Projects
Buckets hold the place in line while the tap sits dry in Dharwad, India
NextDrop - NextDrop is a social enterprise that provides information to households about when public services, such as water, will be delivered to their household in communities with unreliable supply. NextDrop is currently in pilot testing in southern India and seeking financial support. We were a semi-finalist for the Global Social Venture Competition and the Stanford Social E-Challenge, and co-first place winners of the CITRIS Big Ideas Challenge.
Tamatave region, Madagascar
Social and Cultural Factors Leading to Sustainability - Through the WHO International Small Community Water Supplies Network, finishing a review paper for the International Small Community Water Supply Network. Expanding access to water supplies to those previously unserved through construction of new water supplies is a step towards increasing coverage; but this access, as well as the services provided by existing water supplies, must then be sustained over time. This review systematically identifies and highlights lessons learned from design and implementation of programs, policies, and regulations that are of importance to the sustainability of small community water supplies and suggests areas for further research.
Behrampada, Bandra East, Mumbai
Haath Mein Sehat (HMS): Health in Hands in Mumbai, and Hubli, India – Haath Mein Sehat is a student-led project supported by the UC Berkeley Blum Center for Developing Economies and the Deshpande Foundation. HMS is an interdisciplinary, international collaboration between local organizations and institutions in Mumbai and students at the University of California, Berkeley to improve access to safe safe water, safe hygiene practices, and sanitation in slum communities.
Photos by Will Kirk/Johns Hopkins University
IBRAIL: Inexpensive BRAILler - A portable and inexpensive device for writing Braille, developed through the Johns Hopkins University Mechanical Engineering Senior Design Project during 2005-2006. This project, sponsored by the National Federation of the Blind, tasked myself and 3 teammates with making a device that makes it easier for blind users to read and write Braille and was portable, rugged, inexpensive and lightweight. The final device worked much like a stylus (the traditional method for writing Braille) (link), building off a method for writing Braille that was already familiar to many users, to speed up the more traditional way of writing Braille. The device allowed the user to punch up to six dots at a time, as opposed to the usual one dot at a time, with a final cost for mass production of (for the production of 10,000 units) at $10.05 for materials plus the cost of assembly. Press release.
