Africa

Illustration of community organizing via social media on mobile devices

The promise of using WhatsApp for low-tech distance learning

Teaching community organizers via WhatsApp yields encouraging results in South Africa, according to MIT Governance Lab research.

August 6, 2020

Professor Hazel Sive (front, second from left) visits Tshimologing, a digitial innovation precinct in Johannesburg, South Africa, with some 2019 Global Startup Labs participants.

MIT-Wits Program continues to thrive

University of the Witwatersrand partnership, one of MIT’s most active programs in Africa, extends beyond international travel.

July 31, 2020

Between 2011 and 2015, extreme poverty rates in the Middle East and North Africa increased from 2.7 percent to 5 percent of the population, making it the only region in the world where extreme poverty rates were going up.

MIT's Abdul Latif Jameel Poverty Action Lab to launch research center at American University in Cairo

J-PAL research center will focus on evidence-based policy-making to reduce poverty in the Middle East and North Africa.

July 15, 2020

The startup macro-eyes is bringing new techniques in machine learning and artificial intelligence to global health problems like vaccine delivery and patient scheduling with its Connected Health AI Network (CHAIN).

Improving global health equity by helping clinics do more with less

The startup macro-eyes uses artificial intelligence to improve vaccine delivery and patient scheduling.

June 25, 2020

“Learning is not just about having a professor transfer knowledge but also about the life-long lessons that you pick up from teachers in the process," one nominator wrote in support of Amah Edoh's receipt of the Everett Moore Baker Award.

Associate Professor Amah Edoh receives Baker Award for undergraduate teaching

Anthropologist honored by MIT students as "a mentor, a role model, and someone who is truly making a difference."

June 3, 2020

"This was definitely one of the highlights of my MBA," said Benjamin Boutboul, grad student in MIT Sloan and a leader of the 40-participant Africa Takes On Covid-19 virtual hackathon. "I am so proud of us and what we all accomplished together."

MIT builds community for the Africa Takes On Covid-19 challenge

Some 40 students pull off a global virtual hackathon in less than two weeks.

May 14, 2020

Accurate and trustworthy messaging about the coronavirus are critical to ensuring citizens are educated to take proper preventative action.

Informing Covid-19 preparedness in Sierra Leone

MIT Governance Lab and the Institute for Governance Reform, working with the government of Sierra Leone, conduct rapid-response surveys to address Covid-19.

May 13, 2020

Dimagi offers users a way to design mobile tools like registration forms that can be used by frontline health care workers in the most remote, impoverished regions of the world, transforming care.

A mobile tool for global change

Dimagi’s data-collection platform has helped improve health care for hundreds of millions of people around the world.

March 8, 2020

“I’ve been drawn to [international] experiences mainly because I love school, and I love the classroom experience, but it just can’t compare to living with people and understanding their way of life and the issues they face every day," says senior Kendyll Hicks.

A force for health equity

Through on-site projects in developing countries and internships in the business world, Kendyll Hicks explores the political and economic drivers of global health.

February 29, 2020

A billboard in Liberia urges people to help stop the spread of Ebola, which was widespread in 2014-2015. A new study shows how a public awareness campaign helped people understand and cooperate with government efforts to control the disease.

How door-to-door canvassing slowed an epidemic

Study finds that in Liberia, volunteers limited damage from Ebola by distributing information within their own communities.

February 26, 2020

Carolina Ortega, a third-year mathematics student at MIT, talks with students as part of a MISTI-Africa program to connect MIT mathletes with their Ghanaian counterparts.

It all adds up

MIT students train teams in Ghana and Uganda for the International Mathematical Olympiad through MISTI-Africa.

February 26, 2020

Alexander Rothkopf (front row, left) joins pharmacy students at Addis Ababa University for the in-person portion of their blended online course.

What pharmacy students in Ethiopia can do with supply chain education

The MIT Humanitarian Supply Chain lab led a blended supply chain management course with Addis Ababa University.

February 19, 2020

"Lately I have been trying to think of African history from the perspective of goodness and basic human decency," says Kenda Mutongi, an MIT professor of history. "Of course, conflicts exist, and do a great deal of damage in our lives, and we must confront them — but we must also allow ourselves to appreciate basic goodness and kindness when we see it."

3 Questions: Professor Kenda Mutongi on Africa, women, power — and human decency

Mutongi discusses the connection between Kenyan widows and the #MeToo movement, myths of African entrepreneurship, and the wider implications of her research.

January 14, 2020

“There is a grand strategy of fear at play here, and to be frank, it is, for the most part, effective,” says Nigerian journalist Shola Lawal. “It’s hard not to self-censor when you know you can be kidnapped or detained and that you’ll only become another statistic.”

3 Questions: Shola Lawal on human rights and social justice

The Nigerian journalist is the recipient of a prestigious fellowship that provides residencies at MIT, The Boston Globe, and The New York Times.

December 17, 2019

Hazel Sive, a globally respected developmental biologist and educator, will become dean of the Northeastern University College of Science, beginning in June 2020.

Hazel Sive named dean of Northeastern University College of Science

Professor and Whitehead Institute member has conducted wide-ranging research in vertebrate developmental biology.

December 16, 2019

MIT News | Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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