|
IN THIS ISSUE: 2020 reflections, M.DevEng Visit Week, COVIDScope, new faculty ++
|
|
Innovating through the pandemic: A look back at 2020
“At the Blum Center, 2020 was a year of unprecedented adaptation and innovation due to COVID-19. Like all centers and schools, we shifted to online teaching, advising, and working,” begins Faculty Director S. Shankar Sastry in a look back to the Blum Center’s response to the pandemic, “as well as to racing to come up with solutions for mitigating the spread of the virus at home and abroad.” See the Blum Center 2020 Annual Report for all that was accomplished in a difficult year.
> Read more, view and download Annual Report
|
|
Warm welcome at Visit Week for admitted M.DevEng students
In early April, the first cohort of accepted students in the Blum Center’s inaugural Masters of Development Engineering program (M.DevEng) heard from award-winning faculty, social entrepreneurs, and student researchers and innovators, and also toured labs, Blum Hall, and such iconic Berkeley landmarks as Sather Gate (above) – all virtually – in anticipation of reuniting in person on campus this fall.
> Read more
|
|
MD4SG, Black in AI co-founder Rediet Abebe joins Blum faculty
Rediet Abebe has joined the Berkeley faculty as Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences, affiliated with the Development Engineering Group at the Blum Center. With a Ph.D. in computer science from Cornell University, Abebe is a co-founder of Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG) and Black in AI.
> Read more
|
|
CRISPR-based COVID-19 test uses smartphone cameras to spot virus RNA
Berkeley News: A collaboration between Blum Center Research Director and bioengineering professor Dan Fletcher, Professor Jennifer Doudna of UC Berkeley’s Innovative Genomics Institute, and Dr. Melanie Ott of UCSF’s Gladstones Institutes is developing a CRISPR-Cas13a-based diagnostic to rapidly detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA. This mobile phone-based diagnostic technology aims to provide results in 15 to 30 minutes and could rapidly increase diagnostic capacity worldwide.
> Read more
|
|
How satellite images are helping one country hand out cash
BBC: With the help of I-School associate professor and Blum affiliated faculty Joshua Blumenstock, Togo has found a high-tech way to identify people who need financial help in the pandemic and send them emergency cash. Blumenstock's team uses computers to search for clues in satellite images, then money is distributed through mobile phones.
> Watch BBC video
|
|
Scaling up: Removing arsenic from groundwater in California’s Central Valley
The numbers of people worldwide exposed to arsenic contamination in groundwater has doubled in less than 20 years, to 200 million today. A novel arsenic-remediation technology, developed in Blum faculty and Civil and Environmental Engineering Professor Ashok Gadgil’s lab and helped along by Big Ideas at the Blum Center, is now being tested in California’s Central Valley.
> Read story
|
|
CALENDAR
Innovation in Disaster Response, Recovery & Resilience
Project Showcase: Friday, April 30, 1:30 - 3:30 pm PST
The Innovation in Disaster Response, Recovery & Resilience (DevEng290-1) course project online showcase features 6 student projects representing 29 students from 10 academic departments working with 6 organizations across the US Department of Defense, on the theme "disaster preparedness as a national security issue." The course was made possible by the National Security Innovation Network (NSIN), housed at the Blum Center.
> Pre-Register: http://bit.ly/IDR3-Final
|
|
|
|
