepts, innovations, and research of young innovators focused on international development. The Innovation Marketplace will take place on Monday, November 10th on the campus of the University of California, Berkeley, as an integral part of USAID's Higher Education Solutions Network (HESN) TechCon 2014 agenda.

Cash  and in-kind awards will be made to the top innovators and researchers. This is an excellent opportunity to get exposure for you and your idea, build support for your project, receive technical feedback, and to practice your pitching skills.
Projects can be submitted to one of three categories:

• Innovation- your device, approach, or system is ready to go in the field!
• Research- wow, what you have just figured out is incredibly interesting, important, and changes everything!
• Concept- you have the next great idea and have begun working on it!

All applications, including all supporting documents and links to required multimedia files, must be submitted to SEAD by 
Monday, September 22nd. The SEAD team will evaluate all applications for completion and merit. The top ranked applications will then be submitted to USAID for final review and selection of Innovation Marketplace participants. SEAD will have a limited number of travel grants available to participants. 

View the documents below for submission requirements and how sell your idea through multimedia:

Throughout the summer, SEAD interns have been sharing with us stories and experiences from their summer internships.  Today's post comes to us from Divya Giyanani, who interned with USAID in the Global Development Lab.  The Global Development Lab "brings together a diverse set of partners to discover, test, and scale breakthrough solutions to achieve... the end of extreme poverty by 2030."

A wicked problem is like a tangled ball of yarn.  Each piece of the yarn that you pull can have positive and/or negative effects on the rest of this tangled ball; while some implications are expected and accounted for, others are unexpected and sometimes even unknown until much too late.  Thus, it is important to exercise immense amounts of caution when dealing with a tangled ball of yarn…or a wicked problem, if I might end my analogy here.

International development is one such wicked problem, and I would argue that it is likely one of the most significant. Between malnutrition and abject poverty, low literacy and inadequate access to basic healthcare, the challenges facing developing areas of the world (not excluding those in our own backyard) are vast, urgent, and complex. And with increasing globalization, the landscape of international development is shifting dramatically; public and private organizations as well as individual philanthropists are entering the field in droves to address these challenges.  As such, the methods and strategies once used are becoming increasingly obsolete. 

In an effort to address these challenges, the US Agency for International Development (USAID) recently launched the Global Development Lab with a role of discovering, testing, and scaling breakthrough development innovations to find solutions to some of the most critical global issues.

As a summer intern with the Lab, I work in the Center for Global Solutions to build platforms and tools around adoption at scale, focusing specifically on scaling adoption of drought-tolerant maize in sub-Saharan Africa.  And if I could describe my experiences thus far, I could, at best, sum it up to be a whirlwind of intense challenge and thrilling opportunity.

During my past month here at USAID, I have had the opportunity to collaborate with various teams across the Lab to conduct value chain analyses and market studies, in order to under the industry as a whole. I have had the opportunity (and the challenge) to think widely, critically, and extensively, and I have been asked to consider the unconventional…then to take it a step further.  I have had the opportunity to work with some of the greatest minds in development, and the opportunity (along with the encouragement) to try, fail, and then try again.

My past month here at USAID has taught me much more than I could ever hope to learn in a classroom.  It has reinforced the idea that development work is hard, that development work is complicated, frustrating, and messy.  But if development work were not difficult, would it even exist?  This work is complicated, frustrating, and messy, but it is also fascinating, enriching, and ever so important. 

As old methods and strategies of development work become obsolete, the Lab seeks to find new ideas, new innovations, and new strategies.  In essence, it’s trying to change the way we do development. And I am grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it.

Divya is a senior studying corporate strategy and global health through her self-created major.  During her studies, Divya has made a point of practicing what she learns through her coursework through a variety of fieldwork.  She has worked for a national NPO in San Francisco to mobilize students in the fight against HIV/AIDS and also worked with a Duke research team to measure cumulative mental health trauma in Leogane, Haiti.  Last summer Divya participated in the Geneva Global Health Fellows Program through the Sanford School of Public Policy.

We think YOU could uncover a Blind Spot!

Blind Spot: an overlooked challenge in international development that can be solved using science, technology, innovation, and strategic partnerships.

