Activity Description:

Activity Description: Maternal mortality is responsible for over 500,000 deaths globally every year. Obstetric hemorrhage contributes to the greatest proportion of maternal deaths and, in developing regions of the world, women die because there are often long delays between the occurrence of hemorrhage and treatment.

Funded by a MacArthur Foundation grant, the Women's Global Health Imperative is studying whether the "Life Wrap," a simple neoprene and Velcro device (much like the bottom half of a wet suit), may fill this deadly time delay.

Activity Description: In response to its domestic AIDS crisis, the Botswana government is developing comprehensive programs to cope with both the disease and the region's shortage of physicians and medical personnel. In conjunction with Harvey Friedman, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Penn Medical School and director of the Penn Program in Botswana, Botswana's Ministry of Health has authorized a center at Wharton -- the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Research Center -- to help the country develop a more efficient system to manage HIV/AIDS therapy and monitor HIV patients.

Activity Description: In partnership with the Hospital San Vicente de Paul, the Universidad Nacional of Costa Rica is introducing a solar oven as an environmentally-sound and cost-effective method of sterilizing hazardous hospital biological waste.

Activity Description: A joint project of the University of the Philippines Los Banos and the Provincial Government of Laguna, the Duck Ranger is a transportable duck shed facilitating the introduction of free ranging mallard ducks into pre-existing rice farming paddies in an effort to control golden snail populations.

The teacup-sized golden snails, an invasive species to the Philippines and destructive pest for rice farmers (destroying up to 60% of crop yields), are a favorite food of the water foraging mallard ducks. However in the Philippine lakes where mallards are commonly farmed, dredging and pollution have reduced golden snail populations.

Activity Description: The Center for Development in the Tensift Region is an NGO that partners with local research and other groups to initiate and co-fund economically sustainable projects. These projects focus on the improvement of the environment, education and business skills.
Some of CDRT's projects in the past years include:
-educating potters to use gas-powered kilns around Marrakech rather than burn tires. CDRT helped co-finance 22 kilns, which both improved the quality of the pottery and reduced harmful CO2 emissions by 12,000 tons. (2002-3)

Activity Description: One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a non-profit association in partnership with MIT Media Labs, aims to provide low-cost laptops to children in poor communities around the world. Their sub-$100 laptop design, developed at MIT Media Labs, incorporates innovative technology with an emphasis on durability. In addition to Wi-Fi and peer-to-peer capabilities, the Linux-based laptop is encased in rubber and fitted with a hand crank power source for use in areas where access to electricity is limited.

Activity Description: WorldTalk aims to provide information and messaging services to people in poor communities, in their own language and over any telephone. In communities where access to information is limited and literacy levels are low there is a strong need for such easy-to-use services. They will help improve living standards in a sustainable way. To enable scalability and reduce marginal costs the information is Internet-based and accessed via basic telephones, using proven voice portal technologies.