Hi everyone, my name is Pranav Mandyam, and I’m a rising junior majoring in Biosciences (Cell Biology & Genetics) and minoring in Global Health Technologies. I was first introduced to Rice360 through the introductory Global Health class I took in my sophomore fall. After learning about the various facets of global health and listening to a variety of guest speakers, I excitedly enrolled in my first project-based class, GLHT 360, which helped solidify my passion for developing healthcare technologies in low-resource settings. My passion for medical innovation in various settings and my interest in directly collaborating with local experts and students made it an easy choice to decide on taking part in the Rice360 summer internship. I’m looking forward to getting a more complete understanding of the design process and the opportunity to work as a team with colleagues in Malawi.
As I finish off my first week in the internship, I learned a lot about the cultural competencies that we must consider when immersed in a new environment. We started off our discussion by reflecting on our values, and then conversed about cultural differences and the ethical considerations of working within a different country. One thing that really stood out to me was communicating our experiences through photography, and the ethics behind it. I love to take photos everywhere I go, so it was really interesting to understand the impact that images can make in telling a truthful story.
Earlier this month, we were given the projects that we were taking to Malawi. The two projects that I was assigned were an IV Drip System and an Infant Oxygen Concentrator. The IV Drip project involves constructing an IV infusion monitor to deliver and monitor IV fluids at an accurate rate that is not achievable through a solely gravity-based drip system. Meanwhile, the Infant Oxygen Concentrator is a needs-finding project that focuses on modifying a previous Oxygen Concentrator to accommodate infants and be portable. This week involved a lot of research about these two projects so that I can hit the ground running in Malawi.
On June 19th, Alex and I will be boarding our flight to Malawi, a trip that takes almost two whole days. We’ll be stopping over at Atlanta and Johannesburg (an overnight layover!) before landing at the Blantyre airport. Throughout this week, we’ve been preparing for our travel, from arranging our Visas to making (and remaking) packing lists. As the date gets closer, I’ve been getting more and more excited and nervous in anticipation of our time in Malawi. I’m really looking forward to meeting the Malawi team and all the new experiences I’ll encounter!