Band Together with Students and Help the World

Know a little something about intellectual property licensing or grant writing? Want to put your web development skills to good use? MIT students involved in the MIT Global Challenge are currently seeking help from alumni with these and other skills.

The Global Challenge, one component of MIT's upcoming 150th anniversary celebration, is an innovation and entrepreneurship competition that invites MIT students and their collaborators to create inventions that improve life. Teams (including alumni) will share ideas and progress via social media; winning projects—those that demonstrate the greatest innovation, feasibility, and potential for impact—will receive up to $25,000 in seed money toward implementation.

The Global Challenge is based on the MIT IDEAS Competition, which awards money to teams to develop and implement projects that make positive changes in the world. Since 2001, 60+ teams have received more than $260,000 to implement their service projects in 28 countries, serving the needs of tens of thousands of people. These teams have secured over $3.2 million in follow-on funding for their community projects and more than half remain active in some way.

The MIT Global Challenge, then, is a community approach to helping students who aim to improve the world. And alumni everywhere are needed to help these projects succeed. Alumni can serve as mentors, identify problems, and help teams find the resources and connections they need to solve the problems. Teams also need a partner in the region where solutions will be implemented to help them navigate any cultural differences or other challenges.

But don't take my word for it. In October, teams created video pitches as part of a contest. Watch and see why you should get involved in the MIT Global Challenge. Below is the winning video (created by Sloan grad student Ani Vallabhaneni) from team Sanergy, which generates renewable energy through providing clean sanitation services. Read more about Sanergy in News@MIT Sloan (pdf, p. 8), and  view all video pitches (Stop the Rot is a fun one).

http://vimeo.com/16119439

So how can alumni get involved? First, create an account on the MIT Global Challenge website. Only those with accounts will be able to vote on projects in the spring, so register today. Use your alum.mit.edu email address for fast verification of your alumni status. Non-alumni can sign up as a Friend of MIT. Once registered, there are numerous ways to join in.

• Define barriers to well-being in communities around the world and engage in debate about problems that need innovation and entrepreneurship. Current posted problems include developing a scalable method for reliably validating and acting on crowd-sourced emergency data and cheaply harvesting rainwater in rural India.
• Share your skills and resources with teams by responding to help-wanted posts or by advertising your skill set. For example, teams are currently looking for advice and mentorship regarding intellectual property and registering foreign companies in the US and also need tech help building a social network for NGOs in the developing world. Numerous teams have already found members, mentors, and resources this year using these pages.
• Volunteer to become a judge, sponsor a challenge, or make a gift to the MIT Public Service Center.
• Vote for your favorite solutions and teams beginning in the spring. Winners will be announced in May.
• Follow winning teams as they implement their projects over the next year.