A workshop for local high school students, focused on improving global health through sustainable technology, was jointly organized by the Student Innovation for Global Health Technology (SIGHT) Program and School of Engineering in April 2015.
The SIGHT Program offers an enterprising undergraduate education platform that creates healthcare solutions for global problems using simple technology. The program was launched by the Division of Biomedical Engineering and involves students from various disciplines. It is led by Prof Ying Chau, Biomedical Engineering and also Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.
At the workshop, a discussion on global health issues was followed by a mobile clinic simulation game illustrating the daily problems facing SIGHT’s non-governmental organization partner One-2-One in delivering mobile clinical services in Cambodia. Workshop participants were introduced to the Electronic Health Record (EHR) system specifically developed by a SIGHT student team to facilitate One-2-One’s operations, and then invited to become the first users of the system ahead of deployment.
The EHR system was created to replace traditional paper records, making life much more convenient for One-2-One and patients in Cambodia, noted alumnus Lance, 2015 BEng Computer Science, a coding team member. Participation in the project gave him a great sense of achievement, he said.
The workshop usefully raised awareness among school students on how life could be improved by technology, issues related to global health, and the importance of taking part in community service. Participants comprised 22 students and three teachers from seven local secondary schools.
The EHR team and a second SIGHT team, creators of a portable drug dispensary box, delivered their products to Cambodia in June 2015. Both were well received.