Education New Zealand (ENZ), in association with premier New Zealand universities and sustainability think-tank The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) as knowledge partner, hosted the New Zealand-India Sustainability Challenge (NZISC) to address environmental challenges facing our world today.
This challenge celebrated independent thinking, encouraged teamwork and mentorship. Two participants from India worked with one New Zealand student under the guidance of an Indian expert.
Scoring high
Of the 90 teams which entered the competition, the finale showcased the work of six top teams displaying sustainable solutions for everyday problems. The teams that participated showcased engaging concepts covering themes such as reducing energy consumption using software, creating window blinds using broken photovoltaic cells, a video game app to promote awareness on sustainability, using biomass as an alternative to firewood and using garbage to create electricity.
The winner of the challenge was the VaxiBead team comprising Dhruv Suri and Saisri Akondi from Manipal Institute Of Technology. Their project is a mobile healthcare programme to ensure complete vaccination for every child. “This project ensures that every new born is vaccinated properly and that vaccination data is stored for future reference. In our field practice area in Manipal, there is 95% vaccination coverage. But among children of migrant workers we see a dramatic decrease to less than 60% of vaccination coverage. They routinely misplace their paper-based health cards and miss vital vaccines as they move regularly,” explains Dhruv.
This inspired the team to develop a vaccine record-keeping system, which can be accessed by health workers from any part of the country. “Our goal is to close the immunisation gap and make children healthy and productive members of the society,” says Saisri.
Their biggest challenge was to equip community health workers with appropriate technology and train them to use the record-keeping system. What made this special for the duo was the workers’ excitement. They were more than willing to understand the importance of digitising the process and this encouraged the team to make their app easy to use and reliable.
“We are waiting for ethics committee approval to implement this system in all five community health centres around Manipal. We are also working with the Udupi district commissioner to implement this system across the district,” explains Dhruv.
VaxiBead uses a digital chip which can store the entire vaccination record. The digital chip is embedded in a primary bead which can be worn as part of a bracelet by the child. By simply tapping the primary bead with a smartphone, the data appears on the screen and can be updated when new vaccinations are given. “We have also developed a mobile app for this read/write interface. Further, vaccination data is stored on a central server for administrative use,” says Saisri.
The team won an all-expenses paid internship for three weeks at the New Zealand partner universities — University of Canterbury, University of Otago and University of Waikato.