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| An Eye-Opening Volunteer Trip May 2011
Ravi Athale, head of MITRE's Emerging Technologies group, knew he would encounter people with deeply entrenched problems during a recent volunteer trip to central India. He was prepared to spend his time providing basic logistical assistance to SEARCH, the healthcare organization he had traveled to the rural Maharashtra district to help. But Athale was pleasantly surprised to realize that his scientific training could also provide long-term benefits to the organization. SEARCH, short for the Society for Education, Action and Research in Community Health, works in rural Indian communities to address pressing health problems facing women, infants, and children. (The group, which operates public health programs in 39 villages in Maharashtra, received the MacArthur Foundation's Award for Creative and Effective Institutions in 2006.) He says he was inspired by SEARCH's systematic approach to identifying and addressing health problems in the troubled region. "I realized that we as engineers could take a similar approach and address related problems, such as sanitation and other quality-of-life issues," Athale says. "I found an interesting conceptual connection between my job in Emerging Technologies and what the SEARCH people are doing." SEARCH, founded 26 years ago by a husband-and-wife team of Indian physicians, Abhay and Rani Bang, combines hands-on delivery of health services with an extensive research program. "One of their main areas of focus for the last 26 years has been infant mortality, which is still a major problem," Athale says. "They developed a model for reducing infant mortality that has been proven effective." During his trip to the region this past January, Athale traveled to several villages in the Maharashtra district. He assisted SEARCH staff with research, gathered data from residents, and helped with clean-up and other tasks. He also did some research of his own, hoping to determine how to combine a systems engineering approach with what he calls SEARCH's "deeply humanistic spirit" to address problems like improving lighting and wood stove design in rural residents' homes. "The idea is to follow up on the success SEARCH has had in providing healthcare services with other efforts to improve the lives of these people," he explains. The Wisdom of Crowds "I'm intrigued by the whole notion of using social networks to do crowd-sourcing," he adds. "I've started thinking recently about how non-governmental organizations in developing countries could benefit from this notion of the wisdom of crowds." Following up on his January trip, Athale is now working on a plan for using social media to gather insights on the lighting and stove design issues. "There is an enormous untapped resource all across the world, but especially here in the U.S., of professionals with great experience that can be applied to problems like these in the developing world," Athale says. "The question is how best to tap this experience to meet the need for specific skills. The idea is to set up a process whereby people can contribute without actually flying to India." He plans to return to India next year to begin applying insights from his current research. "I went there with the goal of starting a long-term association with SEARCH," Athale says. "If I was asked, 'Exactly what did you accomplish?,' I would respond: 'What I have is a deeper understanding of the place, the needs, and some ideas on how resources can be brought to meet these needs'." —by Maria S. Lee
Page last updated: May 23, 2011 | Top of page |
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