I've had the opportunity to travel the world and immerse myself in cultures and learn to design for those that need it the most. Below are two major social initiatives that highlight my design journey & experience.
Nairobi, Kenya.
The Challenge
Every two minutes, a woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth. Most of these deaths are preventable when women have access to quality maternal healthcare. Here in Nairobi, the problem is wait times and how to treat mothers who have priorities that in many cases exceed taking care of themselves.
I went straight to the users. Above you'll see two mothers, a doctor and a nurse who are at the core of maternal care. I got to spend time with these users to understand their pain points. We came to two outcomes: 1. In order to deal with the lines of mothers, there was no way to track patients that need critical care vs patients that could wait. 2. The overall user flow was uncomfortably stressful.
“You have to make sure mothers are monitored closely to avoid maternal deaths and fetal deaths”
Outcome
We conducted design sessions where our mothers, doctors and admins were alongside design process from beginning to end. The users designed themselves what they'd like to see as a solution.
The team came together to design a tablet based interface that would help nurses and other providers to oversee women as they are admitted to the facility. This way, manual reporting is eliminated and cuts the time by 80%.
The tablet is currently in the development cycle. I'm excited to share the launch in 2018.
Rajasthan, India
A design to bring world class education to children right at their finger tips.
The Challenge
In the outskirts villages of Rajasthan, India, children are more resilient than you can imagine. Despite their conditions these children prioritize education above everything else. And they do it with a smile. Unfortunately, theres a problem. The educational materials are not substantial enough and don't encourage excitement for learning.
The idea: after intensive yet fun design session with the kids, I learned that technology can play a role here. If I were to design a tool that brought western style education, in a format that excited the kids, we would have a fantastic start.
The Outcome
The children loved the idea of breaking up into groups and learning from a tablet. The idea to create an app called GyanGya (Gyan translates to "Knowledge" in Hindi) was born.