The Social Entrepreneurship Accelerator at Duke (SEAD) invites you to enter the Blind Spots Essay Contest today for a chance to win recognition and a cash prize.  Deadline October 1.  Sponsored by USAID’s Global Development Lab, of which Duke University is a part, and Big Ideas @ Berkeley.  This contest is open to all Duke-affiliated students and researchers.

Details:
USAID and Big Ideas@Berkeley want the help of students and researchers to uncover and analyze the “blind spots” in international development. Through your development and field experience, you can help USAID identify development challenges that are currently overlooked, yet are in need of immediate attention. In particular, we want to hear about those unrecognized challenges that would benefit from the power of science, technology, innovation, or strategic partnership (STIP) and potentially improve the lives of millions.

This contest seeks essays, 1750-2000 words in length, which address the following questions:

• What and where is the unrecognized development challenge that you have observed?
• What social, economic, political, and/or environmental barriers exist that are related to this development blind spot? (Please cite studies, reports, and/or data to provide proof/background.)
• Is there a population subset—children, youth, women, minorities, LGBT, etc.—whose lives could be improved as a result?
• If the development blind spot were overcome using STIP, what might the impact be locally, regionally, nationally, or globally (qualitatively and quantitatively)?

The winners of the contest will receive the following cash prizes, as well as a variety of recognition prizes. 
                First place: $3,000
                Second Place: $2,000
                Third Place: $1,000

Deadline: October 1, 2014 
Full details here: http://bigideas.berkeley.edu/compete/blind-spots/ 

If you have any questions, please contact .  Good luck!

Throughout the summer, SEAD interns will be sharing with us stories and experiences from their summer internships.  Today's post comes to us from Ishan Thakore who has been interning with USAID in the Global Development Lab.  The Global Development Lab "brings together a diverse set of partners to discover, test, and scale breakthrough solutions to achieve... the end of extreme poverty by 2030."

It’s always refreshing to feel the cool rush of the Ronald Reagan’s Building air conditioning as I step outside the Metro (I now understand why DC and its associated humidity is sometimes called a swamp).  The building itself is sprawling, and it’s one of the largest federal office buildings in the district. A giant courtyard surrounds the eastern entrance of the building, and it’s generally teeming with tourists eager to see daily outdoor summer concerts. I arrive everyday to intern for one of the building’s tenants, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). The entire agency is huge- hundreds of staff members occupy its headquarters here. While regional and country missions have their own staff overseeing the actual disbursement of on-the-ground assistance, most of the policy gets hammered out in DC.

Being stateside during a college summer is a completely new experience for me, as I’ve spent my past two summers (and the beginning of this one) in foreign countries. The morning rush of a metro, having to adjust to a new apartment and watching English-language TV are more mundane changes compared to adjustments I made while staying in Kenya and India. Those summers were more fieldwork based, and were purposefully designed to get a much more local view at health and technology challenges. USAID takes that a step further, by actually shaping recommendations and policies for those local realities.

Most of my perspective so far has come through a digital lens, as I intern with the Digital Development Team, within the Center for Global Solutions, a subset of the Global Development Lab. Yes, that’s a lot of layers. The Global Development Lab is a newly formed entity within USAID that resulted from a merger between the Offices of Science and Technology and Innovation and Development Alliances. It relies on a variety of partnerships and design challenges to foster innovation from within the agency and the non-profit, public and private sectors. The Center for Global Solutions seeks to adopt proven solutions and bring them to scale across a wide geographic area. Within the Center, the Digital Development Team supports projects related to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). The Team’s work revolves around three workstreams: digital finance, digital inclusion and mobile data/data collection services. The team believes that, if leveraged correctly, ICTs can play a crucial role in development challenges and in furthering USAID’s mission of ending extreme poverty by 2030.

