HUMANITARIAN ENGINEERING Designing Solutions for Health Challenges in Crises, Course, Hackathon, Field Work and Beyond

HUMANITARIAN ENGINEERING Designing Solutions for Health Challenges in Crises Course, Hackathon, Field Work and Beyond

JOIN US THIS JANUARY!  First ever JOINT US-MIDDLE EAST Design Teams, Focused on Health Needs in Humanitarian Settings, with students, faculty, and experts in Baltimore and Beirut.

PART ONE January 8 - 16:  Listen and participate in live and recorded lectures, to help you understand the design process and tools, and to understand healthcare needs in humanitarian crises.  Participants in Baltimore, on the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) campus, and Beirut on the Campus of American University of Beirut (AUB) will hear the same lectures, and share questions and discussion on the issues with experts.  Details on topics covered below.  Participants at AUB will have the opportunity to visit refugee camps and facilities in Lebanon and speak directly with care workers and residents, to better understand the needs and context.  Participants in Baltimore at JHU will hear from their co-participants in Lebanon on their observations. WHERE: Most lectures can be heard online at a location of your choice.  Working space will also be available on both campuses.

PART TWO January 17 - 21:  An intense week of joint teamwork.  Teams will be formed combining participants in both locations, who will meet and work together using a first-time ever Virtual Design Team Room, based on the successful Shared_Studio Portals.  Teams will also use other online tools, shared documents and folders, shared whiteboards, and video-conferencing.  Teams will be mentored during this week by faculty and other expert mentors who will guide the team through the process.  Prototyping supplies will be available on both campuses.  At the end of week 2, each team will report to the larger group on the needs they have chosen to address, and on their solution concepts.  WHERE: Participants on the AUB campus will be in the Irani Oxy Engineering Complex (IOEC) Building (Rooms TBD) and participants on the JHU campus will be in Clark Hall, second-floor Design Studio, on the Homewood Campus. 

PART THREE January 22 - 26: Taking the feedback from week 2, teams will meet jointly 1-2 times per day to refine and further develop their solutions.  Experts and mentors will continue to be available as needed.  WHERE: Space on both campuses will be available for working, meeting, and building, including the Virtual Design Team Room. Teams can also meet virtually.

BEYOND WEEK THREE: For the 3 weeks after the event, teams will continue to work together on an ad hoc basis, meeting on average 1 time per day, and receiving guidance from faculty.  For the top teams and ideas, additional support will be provided throughout 2018.

WHO MAY ATTEND:  Students, fellows, faculty or staff from AUB, JHU and BU, practitioners, and entrepreneurs, can apply. Students at the UG and Graduate levels, in all related fields, including Engineering, Public Health, Nursing, and Medicine are welcome.  Please feel free to email the contact person for your campus with any questions.  Participants should commit to full participation, including watching lectures and participating in discussions, full-time participation in PART TWO, and additional work with your team in week THREE and beyond.

Skillsets that we are looking to include (but not limited to):

·    Public Health students and professionals from all disciplines

·    Engineers and computer scientists of all backgrounds

·    Industrial Design & Human Factors Engineers

·    Materials Scientists

·    Highly creative and inventive people of all backgrounds

ORGANIZERS AND SUPPORT: This unique event builds on the success of the first Summer School on Humanitarian Engineering offered in June at AUB, by faculty in the Maroun Semaan Faculty of Engineering and Architecture and the Faculty of Health Sciences at the American University of Beirut, the Johns Hopkins University Center for Bioengineering Innovation & Design (CBID), and the Departments of Biomedical Engineering and International Health at Boston University.  Partial support provided by the Aspen Institute  Stevens Initiative, with additional support from AUB, Global Health Institute (GHI) at AUB, JHU-CBID, and Boston University BME. 

COURSE RECOGNITION AND CREDIT:  All participants who complete the three-week program will receive a Certificate of Completion for the "HUMANITARIAN ENGINEERING Designing Solutions for Health Challenges in Crises Course".  Contact your local university (JHU, AUB, or BU) about the possibility of formal university course credit.  Rules differ per institution. Please note that AUB students wishing to receive credit for this course (3cr.) must register through AUB SIS, and settle standard university fees during the drop and add period of the Winter Term (January 2018).

COURSE OUTCOMES:  At completion, participants should be able to:

1. Identify and define public health problems and needs in a specific domain for design purposes.

2. Understand and engage with stakeholders in humanitarian settings to understand needs, constraints, and context, using appropriate research and design tools

3. Apply formal design processes from different disciplines for the design of solutions and interventions given a set of constraints

4. Apply relevant and appropriate technologies and tools to prototype their designs

5. Present their problems and designs to a diverse audience effectively

6. Function effectively in a team with diverse backgrounds and perspectives

7. Articulate a deeper understanding of perspectives and concerns of students in the Middle East and the United States.

IP RULES:  By registering, participants agree that all concepts contained in the idea submission forms will be the property or deemed assigned by the participants to their respective institution (JHU or AUB, based on the location), and will be managed according to the established IP rules of their institution.  Some ideas submitted may be selected to include in proposals by the program organizers for funding for further development of these solutions. If your idea (based on the forms submitted) is included in one of these proposals and funding for development is obtained, you will be invited to participate in the further development efforts via your institutional partner.

REGISTRATION IS REQUIRED FOR ALL PARTICIPANTS

CONTACTS:

At AUB:  Imad H. Elhajj,  imad.elhajj@aub.edu.lb

At JHU: Meg Glancey, mglancey@jhu.edu or Youseph Yazdi yy@jhu.edu

At BU: Mohamad Zaman, zaman@bu.edu