Articles

A community outreach event focused on empowering girls and women in Africa. A woman in a pink shirt addresses girls in white uniforms, while another woman with a microphone engages them in discussion. The event promotes education and aims to end poverty for girls and women in Africa.

For the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, a Look at Blum Center Students Working to Alleviate Poverty

October 17 was the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, a United Nations observance to acknowledge the efforts and struggles of those living in poverty and to uplift their voices to make their concerns heard. These goals are at the heart of the Blum Center’s mission, with academic, research, and extracurricular opportunities and initiatives encouraging students to consider poverty alleviation. The Center’s programs, including the Global Poverty & Practice minor, the Master of Development Engineering, Big Ideas Contest, and Health Tech CoLab, help undergrads and grad students find opportunities to get hands-on experience with alleviating the root causes and various manifestations of poverty locally and globally. 

The Master of Development Engineering’s Class of 2024 gathered outside the Blum Center for Developing Economies. They are standing on and around a staircase, posing for a group photo. The participants are diverse, with a mix of ages and backgrounds, smiling and appearing enthusiastic.

MDevEng’s Third Cohort Arrives Ready to Tackle Global Challenges

On Aug. 22, the third cohort of the Master of Development Engineering program convened at Blum Hall for their orientation and the start of the first of three semesters of an interdisciplinary curriculum that revolves around developing technology interventions in accordance with and for individuals living in low-resource settings. The Class of 2024 — 34 students in total — hails from 12 countries across four continents, but many arrived last week for breakfast and headshots already on friendly terms.

Map of the world with Mexico, Ukraine and Philippines highlighted and their respective landscape changes shown next to them.

In the AI Era, Blum Center Students and Alumni Find Ways to Apply the Technology for Social Good

Yet even before AI took center stage this past year, students and alumni of the Blum Center for Developing Economies were embracing the emerging technologies’ potential, specifically for social good. From detecting “deepfake” videos to analyzing agriculture changes and building understanding across communities, Blum Center folks share their experiences, inspirations, and the impact of their AI-driven projects and ventures. 

Ingrid Xhafa and Greg Berger in Rwanda posing near the white off-grid solar-power system

One Size Doesn’t Fit All: How MDevEng Students Ingrid Xhafa and Greg Berger Investigated the Efficacy of Outsider-Supported, Off-Grid Power Systems in Remote Rwandan Health Clinics

Xhafa has worked in the development sector for a decade and graduated from the Master of Development Engineering program last December with a focus on energy and environment. The intersection of healthcare and energy was also the focus of another recent MDevEng graduate, Greg Berger. Together, Berger and Xhafa, both in the program’s Energy, Water, and the Environment track, examined the energy needs of healthcare clinics in one sub-Saharan country, Rwanda, as their MDevEng capstone project. 

Ariel Ho, Midori Pierce, and Tiffany Luo next to the poster and prototype of their project Hebee.

Student Teams Tackle “Period Poverty” and “Pre-Diabetes Intervention” in the Health Tech CoLab

Hebee is one of two Berkeley student teams that developed their innovations over the past year through the Health Tech CoLab, an ecosystem to support students developing medical devices, diagnostic tools, and digital health tools that increase access to healthcare. The CoLab’s Health Access Cohort also included Diaita, which offers personalized diet and exercise plans as well as cognitive behavior therapy to ward off Type 2 diabetes and its associated illnesses. 

Three men are presenting at a "Big Ideas @ Berkeley" event. The man in the center is speaking into a microphone, while the other two stand attentively beside him. They are dressed in white shirts and dark trousers, and each has a name tag. The backdrop displays the event's logo repeatedly.

Recent DevEng Grads and Big Ideas Winner Aim to Bridge Professional Employment Gap for Young Nigerians

In the fall of 2021, Master of Development Engineering students Victor Okoro, Daniel Huang, and Joshua Iokua Albano, interested in education and helping Nigerians find jobs post-graduation, teamed up to found Madojo, a platform that connects Nigerian university graduates with employers in the technology space while helping the graduates gain sought-after skills through skills development, portfolio design, networking, and mentorship.

Ilana Lipsett speaking animatedly into a microphone while sitting.

Meet Ilana Lipsett: Big Ideas Mentor and Judge and a Champion for the Future

As a senior program manager at Institute for the Future, a non-profit encouraging individuals and organizations to plan for the long-term, Lipsett looks at the world-to-come through a collaborative lens. But her dedication to innovative futures transcends her office. As a judge and mentor of the Big Ideas Contest, housed at the Blum Center for Developing Economies, Lipsett has become a key piece of the program and an exemplar for students who too hope to redesign how we approach forthcoming generations.     

Host and Fellow Responsibilities

Host Organizations

  • Identify staff supervisor to manage I&E Climate Action Fellow
  • Submit fellowship description and tasks
  • Engage in the matching process
  • Mentor and advise students
  • Communicate with Berkeley program director and give feedback on the program.

Berkeley Program Director​

  • Communicate with host organizations, students, and other university departments to ensure smooth program operations

Student Fellows

  • Complete application and cohort activities
  • Communicate with staff and host organizations
  • Successfully complete assignments from host organization during summer practicum
  • Summarize and report summer experience activities post-fellowship