Week 2

SKILL BAZAAR AND THINKING MONEY

I entered the second week of SECIP with excitement, for I was going to learn Computer-Aided Design or better known as CAD modeling. Over the weekend between the first and second week, my team and I held calls and kept in touch in order to refine our problem statement. Our understanding was that the more we refine our problem statement, ask ourselves questions, doubt whether we're right, and research more, even if we're wrong, we'll actually be refining our solution. Our process took us reading multiple papers and finding out existing solutions and why they didn't work. Since we couldn't contact anyone from the target population, we took to interview a medical professional who had experience working with a cause very similar to ours. Our main objective was now figuring out an optimal, reasonable, realistic, and feasible solution.

Once we'd figured out that we a social enterprise that works for the need of providing pregnant asylum seekers, we had to brainstorm exactly how we'd aim to help the women in need. Our ideation process led us through various ideas and we came to finalise that our enterprise would provide necessary medical services by connecting expecting mothers to professionals. The problem lay in the "lack of freely available medicine practitioners" who were already small in capacity and the existing ones were also siphoned off for covid duty during the deadly pandemic. For women to reach out to the doctors, our team settled on an application-based solution because for one it gives us the ability to reach out to a larger population; second, it can always be updated and adapted to the changing social environment, and lastly, it gives our enterprise a stream of income (through advertisement revenue).

Application Interface constructed by Team Member: Woo Ki Wei Sherry

As seen, the app interface has 2 separate log-in portals, one for beneficiaries who in our case are pregnant asylum seekers, and one for volunteers. My suggestion to the team on the subject of the app was that, since we are particularly looking at Bangladeshi and Burmese migrants coming into India, they are very likely to be from the lower-income or poverty slab. It is possible that the beneficiary may not be in possession of a phone compatible with an app like ours. Hence, to work around we prayed for an "ASHA" [Hope in Hindi] and quite literally, got ASHA. Accredited Social Health Activist [ASHA] is a community health worker instituted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare as a part of India's National Rural Health Mission. The mission began in 2005; full implementation was targeted for 2012. Once fully implemented, there is to be "an ASHA in every village" in India.

An ASHA volunteer can work for our app too since:

1. They have a register of all women, residents & immigrants, of a village.

2. They are trained in basic first aid.

3. They are usually bi-lingual, local language & Hindi/English.

If a beneficiary cannot access the app, the ASHA can do so for the expecting mother registering themself as a volunteer who will file the necessary report.

An ASHA documenting a list of all women in her assigned village

Another point of learning in the second week was CAD modeling. I really looked to my skill bazaar session since I've always been intrigued by hyper-realistic models of aircraft in simulations which are made through CAD modeling softwares too. Our teaching took us through basic use of the Fusion 360 software and although the module leader rushed the process and was a little disapproving of the constant flow of questions, it did not hinder my interest. To his credit though he explained everything really well and I go an overview of how the software works. Our project was to be able to make a 3D rendering of a guitar and I was extremely excited to do so.

References:

[1] - https://asha-india.org/about-us/mission-statement-and-values/