About a month and a half ago, I received an email from Sneha '13, asking me to take a moment to vote for the idea that she and Divya '13 came up with and entered in the Dell Social Innovation Competition. Earlier today, I received an email from Sivakami '11, asking me to do the same thing for the idea that she and her team came up with. Since (a) both projects involve MIT students being awesome and (b) they both relate to the Dell Social Innovation Competition, I decided to combine the two into one entry, for your reading pleasure :)

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First up: DevLinks (You can check out their page here)

DevLinks is an idea that Divya '13 and Sneha '13 came up to deal with the problem of inadequate communication and cooperation between NGOs. Having just been to India, I can tell you that it's not common, at least in India, to find several NGOs to be working in the same field of interest, in the same area, with the same target population, at the same time. Which more or less sounds like massive amounts of untapped productivity. What Divya and Sneha have proposed is (in my head, anyway) sort of like a Facebook for NGOs. Except instead of stalking the kid who used to sit on the far left side of my orgo lecture hall (Hi, Sneha ^.^), I can stalk NGOs instead =P Just kidding - mostly, it'll just give NGOs the chance to work at a much higher level of efficiency: lots of sharing/caring.

Next: EnvironMental (Their page can be found (Their page is here).

This past IAP, four members of MIT's Global Poverty Initiative (GPI) came up with a biodigester-greenhouse technology designed to ease some of the health and economic troubles faced by the people in La Vaquita, Mexico. By working with students from Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey, the GPI team is hoping to build community-wide greenhouses that hopefully assist in reducing the high incidence of diabetes, hypertension, and malnutrition in the area. Regarding the biodigester side of the project: the GPI team is helping families turn manure into high quality, low-impact fertilizer, while producing methane gas that can be piped into their homes and used for cooking - all at a low cost.

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I've only given you all a brief summary of the two ideas since both are described in greater detail on the Dell competition website - which you should all go check out! They'd really appreciate your votes, since that'll give them the opportunity to take their projects further. If you have any questions for these students, I'm pretty sure they're open to you contacting them. I've included Divya, Sneha, and Sivakam's email addresses below:

Divya '13: divyasri@mit.edu
Sneha '13: snkannan@mit.edu
Sivakami '11: sivakami@mit.edu

Since we're talking about international projects anyway, I thought I might also give you guys a glimpse of my report on my India trip: I just uploaded it onto my public like ten minutes ago, lol.

Okay. Back to working on my 18.03 pset :(

Comments (Closed after 30 days to reduce spam)

Good to see such ideas pouring out of MIT. The link to DevLink's page gave a 404 though, you should probably look into it. I'm on my mobile right now, so I'll look at your report and the greenhouse project later in the day.

Posted by: Vivek on February 15, 2011

The links are working for me. Wooo for Sneha sitting on the left side of 5.13!

Also, nice report. GOOD LUCK ON YOUR PSET

Posted by: Jeanne '13 on February 16, 2011

Nice post Hamsika, I love the DevLinks project but I'm slightly confused; did you mean to write "it's not common" or instead "it's not uncommon" referring to NGO's in India?

Posted by: Anthony on February 16, 2011

I totally understand where you are getting upto with that NGO thingy! As I myself own 2 NGOs, I am quite familiar with the scene. Those are actually quite admirable initiatives!

Peace!!!

Posted by: Gaurav on February 16, 2011

Wow! These ideas sound amazing. I just voted for both of them on the Dell Site. You can vote for however many you want!

Posted by: Anonymous on February 17, 2011

Something went *pop* inside me when I read about the DevLinks .... I do not know how to describe it but... this was exactly THE idea I was trying(with little success I may add)to explain to my EC back in November.He had asked me if I had any ideas to work upon and nervous-as-anything as I was.. I could not coherently put it in words.Felt bad that time,but now that somebody is on it, it feels great!
Considering the NGO-situation here in India(you are absolutely right Hamsika) and for that matter anywhere in the world,particularly in the developing countries,this idea would work wonders if put in action because of the obvious reason that efficiency would increase manyfolds and because of countless other perks the enforcement of the idea brings with it.Good luck Divya,Sneha and Sivakam!

Posted by: aditi on February 18, 2011

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