Skip to main content

Duke Students Generate Ideas to Address Global Ebola Crisis

Participating teams will work on solutions to one of two aspects of the Ebola crisis: strengthening health care capacities or boosting tracking and communication abilities. 

How might the global community empower and protect health care workers on the front lines of fighting the Ebola epidemic?  And what mobile solutions can be deployed to improve tracking of the disease and enhance communication?   These are critical questions that interdisciplinary teams of Duke University students will attempt to address through the Duke Ebola Innovation Challenge. The ultimate goal is to generate ideas for “Fighting Ebola: A Grand Challenge for Development,” a federally funded initiative to develop and test innovative solutions to the crisis.The challenge kicks off at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 27, in the Fuqua School of Business’ McClendon Auditorium. On Wednesday, Nov. 5, the top five teams will present their ideas to a diverse panel of judges who will provide feedback to strengthen idea proposals before the students submit them for a larger competition.More than 180 Duke students have registered for the challenge. Participating teams will work on solutions to one of two aspects of the Ebola crisis: strengthening health care capacities or boosting tracking and communication abilities. Throughout the week of the challenge, students will have the opportunity to hear from a variety of experts in these fields to better understand the regional context, existing infrastructure and pipeline of promising interventions.“The vast majority of the global health problems in the world today could be solved with science we already have,” Priyanka Venkannagari, a Duke sophomore, told the Chronicle, Duke’s student newspaper. Venkannagari, a member of the student advisory committee for the Social Entrepreneurship Accelerator at Duke (SEAD), which is leading the challenge, said the competition “is about implementation, execution and how we can use existing resources to better a community in need.”