Blum Center Innovation Chronicle

What the World Needs Now

As the 2020 academic year commences, the bright spot in the health, economic, and social crisis driven by the COVID-19 pandemic remains technological innovation: innovation in health care and diagnostics, innovation in pedagogy, innovation in remote collaboration. The pandemic is indeed accelerating the digital transformation of society.

Although we at the Blum Center and across UC Berkeley are saddened that classes are being taught online and communications between faculty and students are virtual, there is much to marvel at—that we can continue to teach, advance knowledge discovery, and explore new modalities of learning. Many of our colleagues are also racing to use technology and science for rapid diagnostics and cures and to reopen the economy quickly and safely here in California and across the world.

This newsletter highlights some of the efforts of what I call “what the world needs now”: innovators working across disciplines to understand and solve the complex challenges of the pandemic; people working in teams often far-flung in terms of geography and background for a common goal and purpose. COVID-19 is both a catalyst and a wakeup call to solving wicked problems on multiple fronts: healthcare, housing, education, racial discrimination, socioeconomic injustice, and global warming. Let us educate more social innovators to solve the wicked problems of our world. Fiat Lux!

Sincerely,

S. Shankar Sastry
Faculty Director

The Blum Center is pleased to announce that Amy Pickering has accepted the position of Assistant Professor in Development Engineering. Pickering's areas of research include novel water and sanitation technologies, impact evaluation of scalable interventions on child health and development, and environmental surveillance for infectious diseases.

Another Year of Outstanding Development
Engineering and InFEWS Doctoral Graduates

Among this year’s graduates are: Julia Kramer, who received a PhD in Mechanical Engineering and a Master in Public Health and whose research focuses on global health and equity; Alana Siegner, a graduate of the Environmental Resources Group whose work addresses food distribution, access, and justice questions; and Christopher Hyun, also a PhD graduate of the Environmental Resources Group, whose research addresses water, pollution, and development.

Joeva Sean Rock, an instructor in international development who researches agricultural biotechnology, food sovereignty, and environmental governance, has joined the Blum Center’s Global Poverty & Practice program as Lecturer. Rock is also an expert in online learning, a boon for UC Berkeley as the campus enters its first full semester of virtual learning.

Deep Learning and Mindset Shifts in
GPP Summer Study

This summer, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Global Poverty & Practice students to cancel their practice experiences and seniors questioned their ability to finish the minor. To address this, the Blum Center created an online offering for 22 students from across 15 majors to engage in deep learning and allow for mindset shifts.

When UC Berkeley alumna Anna Sadovnikova launched her social enterprise devoted to helping pregnant mothers overcome the challenges of breastfeeding, she never expected she would need to reinvent the entire program—transforming an in-person breastfeeding simulator into a virtual training program. But that’s what she and her team did in 2020.

Part of the motivation for Rachel Dzombak and Vivek Rao's Development Engineering course “Innovation in Disaster Response” was to get students to think about the use of technology during past disasters. However, the COVID-19 pandemic magnified this approach in ways no one could have predicted.

In the words of Martin Luther King Jr.: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Black Lives Matter.

Dr. Bertram Lubin, a groundbreaking pediatrician and children’s hospital leader, was the kind of person the Blum Center dreams of having around—to mentor students, advise faculty, inspire ideas, and lend decades of knowledge about the fight for disease mitigation and healthcare equity. We miss him greatly.