D-Lab Fall Student Showcase 2018: 24 projects in 15 countries engaging 96 students! December 7, 5 pm

D-Lab: WASH students with their project posters, December 2018.
D-Lab: WASH students with their project posters, December 2018.
MIT D-Lab

Final presentations & working prototypes from current D-Lab students

Friday, December 7th from 5:00 to 7:00 pm - At D-Lab, MIT N51-3rd Floor

Following a welcome from D-Lab, attendees had the opportunity to speak with student teams and view all the working prototypes on display throughout the D-Lab space!

D-Lab: Development

Instructor - Libby Hsu 

CLASS PROJECTS

BOTSWANA: Improvements to existing technologies from the IDDS Botswana 2018 summit, and primary school curriculum creation.

  • Partner: These Hands
  • Students: Anaina Malik, Anna Wan, Jessica Xu, Smita Bhattacharjee, Rebecca Sloan, Emilio Sison

COLOMBIA: Follow-up to IDDS Climate Change Adaptation and IDDS New Coastal Territories projects, and workshops at C-Innova

  • Partner: C-Innova
  • Students: Sandra Walter, Maharshi Bhattacharya, Rahma Zakaria, Yashna Jhaveri, Joushua Padilla, Emily Zhang

GUATEMALA: Work on projects related to gasifier stove design and pellet manufacturing, improvements to sanitation strategy for Mosan, and collaboration with university students in a D-Lab-like environment.

INDIA & NEPAL: Site visits, modeling, and installation of preliminary insulation systems in Nepal and India for passive home heating.

UGANDA: Youth STEM workshops with Makerere University and TEWDI in Soroti.
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Partner: TEWDI Uganda
- Students: Youmna Chamieh, Aryaa Sheth, Natasha Stark, Conor Kirby

Applications of Energy in Global Development (D-Lab: Energy II)

Instructors - Amit Gandhi, Anish Paul Antony, Daniel Sweeney, Eric Verploegen

CLASS PROJECTS

UGANDA & KENYA: Charcoal Briquette Testing - Develop tools and processes to allow for charcoal briquette producers to improve their quality control process.

UGANDA & KENYA: Charcoal Briquette Drying - Create solutions for improving the charcoal briquette drying process to increase throughput and cost effectiveness.  

INDIA & NEPAL: Himalayan Home Heating and Air Quality - Site visits, modeling, testing of preliminary solutions such as improved insulation, ventilation, and heat capture systems.  

D-Lab: Gender & Development

Instructors - Libby McDonald & Kate Mytty

CLASS PROJECTS

COLOMBIA: Creative Capacity Builing for ASGM women miners - Research to understand needs of women miners in department of Antioquia. 

  • Partners: Working with women miners in thre locations, Universidad Nacional, Colombia   
  • Students: Susan Tort, Sai Rajagopol, Anne Thibauly, Carmen Alvarez    

GHANA: Financial inclusion tools for women waste pickers - Providing a financial inclusion tools design workshop with women waste pickers.

  • Partner: Ashesi University, Ghana  
  • Students: Kritika Singh, Fiona Lau, Mathangi Swaminattan , Ellie Simonson

NEPAL & INDIA: Gender lens on home heating - Applying a gender lens to the experience of women heating and cooking in rural villages in Nepal and India.

  • Students: Ines Elisa Sanz Morere, Djeneba Gory   

D-Lab: Schools

Instructor - Les Norford

CLASS PROJECT

PAKISTAN: Designing and testing technologies to improve seismic resistance and thermal comfort of a middle school - Passu Middle School, Gilgit-Baltistan Administrative Territory - designed and built by the Aga Khan Development Network.

  • Partner: Aga Khan Agency for Housing
  • Students: Elence Chen, Dominic Co, Dayme Delgado, Alejandro Gonzalez-Placito, Anna Heidt, Effie Jia, Daniel Landez, Brianna Love, Michelle Menkiti, Natalie Osuna, Michelle Xie

D-Lab: Supply Chains

Instructor - Stephen Graves

CLASS PROJECTS

COLOMBIA: Small-scale and artisanal gold mining operations use methods are environmentally unsustainable. There is high level visibility on the economic impact of operational changes associated with transitioning existing small-scale and artisanal gold mining operations to alternative extraction and processing methods.

RWANDA: Reduce operating costs for Kumwe Harvest maize operation by calculating transport and operating costs of newly added maize processing equipment. Determine optimal locations for deploying new equipment in order to maximize efficiency and scalability.

  • Partner: Kumwe Solutions
  • Students: Darla Earl, Sarah Caso, Sarah Quraishi, Crystal Su

NIGERIA: Strengthen Lifestores’ procurement and stock management practices in order to enable it to scale more quickly & serve our customers more effectively.

  • Partner: Lifestores Pharmacy
  • Students: Surabhi Bhatt, Shiyan Yin, Grace Eun Kyung Shin, Marianne Olsen

INDIA: Develop and test a model for sourcing banana fiber directly from banana farmer cooperatives.

  • Partner: Saathi
  • Students: Whitney W Zhang; Carly J Staub ; Rachel M O'Grady, Heloisa Jardim

US: Developing an analytical tool (model) to estimate effort hours given a certain project / scope of work for the Solutions Development Team. The SDT could then use this model for integrated resource planning activities.

  • Partner: Healthcare technology company
  • Students: Bahubali Shah

D-Lab: WASH

Instuctors - Susan Murcott & Libby Hsu

CLASS PROJECTS

SOUTH AFRICA: Equality Water - Providing a humanitarian relief option for water-stressed communities in and around Cape Town. Revise an existing desalination "box" to be suitable for an informal settlement outside Cape Town. Gather and document borehole water quality from pilot test site.   

  • Partner: Equality Water
  • Students: Abigail Anderson, Avril Kenney  

INDIA: Wastewater Irrigation - Design a mechanism to remove helminth eggs from wastewater before use as irrigation for small-scale farmers in India. Work with partner to create sustainable approaches to urban wastewater reuse that meet minimum acceptable standards for water cleanliness.    

  • Partner: MIT Course 1 research, People in Centre     
  • Students: James Rowe, Samantha McBride    

NEPAL: R&D and production of a simple, low cost E.coli test kit (EC-Kit) in Kathmandu, and synthesis of resorufin β-D-glucuronide as a low cost test for E.coli that is sensitive, low cost and usable in very small amounts  

Design for Scale

Instructors - Kate Bergeron, Harald Quintus-Bosz, & Sorin Grama

CLASS PROJECTS

INDIA, BANGLADESH, EAST AFRICA: Reducing cost and assembly time of an indoor air quality sensor used to measure health interventions in low-resource settings.

  • Partner: Sensen
  • Students: Danielle K Gleason, Suji M Balfe, Weishan Liao

EAST AFRICA: Developing a flat-pack design for ease of manufacturing, assembly and shipping of a motorcycle ambulance trailer used to provide access to healthcare in rural East Africa.

  • Partner: The Okoa Project
  • Students: Sandra Li, Alexis N Groark, Thomas Varner, Toria F Yan, Jessica Oh

GUATEMALA: Design for local manufacturing and sourcing of a mobile sanitation solution for developing world.

  • Partner: Mosan
  • Students: Mae R Dotan, Yi Gong, Kyra C Post

NEPAL, INDIA, AFRICA: Reducing cost and assembly time of a hdyro-powered pump used by small-holder farmers.

  • Partner: aQysta
  • Students: Zaria Smalls, Shannon Miller, Ellen O'Connell

               


Contact

Libby Hsu, Lecturer, Academic Program Manager