Leaving no child hungry in Dhaka, Bangladesh

But in areas such as Dhaka, Bangladesh – where a quarter of the population lives below the poverty line and half of children are malnourished – if parents cannot feed their families, economic sustainability is far from reality.

U of T’s Centre for Global Engineering (CGEN) recently brought together graduate students from across the University to tackle this issue. Combining expertise in science, business, engineering and health, they explored integrated solutions for fighting childhood hunger in urban developing regions.

In the ‘Interdisciplinary Approach to Global Challenges’ course, every aspect of Dhaka was scrutinized. Students examined the city’s cultural, business and political frameworks, while evaluating the success of recent technical approaches.

“I believe health concerns all around the world can be resolved if we work across the disciplines,” said Professor Arun Chockalingam, associate director for scientific programs in the Institute for Global Health Equity & Innovation at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health. “This course has demonstrated the benefits of linking creative minds from different areas.”

A solution for breastfeeding

One group proposed Mother’s Milk, a new method of ensuring that working mothers can provide their infants with the immense health benefits of breast milk.

Women in Dhaka earn a living primarily through full-time work in the city’s garment industry, which limits their ability to breastfeed. By partnering with garment industry clinics, the students’ proposal aims to provide lactating women with the opportunity to express milk twice a day using a multi-user breast pump.

The team – which included Marta Blackwell from the Munk School of Global Affairs; Micaela Collins from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health; Scott Genin from Engineering; and Puja Madhok from the Rotman School of Management – also designed a sand-based heating device that can pasteurize the milk, allowing it to be stored longer without refrigeration. This reduces mothers’ reliance on formula and leads to fewer episodes of childhood illness.

Mother’s Milk could further benefit Dhaka’s economy by boosting the well-being of mothers, increasing earning power and reducing absenteeism and turnover at factories.

“Technological innovations have a very important role to play in global development, but they need to be created with context in mind,” said Professor Yu-Ling Cheng, director of CGEN. “We need engineers, social and political scientists, and business leaders to work together.

“An integrated solution that incorporates the entire value chain – from idea generation in the lab, to creating a business model and influencing user adoption – would have a better chance of being implemented than if we solely focused on technology.”

Established in 2009, the Centre for Global Engineering encourages faculty and students from ��οEngineering and across the University to think creatively about some of the world’s most important problems.

Find out more about CGEN's impact.

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Life in orbit: tales from the International Space Station

sgupta — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 10:23:30 +0000

Life in orbit: tales from the International Space Station sgupta Fri, 01/11/2013 - 05:23

Cutline

NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman poses with spacesuits on the International Space Station (Photo via NASA)

Brianna Goldberg

Jennifer Hsu

Author legacy

By Brianna Goldberg and Jennifer Hsu

Topic

Reception was surprisingly good on the phone call from space.

“We just flew across Canada,” said Commander Chris Hadfield, speaking from the International Space Station.

“It took about seven minutes.”

His voice travelled from the reaches of earth’s orbit to astronaut Catherine Coleman’s mobile, held up to a microphone before a packed hall of University of Toronto students and faculty.

An astronaut with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Coleman was at ��οJan. 9 to deliver the latest talk in the Lectures on the Leading Edge (LLE) series hosted by the department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry. She called in a favour with her long-time friend and colleague Hadfield to connect her audience with the realities of science in space in the most immediate of ways.

“Our labs are humming up here,” said Hadfield, explaining that about 100 separate experiments are currently under way.

After the brief call ended, Coleman shared her own stories and experiences from three trips, and more than 180 days, in space. Though Coleman was a part of two space shuttle missions (1995, 1999) her talk focused on the six months she spent on the International Space Station (ISS) starting in December of 2010, as well as how the facility offers opportunities for scientists at the University of Toronto.

“Being an astronaut is not just about going to space, it’s about being eyes and ears,” said Coleman, “it’s about representing the human point of view. Because more than just the actual stuff that gets done up there, we are part of a team that explores."

Coleman described some of the numerous experiments on board the space station – such as using blood pressure readings from space to predict fainting and analyzing bone metabolism to further osteoporosis research. As the mission’s lead science officer, Coleman led more than 150 different investigations.

“In science and engineering we address critical societal questions,” said Professor Molly Shoichet of the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry and the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering. “The purpose of LLE is to shed light on new ideas and ways of thought. Catherine’s lecture did exactly that. She inspired members of our audience to tap into their hidden potential.”

Coleman also highlighted Canadian contributions to the ISS, and encouraged students and researchers to submit proposals for experiments on the station.

“It used to be that the time from idea to experiment in space was 10 years,” she said. “But now the Space Station is open for business.”

Through a multimedia presentation, Coleman shared much about the daily realities of life on the ISS, such as using a toilet in zero gravity (demonstrated in a curious video showing the toilet vacuum away colourful candies), sleeping in a pod, getting from one end of the station to the other—“you’re not going to float, you’re going to fly” she said, showing video of herself shooting from one side of a lab to the other— and playing a flute duet with musician Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull, who was back on Earth.

Coleman also spoke about the emotional stakes, such as how desperate the astronauts all are for maximum spacewalk time: robotic elements now perform many duties outside the station, “which, from the astronaut’s point of view, disappoints us greatly,” she said, laughing. But that didn’t seem to sour her experience.

“I think I had that smile on my face form the time I got there ‘til the time I left,” she said, “and I would spend another six months there in a minute.” That’s even though she described re-entry to earth as being “like going over Niagara Falls in a barrel, on fire, and then being hit by a Mack truck.”

Coleman’s enthusiasm was matched by members of the audience.

“It’s not every day you get to hear a NASA astronaut speak – that’s why I came to today’s lecture,” said Jeffrey Castrucci, a PhD Candidate in the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry. “Learning how Catherine’s pure passion for science brought her great success was truly inspirational.”

For more information about future LLE lecturers visit here.

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