While I was placed in the team by chance, the field of ICTs for Development (ICT4D) has interested me for quite some time. In the summer of 2012, I worked with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) in India to help them start an e-Learning training program to reach their grassroots members. My work was part of a Service Opportunities in Leadership (SOL) grant from the Sanford School of Public Policy. As a capstone to my SOL project, I completed a portfolio on how access to ICTs is largely impacted by gender. In 2013, I traveled to Muhuru Bay, Kenya with a DukeEngage grant, and studied how mobile phone ownership was distributed among church and school leaders, and how they could be leveraged for teaching and health purposes. For the first month of this summer, I spent my time in Eldoret, Kenya, researching how a mobile phone system can help Community Health Workers (CHWs) assess and treat maternal depression. I’ll call it fate that I ended up with this specific team, as I’m getting a much deeper dive into policy aspects of issues. Digital finance and mobile-money, for instance, is a huge field In Kenya. It’s very common to see people using M-Pesa, which is a mobile money platform. But I haven’t understood any of the regulatory implications of such a service, or how the government involves itself in the process. Having to comb through mobile money materials, and sitting in on related meetings, has been fascinating. Even if I get hung up on development acronyms or don’t feel qualified to say anything, I gain a lot just from listening. My specific team is an exciting place to work; it looks more like a vibrant start-up with comfy chairs and a relaxed dress code than the more typical cubicle set-up of the Agency. I appreciate that everyone is excited to work on their specific issues, and cognizant of the end-goal. For instance, through digital financial services and digital inclusion efforts, a whole range of the poor and the marginalized will gain access to banking services we take for granted, like loans and credit lines. The digital data team understands that through more widespread mobile data collection services, raw data can efficiently be turned into actionable results. Even though the team is small (circa 10 people), its existence indicates that USAID is dedicated to promoting digital services for years and years to come.

Ishan is a rising senior studying public policy and global health with a focus on how technology can provide solutions for low-resource settings.  He has traveled the world studying the current tech environment in global heath including researching e-learning solutions for the Self Employed Women's Association (SEWA) in Ahmedabad and traveling to Eldoret, Kenya, to study the potential role of mobile phones in treating postpartum depression in rural areas.

Throughout the summer, SEAD interns will be sharing with us stories and experiences from their summer internships.  Today's post comes to us from Vinesh Kapil who has been interning with USAID on the Saving Lives at Birth campaign.  Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development works to find innovative ideas around the world that can help reduce maternal and infant mortality rates.  Vinesh shares with us the work he has been doing while in DC this summer.

The heat is on in DC. When I step outside in the morning to head to work and it’s “only” 85 degrees, I count myself lucky. I begin the journey to the Ronald Regan Building (where USAID is based), maximizing time spent in the shade while dodging cars, checking the metro schedule and crafting a “to-do” list for the day.

After I pass through security, I settle into another day at the office. Sometimes I have to catch myself- if it weren’t for the multiple boxes of Spongebob macaroni and cheese in my cupboards at home, I would almost feel like I’m living the adult life. The heat, the busy commute, the work I do, it all seems so very real.

Through Duke SEAD, HESN and USAID, I am working on the planning and execution of the Saving Lives at Birth Development Exchange. My internship is multifaceted, fast-paced, and I can say with 100% accuracy that no day is exactly the same as another. The DevX, an event that brings together entrepreneurs, innovators, scientists, donors and organizations from all around the world, is a chance for “game-changers” to showcase how their work is improving maternal and child health. It is a chance to share ideas, to learn from each other’s successes (and mistakes), and to inspire one another with the passion that pushed so many of the participants to find a way to improve health outcomes for mothers and children in the first place.

When I consider the internship at a more “macro” level, I realize that the goal of this project, indeed, the goal of the entire “Grand Challenge” from which it arose, could not be more real. The effect of such a program, funding these innovators, and exposing the public to what has been done, and what is left to do, is not only real work but it is one of the most worthwhile things I could be doing. Sure, I’m not in the field every day saving lives. And there are days when I wonder exactly how what I’m doing is improving health for others around the world. But then I recognize that the work I’m doing is contributing to a larger cause, to a larger machine. By doing my work (doing it well, I might add), I am helping to further a cause. So yes, some days, I might jokingly tell myself that the fact that I’m living the adult life is just an illusion. But I must remember that the work I’m doing is indeed real. It is concerning a problem that is a reality for many around the world and I am proud that I am able to contribute to alleviating those problems in my own way. It is an absolute pleasure to represent Duke here at USAID, be that as a young student pretending to be an adult, or an adult holding on to his Spongebob macaroni for all he is worth.  

