Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Visiting Lecturer Irving Wladawsky-Berger praises MIT’s Inclusive Innovation Competition, a contest that honors companies aimed at improving economic opportunities for all workers. Wladawsky-Berger writes that it’s heartening that MIT is “searching for breakthrough innovations to help improve [the] economic prospects” of workers impacted by advanced technologies.
Robert Gebelhoff writes for The Washington Post about a study by Prof. Tavneet Suri that shows mobile-money services helped reduce poverty in Kenya. The study “offers good evidence that having a place to put money that’s safe and easily accessible can make the lives of poor people considerably more efficient than cash-reliant economies,” Gebelhoff explains.
Nurith Aizenman reports for NPR on a new study that shows mobile banking can help lift people out of poverty. Prof. Tavneet Suri says she was “blown away” by the study’s results, which showed that women-led families with access to mobile-money services, “set aside 22 percent more in savings between 2008 and 2014.”
Popular Science reporter Kate Baggaley writes that a new study by MIT researchers shows that mobile money services helped two percent of households in Kenya rise out of poverty. “Women especially have benefitted from the spread of mobile money, which has helped many move from farming into business,” writes Baggaley.
Prof. Tavneet Suri has found that mobile money services helped lift almost 200,000 Kenyan households, many headed by women, out of poverty, reports Neda Wadekar for Reuters. Suri explains that when mobile payment systems “came to an area, women shifted their occupations and their savings went up."
BBC News reporter Atish Patel reports on a new study, co-authored by Prof. Abhijit Banerjee, that found informal health care providers in India can improve with modest training. The researchers found that those who had undergone training were more likely to “adhere to checklists after training and made big improvements in providing correct treatments.”
“Poor Economics” by Professors Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo is included in a CNBC list compiled by Marguerite Ward of 20 books that will “make you look smart.” The book examines how “developed nations and their citizens can provide aid that would actively improve poor societies,” explains Ward.
MIT’s Inclusive Innovation Competition honored companies for innovations aimed at improving economic opportunity, reports Deirdre Fernandes for The Boston Globe. Fernandes writes that the competition was an effort “to highlight partnerships between man and machine and drive more innovation to under-served communities.”
Wall Street Journal reporter Melinda Beck spotlights the MIT D-Lab’s emphasis on flexible business plans and designs when developing innovations for developing nations. Beck highlights two D-Lab projects, an effort to make low-cost sanitary pads available in rural India and SurgiBox, a “collapsible tent that creates a sterile space around the portion of a patient undergoing surgery,” as examples.
Jason Margolis of PRI’s The World chronicles how MIT alumnus Sorin Grama’s first attempt at a startup paved the way for him to found Promethean Power Systems, which produces milk chillers for regions of India with unreliable power. Margolis notes that this fall Grama will serve as an entrepreneur-in-residence at MIT with a focus on the developing world.
Hae Young Yoo writes for The Boston Globe about MIT spinoff GRIT (Global Research Innovation and Technology), which creates wheelchairs with hand-operated levers for rough terrain, particularly in developing countries. The founders got the idea for using hand-operated levers after studying research “that showed the bench press motion is very efficient and makes good use of upper body muscles.”
MIT alumna Tish Scolnik speaks with Forbes reporter Susan Adams about her startup, Global Research Innovation and Technology, which develops wheelchairs for rough terrain. Scolnik recalls that she was inspired to develop wheelchairs in an MIT course. “I thought the class would hit my interest and give me an opportunity to understand what engineering was all about.”
A study by Prof. David Atkin finds that migrants are willing to pay more, and consume less, to continue eating the traditional cuisine of their homeland, reports Donald McNeil Jr. for The New York Times. Atkin found that “poor migrants within India stuck with their dietary preferences even when they were nearly malnourished.”
Tech reporter Karleigh Moore speaks with Matt Damon, MIT’s 2016 Commencement speaker, about technology, the film industry and how graduates can help make the world a better place. “Start with…what speaks to you and what feels like something you want to spend your time on,” Damon advised. “It requires so much work and so it helps if you love it.”
A study conducted by Prof. Esther Duflo found that when women were offered financial support through livestock and educational training, they were able to climb out of poverty, according to The Economist. “Seven years after the programme began their average monthly consumption was almost one-third higher than it had been after two years.”