OLPC – Health Challenge Party at UVic

3 October 2008Dewi Griffiths

On Tuesday morning, ten intrepid Brentwood students boarded the bus for a pioneering experience at the University of Victoria software-engineering department. They had been invited to attend the very first "Engineering for Health" or E4H party. The aim: to throw a group of university profs and students together with high school students and come up with innovative applications to help teenagers in developing countries improve health conditions in their environments. The common tool to build the applications on: the OLPC laptop (more information on this at http://www.laptop.org). This machine, a funky looking white and green computer, is easily transported, wireless enabled and rugged – ideal for the harsh conditions in developing countries. It can even be charged by a yo-yo!! The students were treated to a pizza lunch at the Nibbles and Bytes cafe before being whisked away to the engineering computer labs to meet the facilitation team. In the labs, technical aspects of the laptop device were explained as well as an overview of health in African communities and an overview of the design process they were about to undertake. The final outcome being, hopefully, a computer application created by 4th year software engineering students at UVic. With brains primed, our students brainstormed several unique ideas to the delight of our hosts. After 20 minutes, they were split into two teams to select one idea and flesh it out, storyboard it, and make a presentation to those assembled. Our students produced amazing ideas with well-thought-out and expertly presented arguments to back up their design choices and how their product would help “make a difference”. More details and photos of the trip may be found in our weekly Blog.

Where Students Choose To Be