Vinesh Kapil is originally from Atlanta, Georgia. He graduated in May 2014, with a BA in Int'l Comparative Studies and a minor in Global Health. He spent this summer as the Saving Lives at Birth Intern, in the Center for Accelarating Innovation and Impact in the Global Health Bureau at USAID. His next project at AID will involve publishing an innovation scale-up tool-kit that will be available online. In his free time, Vinesh enjoys eating his way through D.C., keeping up with new music and, of course, Duke Basketball. 

How about five reasons?  The International Partnership for Innovative Healthcare Delivery (IPIHD) put together a fantastic guide on why you should consider nominating your organization for IPIHD and SEAD.  We know that scaling the impact of your innovations is no walk in the park.  Why not tap into our resources to help make it happen?

Read the full article here.

“Global health as an academic field reflects the new global health landscape and is a driving force behind the globalization of higher education,” writes Merson.  “Global health is multi-faceted and requires a curriculum that emphasizes interdisciplinary approaches and allows students to synthesize, evaluate, and apply knowledge that is relevant to complex real-world challenges.”

The New England Journal of Medicine recently published an article on the increase in demand and growth of global health programs throughout North America.  The article provides great insights into these changes and what it means for the field of global health.


Read the full article here.



USAID recently released their Health-Related Research and Development Progress Report highlighting USAID's role in global health research and development.  On page 16 of the report, you will find a section detailing how SEAD is an integral part of USAID's strategy for promoting innovation and scaling impact.

Other key highlights from the report include:

Maternal Health and Newborn Mortality
 Validating a simplified approach to manage the third stage of labor that will enable lower-level skilled birth attendants to also manage inadequate contractions of the uterus, a cause of hemorrhage and death.

Demonstrating through evaluative research the efficacy of training lower-level health professionals to manage asphyxia, a leading cause of newborn mortality.

Developing and introducing chlorhexidine (CHX) antiseptic for umbilical cord care – a new, low-cost preventive intervention to reduce newborn infection, which causes up to 24 percent of newborn mortality.

Saving Lives at Birth
Stimulating new approaches to support innovation. In partnership with Canada, the United Kingdom, Norway and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development promotes disruptive technology development and helps drive innovative solutions.

SILCS Diaphragm
Expanding contraceptive options through the development of a multipurpose diaphragm. The SILCS diaphragm is a cervical barrier method that does not require a pelvic exam, is reusable and can potentially protect against HIV and sexually transmitted infections when paired with microbicide gels.

HIV Vaccine Research
Accelerating progress on HIV vaccine research by analyzing antibodies that neutralize a broad spectrum of HIV.

Preventing Pandemic Threats
Developing the first-ever scientifically based prediction tool of unknown viruses that are potential candidate sources for emerging pandemic threats.

Detecting Counterfeit and Substandard Medicine
Advancing from proof-of-concept, a prototype of a portable device for detecting counterfeit and substandard medicines. This device is less expensive and more accurate than current technologies.

Read the full report here.

May 14, 2014   |   12:30pm - 6:00pm   |   Trent Semans Center, Great Hall A

On May 14th, Duke Cancer Institute and Duke Global Health Institute are sponsoring the Global Cancer Symposium: Tackling the Slow Motion Disaster. Global Cancer Symposium is free and open to the community. The agenda will cover a range of topics and perspectives from local as well as international speakers. The presentations and discussion panel will be followed by a reception open to all participants.

Speakers include: Ted Trimble, Director of the National Cancer Institute's Center for Global Health; Nestory Masalu, Chief of Oncology at the Bugando Medical Center in Mwanza, Tanzania; Edmundo Mauad, Director of the Hospital de Cancer in Barretos, Brazil; Jian Zhou of the Liver Cancer Institute in Shanghai, China; and Manju Sengar of the Tata Memorial Center in Mumbai, India.

"This has been a year of ups and downs for the CASE team.  Most notably, this year marked the passing of our founder and dear friend, Greg Dees.  We are all still struggling to come to terms with his passing and miss him daily. However, we know that he is here in spirit, guiding what we do and, in his honor, we continue to drive CASE forward to provide leaders and organizations with the business skills needed to create lasting social change.  In that spirit, we wanted to celebrate some of the accomplishments from the past year."

The Center for the Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship (CASE) has done a great write up of CASE and SEAD accomplishments over the 2013-2014 school year.  Through research, publications, academics, and events, we are proud to be a global leader in the study of social entrepreneurship!

Read more at CASE Notes.